HISTORY
OF
THE SABBATH
AND
FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK.

BY J. N. ANDREWS.

SECOND EDITION—ENLARGED.

STEAM PRESS
OF THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION,
BATTLE CREEK, MICH.:

1873.

PREFACE.

The history of the Sabbath embraces the period of 6000 years. The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord. The acts which constituted it such were, first, the example of the Creator; secondly, his placing his blessing upon the day; and thirdly, the sanctification or divine appointment of the day to a holy use. The Sabbath, therefore, dates from the beginning of our world’s history. The first who Sabbatized on the seventh day is God the Creator; and the first seventh day of time is the day which he thus honored. The highest of all possible honors does, therefore, pertain to the seventh day. Nor is this honor confined to the first seventh day of time; for so soon as God had rested upon that day, he appointed the seventh day to a holy use, that man might hallow it in memory of his Creator.

This divine appointment grows out of the nature and fitness of things, and must have been made directly to Adam, for himself and wife were then the only beings who had the days of the week to use. As it was addressed to Adam while yet in his uprightness, it must have been given to him as the head of the human family. The fourth commandment bases all its authority upon this original mandate of the Creator, and must, therefore, be in substance what God commanded to Adam and Eve as the representatives of mankind.

The patriarchs could not possibly have been ignorant of the facts and the obligation which the fourth commandment shows to have originated in the beginning, for Adam was present with them for a period equal to more than half the Christian dispensation. Those, therefore, who walked with God in the observance of his commandments did certainly hallow his Sabbath.

The observers of the seventh day must therefore include the ancient godly patriarchs, and none will deny that they include also the prophets and the apostles. Indeed, the entire church of God embraced within the records of inspiration were Sabbath-keepers. To this number must be added the Son of God.

What a history, therefore, has the Sabbath of the Lord! It was instituted in Paradise, honored by several miracles each week for the space of forty years, proclaimed by the great Law-giver from Sinai, observed by the Creator, the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, and the Son of God! It constitutes the very heart of the law of God, and so long as that law endures, so long shall the authority of this sacred institution stand fast.

Such being the record of the seventh day, it may well be asked, How came it to pass that this day has been abased to the dust, and another day elevated to its sacred honors? The Scriptures nowhere attribute this work to the Son of God. They do, however, predict the great apostasy in the Christian church, and that the little horn, or man of sin, the lawless one, should think to change times and laws.

It is the object of the present volume to show, 1. The Bible record of the Sabbath; 2. The record of the Sabbath in secular history; 3. The record of the Sunday festival, and of the several steps by which it has usurped the place of the ancient Sabbath.

The writer has attempted to ascertain the exact truth in the case by consulting the original authorities as far as it has been possible to gain access to them. The margin will show to whom he is mainly indebted for the facts presented in this work, though it indicates only a very small part of the works consulted. He has given the exact words of the historians, and has endeavored, conscientiously, to present them in such a light as to do justice to the authors quoted.

It is not the fault of the writer that the history of the Sunday festival presents such an array of frauds and of iniquities in its support. These are, in the nature of the case, essential to its very existence, for the claim of a usurper is necessarily based in fraud. The responsibility for these rests with those who dare commit or uphold such acts. The ancient Sabbath of the Lord has never needed help of this kind, and never has its record been stained by fraud or falsehood.

J. N. A.

Battle Creek, Mich., Nov. 14, 1873.

CONTENTS

HISTORY OF THE SABBATH.

PART I—BIBLE HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.
THE CREATION.

Time and eternity—The Creator and his work—Events of the first day of time—Of the second—Of the third—Of the fourth—Of the fifth—Of the sixth.

Time, as distinguished from eternity, may be defined as that part of duration which is measured by the Bible. From the earliest date in the book of Genesis to the resurrection of the unjust at the end of the millennium, the period of about 7000 years is measured off.[1] Before the commencement of this great week of time, duration without beginning fills the past; and at the expiration of this period, unending duration opens before the people of God. Eternity is that word which embraces duration without beginning and without end. And that Being whose existence comprehends eternity, is he who only hath immortality, the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God.[2]

When it pleased this infinite Being, he gave existence to our earth. Out of nothing God created all things;[3] “so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” This act of creation is that event which marks the commencement of the first week of time. He who could accomplish the whole work with one word chose rather to employ six days, and to accomplish the result by successive steps. Let us trace the footsteps of the Creator from the time when he laid the foundation of the earth until the close of the sixth day, when the heavens and the earth were finished, “and God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”[4]

On the first day of time God created the heaven and the earth. The earth thus called into existence was without form, and void; and total darkness covered the Creator’s work. Then “God said, Let there be light; and there was light.” “And God divided the light from the darkness,” and called the one day, and the other night.[5]

On the second day of time “God said, Let there be a firmament [margin, Heb., expansion] in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” The dry land had not yet appeared; consequently the earth was covered with water. As no atmosphere existed, thick vapors rested upon the face of the water; but the atmosphere being now called into existence by the word of the Creator, causing those elements to unite which compose the air we breathe, the fogs and vapors that had rested upon the bosom of the water were borne aloft by it. This atmosphere or expansion is called heaven.[6]

On the third day of time God gathered the waters together and caused the dry land to appear. The gathering together of the waters God called seas; the dry land, thus rescued from the waters, he called earth. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.” “And God saw that it was good.”[7]

On the fourth day of time “God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.” “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.” Light had been created on the first day of the week; and now on the fourth day he causes the sun and moon to appear as light-bearers, and places the light under their rule. And they continue unto this day according to his ordinances, for all are his servants. Such was the work of the fourth day. And the Great Architect, surveying what he had wrought, pronounced it good.[8]

On the fifth day of time “God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”[9]

On the sixth day of time “God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” Thus the earth, having been fitted for the purpose, was filled with every order of living creature, while the air and waters teemed with animal existence. To complete this noble work of creation, God next provides a ruler, the representative of himself, and places all in subjection under him. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” Last of all, God created Eve, the mother of all living. The work of the Creator was now complete. “The heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” Adam and Eve were in paradise; the tree of life bloomed on earth; sin had not entered our world, and death was not here, for there was no sin. “The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Thus ended the sixth day.[10]

CHAPTER II.
THE INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH.

Event on the seventh day—Why the Creator rested—Acts by which the Sabbath was made—Time and order of their occurrence—Meaning of the word sanctified—The fourth commandment refers the origin of the Sabbath to creation—The second mention of the Sabbath confirms this fact—The Saviour’s testimony—When did God sanctify the seventh day—Object of the Author of the Sabbath—Testimony of Josephus and of Philo—Negative argument from the book of Genesis considered—Adam’s knowledge of the Sabbath not difficult to be known by the patriarchs.

The work of the Creator was finished, but the first week of time was not yet completed. Each of the six days had been distinguished by the Creators work upon it; but the seventh was rendered memorable in a very different manner. “And on the seventh[11] day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.” In yet stronger language it is written: “On the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.”[12]

Thus the seventh day of the week became the rest-day of the Lord. How remarkable is this fact! “The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary.”[13] He needed no rest; yet it is written, “On the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” Why does not the record simply state the cessation of the Creator’s work? Why did he at the close of that work employ a day in rest? The answer will be learned from the next verse. He was laying the foundation of a divine institution, the memorial of his own great work.

“And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” The fourth commandment states the same fact: He “rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”[14]

The blessing and sanctification of the seventh day were because that God had rested upon it. His resting upon it, then, was to lay the foundation for blessing and sanctifying the day. His being refreshed with this rest, implies that he delighted in the act which laid the foundation for the memorial of his great work.

The second act of the Creator in instituting this memorial was to place his blessing upon the day of his rest. Thenceforward it was the blessed rest-day of the Lord. A third act completes the sacred institution. The day already blessed of God is now, last of all, sanctified or hallowed by him. To sanctify is “to separate, set apart, or appoint to a holy, sacred, or religious use.” To hallow is “to make holy; to consecrate; to set apart for a holy or religious use.”[15]

The time when these three acts were performed is worthy of especial notice. The first act was that of rest. This took place on the seventh day; for the day was employed in rest. The second and third acts took place when the seventh day was past. “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work.” Hence it was on the first day of the second week of time that God blessed the seventh day, and set it apart to a holy use. The blessing and sanctification of the seventh day, therefore, relate not to the first seventh day of time, but to the seventh day of the week for time to come, in memory of God’s rest on that day from the work of creation.

With the beginning of time, God began to count days, giving to each an ordinal number for its name. Seven different days receive as many different names. In memory of that which he did on the last of these days, he sets that day apart by name to a holy use. This act gave existence to weeks, or periods of seven days. For with the seventh day, he ceased to count, and, by the divine appointment of that day to a holy use in memory of his rest thereon, he causes man to begin the count of a new week so soon as the first seventh day had ceased. And as God has been pleased to give man, in all, but seven different days, and has given to each one of these days a name which indicates its exact place in the week, his act of setting apart one of these by name, which act created weeks and gave man the Sabbath, can never—except by sophistry—be made to relate to an indefinite or uncertain day.

The days of the week are measured off by the revolution of our earth on its axis; and hence our seventh day, as such, can come only to dwellers on this globe. To Adam and Eve, therefore, as inhabitants of this earth, and not to the inhabitants of some other world, were the days of the week given to use. Hence, when God set apart one of these days to a holy use in memory of his own rest on that day of the week, the very essence of the act consisted in his telling Adam that this day should be used only for sacred purposes. Adam was then in the garden of God, placed there by the Creator to dress it and to keep it. He was also commissioned of God to subdue the earth.[16] When therefore the rest-day of the Lord should return, from week to week, all this secular employment, however proper in itself, must be laid aside, and the day observed in memory of the Creator’s rest.

Dr. Twisse quotes Martin Luther thus:

“And Martin Luther professeth as much (tome vi. in Gen. 2:3). ‘It follows from hence,’ saith he, ‘that, if Adam had stood in his innocency, yet he should have kept the seventh day holy, that is, on that day he should have taught his children, and children’s children, what was the will of God, and wherein his worship did consist; he should have praised God, given thanks, and offered. On other days he should have tilled his ground, looked to his cattle.’”[17]

The Hebrew verb, kadash, here rendered sanctified, and in the fourth commandment rendered hallowed, is defined by Gesenius, “To pronounce holy, to sanctify; to institute any holy thing, to appoint.”[18] It is repeatedly used in the Old Testament for a public appointment or proclamation. Thus, when the cities of refuge were set apart in Israel, it is written: “They appointed [margin, Heb., sanctified] Kedesh in Galilee in Mount Naphtali, and Shechem in Mount Ephraim,” &c. This sanctification or appointment of the cities of refuge was by a public announcement to Israel that these cities were set apart for that purpose. This verb is also used for the appointment of a public fast, and for the gathering of a solemn assembly. Thus it is written: “Sanctify [i. e., appoint] ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God.” “Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify [i. e., appoint] a fast, call a solemn assembly.” “And Jehu said, Proclaim [margin, Heb., sanctify] a solemn assembly for Baal.”[19] This appointment for Baal was so public that all the worshipers of Baal in all Israel were gathered together. These fasts and solemn assemblies were sanctified or set apart by a public appointment or proclamation of the fact. When therefore God set apart the seventh day to a holy use, it was necessary that he should state that fact to those who had the days of the week to use. Without such announcement the day could not be set apart from the others.

But the most striking illustration of the meaning of this word may be found in the record of the sanctification of Mount Sinai.[20] When God was about to speak the ten commandments in the hearing of all Israel, he sent Moses down from the top of Mount Sinai to restrain the people from touching the mount. “And Moses said unto the Lord, The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai; for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it.” Turning back to the verse where God gave this charge to Moses, we read: “And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount or touch the border of it.” Hence to sanctify the mount was to command the people not to touch even the border of it; for God was about to descend in majesty upon it. In other words, to sanctify or set apart to a holy use Mount Sinai, was to tell the people that God would have them treat the mountain as sacred to himself. And thus also to sanctify the rest-day of the Lord was to tell Adam that he should treat the day as holy to the Lord.

The declaration, “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it,” is not indeed a commandment for the observance of that day; but it is the record that such a precept was given to Adam.[21] For how could the Creator “set apart to a holy use” the day of his rest, when those who were to use the day knew nothing of his will in the case? Let those answer who are able.

