[To take a family meal] was the first thing done. The master of the house filled the cup, when all were assembled around the table, and blessed it, and said, “On the sixth day were the earth and the heavens and all their glory completed. For God finished by the seventh day all the work which he had done, and rested on the seventh day from all his labour, and hallowed it, because on it he rested from all the work which he had created and made.”

After a short pause, he proceeded, “Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, who hast created the fruit of the vine, King of the world, who hast sanctified us by thy precepts, and commanded us to keep thy sabbaths, and hast appointed them to us of thy good pleasure, as a memorial of the work of creation. It is also the beginning of the assembling of thy saints, and of the going out of Egypt: for thou hast chosen us out from among all nations, and hast sanctified us and hast appointed to us the holy sabbath. We praise thee, O Lord, that thou hast made the sabbath-day holy.” The cup was emptied, the master of the house blessed the bread also in the usual form of words, and the meal began.

In the mean time the course of priests had been changed in the temple, that which had been on duty in the preceding week, giving place to that whose turn of service it was for the week following. The shew-bread was changed, twelve of the priests bringing each one of the new loaves in a golden dish, and two others censers with incense. Then all the children of Israel laid themselves down to rest, in their own houses or in the temple, in joyful expectation of the sabbath-dawn.

The sabbath was so solemnly and strictly kept, that it was not allowed to be broken even by the greatest of the festivals; it may indeed be said, that as being the oldest, it was the root and parent of all the rest. It was not merely a day of cessation from labour; its celebration was a weekly acknowledgment, that the One God was worshipped as the creator of heaven and earth; and thus it stood in the closest connection with the first of the ten commandments which God had given upon mount Sinai. The command for its observance, however, is as ancient as the first revelation made by God to man, forming a part of the narrative of the creation. At the giving of the law, the precept for its observance was renewed and enforced, “Remember the sabbath-day to keep it holy;” and its high import was expressed by the words, “Verily my sabbaths shall ye keep, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am the Lord that sanctifieth you. Six days shall ye work, but the seventh is the sabbath, a holy rest unto the Lord.”[[125]] And in the renewal of the law it is said, “Thou shalt remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence with a mighty and an outstretched arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath-day.”[[126]] So the prophets call the sabbath the sign of the covenant between Jehovah and his people.[[127]] It was besides a day of remembrance of the deliverance from Egypt, a weekly passover. The violation of the sabbath was punished with the severest penalties. “Whosoever maketh the sabbath unholy shall surely be put to death;” and when it is added, as an explanation, “whosoever doeth any work on the sabbath-day, he shall surely be put to death,” this deeper meaning is conveyed, that there is a rest, which is more holy than labour. Outward rest, consisting in the cessation of motion and exertion, was the sign of that holy and inward rest. While in the desert Moses commanded the children of Israel, saying, “Behold the Lord hath given you the sabbath; therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days. Let every man therefore remain in his own place, and let no man go out on the seventh day.”[[128]] What a picture do these words convey, of so many millions of human beings, by whose activity the surrounding desert was enlivened on every other day, but of whose existence every trace seemed to vanish, as the sun went down on the evening when the seventh began! In pious fear of transgressing this law, the Jews, in later times, never went further than two thousand cubits; because they reckoned that the remotest tent in the camp would be one thousand cubits distant from the tabernacle, and that their forefathers must have gone and returned this distance, in order to appear before Jehovah.[[129]]

But if the sabbath was a mark of the covenant between Jehovah and his people, and also a day of rest, it could not be otherwise than a day of joy; and so it was always considered in Israel. In the burning east, rest is of itself a pleasure; and as every thing else connected with the service of Jehovah bore the character of cheerful enjoyment, so also did the sabbath. “If,” says Isaiah, “thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, and do not thy pleasure on my holy day, and callest the sabbath a delight, a solemnity of Jehovah, a day of honour; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride over the high places of the earth, and will feed thee with the inheritance of Jacob thy father—the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”[[130]]

If, however, the sabbath could not be suspended by the festivities of the Passover, they might receive additional solemnity from the sabbath. Helon felt its sanctity with double force, in this combination. He had risen early in the morning, and could scarcely wait till the hour arrived, for his going up with the old men to the temple, for the first time in his life, to spend a sabbath there. The morning sacrifice consisted on this day of the usual offering of a lamb; then followed the [special offering] of the sabbath, two lambs of a year old, with the meat and drink offering that belonged to them. Last of all, the festival-offering, which consisted of two young bullocks, a ram, seven yearling lambs as a burnt-offering, and a goat as a sin-offering. In the mean time the sabbath psalm was sung by the Levites from the fifteen steps.

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord,

And to sing praises unto thy name, O most High!

To show forth thy loving-kindness in the morning,

And thy faithfulness every night,