[59] Gen. 2:2, 3; 26:5; Ex. 16:4, 27, 28; 18:16.
[60] Ps. 90:2.
[61] Ex. 19:3-8, 24:3-8; Jer. 3:14, compared with last clause of Jer. 31:32.
[62] Ex. 20:2; 24:10.
[63] Ex. 20:10; Deut. 5:14; Neh. 9:14.
[64] On this verse Dr. A. Clarke thus comments:—“On the sixth day they gathered twice as much—This they did that they might have a provision for the Sabbath.”
[65] The Douay Bible reads: “To-morrow is the rest of the Sabbath sanctified unto the Lord.” Dr. Clarke comments as follows upon this text: “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath. There is nothing either in the text or context that seems to intimate that the Sabbath was now first given to the Israelites, as some have supposed; on the contrary, it is here spoken of as being perfectly well known, from its having been generally observed. The commandment, it is true, may be considered as being now renewed; because they might have supposed, that in their unsettled state in the wilderness, they might have been exempted from the observance of it. Thus we find, 1. That when God finished his creation he instituted the Sabbath; 2. When he brought the people out of Egypt, he insisted on the strict observance of it; 3. When he gave the law, he made it a tenth part of the whole: such importance has this institution in the eyes of the Supreme Being!”
Richard Baxter, a famous divine of the seventeenth century, and a decided advocate of the abrogation of the fourth commandment, in his “Divine Appointment of the Lord’s Day,” thus clearly states the origin of the Sabbath: “Why should God begin two thousand years after [the creation of the world] to give men a Sabbath upon the reason of his rest from the creation of it, if he had never called man to that commemoration before? And it is certain that the Sabbath was observed at the falling of the manna before the giving of the law; and let any considering Christian judge..... 1. Whether the not falling of the manna, or the rest of God after the creation, was like to be the original reason of the Sabbath. 2. And whether if it had been the first, it would not have been said, Remember to keep holy the Sabbath-day; for on six days the manna fell, and not on the seventh; rather than ‘for in six days God created heaven and earth, &c., and rested the seventh day.’ And it is casually added, ‘Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it.’ Nay, consider whether this annexed reason intimates not that the day on this ground being hallowed before, therefore it was that God sent not down the manna on that day, and that he prohibited the people from seeking it.”—Practical Works, Vol. iii. p. 784. ed. 1707.
[66] The Douay Bible reads: “Because it is the Sabbath of the Lord.”
[67] Ex. 16.