This view of the record in Genesis we shall find to be sustained by all the testimony in the Bible relative to the rest-day of the Lord. The facts which we have examined are the basis of the fourth commandment. Thus spake the great Law-giver from the summit of the flaming mount: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”[22]

The term Sabbath is transferred from the Hebrew language, and signifies rest.[23] The command, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” is therefore exactly equivalent to saying, “Remember the rest-day, to keep it holy.” The explanation which follows sustains this statement: “The seventh day is the Sabbath [or rest-day] of the Lord thy God.” The origin of this rest-day is given in these words: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” That which is enjoined in the fourth commandment is to keep holy the rest-day of the Lord. And this is defined to be the day on which he rested from the work of creation. Moreover, the fourth commandment calls the seventh day the Sabbath day at the time when God blessed and hallowed that day; therefore the Sabbath is an institution dating from the foundation of the world. The fourth commandment points back to the creation for the origin of its obligation; and when we go back to that point, we find the substance of the fourth commandment given to Adam: “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it;” i. e., set it apart to a holy use. And in the commandment itself, the same fact is stated: “The Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it;” i. e., appointed it to a holy use. The one statement affirms that “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it;” the other, that “the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” These two statements refer to the same acts. Because the word Sabbath does not occur in the first statement, it has been contended that the Sabbath did not originate at creation, it being the seventh day merely which was hallowed. From the second statement, it has been contended that God did not bless the seventh day at all, but simply the Sabbath institution. But both statements embody all the truth. God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; and this day thus blessed and hallowed was his holy Sabbath, or rest-day. Thus the fourth commandment establishes the origin of the Sabbath at creation.

The second mention of the Sabbath in the Bible furnishes a decisive confirmation of the testimonies already adduced. On the sixth day of the week, Moses, in the wilderness of Sin, said to Israel, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.”[24] What had been done to the seventh day since God blessed and sanctified it as his rest-day in paradise? Nothing. What did Moses do to the seventh day to make it the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord? Nothing. Moses on the sixth day simply states the fact that the morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord. The seventh day had been such ever since God blessed and hallowed the day of his rest.

The testimony of our divine Lord relative to the origin and design of the Sabbath is of peculiar importance. He is competent to testify, for he was with the Father in the beginning of the creation.[25] “The Sabbath was made for man,” said he, “not man for the Sabbath.”[26] The following grammatical rule is worthy of notice: “A noun without an adjective is invariably taken in its broadest extension, as: Man is accountable.”[27] The following texts will illustrate this rule, and also this statement of our Lord’s: “Man lieth down and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.” “It is appointed unto men once to die.”[28] In these texts man is used without restriction, and, therefore, all mankind are necessarily intended. The Sabbath was therefore made for the whole human family, and consequently originated with mankind. But the Saviour’s language is even yet more emphatic in the original: “The Sabbath was made for the man, not the man for the Sabbath.” This language fixes the mind on the man Adam, who was made of the dust of the ground just before the Sabbath was made for him, of the seventh day.

This is a striking confirmation of the fact already pointed out that the Sabbath was given to Adam, the head of the human family.

“The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; yet he made the Sabbath for man. God made the Sabbath his by solemn appropriation, that he might convey it back to us under the guarantee of a divine charter, that none might rob us of it with impunity.”

But is it not possible that God’s act of blessing and sanctifying the seventh day did not occur at the close of the creation week? May it not be mentioned then because God designed that the day of his rest should be afterward observed? Or rather, as Moses wrote the book of Genesis long after the creation, might he not insert this account of the sanctification of the seventh day with the record of the first week, though the day itself was sanctified in his own time?

It is very certain that such an interpretation of the record cannot be admitted, unless the facts in the case demand it. For it is, to say the least, a forced explanation of the language. The record in Genesis, unless this be an exception, is a plain narrative of events. Thus what God did on each day is recorded in its order down to the seventh. It is certainly doing violence to the narrative to affirm that the record respecting the seventh day is of a different character from that respecting the other six. He rested the seventh day; he sanctified the seventh day because he had rested upon it. The reason why he should sanctify the seventh day existed when his rest was closed. To say, therefore, that God did not sanctify the day at that time, but did it in the days of Moses, is not only to distort the narrative, but to affirm that he neglected to do that for which the reason existed at creation, until twenty-five hundred years after.[29]

But we ask that the facts be brought forward which prove that the Sabbath was sanctified in the wilderness of Sin, and not at creation. And what are the facts that show this? It is confessed that such facts are not upon record. Their existence is assumed in order to sustain the theory that the Sabbath originated at the fall of the manna, and not in paradise.

Did God sanctify the Sabbath in the wilderness of Sin? There is no intimation of such fact. On the contrary, it is mentioned at that time as something already set apart of God. On the sixth day Moses said, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.”[30] Surely this is not the act of instituting the Sabbath, but the familiar mention of an existing fact. We pass on to Mount Sinai. Did God sanctify the Sabbath when he spoke the ten commandments? No one claims that he did. It is admitted by all that Moses spoke of it familiarly the previous month.[31] Does the Lord at Sinai speak of the sanctification of the Sabbath? He does; but in the very language of Genesis he goes back for the sanctification of the Sabbath, not to the wilderness of Sin, but to the creation of the world.[32] We ask those who hold the theory under examination, this question: If the Sabbath was not sanctified at creation, but was sanctified in the wilderness of Sin, why does the narrative in each instance[33] record the sanctification of the Sabbath at creation and omit all mention of such fact in the wilderness of Sin? Nay, why does the record of events in the wilderness of Sin show that the holy Sabbath was at that time already in existence? In a word, How can a theory subversive of all the facts in the record, be maintained as the truth of God?

We have seen the Sabbath ordained of God at the close of the creation week. The object of its Author is worthy of especial attention. Why did the Creator set up this memorial in paradise? Why did he set apart from the other days of the week that day which he had employed in rest? “Because that in it,” says the record, “he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” A rest necessarily implies a work performed. And hence the Sabbath was ordained of God as a memorial of the work of creation. And therefore that precept of the moral law which relates to this memorial, unlike every other precept of that law, begins with the word, “Remember.” The importance of this memorial will be appreciated when we learn from the Scriptures that it is the work of creation which is claimed by its Author as the great evidence of his eternal power and Godhead, and as that great fact which distinguishes him from all false gods. Thus it is written:

“He that built all things is God.” “The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.” “But the Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting King.” “He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.” “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” “For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.” Thus “the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”[34]

Such is the estimate which the Scriptures place upon the work of creation as evincing the eternal power and Godhead of the Creator. The Sabbath stands as the memorial of this great work. Its observance is an act of grateful acknowledgment on the part of his intelligent creatures that he is their Creator, and that they owe all to him; and that for his pleasure they are and were created. How appropriate this observance for Adam! And when man had fallen, how important for his well-being that he should “remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” He would thus have been preserved from atheism and from idolatry; for he could never forget that there was a God from whom all things derived their being; nor could he worship as God any other being than the Creator.

The seventh day, as hallowed by God in Eden, was not Jewish, but divine; it was not the memorial of the flight of Israel from Egypt, but of the Creator’s rest. Nor is it true that the most distinguished Jewish writers deny the primeval origin of the Sabbath, or claim it as a Jewish memorial We cite the historian Josephus and his learned cotemporary, Philo Judæus. Josephus, whose “Antiquities of the Jews” run parallel with the Bible from the beginning, when treating of the wilderness of Sin, makes no allusion whatever to the Sabbath, a clear proof that he had no idea that it originated in that wilderness. But when giving the account of creation, he bears the following testimony:

“Moses says that in just six days the world and all that is therein was made. And that the seventh day was a rest and a release from the labor of such operations; whence it is that we celebrate a rest from our labor on that day, and call it the Sabbath; which word denotes rest in the Hebrew tongue.”[35]

And Philo bears an emphatic testimony relative to the character of the Sabbath as a memorial. Thus he says:

“But after the whole world had been completed according to the perfect nature of the number six, the Father hallowed the day following, the seventh, praising it and calling it holy. For that day is the festival, not of one city or one country, but of all the earth; a day which alone it is right to call the day of festival for all people, and the birth-day of the world.”[36]

Nor was the rest-day of the Lord a shadow of man’s rest after his recovery from the fall. God will ever be worshiped in an understanding manner by his intelligent creatures. When therefore he set apart his rest-day to a holy use, if it was not as a memorial of his work, but as a shadow of man’s redemption from the fall, the real design of the institution must have been stated, and, as a consequence, man in his unfallen state could never observe the Sabbath as a delight, but ever with deep distress, as reminding him that he was soon to apostatize from God. Nor was the holy of the Lord and honorable, one of the “carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation;”[37] for there could be no reformation with unfallen beings.

But man did not continue in his uprightness. Paradise was lost, and Adam was excluded from the tree of life. The curse of God fell upon the earth, and death entered by sin, and passed upon all men.[38] After this sad apostasy, no further mention of the Sabbath occurs until Moses on the sixth day said, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.”

It is objected that there is no precept in the book of Genesis for the observance of the Sabbath, and consequently no obligation on the part of the patriarchs to observe it. There is a defect in this argument not noticed by those who use it. The book of Genesis was not a rule given to the patriarchs to walk by. On the contrary, it was written by Moses 2500 years after creation, and long after the patriarchs were dead. Consequently the fact that certain precepts were not found in Genesis is no evidence that they were not obligatory upon the patriarchs. Thus the book does not command men to love God with all their hearts, and their neighbors as themselves; nor does it prohibit idolatry, blasphemy, disobedience to parents, adultery, theft, false witness or covetousness. Who will affirm from this that the patriarchs were under no restraint in these things? As a mere record of events, written long after their occurrence, it was not necessary that the book should contain a moral code. But had the book been given to the patriarchs as a rule of life, it must of necessity have contained such a code. It is a fact worthy of especial notice that as soon as Moses reaches his own time in the book of Exodus, the whole moral law is given. The record and the people were then cotemporary, and ever afterward the written law is in the hands of God’s people, as a rule of life, and a complete code of moral precepts.

The argument under consideration is unsound, 1. Because based upon the supposition that the book of Genesis was the rule of life for the patriarchs; 2. Because if carried out it would release the patriarchs from every precept of the moral law except the sixth.[39] 3. Because the act of God in setting apart his rest-day to a holy use, as we have seen, necessarily involves the fact that he gave a precept concerning it to Adam, in whose time it was thus set apart. And hence, though the book of Genesis contains no precept concerning the Sabbath, it does contain direct evidence that such precept was given to the head and representative of the human family.

After giving the institution of the Sabbath, the book of Genesis, in its brief record of 2370 years, does not again mention it. This has been urged as ample proof that those holy men, who, during this period, were perfect, and walked with God in the observance of his commandments, statutes and laws,[40] all lived in open profanation of that day which God had blessed and set apart to a holy use. But the book of Genesis also omits any distinct reference to the doctrine of future punishment, the resurrection of the body, the revelation of the Lord in flaming fire, and the Judgment of the great day. Does this silence prove that the patriarchs did not believe these great doctrines? Does it make them any the less sacred?

But the Sabbath is not mentioned from Moses to David, a period of five hundred years, during which it was enforced by the penalty of death. Does this prove that it was not observed during this period?[41] The jubilee occupied a very prominent place in the typical system, yet in the whole Bible a single instance of its observance is not recorded. What is still more remarkable, there is not on record a single instance of the observance of the great day of atonement, notwithstanding the work in the holiest on that day was the most important service connected with the worldly sanctuary. And yet the observance of the other and less important festivals of the seventh month, which are so intimately connected with the day of atonement, the one preceding it by ten days, the other following it in five, is repeatedly and particularly recorded.[42] It would be sophistry to argue from this silence respecting the day of atonement, when there were so many instances in which its mention was almost demanded, that that day was never observed; and yet it is actually a better argument than the similar one urged against the Sabbath from the book of Genesis.

