“Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no. And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.... I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp; and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna; for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for every man, according to the number of your persons; take ye every man for them which are in his tents. And the children of Israel did so, and gathered, some more, some less. And when they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating. And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning. Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank; and Moses was wroth with them. And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating; and when the sun waxed hot, it melted. And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread,[64] two omers for one man; and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said,[65] To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade; and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that to-day; for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord:[66] to-day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none. And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day.”[67]
This narrative shows, 1. That God had a law and commandments prior to the giving of the manna. 2. That God in giving his people bread from heaven designed to prove them respecting his law. 3. That in this law was the holy Sabbath; for the test relative to walking in the law pertained directly to the Sabbath; and when God said, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” it was the Sabbath which they had violated. 4. That in proving the people respecting this existing law, Moses gave no new precept respecting the Sabbath, but remained silent relative to the preparation for the Sabbath until after the people, of their own accord, had gathered a double portion on the sixth day. 5. That by this act the people proved not only that they were not ignorant of the Sabbath, but that they were disposed to observe it.[68] 6. That the reckoning of the week, traces of which appear through the patriarchal age,[69] had been rightly kept, for the people knew when the sixth day had arrived. 7. That had there been any doubt existing on that point, the fall of the manna on the six days, the withholding of it on the seventh, and the preservation of that needed for the Sabbath over that day, must have settled that point incontrovertibly.[70] 8. That there was no act of instituting the Sabbath in the wilderness of Sin; for God did not then make it his rest-day, nor did he then bless and sanctify the day. On the contrary, the record shows that the seventh day was already the sanctified rest-day of the Lord.[71] 9. That the obligation to observe the Sabbath existed and was known before the fall of the manna. For the language used implies the existence of such an obligation, but does not contain a new enactment until after some of the people had violated the Sabbath. Thus God says to Moses, “On the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in,” but he does not speak of the seventh. And on the sixth day Moses says, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord,” but he does not command them to observe it. On the seventh day he says that it is the Sabbath, and that they should find no manna in the field. “Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none.” But in all this there is no precept given, yet the existence of such a precept is plainly implied. 10. That when some of the people violated the Sabbath they were reproved in language which plainly implies a previous transgression of this precept. “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” 11. And that this rebuke of the Law-giver restrained for the time the transgression of the people.
“See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days:[72] abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.”[73] As a special trust, God committed the Sabbath to the Hebrews. It was now given them, not now made for them. It was made for man at the close of the first week of time; but all other nations having turned from the Creator to the worship of idols, it is given to the Hebrew people. Nor does this prove that all the Hebrews had hitherto disregarded it. For Christ uses the same language respecting circumcision. Thus he says, “Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision; not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers.”[74] Yet God had enjoined that ordinance upon Abraham and his family four hundred years previous to this gift of it by Moses, and it had been retained by them.[75]
The language, “The Lord hath given you the Sabbath,” implies a solemn act of committing a treasure to their trust. How was this done? No act of instituting the Sabbath here took place. No precept enjoining its observance was given until some of the people violated it, when it was given in the form of a reproof; which evinced a previous obligation, and that they were transgressing an existing law. And this view is certainly strengthened by the fact that no explanation of the institution was given to the people; a fact which indicates that some knowledge of the Sabbath was already in their possession.
But how then did God give them the Sabbath? He did this, first, by delivering them from the abject bondage of Egypt, where they were a nation of slaves. And second, by providing them food in such a manner as to impose the strongest obligation to keep the Sabbath. Forty years did he give them bread from heaven, sending it for six days, and withholding it on the seventh, and preserving food for them over the Sabbath. Thus was the Sabbath especially intrusted to them.
As a gift to the Hebrews, the Creator’s great memorial became a sign between God and themselves. “I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” As a sign, its object is stated to be, to make known the true God; and we are told why it was such a sign. “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.”[76] The institution itself signified that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. Its observance by the people signified that the Creator was their God. How full of meaning was this sign!
The Sabbath was a sign between God and the children of Israel, because they alone were the worshipers of the Creator. All other nations had turned from him to “the gods that have not made the heavens and the earth.”[77] For this reason the memorial of the great Creator was committed to the Hebrews, and it became a sign between the Most High and themselves. Thus was the Sabbath a golden link uniting the Creator and his worshipers.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.
The Holy One upon Mount Sinai—Three great gifts bestowed upon the Hebrews—The Sabbath proclaimed by the voice of God—Position assigned it in the moral law—Origin of the Sabbath—Definite character of the commandment—Revolution of the earth upon its axis—Name of the Sabbatic institution—Seventh day of the commandment identical with the seventh day of the New Testament week—Testimony of Nehemiah—Moral obligation of the fourth commandment.
And now we approach the record of that sublime event, the personal descent of the Lord upon Mount Sinai.[78] The sixteenth chapter of Exodus, as we have seen, is remarkable for the fact that God gave to Israel the Sabbath; the nineteenth chapter, for the fact that God gave himself to that people in solemnly espousing them as a holy nation unto himself; while the twentieth chapter will be found remarkable for the act of the Most High in giving to Israel his law.