The reckoning of time by weeks is derived from nothing in nature, but owes its existence to the divine appointment of the seventh day to a holy use in memory of the Lord’s rest from the six days’ work of creation.[43] This period of time is marked only by the recurrence of the sanctified rest-day of the Creator. That the patriarchs reckoned time by weeks and by sevens of days, is evident from several texts.[44] That they should retain the week and forget the Sabbath by which alone the week is marked, is not a probable conclusion. That the reckoning of the week was rightly kept is evident from the fact that in the wilderness of Sin on the sixth day the people, of their own accord, gathered a double portion of manna. And Moses said to them, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.”[45]

The brevity of the record in Genesis causes us to overlook many facts of the deepest interest. Adam lived 930 years. How deep and absorbing the interest that must have existed in the human family to see the first man! To converse with one who had himself talked with God! To hear from his lips a description of that paradise in which he had lived! To learn from one created on the sixth day the wondrous events of the creation week! To hear from his lips the very words of the Creator when he set apart his rest-day to a holy use! And to learn, alas! the sad story of the loss of paradise and the tree of life![46]

It was therefore not difficult for the facts respecting the six days of creation and the sanctification of the rest-day to be diffused among mankind in the patriarchal age. Nay, it was impossible that it should be otherwise, especially among the godly. From Adam to Abraham a succession of men—probably inspired of God—preserved the knowledge of God upon earth. Thus Adam lived till Lamech, the father of Noah, was 56 years of age; Lamech lived till Shem, the son of Noah, was 93; Shem lived till Abraham was 150 years of age. Thus are we brought down to Abraham, the father of the faithful. Of him it is recorded that he obeyed God’s voice and kept his charge, his commandments, his statutes, and his laws. And of him the Most High bears the following testimony: “I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment.”[47] The knowledge of God was preserved in the family of Abraham; and we shall next find the Sabbath familiarly mentioned among his posterity, as an existing institution.

CHAPTER III.
THE SABBATH COMMITTED TO THE HEBREWS.

Object of this chapter—Total apostasy of the human family in the antediluvian age—Destruction of mankind—The family of Noah spared—Second apostasy of mankind in the patriarchal age—The apostate nations left to their own ways—The family of Abraham chosen—Separated from the rest of mankind—Their history—Their relation to God—The Sabbath in existence when they came forth from Egypt—Analysis of Ex. 16—The Sabbath committed to the Hebrews.

We are now to trace the history of divine truth for many ages in almost exclusive connection with the family of Abraham. That we may vindicate the truth from the reproach of pertaining only to the Hebrews—a reproach often urged against the Sabbath—and justify the dealings of God with mankind in leaving to their own ways the apostate nations, let us carefully examine the Bible for the reasons which directed divine Providence in the choice of Abraham’s family as the depositaries of divine truth.

The antediluvian world had been highly favored of God. The period of life extended to each generation was twelve-fold that of the present age of man. For almost one thousand years, Adam, who had conversed with God in paradise, had been with them. Before the death of Adam, Enoch began his holy walk of three hundred years, and then he was translated that he should not see death. This testimony to the piety of Enoch was a powerful testimony to the antediluvians in behalf of truth and righteousness. Moreover the Spirit of God strove with mankind; but the perversity of man triumphed over all the gracious restraints of the Holy Spirit. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Even the sons of God joined in the general apostasy. At last a single family was all that remained of the worshipers of the Most High.[48]

Then came the deluge, sweeping the world of its guilty inhabitants with the besom of destruction.[49] So terrible a display of divine justice might well be thought sufficient to restrain impiety for ages. Surely the family of Noah could not soon forget this awful lesson. But alas, revolt and apostasy speedily followed, and men turned from God to the worship of idols. Against the divine mandate separating the human family into nations,[50] mankind united in one great act of rebellion in the plain of Shinar. “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” Then God confounded them in their impiety and scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth.[51] Men did not like to retain God in their knowledge; wherefore God gave them over to a reprobate mind, and suffered them to change the truth of God into a lie, and to worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. Such was the origin of idolatry and of the apostasy of the Gentiles.[52]

In the midst of this wide-spread apostasy one man was found whose heart was faithful with God. Abraham was chosen from an idolatrous family, as the depositary of divine truth, the father of the faithful, the heir of the world, and the friend of God.[53] When the worshipers of God were found alone in the family of Noah, God gave up the rest of mankind to perish in the flood. Now that the worshipers of God are again reduced almost to a single family, God gives up the idolatrous nations to their own ways, and takes the family of Abraham as his peculiar heritage. “For I know him,” said God, “that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment.”[54] That they might preserve in the earth the knowledge of divine truth and the memory and worship of the Most High, they were to be a people walled off from all mankind, and dwelling in a land of their own. That they might thus be separated from the heathen around, God gave to Abraham the rite of circumcision, and afterward to his posterity the whole ceremonial law.[55] But they could not possess the land designed for them until the iniquity of the Amorites, its inhabitants, was full, that they should be thrust out before them. The horror of great darkness, and the smoking furnace seen by Abraham in vision, foreshadowed the iron furnace and the bitter servitude of Egypt. The family of Abraham must go down thither. Brief prosperity and long and terrible oppression follow.[56]

At length the power of the oppressor is broken, and the people of God are delivered. The expiration of four hundred and thirty years from the promise to Abraham marks the hour of deliverance to his posterity.[57] The nation of Israel is brought forth from Egypt as God’s peculiar treasure, that he may give them his Sabbath, and his law, and himself. The psalmist testifies that God “brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with gladness: and gave them the lands of the heathen: and they inherited the labor of the people: that they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws. And the Most High says, “I am the Lord which hallow you, that brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God.”[58] Not that the commandments of God, his Sabbath and himself, had no prior existence, nor that the people were ignorant of the true God and his law; for the Sabbath was appointed to a holy use before the fall of man; and the commandments of God, his statutes and his laws, were kept by Abraham; and the Israelites themselves, when some of them had violated the Sabbath, were reproved by the question, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?”[59] And as to the Most High, the psalmist exclaims, ”Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.”[60] But there must be a formal public espousal of the people by God, and of his law and Sabbath and himself by the people.[61] But neither the Sabbath, nor the law, nor the great Law-giver, by their connection with the Hebrews, became Jewish. The Law-giver indeed became the God of Israel,[62] and what Gentile shall refuse him adoration for that reason? but the Sabbath still remained the Sabbath of the Lord,[63] and the law continued to be the law of the Most High.

In the month following their passage through the Red Sea, the Hebrews came into the wilderness of Sin. It is at this point in his narrative that Moses for the second time mentions the sanctified rest-day of the Creator. The people murmured for bread:

“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.

It is customary to speak against the Sabbath and the law as Jewish, because thus given to Israel. As well might the Creator be spoken against, who brought them out of Egypt to be their God, and who styles himself the God of Israel.[79] The Hebrews were honored by being thus intrusted with the Sabbath and the law, not the Sabbath and the law and the Creator rendered Jewish by this connection. The sacred writers speak of the high exaltation of Israel in being thus intrusted with the law of God.

“He showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord!” “What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” “Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.”[80]

After the Most High had solemnly espoused the people unto himself, as his peculiar treasure in the earth,[81] they were brought forth out of the camp to meet with God. “And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.” Out of the midst of this fire did God proclaim the ten words of his law.[82] The fourth of these precepts is the grand law of the Sabbath. Thus spake the great Law-giver:—

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

The estimate which the Law-giver placed upon his Sabbath is seen in that he deemed it worthy of a place in his code of ten commandments, thus causing it to stand in the midst of nine immutable moral precepts. Nor is this to be thought a small honor that the Most High, naming one by one the great principles of morality until all are given, and he adds no more,[83] should include in their number the observance of his hallowed rest-day. This precept is expressly given to enforce the observance of the Creator’s great memorial; and unlike all the others, this one traces its obligation back to the creation, where that memorial was ordained.

The Sabbath is to be remembered and kept holy because that God hallowed it, i.e., appointed it to a holy use, at the close of the first week. And this sanctification or hallowing of the rest-day, when the first seventh day of time was past, was the solemn act of setting apart the seventh day for time to come in memory of the Creator’s rest. Thus the fourth commandment reaches back and embraces the institution of the Sabbath in paradise, while the sanctification of the Sabbath in paradise extends forward to all coming time. The narrative respecting the wilderness of Sin admirably cements the union of the two. Thus in the wilderness of Sin, before the fourth commandment was given, stands the Sabbath, holy to the Lord, with an existing obligation to observe it, though no commandment in that narrative creates the obligation. This obligation is derived from the same source as the fourth commandment, namely, the sanctification of the Sabbath in paradise, showing that it was an existing duty, and not a new precept. For it should never be forgotten that the fourth commandment does not trace its obligation to the wilderness of Sin, but to the creation; a decisive proof that the Sabbath did not originate in the wilderness of Sin.

The fourth commandment is remarkably definite. It embraces, first, a precept: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy;” second, an explanation of this precept: “Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates;” third, the reasons on which the precept is based, embracing the origin of the institution, and the very acts by which it was made, and enforcing all by the example[84] of the Law-giver himself: “for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

The rest-day of the Lord is thus distinguished from the six days on which he labored. The blessing and sanctification pertain to the day of the Creator’s rest. There can be, therefore, no indefiniteness in the precept. It is not merely one day in seven, but that day in the seven on which the Creator rested, and upon which he placed his blessing, namely, the seventh day.[85] And this day is definitely pointed out in the name given it by God: “The seventh day is the Sabbath [i. e., the rest-day] of the Lord thy God.”

That the seventh day in the fourth commandment is the seventh day of the New-Testament week may be plainly proved. In the record of our Lord’s burial, Luke writes thus:—

“And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. And the women also which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulcher, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.”[86]

Luke testifies that these women kept “the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” The commandment says, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” This day thus observed was the last or seventh day of the week, for the following[87] day was the first day of the week. Hence the seventh day of the commandment is the seventh day of the New-Testament week.

The testimony of Nehemiah is deeply interesting. “Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: and madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant.”[88] It is remarkable that God is said to have made known the Sabbath when he thus came down upon the mount; for the children of Israel had the Sabbath in possession when they came to Sinai. This language must therefore refer to that complete unfolding of the Sabbatic institution which is given in the fourth commandment. And mark the expression: “Madest known[89] unto them thy holy Sabbath;” not madest the Sabbath for them: language which plainly implies its previous existence, and which cites the mind back to the Creator’s rest for the origin of the institution.[90]

The moral obligation of the fourth commandment which is so often denied may be clearly shown by reference to the origin of all things. God created the world and gave existence to man upon it. To him he gave life and breath, and all things. Man therefore owes everything to God. Every faculty of his mind, every power of his being, all his strength and all his time belong of right to the Creator. It was therefore the benevolence of the Creator that gave to man six days for his own wants. And in setting apart the seventh day to a holy use in memory of his own rest, the Most High was reserving unto himself one of the seven days, when he could rightly claim all as his. The six days therefore are the gift of God to man, to be rightly employed in secular affairs, not the seventh day, the gift of man to God. The fourth commandment, therefore, does not require man to give something of his own to God, but it does require that man should not appropriate to himself that which God has reserved for his own worship. To observe this day then is to render to God of the things that are his; to appropriate it to ourselves is simply to rob God.

CHAPTER V.
THE SABBATH WRITTEN BY THE FINGER OF GOD.

Classification of the precepts given through Moses—The Sabbath renewed—Solemn ratification of the covenant between God and Israel—Moses called up to receive the law which God had written upon stone—The ten commandments probably proclaimed upon the Sabbath—Events of the forty days—The Sabbath becomes a sign between God and Israel—The penalty of death—The tables of testimony given to Moses—And broken when he saw the idolatry of the people—The idolaters punished—Moses goes up to renew the tables—The Sabbath again enjoined—The tables given again—The ten commandments were the testimony of God—Who wrote them—Three distinguished honors which pertain to the Sabbath—The ten commandments a complete code—Relation of the fourth commandment to the atonement—Valid reason why God himself should write that law which was placed beneath the mercy-seat.

When the voice of the Holy One had ceased, “the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.” A brief interview follows[91] in which God gives to Moses a series of precepts, which, as a sample of the statutes given through him, may be classified thus: Ceremonial precepts, pointing to the good things to come; judicial precepts, intended for the civil government of the nation; and moral precepts, stating anew in other forms the ten commandments. In this brief interview the Sabbath is not forgotten:—

“Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.”[92]

This scripture furnishes incidental proof that the Sabbath was made for mankind, and for those creatures that share the labors of man. The stranger and the foreigner must keep it, and it was for their refreshment.[93] But the same persons could not partake of the passover until they were made members of the Hebrew church by circumcision.[94]

When Moses had returned unto the people, he repeated all the words of the Lord. With one voice all the people exclaim, “All the words which the Lord hath said will we do.” Then Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. “And he took the book of the covenant and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.” Then Moses “sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.”[95]

The way was thus prepared for God to bestow a second signal honor upon his law:—

“And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.... And Moses went up into the mount, and a cloud covered the mount. And the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud.[96] And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel. And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount; and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.”[97]

During this forty days God gave to Moses a pattern of the ark in which to place the law that he had written upon stone, and of the mercy-seat to place over that law, and of the sanctuary in which to deposit the ark. He also ordained the priesthood, which was to minister in the sanctuary before the ark.[98] These things being ordained, and the Law-giver about to commit his law as written by himself into the hands of Moses, he again enjoins the Sabbath:—

“And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. 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. And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.”[99]

This should be compared with the testimony of Ezekiel, speaking in the name of God:—

“I gave them my statutes, and showed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them. Moreover also 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.... I am the Lord your God: walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.”[100]

It will be observed that neither of these scriptures teach that the Sabbath was made for Israel, nor yet do they teach that it was made after the Hebrews came out of Egypt. In neither of these particulars do they even seem to contradict those texts that place the institution of the Sabbath at creation. But we do learn, 1. That it was God’s act of giving to the Hebrews his Sabbath that made it a sign between them and himself. “I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them.” This act of committing to them the Sabbath has been noticed already.[101] 2. That it was to be a sign between God and the Hebrews, “that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” Wherever the word Lord in the Old Testament is in small capitals, as in the texts under consideration, it is in the Hebrew, Jehovah. The Sabbath then as a sign signified that it was Jehovah, i. e., the infinite, self-existent God, who had sanctified them. To sanctify is to separate, set apart, or appoint, to a holy, sacred or religious use.[102] That the Hebrew nation had thus been set apart in the most remarkable manner from all mankind, was sufficiently evident. But who was it that had thus separated them from all other people? As a gracious answer to this important question, God gave to the Hebrews his own hallowed rest-day. But how could the great memorial of the Creator determine such a question? Listen to the words of the Most High: “Verily my Sabbaths,” i. e., my rest-days, “ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you.... 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.” The Sabbath as a sign between God and Israel, was a perpetual testimony that he who had separated them from all mankind as his peculiar treasure in the earth, was that Being who had created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. It was therefore the strongest possible assurance that he who sanctified them was indeed Jehovah.

From the days of Abraham God had set apart the Hebrews. He who had previously borne no local, national or family name, did from that time until the end of his covenant relation with the Hebrew race, take to himself such titles as seemed to show him to be their God alone. From his choice of Abraham and his family forward he designates himself as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; the God of the Hebrews, and the God of Israel.[103] He brought Israel out of Egypt to be their God,[104] and at Sinai did join himself to them in solemn espousal. He did thus set apart or sanctify unto himself the Hebrews, because that all other nations had given themselves to idolatry. Thus the God of Heaven and earth condescended to give himself to a single race, and to set them apart from all mankind. It should be observed that it was not the Sabbath which had set Israel apart from all other nations, but it was the idolatry of all other nations that caused God to set the Hebrews apart for himself; and that God gave to Israel the Sabbath which he had hallowed for mankind at creation as the most expressive sign that he who thus sanctified them was indeed the living God.

It was the act of God in giving his Sabbath to the Israelites that rendered it a sign between them and himself. But the Sabbath did not derive its existence from being thus given to the Hebrews; for it was the ancient Sabbath of the Lord when given to them, and we have seen[105] that it was not given by a new commandment. On the contrary, it rested at that time upon existing obligation. But it was the providence of God in behalf of the Hebrews, first in rescuing them from abject servitude, and second, in sending them bread from heaven for six days, and preserving food for the Sabbath, that constituted the Sabbath a gift to that people. And mark the significancy of the manner in which this gift was bestowed, as showing who it was that sanctified them. It became a gift to the Hebrews by the wonderful providence of the manna: a miracle that ceased not openly to declare the Sabbath every week for the space of forty years; thus showing incontrovertibly that He who led them was the author of the Sabbath, and therefore the Creator of heaven and earth. That the Sabbath which was made for man should thus be given to the Hebrews is certainly not more remarkable than that the God of the whole earth should give his oracles and himself to that people. The Most High and his law and Sabbath did not become Jewish; but the Hebrews were made the honored depositaries of divine truth; and the knowledge of God and of his commandments was preserved in the earth.

The reason on which this sign is based, points unmistakably to the true origin of the Sabbath. It did not originate from the fall of the manna for six days and its cessation on the seventh—for the manna was given thus because the Sabbath was in existence—but because that “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” Thus the Sabbath is shown to have originated with the rest and refreshment of the Creator, and not at the fall of the manna. As an institution, the Sabbath declared its Author to be the Creator of heaven and earth; as a sign[106] between God and Israel, it declared that he who had set them apart was indeed Jehovah.

The last act of the Law-giver in this memorable interview was to place in the hands of Moses the “two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” Then he revealed to Moses the sad apostasy of the people of Israel, and hastened him down to them.

“And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides: on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.... And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.”

Then Moses inflicted retribution upon the idolaters, “and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.” And Moses returned unto God and interceded in behalf of the people. Then God promised that his angel should go with them, but that he himself would not go up in their midst lest he should consume them.[107] Then Moses presented an earnest supplication to the Most High that he might see his glory. This petition was granted, saving that the face of God should not be seen.[108]

But before Moses ascended that he might behold the majesty of the infinite Law-giver, the Lord said unto him:—

“Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.... And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone. And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him.”

Then Moses beheld the glory of the Lord, and he “made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.” This interview lasted forty days and forty nights, as did the first, and seems to have been spent by Moses in intercession that God would not destroy the people for their sin.[109] The record of this period is very brief, but in this record the Sabbath is mentioned. “Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.”[110] Thus admonishing them not to forget in their busiest season the Sabbath of the Lord.

This second period of forty days ends like the first with the act of God in placing the tables of stone in the hands of Moses. “And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he[111] wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” Thus it appears that the tables of testimony were two tables of stone with the ten commandments written upon them by the finger of God. Thus the testimony of God is shown to be the ten commandments. The writing on the second tables was an exact copy of that on the first. “Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first; and I will write,” said God, “upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.” And of the first tables Moses says: “He declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.”[112]

Thus did God commit to his people the ten commandments. Without human or angelic agency he proclaimed them himself; and not trusting his most honored servant Moses, or even an angel of his presence, himself wrote them with his own finger. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” is one of the ten words thus honored by the Most High. Nor are these two high honors the only ones conferred upon this precept. While it shares them in common with the other nine commandments, it stands in advance of them in that it is established by the example of the Law-giver himself. These precepts were given upon two tables with evident reference to the two-fold division of the law of God; supreme love to God, and the love of our neighbor as ourselves. The Sabbath commandment, placed at the close of the first table, forms the golden clasp that binds together both divisions of the moral law. It guards and enforces that day which God claims as his; it follows man through the six days which God has given him to be properly spent in the various relations of life, thus extending over the whole of human life, and embracing in its loan of six days to man all the duties of the second table, while itself belonging to the first.

That these ten commandments form a complete code of moral law is proved by the language of the Law-giver when he called Moses up to himself to receive them. “Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written.”[113] This law and commandments was the testimony of God engraven upon stone. The same great fact is presented by Moses in his blessing pronounced upon Israel: “And he said, The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them: he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.”[114] There can be no dispute that in this language the Most High is represented as personally present with ten thousands of his holy ones, or angels. And that which he wrote with his own right hand is called by Moses “a fiery law,” or as the margin has it, “a fire of law.” And now the man of God completes his sacred trust. And thus he rehearses what God did in committing his law to him, and what he himself did in its final disposition: “And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the Lord spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the Lord gave them unto me. And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the Lord commanded me.” Thus was the law of God deposited in the ark beneath the mercy-seat.[115] Nor should this chapter close without pointing out the important relation of the fourth commandment to the atonement.

The top of the ark was called the mercy-seat, because all those who had broken the law contained in the ark beneath the mercy-seat, could find pardon by the sprinkling of the blood of atonement upon it.

The law within the ark was that which demanded an atonement; the ceremonial law which ordained the Levitical priesthood and the sacrifices for sin, was that which taught men how the atonement could be made. The broken law was beneath the mercy-seat; the blood of sin-offering was sprinkled upon its top, and pardon was extended to the penitent sinner. There was actual sin, and hence a real law which man had broken; but there was not a real atonement, and hence the need of the great antitype to the Levitical sacrifices. The real atonement when it is made must relate to that law respecting which an atonement had been shadowed forth. In other words, the shadowy atonement related to that law which was shut up in the ark, indicating that a real atonement was demanded by that law. It is necessary that the law which demands atonement, in order that its transgressor may be spared, should itself be perfect, else the fault would in part at least rest with the Law-giver, and not wholly with the sinner. Hence, the atonement when made does not take away the broken law, for that is perfect, but is expressly designed to take away the guilt of the transgressor.[116] Let it be remembered then that the fourth commandment is one of the ten precepts of God’s broken law; one of the immutable holy principles that made the death of God’s only Son necessary before pardon could be extended to guilty man. These facts being borne in mind, it will not be thought strange that the Law-giver should reserve the proclamation of such a law to himself; and that he should intrust to no created being the writing of that law which should demand as its atonement the death of the Son of God.

CHAPTER VI.
THE SABBATH DURING THE DAY OF TEMPTATION.

General history of the Sabbath in the wilderness—Its violation one cause of excluding that generation from the promised land—Its violation by their children in the wilderness one of the causes of their final dispersion from their own land—The statute respecting fires upon the Sabbath—Various precepts relative to the Sabbath—The Sabbath not a Jewish feast—The man who gathered sticks upon the Sabbath—Appeal of Moses in behalf of the decalogue—The Sabbath not derived from the covenant at Horeb—Final appeal of Moses in behalf of the Sabbath—The original fourth commandment—The Sabbath not a memorial of the flight from Egypt—What words were engraven upon stone—General summary from the books of Moses.

The history of the Sabbath during the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness when God was grieved for forty years with his people may be stated in few words. Even under the eye of Moses, and with the most stupendous miracles in their memory and before their eyes, they were idolaters,[117] neglecters of sacrifices, neglecters of circumcision,[118] murmurers against God, despisers of his law[119] and violators of his Sabbath. Of their treatment of the Sabbath while in the wilderness, Ezekiel gives us the following graphic description:—

“But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my Sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them. But I wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, in whose sight I brought them out.”[120]

This language shows a general violation of the Sabbath, and evidently refers to the apostasy of Israel during the first forty days that Moses was absent from them. God did then purpose their destruction; but at the intercession of Moses, spared them for the very reason assigned by the prophet.[121] A further probation being granted them they signally failed a second time, so that God lifted up his hand to them that they should not enter the promised land. Thus the prophet continues:—

“Yet also I lifted up my hand unto them in the wilderness, that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands; because they despised my judgments, and walked not in my statutes, but polluted my Sabbaths: for their heart went after their idols. Nevertheless mine eye spared them from destroying them, neither did I make an end of them in the wilderness.”

This language has undoubted reference to the act of God in excluding all that were over twenty years of age from entering the promised land.[122] It is to be noticed that the violation of the Sabbath is distinctly stated as one of the reasons for which that generation were excluded from the land of promise. God spared the people so that the nation was not utterly cut off; for he extended to the younger part a further probation. Thus the prophet continues:—

“But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols: I am the Lord your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God. Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me: they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; they polluted my Sabbaths: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness. Nevertheless I withdrew mine hand, and wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be polluted in the sight of the heathen, in whose sight I brought them forth. I lifted up mine hand unto them also in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse them through the countries; because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my Sabbaths, and their eyes were after their father’s idols.”

Thus it appears that the younger generation, which God spared when he excluded their fathers from the land of promise, did, like their fathers, transgress God’s law, pollute his Sabbath, and cleave to idolatry. God did not see fit to exclude them from the land of Canaan, but he did lift up his hand to them in the wilderness, that he would give them up to dispersion among their enemies after they had entered the land of promise. Thus it is seen that the Hebrews while in the wilderness laid the foundation for their subsequent dispersion from their own land; and that one of the acts which led to their final ruin as a nation was the violation of the Sabbath before they had entered the promised land. Well might Moses say to them in the last month of his life: “Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.”[123] In Caleb and Joshua was another spirit, for they followed the Lord fully.[124]

Such is the general history of Sabbatic observance in the wilderness. Even the miracle of the manna, which every week for forty years bore public testimony to the Sabbath,[125] became to the body of the Hebrews a mere ordinary event, so that they dared to murmur against the bread thus sent from heaven;[126] and we may well believe that those who were thus hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, had little regard for the testimony of the manna in behalf of the Sabbath.[127] In the Mosaic record we next read of the Sabbath as follows:—

“And Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said unto them, These are the words which the Lord hath commanded, that ye should do them. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.[128] Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath day.”[129]

The chief feature of interest in this text relates to the prohibition of fires on the Sabbath. As this is the only prohibition of the kind in the Bible, and as it is often urged as a reason why the Sabbath should not be kept, a brief examination of the difficulty will not be out of place. It should be observed, 1. That this language does not form part of the fourth commandment, the grand law of the Sabbath. 2. That as there were laws pertaining to the Sabbath, that were no part of the Sabbatic institution, but that grew out of its being intrusted to the Hebrews, such as the law respecting the presentation of the shew-bread on the Sabbath; and that respecting the burnt-offering for the Sabbath:[130] so it is at least possible that this is a precept pertaining only to that nation, and not a part of the original institution. 3. That as there were laws peculiar only to the Hebrews, so there were many that pertained to them only while they were in the wilderness. Such were all those precepts that related to the manna, the building of the tabernacle and the setting of it up, the manner of encamping about it, &c. 4. That of this class were all the statutes given from the time that Moses brought down the second tables of stone until the close of the book of Exodus, unless the words under consideration form an exception. 5. That the prohibition of fires was a law of this class, i. e., a law designed only for the wilderness, is evident from several decisive facts.

1. That the land of Palestine during a part of the year is so cold that fires are necessary to prevent suffering.[131]

2. That the Sabbath was not designed to be a cause of distress and suffering, but of refreshment, of delight, and of blessing.[132]

3. That in the wilderness of Sinai, where this precept respecting fires on the Sabbath was given, it was not a cause of suffering, as they were two hundred miles south of Jerusalem, in the warm climate of Arabia.

4. That this precept was of a temporary character, is further implied in that while other laws are said to be perpetual statutes and precepts to be kept after they should enter the land,[133] no hint of this kind here appears. On the contrary, this seems to be similar in character to the precept respecting the manna,[134] and to be co-existent with, and adapted to, it.

5. If the prohibition respecting fires did indeed pertain to the promised land, and not merely to the wilderness, it would every few years conflict directly with the law of the passover. For the passover was to be roasted by each family of the children of Israel on the evening following the fourteenth day of the first month,[135] which would fall occasionally upon the Sabbath. The prohibition of fires upon the Sabbath would not conflict with the passover while the Hebrews were in the wilderness; for the passover was not to be observed until they reached that land.[136] But if that prohibition did extend forward to the promised land, where the passover was to be regularly observed, these two statutes would often come in direct conflict. This is certainly a strong confirmation of the view that the prohibition of fires upon the Sabbath was a temporary statute, relating only to the wilderness.[137]

From these facts it follows that the favorite argument drawn from the prohibition of fires, that the Sabbath was a local institution, adapted only to the land of Canaan, must be abandoned; for it is evident that that prohibition was a temporary statute not even adapted to the land of promise, and not designed for that land. We next read of the Sabbath as follows:—

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy. Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.... Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.”[138]

These constant references to the Sabbath contrast strikingly with the general disobedience of the people. And thus God speaks again:—

“Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.”[139]

Thus does God solemnly designate his rest-day as a season of holy worship, and as the day of weekly religious assemblies. Again the great Law-giver sets forth his Sabbath:—

“Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it; for I am the Lord your God. Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.”[140]

Happy would it have been for the people of God had they thus refrained from idolatry and sacredly regarded the rest-day of the Creator. Yet idolatry and Sabbath-breaking were so general in the wilderness that the generation which came forth from Egypt were excluded from the promised land.[141] After God had thus cut off from the inheritance of the land the men who had rebelled against him,[142] we next read of the Sabbath as follows:—

“And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses.”[143]

The following facts should be considered in explaining this text: 1. That this was a case of peculiar guilt; for the whole congregation before whom this man stood in judgment, and by whom he was put to death, were themselves guilty of violating the Sabbath, and had just been excluded from the promised land for this and other sins.[144] 2. That this was not a case which came under the existing penalty of death for work upon the Sabbath; for the man was put in confinement that the mind of the Lord respecting his guilt might be obtained. The peculiarity of his transgression may be learned from the context. The verses which next precede the case in question read thus:—

“But the soul that doeth aught presumptuously, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, the same reproacheth the Lord; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.”[145]

These words being followed by this remarkable case were evidently designed to be illustrated by it. It is manifest, therefore, that this was an instance of presumptuous sin, in which the transgressor intended despite to the Spirit of grace and to the statutes of the Most High. This case cannot therefore be quoted as evidence of extraordinary strictness on the part of the Hebrews in observing the Sabbath; for we have direct evidence that they did greatly pollute it during the whole forty years of their sojourn in the wilderness.[146] It stands therefore as an instance of transgression in which the sinner intended to show his contempt for the Law-giver, and in this consisted his peculiar guilt.[147]

In the last month of his long and eventful life Moses rehearsed all the great acts of God in behalf of his people, with the statutes and precepts that he had given them. This rehearsal is contained in the book of Deuteronomy, a name which signifies second law, and which is applied to that book, because it is a second writing of the law. It is the farewell of Moses to a disobedient and rebellious people; and he endeavors to fasten upon them the strongest possible sense of personal obligation to obey. Thus, when he is about to rehearse the ten commandments, he uses language evidently designed to impress upon the minds of the Hebrews a sense of their individual obligation to do what God had commanded. Thus he says:—

“Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.”[148]

It was not the act of your fathers that placed this responsibility upon you, but your own individual acts that brought you into the bond of this covenant. You have personally pledged yourselves to the Most High to keep these precepts.[149] Such is the obvious import of this language; yet it has been gravely adduced as proof that the Sabbath of the Lord was made for the Hebrews, and was not obligatory upon the patriarchs. The singularity of this deduction appears in that it is brought to bear against the fourth commandment alone; whereas, if it is a just and logical argument, it would show that the ancient patriarchs were under no obligation in respect to any precept of the moral law. But it is certain that the covenant at Horeb was simply an embodiment of the precepts of the moral law, with mutual pledges respecting them between God and the people, and that that covenant did not give existence to either of the ten commandments. At all events, we find the Sabbath ordained of God at the close of creation[150] and obligatory upon the Hebrews in the wilderness before God had given them a new precept on the subject.[151] As this was before the covenant at Horeb it is conclusive proof that the Sabbath did no more originate from that covenant than did the prohibition of idolatry, theft or murder.

The man of God then repeats the ten commandments. And thus he gives the fourth:—

“Keep the Sabbath day, to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt labor and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.”[152]

It is a singular fact that this scripture is uniformly quoted by those who write against the Sabbath, as the original fourth commandment; while the original precept itself is carefully left out. Yet there is the strongest evidence that this is not the original precept; for Moses rehearses these words at the end of the forty years’ sojourn, whereas the original commandment was given in the third month after the departure from Egypt.[153] The commandment itself, as here given, contains direct proof on the point. Thus it reads: “Keep the Sabbath day, to sanctify it, As the Lord thy God hath commanded thee;” thus citing elsewhere for the original statute. Moreover the precept as here given is evidently incomplete. It contains no clue to the origin of the Sabbath of the Lord, nor does it show the acts by which the Sabbath came into existence. This is why those who represent the Sabbath as made in the wilderness and not at creation quote this as the fourth commandment, and omit the original precept, which God himself proclaimed, where all these facts are distinctly stated.[154]

But while Moses in this rehearsal omits a large part of the fourth commandment, he refers to the original precept for the whole matter, and then appends to this rehearsal a powerful plea of obligation on the part of the Hebrews to keep the Sabbath. It should be remembered that many of the people had steadily persisted in the violation of the Sabbath, and that this is the last time that Moses speaks in its behalf. Thus he says:—

“And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.”

These words are often cited as proof that the Sabbath originated at the departure of Israel from Egypt, and that it was ordained at that time as a memorial of their deliverance from thence. But it will be observed, 1. That this text says not one word respecting the origin of the Sabbath or rest-day of the Lord. 2. That the facts on this point are all given in the original fourth commandment, and are there referred to creation. 3. That there is no reason to believe that God rested upon the seventh day at the time of this flight from Egypt; nor did he then bless and hallow the day. 4. That the Sabbath has nothing in it of a kind to commemorate the deliverance from Egypt, as that was a flight and this is a rest; and that flight was upon the fifteenth of the first month, and this rest, upon the seventh day of each week. Thus one would occur annually; the other, weekly. 5. But God did ordain a fitting memorial of that deliverance to be observed by the Hebrews: the passover, on the fourteenth day of the first month, in memory of God’s passing over them when he smote the Egyptians; and the feast of unleavened bread, in memory of their eating this bread when they fled out of Egypt.[155]

But what then do these words imply? Perhaps their meaning may be more readily perceived by comparing them with an exact parallel found in the same book and from the pen of the same writer:—

“Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow’s raiment to pledge; but thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence; therefore I command thee to do this thing.”[156]

It will be seen at a glance that this precept was not given to commemorate the deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage; nor could that deliverance give existence to the moral obligation expressed in it. If the language in the one case proves that men were not under obligation to keep the Sabbath before the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, it proves with equal conclusiveness in the other that before that deliverance they were not under obligation to treat with justice and mercy the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. And if the Sabbath is shown in the one case to be Jewish, in the other, the statute of the great Law-giver in behalf of the needy and the helpless must share the same fate. It is manifest that this language is in each case an appeal to their sense of gratitude. You were slaves in Egypt, and God rescued you; therefore remember others who are in distress, and oppress them not. You were bondmen in Egypt, and God redeemed you; therefore sanctify unto the Lord the day which he has reserved unto himself; a most powerful appeal to those who had hitherto persisted in polluting it. Deliverance from abject servitude was necessary, indeed, in each case, in order that the things enjoined might be fully observed; but that deliverance did not give existence to either of these duties. It was indeed one of the acts by which the Sabbath of the Lord was given to that nation, but it was not one of the acts by which God made the Sabbath, nor did it render the rest-day of the Lord a Jewish institution.

That the words engraven upon stone were simply the ten commandments is evident.

1. It is said of the first tables:—

“And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.”[157]

2. Thus the first tables of stone contained the ten commandments alone. That the second tables were an exact copy of what was written upon the first, is plainly stated:—

“And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou breakest.” “And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou breakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.”[158]

3. This is confirmed by the following decisive testimony:—

“And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments,” margin, Heb., “words.” “And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments [margin, words], which the Lord spake unto you in the mount, out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the Lord gave them unto me.”[159]

These texts will explain the following language: “And the Lord delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words which the Lord spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.”[160] Thus God is said to have written upon the tables according to all the words which he spoke in the day of the assembly; and these words which he thus wrote, are said to have been ten words. But the preface to the decalogue was not one of these ten words, and hence was not written by the finger of God upon stone. That this distinction must be attended to, will be seen by examining the following text and its connection:—

“These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.”[161]

These words here brought to view as written by the finger of God after having been uttered by him in the hearing of all the people, must be understood as one of two things. 1. They are simply the ten words of the law of God; or, 2. They are all the words used by Moses in this rehearsal of the decalogue. But they cannot refer to the words used in this rehearsal; for, 1. Moses omits an important part of the fourth precept as given by God in its proclamation from the mount. 2. In this rehearsal of that precept he cites back to the original for that which is omitted.[162] 3. He appends to this precept an appeal in its behalf to their gratitude which was not made by God in giving it. 4. This language only purports to be a rehearsal and not the original itself; and this is further evinced by many verbal deviations from the original decalogue.[163] These facts are decisive as to what was placed upon the tables of stone. It was not an incomplete copy, citing elsewhere for the original, but the original code itself. And hence when Moses speaks of these words as engraven upon the tables, he refers not to the words used by himself in this rehearsal, but to the ten words of the law of God, and excludes all else.

Thus have we traced the Sabbath through the books of Moses. We have found its origin in paradise when man was in his uprightness; we have seen the Hebrews set apart from all mankind as the depositaries of divine truth; we have seen the Sabbath and the whole moral law committed as a sacred trust to them; we have seen the Sabbath proclaimed by God as one of the ten commandments; we have seen it written by the finger of God upon stone in the bosom of the moral law; we have seen that law possessing no Jewish, but simply moral and divine, features, placed beneath the mercy-seat in the ark of God’s testament; we have seen that various precepts pertaining to the Sabbath were given to the Hebrews and designed only for them; we have seen that the Hebrews did greatly pollute the Sabbath during their sojourn in the wilderness; and we have heard the final appeal made in its behalf by Moses to that rebellious people.

We rest the foundation of the Sabbatic institution upon its sanctification before the fall of man; the fourth commandment is its great citadel of defense; its place in the midst of the moral law beneath the mercy-seat shows its relation to the atonement and its immutable obligation.

CHAPTER VII.
THE FEASTS, NEW MOONS AND SABBATHS OF THE HEBREWS.

Enumeration of the Hebrew festivals—The passover—The pentecost—The feast of tabernacles—The new moons—The first and second annual sabbaths—The third—The fourth—The fifth—The sixth and seventh—The sabbath of the land—The jubilee—None of these festivals in force until the Hebrews entered their own land—The contrast between the Sabbath of the Lord and the sabbaths of the Hebrews—Testimony of Isaiah—Of Hosea—Of Jeremiah—Final cessation of these festivals.

We have followed the Sabbath of the Lord through the books of Moses. A brief survey of the Jewish festivals is necessary to the complete view of the subject before us. Of these there were three feasts: the passover, the Pentecost, and the feast of tabernacles; each new moon, that is, the first day of each month throughout the year; then there were seven annual sabbaths, namely, 1. The first day of unleavened bread. 2. The seventh day of that feast. 3. The day of Pentecost. 4. The first day of the seventh month. 5. The tenth day of that month. 6. The fifteenth day of that month. 7. The twenty-second day of the same. In addition to all these, every seventh year was to be the sabbath of the land, and every fiftieth year the year of jubilee.

The passover takes its name from the fact that the angel of the Lord passed over the houses of the Hebrews on that eventful night when the firstborn in every Egyptian family was slain. This feast was ordained in commemoration of the deliverance of that people from Egyptian bondage. It began with the slaying of the paschal lamb on the fourteenth day of the first month, and extended through a period of seven days, in which nothing but unleavened bread was to be eaten. Its great antitype was reached when Christ our passover was sacrificed for us.[164]

The Pentecost was the second of the Jewish feasts, and occupied but a single day. It was celebrated on the fiftieth day after the first-fruits of barley harvest had been waved before the Lord. At the time of this feast the first-fruits of wheat harvest were offered unto God. The antitype of this festival was reached on the fiftieth day after the resurrection of Christ, when the great outpouring of the Holy Ghost took place.[165]

The feast of tabernacles was the last of the Jewish feasts. It was celebrated in the seventh month when they had gathered in the fruit of the land, and extended from the fifteenth to the twenty-first day of that month. It was ordained as a festival of rejoicing before the Lord; and during this period the children of Israel dwelt in booths in commemoration of their dwelling thus during their sojourn in the wilderness. It probably typifies the great rejoicing after the final gathering of all the people of God into his kingdom.[166]

In connection with these feasts it was ordained that each new moon, that is, the first day of every month, should be observed with certain specified offerings, and with tokens of rejoicing.[167] The annual sabbaths of the Hebrews have been already enumerated. The first two of these sabbaths were the first and seventh days of the feast of unleavened bread, that is, the fifteenth and twenty-first days of the first month. They were thus ordained by God:—

“Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses.... And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.”[168]

The third in order of the annual sabbaths was the day of Pentecost. This festival was ordained as a rest-day in the following language:—

“And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein; it shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.”[169]

The first day of the seventh month was the fourth annual sabbath of the Hebrews. It was thus ordained:—

“Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation. Ye shall do no servile work therein; but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord.”[170]

The great day of atonement was the fifth of these sabbaths. Thus spake the Lord unto Moses:—

“Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement; it shall be an holy convocation unto you.... Ye shall do no manner of work; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.”[171]

The sixth and seventh of these annual sabbaths were the fifteenth and twenty-second days of the seventh month, that is, the first day of the feast of tabernacles, and the day after its conclusion. Thus were they enjoined by God:—

“Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days; on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.”[172]

Besides all these, every seventh year was a sabbath of rest unto the land. The people might labor as usual in other business, but they were forbidden to till the land, that the land itself might rest.[173] After seven of these sabbaths, the following or fiftieth year was to be the year of jubilee, in which every man was to be restored unto his inheritance.[174] There is no evidence that the jubilee was ever observed, and it is certain that the sabbatical year was almost entirely disregarded.[175]

Such were the feasts, new moons, and sabbaths, of the Hebrews. A few words will suffice to point out the broad distinction between them and the Sabbath of the Lord. The first of the three feasts was ordained in memory of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, and was to be observed when they should enter their own land.[176] The second feast, as we have seen, could not be observed until after the settlement of the Hebrews in Canaan; for it was to be celebrated when the first fruits of wheat harvest should be offered before the Lord. The third feast was ordained in memory of their sojourn in the wilderness, and was to be celebrated by them each year after the ingathering of the entire harvest. Of course this feast, like the others, could not be observed until the settlement of the people in their own land. The new moons, as has been already seen, were not ordained until after these feasts had been instituted. The annual sabbaths were part and parcel of these feasts, and could have no existence until after the feasts to which they belonged had been instituted. Thus the first and second of these sabbaths were the first and seventh days of the paschal feast. The third annual sabbath was identical with the feast of Pentecost. The fourth of these sabbaths was the same as the new moon in the seventh month. The fifth one was the great day of atonement. The sixth and the seventh of these annual sabbaths were the fifteenth and twenty-second days of the seventh month, that is, the first day of the feast of tabernacles, and the next day after the close of that feast. As these feasts were not to be observed until the Hebrews should possess their own land, the annual sabbaths could have no existence until that time. And so of the sabbaths of the land. These could have no existence until after the Hebrews should possess and cultivate their own land; after six years of cultivation, the land should rest the seventh year, and remain untilled. After seven of these sabbaths of the land came the year of jubilee.

The contrast between the Sabbath of the Lord and these sabbaths of the Hebrews[177] is strongly marked. 1. The Sabbath of the Lord was instituted at the close of the first week of time; while these were ordained in connection with the Jewish feasts. 2. The one was blessed and hallowed by God, because that he had rested upon it from the work of creation; the others have no such claim to our regard. 3. When the children of Israel came into the wilderness, the Sabbath of the Lord was an existing institution, obligatory upon them; but the annual sabbaths then came into existence. It is easy to point to the very act of God, while leading that people, that gave existence to these sabbaths; while every reference to the Sabbath of the Lord shows that it had been ordained before God chose that people. 4. The children of Israel were excluded from the promised land for violating the Sabbath of the Lord in the wilderness; but the annual sabbaths were not to be observed until they should enter that land. This contrast would be strange indeed were it true that the Sabbath of the Lord was not instituted until the children of Israel came into the wilderness of Sin; for it is certain that two of the annual sabbaths were instituted before they left the land of Egypt.[178] 5. The Sabbath of the Lord was made for man; but the annual sabbaths were designed only for residents in the land of Palestine. 6. The one was weekly, a memorial of the Creator’s rest; the others were annual, connected with the memorials of the deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt. 7. The one is termed “the Sabbath of the Lord,” “my Sabbaths,” “my holy day,” and the like; while the others are designated as “your sabbaths,” “her sabbaths,” and similar expressions.[179] 8. The one was proclaimed by God as one of the ten commandments, and was written with his finger in the midst of the moral law upon the tables of stone, and was deposited in the ark beneath the mercy-seat; the others did not pertain to the moral law, but were embodied in that handwriting of ordinances that was a shadow of good things to come. 9. The distinction between these festivals and the Sabbaths of the Lord was carefully marked by God when he ordained the festivals and their associated sabbaths. Thus he said: “These are the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, ... beside the Sabbaths of the Lord.”[180]

The annual sabbaths are presented by Isaiah in a very different light from that in which he presents the Sabbath of the Lord. Of the one he says:—

“Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.”[181]

In striking contrast with this, the same prophet speaks of the Lord’s Sabbath:—

“Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people; neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my Sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.”[182]

Hosea carefully designates the annual sabbaths in the following prediction:—

“I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast-days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.”[183]

This prediction was uttered about B. C. 785. It was fulfilled in part about two hundred years after this, when Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Of this event, Jeremiah, about B. C. 588, speaks as follows:—

“Her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.... The Lord was as an enemy; he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces; he hath destroyed his strongholds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he hath destroyed his places of the assembly; the Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest. The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.”[184]

The feasts of the Lord were to be holden in the place which the Lord should choose, namely, Jerusalem;[185] and when that city, the place of their solemn assemblies, was destroyed and the people themselves carried into captivity, the complete cessation of their feasts, and, as a consequence, of the annual sabbaths, which were specified days in those feasts, must occur. The adversaries mocked at her sabbaths, by making a “noise in the house of the Lord as in the day of a solemn feast.” But the observance of the Lord’s Sabbath did not cease with the dispersion of the Hebrews from their own land; for it was not a local institution, like the annual sabbaths. Its violation was one chief cause of the Babylonish captivity;[186] and their final restoration to their own land was made conditional upon their observing it in their dispersion.[187] The feasts, new moons, and annual sabbaths, were restored when the Hebrews returned from captivity, and with some interruptions, were kept up until the final destruction of their city and nation by the Romans. But ere the providence of God thus struck out of existence these Jewish festivals, the whole typical system was abolished, having reached the commencement of its antitype, when our Lord Jesus Christ expired upon the cross. The handwriting of ordinances being thus abolished, no one is to be judged respecting its meats, or drinks, or holy days, or new moons, or sabbaths, “which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” But the Sabbath of the Lord did not form a part of this handwriting of ordinances; for it was instituted before sin had entered the world, and consequently before there was any shadow of redemption; it was written by the finger of God, not in the midst of types and shadows, but in the bosom of the moral law; and the day following that on which the typical sabbaths were nailed to the cross, the Sabbath commandment of the moral law is expressly recognized. Moreover, when the Jewish festivals were utterly extinguished with the final destruction of Jerusalem, even then was the Sabbath of the Lord brought to the minds of his people.[188] Thus have we traced the annual sabbaths until their final cessation, as predicted by Hosea. It remains that we trace the Sabbath of the Lord until we reach the endless ages of the new earth, when we shall find the whole multitude of the redeemed assembling before God for worship on each successive Sabbath.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE SABBATH FROM DAVID TO NEHEMIAH.

Silence of six successive books of the Bible relative to the Sabbath—This silence compared to that of the book of Genesis—The siege of Jericho—The standing still of the sun—David’s act of eating the shew-bread—The Sabbath of the Lord, how connected with and how distinguished from the annual sabbaths—Earliest reference to the Sabbath after the days of Moses—Incidental allusions to the Sabbath—Testimony of Amos—Of Isaiah—The Sabbath a blessing to mankind—The condition of being gathered to the holy land—Not a local institution—Commentary on the fourth commandment—Testimony of Jeremiah—Jerusalem to be saved if she would keep the Sabbath—This gracious offer despised—The Sabbath distinguished from the other days of the week—The Sabbath after the Babylonish captivity—Time for the commencing of the Sabbath—The violation of the Sabbath caused the destruction of Jerusalem.

When we leave the books of Moses there is a long-continued break in the history of the Sabbath. No mention of it is found in the book of Joshua, nor in that of Judges, nor in the book of Ruth, nor in that of first Samuel, nor in the book of second Samuel, nor in that of first Kings. It is not until we reach the book of second Kings[189] that the Sabbath is even mentioned. In the book of first Chronicles, however, which as a narrative is parallel to the two books of Samuel, the Sabbath is mentioned[190] with reference to the events of David’s life. Yet this leaves a period of five hundred years, which the Bible passes in silence respecting the Sabbath.

During this period we have a circumstantial history of the Hebrew people from their entrance into the promised land forward to the establishment of David as their king, embracing many particulars in the life of Joshua, of the elders and judges of Israel, of Gideon, of Barak, of Jephthah, of Samson, of Eli, of Naomi and Ruth, of Hannah and Samuel, of Saul, of Jonathan and of David. Yet in all this minute record we have no direct mention of the Sabbath.

It is a favorite argument with anti-Sabbatarians in proof of the total neglect of the Sabbath in the patriarchal age, that the book of Genesis, which does give a distinct view of the origin of the Sabbath in Paradise, at the close of the first week of time, does not in recording the lives of the patriarchs, say anything relative to its observance. Yet in that one book are crowded the events of two thousand three hundred and seventy years. What then should they say of the fact that six successive books of the Bible, relating with comparative minuteness the events of five hundred years, and involving many circumstances that would call out a mention of the Sabbath, do not mention it at all? Does the silence of one book, which nevertheless does give the institution of the Sabbath at its very commencement, and which brings into its record almost twenty-four hundred years, prove that there were no Sabbath-keepers prior to Moses? What then is proved by the fact that six successive books of the Bible, confining themselves to the events of five hundred years, an average of less than one hundred years apiece, the whole period covered by them being about one-fifth that embraced in the book of Genesis, do nevertheless preserve total silence respecting the Sabbath?

No one will adduce this silence as evidence of total neglect of the Sabbath during this period; yet why should they not? Is it because that when the narrative after this long silence brings in the Sabbath again, it does this incidentally and not as a new institution? Precisely such is the case with the second mention of the Sabbath in the Mosaic record, that is, with its mention after the silence in Genesis.[191] Is it because the fourth commandment had been given to the Hebrews whereas no such precept had previously been given to mankind? This answer cannot be admitted, for we have seen that the substance of the fourth commandment was given to the head of the human family; and it is certain that when the Hebrews came out of Egypt they were under obligation to keep the Sabbath in consequence of existing law.[192] The argument therefore is certainly more conclusive that there were no Sabbath-keepers from Moses to David, than that there were none from Adam to Moses; yet no one will attempt to maintain the first position, however many there will be to affirm the latter.

Several facts are narrated in the history of this period of five centuries that have a claim to our notice. The first of these is found in the record of the siege of Jericho.[193] By the command of God the city was encompassed by the Hebrews each day for seven days; on the last day of the seven they encompassed it seven times, when by divine interposition the walls were thrown down before them and the city taken by assault. One day of this seven must have been the Sabbath of the Lord. Did not the people of God therefore violate the Sabbath in their acting thus? Let the following facts answer: 1. That which they did in this case was by direct command of God. 2. That which is forbidden in the fourth commandment is our own work: “Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” He who reserved the seventh day unto himself, had the right to require its appropriation to his service as he saw fit. 3. The act of encompassing the city was strictly as a religious procession. The ark of the covenant of the Lord was borne before the people; and before the ark went seven priests blowing with trumpets of rams’ horns. 4. Nor could the city have been very extensive, else the going round it seven times on the last day, and their having time left for its complete destruction, would have been impossible. 5. Nor can it be believed that the Hebrews, by God’s command carrying the ark before them, which contained simply the ten words of the Most High, were violating the fourth of those words, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” It is certain that one of those seven days on which they encompassed Jericho was the Sabbath; but there is no necessity for supposing this to have been the day in which the city was taken. Nor is this a reasonable conjecture when all the facts in the case are considered. On this incident Dr. Clarke remarks as follows:—

“It does not appear that there could be any breach in the Sabbath by the people simply going round the city, the ark in company, and the priests sounding the sacred trumpets. This was a mere religious procession, performed at the command of God, in which no servile work was done.”[194]

At the word of Joshua it pleased God to arrest the earth in its revolution, and thus to cause the sun to remain stationary for a season, that the Canaanites might be overthrown before Israel.[195] Did not this great miracle derange the Sabbath? Not at all; for the lengthening of one of the six days by God’s intervention could not prevent the actual arrival of the seventh day, though it would delay it; nor could it destroy its identity. The case involves a difficulty for those who hold the theory that God sanctified the seventh part of time, and not the seventh day; for in this case the seventh part of time was not allotted to the Sabbath; but there is no difficulty involved for those who believe that God set apart the seventh day to be kept as it arrives, in memory of his own rest. One of the six days was allotted a greater length than ever before or since; yet this did not in the slightest degree conflict with the seventh day, which nevertheless did come. Moreover all this was while inspired men were upon the stage of action; and it was by the direct providence of God; and what is also to be particularly remembered, it was at a time when no one will deny that the fourth commandment was in full force.

The case of David’s eating the shew-bread is worthy of notice, as it probably took place upon the Sabbath, and because it is cited by our Lord in a memorable conversation with the Pharisees.[196] The law of the shew-bread enjoined the setting forth of twelve loaves in the sanctuary upon the pure table before the Lord every Sabbath.[197] When new bread was thus placed before the Lord each Sabbath, the old was taken away to be eaten by the priests.[198] It appears that the shew-bread which was given to David had that day been taken from before the Lord to put hot bread in its place, and consequently that day was the Sabbath. Thus, when David asked bread, the priest said, “There is no common bread under mine hand, but there is hallowed bread.” And David said, “The bread is in a manner common, especially [as the margin has it] when this day there is other sanctified in the vessel.” And so the sacred writer adds: “The priest gave him hallowed bread; for there was no bread there but the shew-bread, that was taken from before the Lord, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away.” The circumstances of this case all favor the view that this was upon the Sabbath. 1. There was no common bread with the priest. This is not strange when it is remembered that the shew-bread was to be taken from before the Lord each Sabbath and eaten by the priests. 2. That the priest did not offer to prepare other bread is not singular if it be understood that this was the Sabbath. 3. The surprise of the priest in meeting David may have been in part owing to the fact that it was the Sabbath. 4. This also may account for the detention of Doeg that day before the Lord. 5. When our Lord was called upon to pronounce upon the conduct of his disciples who had plucked and eaten the ears of corn upon the Sabbath to satisfy their hunger, he cited this case of David, and that of the priests offering sacrifices in the temple upon the Sabbath as justifying the disciples. There is a wonderful propriety and fitness in this citation, if it be understood that this act of David’s took place upon the Sabbath. It will be found to present the matter in a very different light from that in which anti-Sabbatarians present it.[199]

A distinction may be here pointed out, which should never be lost sight of. The presentation of the shew-bread and the offering of burnt sacrifices upon the Sabbath as ordained in the ceremonial law, formed no part of the original Sabbatic institution. For the Sabbath was made before the fall of man; while burnt-offerings and ceremonial rites in the sanctuary were introduced in consequence of the fall. While these rites were in force they necessarily, to some extent, connected the Sabbath with the festivals of the Jews in which the like offerings were made. This is seen only in those scriptures which record the provision made for these offerings.[200] When the ceremonial law was nailed to the cross, all the Jewish festivals ceased to exist; for they were ordained by it;[201] but the abrogation of that law could only take away those rites which it had appended to the Sabbath, leaving the original institution precisely as it came at first from its author.

The earliest reference to the Sabbath after the days of Moses is found in what David and Samuel ordained respecting the offices of the priests and Levites at the house of God. It is as follows:—

“And other of their brethren, of the sons of the Kohathites, were over the shew-bread, to prepare it every Sabbath.”[202]

It will be observed that this is only an incidental mention of the Sabbath. Such an allusion, occurring after so long a silence, is decisive proof that the Sabbath had not been forgotten or lost during the five centuries in which it had not been mentioned by the sacred historians. After this no direct mention of the Sabbath is found from the days of David to those of Elisha the prophet, a period of about one hundred and fifty years. Perhaps the ninety-second psalm is an exception to this statement, as its title, both in Hebrew and English, declares that it was written for the Sabbath day;[203] and it is not improbable that it was composed by David, the sweet singer of Israel.

The son of the Shunammite woman being dead, she sought the prophet Elisha. Her husband not knowing that the child was dead said to her:—

“Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day? It is neither new moon, nor Sabbath. And she said, It shall be well.”[204]

It is probable that the Sabbath of the Lord is here intended, as it is thrice used in a like connection.[205] If this be correct, it shows that the Hebrews were accustomed to visit the prophets of God upon that day for divine instruction; a very good commentary upon the words used relative to gathering the manna: “Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.”[206] Incidental allusion is made to the Sabbath at the accession of Jehoash to the throne of Judah,[207] about B. C. 778. In the reign of Uzziah, the grandson of Jehoash, the prophet Amos, B. C. 787, uses the following language:—

“Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?”[208]

These words were spoken more directly concerning the ten tribes, and indicate the sad state of apostasy which soon after resulted in their overthrow as a people. About fifty years after this, at the close of the reign of Ahaz, another allusion to the Sabbath is found.[209] In the days of Hezekiah, about B. C. 712, the prophet Isaiah uses the following language in enforcing the Sabbath:—

“Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment and do justice; for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people; neither let the eunuch say, Behold I am a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my Sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant, even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls, a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. The Lord God which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him.”[210]

This prophecy presents several features of peculiar interest. 1. It pertains to a time when the salvation of God is near at hand.[211] 2. It most distinctly shows that the Sabbath is not a Jewish institution; for it pronounces a blessing upon that man without respect of nationality who shall keep the Sabbath; and it then particularizes the son of the stranger, that is, the Gentile,[212] and makes a peculiar promise to him if he will keep the Sabbath. 3. And this prophecy relates to Israel when they are outcasts, that is, when they are in their dispersion, promising to gather them, and others, that is, the Gentiles, with them. Of course the condition of being gathered to God’s holy mountain must be complied with, namely, to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, and to keep the Sabbath from polluting it. 4. And hence it follows that the Sabbath is not a local institution, susceptible of being observed in the promised land alone, like the annual sabbaths,[213] but one made for mankind and capable of being observed by the outcasts of Israel when scattered in every land under heaven.[214]

Isaiah again presents the Sabbath; and this he does in language most emphatically distinguishing it from all ceremonial institutions. Thus he says:—

“If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”[215]

This language is an evangelical commentary upon the fourth commandment. It appends to it an exceeding great and precious promise that takes hold upon the land promised to Jacob, even the new earth.[216]

In the year B. C. 601, thirteen years before the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, God made to the Jewish people through Jeremiah the gracious offer, that if they would keep his Sabbath, their city should stand forever. At the same time he testified unto them that if they would not do this, their city should be utterly destroyed. Thus said the prophet:—

“Hear ye the word of the Lord, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates: Thus saith the Lord: Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem;[217] neither carry forth a burden[218] out of your houses on the Sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers. But they obeyed not, neither inclined their ears, but made their necks stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction.[219] And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work therein; then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain forever. And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt-offerings, and sacrifices, and meat-offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise, unto the house of the Lord. But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.”[220]

This gracious offer of the Most High to his rebellious people was not regarded by them; for eight years after this Ezekiel testifies thus:—

“In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow. Thou hast despised mine holy things, and hast profaned my Sabbaths.... Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.... Moreover this they have done unto me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my Sabbaths. For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house.”[221]

Idolatry and Sabbath-breaking, which were besetting sins with the Hebrews in the wilderness, and which there laid the foundation for their dispersion from their own land,[222] had ever cleaved unto them. And now when their destruction was impending from the overwhelming power of the king of Babylon, they were so deeply attached to these and kindred sins, that they would not regard the voice of warning. Before entering the sanctuary of God upon his Sabbath, they first slew their own children in sacrifice to their idols![223] Thus iniquity came to its hight, and wrath came upon them to the uttermost.

“They mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon, and they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the king of Persia.”[224]

While the Hebrews were in captivity at Babylon, God made to them an offer of restoring them to their own land and giving them again a city and a temple under circumstances of wonderful glory.[225] The condition of that offer being disregarded,[226] the offered glory was never inherited by them. In this offer were several allusions to the Sabbath of the Lord, and also to the festivals of the Hebrews.[227] One of these allusions is worthy of particular notice for the distinctness with which it discriminates between the Sabbath and the other days of the week:—

“Thus saith the Lord God: The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east, shall be shut the six working days; but on the Sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened.”[228]

Six days of the week are by divine inspiration called “the six working days;” the seventh is called the Sabbath of the Lord. Who shall dare confound this marked distinction?

After the Jews had returned from their captivity in Babylon, and had restored their temple and city, in a solemn assembly of the whole people they recount in an address to the Most High all the great events of God’s providence in their past history. Thus they testify respecting the Sabbath:—

“Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: and madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandest them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant.”[229]

Thus were all the people reminded of the great events of Mount Sinai—the giving of the ten words of the law of God, and the making known of his holy Sabbath. So deeply impressed was the whole congregation with the effect of their former disobedience, that they entered into a solemn covenant to obey God.[230] They pledged themselves to each other thus:—

“And if the people of the land bring ware or any victuals on the Sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy it of them on the Sabbath, or on the holy day; and that we would leave the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt.”[231]

In the absence of Nehemiah at the Persian court, this covenant was in part, at least, forgotten. Eleven years having elapsed, Nehemiah thus testifies concerning things at his return about B. C. 434:—

“In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine-presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; as also wine, grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; and I testified against them in the day wherein they sold victuals. There dwelt men of Tyre also therein, which brought fish, and all manner of ware, and sold on the Sabbath unto the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem. Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath. And it came to pass, that, when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the Sabbath,[232] I commanded that the gates should be shut, and charged that they should not be opened till after the Sabbath: and some of my servants set I at the gates, that there should no burden be brought in on the Sabbath day. So the merchants and sellers of all kind of ware lodged without Jerusalem once or twice. Then I testified against them, and said unto them, Why lodge ye about the wall? if ye do so again, I will lay hands on you. From that time forth came they no more on the Sabbath. And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should come and keep the gates, to sanctify the Sabbath day. Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of thy mercy.”[233]

This scripture is an explicit testimony that the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of the Jews at Babylon were in consequence of their profanation of the Sabbath. It is a striking confirmation of the language of Jeremiah, already noticed, in which he testified to the Jews that if they would hallow the Sabbath their city should stand forever; but that it should be utterly destroyed if they persisted in its profanation. Nehemiah bears testimony to the accomplishment of Jeremiah’s prediction concerning the violation of the Sabbath; and with his solemn appeal in its behalf ends the history of the Sabbath in the Old Testament.

CHAPTER IX.
THE SABBATH FROM NEHEMIAH TO CHRIST.

Great change in the Jewish people respecting idolatry and Sabbath-breaking after their return from Babylon—Decree of Antiochus Epiphanes against the Sabbath—Massacre of a thousand Sabbath-keepers in the wilderness—Similar massacre at Jerusalem—Decree of the Jewish elders relative to resisting attacks upon the Sabbath—Other martyrdoms—Victories of Judas Maccabeus—How Pompey captured Jerusalem—Teaching of the Jewish doctors respecting the Sabbath—State of the Sabbatic institution at the first advent of the Saviour.

The period of almost five centuries intervenes between the time of Nehemiah and the commencement of the ministry of the Redeemer. During this time an extraordinary change came over the Jewish people. Previously, they had been to an alarming extent idolaters, and outbreaking violators of the Sabbath. But after their return from Babylon they were never guilty of idolatry to any extent, the chastisement of that captivity effecting a cure of this evil.[234] In like manner did they change their conduct relative to the Sabbath; and during this period they loaded the Sabbatic institution with the most burdensome and rigorous ordinances. A brief survey of this period must suffice. Under the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, the king of Syria, B. C. 170, the Jews were greatly oppressed.

“King Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people, and every one should leave his laws: so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king. Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, and sacrificed unto idols, and profaned the Sabbath.”[235]

The greater part of the Hebrews remained faithful to God, and, as a consequence, were obliged to flee for their lives. Thus the historian continues:—

“Then many that sought after justice and judgment went down into the wilderness, to dwell there: both they, and their children, and their wives, and their cattle; because afflictions increased sore upon them. Now when it was told the king’s servants, and the host that was at Jerusalem, in the city of David, that certain men, who had broken the king’s commandment, were gone down into the secret places in the wilderness, they pursued after them a great number, and having overtaken them, they camped against them, and made war against them on the Sabbath day. And they said unto them, Let that which ye have done hitherto suffice; come forth, and do according to the commandment of the king, and ye shall live. But they said, We will not come forth, neither will we do the king’s commandment, to profane the Sabbath day. So then they gave them the battle with all speed. Howbeit they answered them not, neither cast they a stone at them, nor stopped the places where they lay hid. But said, Let us die all in our innocency: heaven and earth shall testify for us, that ye put us to death wrongfully. So they rose up against them in battle on the Sabbath, and they slew them, with their wives and children, and their cattle, to the number of a thousand people.”[236]

In Jerusalem itself a like massacre took place. King Antiochus sent Appollonius with an army of twenty-two thousand,

“Who, coming to Jerusalem, and pretending peace, did forbear till the holy day of the Sabbath, when taking the Jews keeping holy day, he commanded his men to arm themselves. And so he slew all them that were gone to the celebrating of the Sabbath, and running through the city with weapons, slew great multitudes.”[237]

In view of these dreadful acts of slaughter, Mattathias, “an honorable and great man,” the father of Judas Maccabeus, with his friends decreed thus:—

“Whosoever shall come to make battle with us on the Sabbath day we will fight against him; neither will we die all, as our brethren that were murdered in the secret places.”[238]

Yet were some martyred after this for observing the Sabbath. Thus we read:—

“And others, that had run together into caves near by, to keep the Sabbath day secretly, being discovered to Philip, were all burnt together, because they made a conscience to help themselves for the honor of the most sacred day.”[239]

After this, Judas Maccabeus did great exploits in defense of the Hebrews, and in resisting the dreadful oppression of the Syrian government. Of one of these battles we read:—

“When he had given them this watchword, The help of God, himself leading the first band, he joined battle with Nicanor. And by the help of the Almighty they slew above nine thousand of their enemies, and wounded and maimed the most part of Nicanor’s host, and so put all to flight; and took their money that came to buy them, and pursued them far; but lacking time, they returned: for it was the day before the Sabbath, and therefore they would no longer pursue them. So when they had gathered their armor together, and spoiled their enemies, they occupied themselves about the Sabbath, yielding exceeding praise and thanks to the Lord, who had preserved them unto that day, which was the beginning of mercy distilling upon them. And after the Sabbath, when they had given part of the spoils to the maimed, and the widows, and orphans, the residue they divided among themselves and their servants.”[240]

After this the Hebrews being attacked upon the Sabbath by their enemies, defeated them with much slaughter.[241]

About B. C. 63, Jerusalem was besieged and taken by Pompey, the general of the Romans. To do this, it was necessary to fill an immense ditch, and to raise against the city a bank on which to place the engines of assault. Thus Josephus relates the event:—

“And had it not been our practice, from the days of our forefathers, to rest on the seventh day, this bank could never have been perfected, by reason of the opposition the Jews would have made; for though our law gives us leave then to defend ourselves against those that begin to fight with us, and assault us, yet does it not permit us to meddle with our enemies while they do anything else. Which thing when the Romans understood, on those days which we call Sabbaths, they threw nothing at the Jews, nor came to any pitched battle with them, but raised up their earthen banks, and brought their engines into such forwardness, that they might do execution the next days.”[242]

From this it is seen that Pompey carefully refrained from any attack upon the Jews on each Sabbath during the siege, but spent that day in filling the ditch and raising the bank, that he might attack them on the day following each Sabbath, that is, upon Sunday. Josephus further relates that the priests were not at all hindered from their sacred ministrations by the stones thrown among them from the engines of Pompey, even “if any melancholy accident happened;” and that when the city was taken and the enemy fell upon them, and cut the throats of those that were in the temples, yet did not the priests run away or desist from the offering of the accustomed sacrifices.

These quotations from Jewish history are sufficient to indicate the extraordinary change that came over that people concerning the Sabbath, after the Babylonish captivity. A brief view of the teaching of the Jewish doctors respecting the Sabbath at the time when our Lord began his ministry will conclude this chapter:—

“They enumerated about forty primary works, which they said were forbidden to be done on the Sabbath. Under each of these were numerous secondary works, which they said were also forbidden.... Among the primary works which were forbidden, were ploughing, sowing, reaping, winnowing, cleaning, grinding, etc. Under the head of grinding, was included the breaking or dividing of things which were before united.... Another of their traditions was, that, as threshing on the Sabbath was forbidden, the bruising of things, which was a species of threshing, was also forbidden. Of course, it was violation of the Sabbath to walk on green grass, for that would bruise or thresh it. So, as a man might not hunt on the Sabbath, he might not catch a flea; for that was a species of hunting. As a man might not carry a burden on the Sabbath, he might not carry water to a thirsty animal, for that was a species of burden; but he might pour water into a trough, and lead the animal to it.... Yet should a sheep fall into a pit, they would readily lift him out, and bear him to a place of safety.... They said a man might minister to the sick for the purpose of relieving their distress, but not for the purpose of healing their diseases. He might put a covering on a diseased eye, or anoint it with eye-salve for the purpose of easing the pain, but not to cure the eye.”[243]

Such was the remarkable change in the conduct of the Jewish people toward the Sabbath; and such was the teaching of their doctors respecting it. The most merciful institution of God for mankind had become a source of distress; that which God ordained as a delight and a source of refreshment had become a yoke of bondage; the Sabbath, made for man in paradise, was now a most oppressive and burdensome institution. It was time that God should interfere. Next upon the scene of action appears the Lord of the Sabbath.

CHAPTER X.
THE SABBATH DURING THE LAST OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS.

Mission of the Saviour—His qualifications as a judge of Sabbatic observance—State of the institution at his advent—The Saviour at Nazareth—At Capernaum—His discourse in the corn-field—Case of the man with a withered arm—The Saviour among his relatives—Case of the impotent man—Of the man born blind—Of the woman bound by Satan—Of the man who had the dropsy—Object of our Lord’s teaching and miracles relative to the Sabbath—Unfairness of many anti-Sabbatarians—Examination of Matt. 24:20—The Sabbath not abrogated at the crucifixion—Fourth commandment after that event—Sabbath not changed at the resurrection of Christ—Examination of John 20:26—Of Acts 2:1, 2—Redemption furnishes no argument for the change of the Sabbath—Examination of Ps. 118:22-24—The Sabbath neither abolished nor changed as late as the close of the seventy weeks.

In the fullness of time God sent forth his Son to be the Saviour of the world. He who fulfilled this mission of infinite benevolence was both the Son of God and the Son of man. He was with the Father before the world was, and by him God created all things.[244] The Sabbath being ordained at the close of that great work as a memorial to keep it in lasting remembrance, the Son of God, by whom all things were created, could not be otherwise than a perfect judge of its true design, and of its proper observance. The sixty-nine weeks of Daniel’s prophecy being accomplished, the Redeemer began to preach, saying, “The time is fulfilled.”[245] The ministry of the Saviour was at a time when the Sabbath of the Lord had become utterly perverted from its gracious design, by the teaching of the Jewish doctors. As we have seen in the previous chapter, it was to the people no longer a source of refreshment and delight, but a cause of suffering and distress. It had been loaded down with traditions by the doctors of the law until its merciful and beneficent design was utterly hidden beneath the rubbish of men’s inventions. It being impracticable for Satan, after the Babylonish captivity, to cause the Jewish people, even by bloody edicts, to relinquish the Sabbath and openly to profane it as before that time, he turned their doctors so to pervert it, that its real character should be utterly changed and its observance entirely unlike that which would please God. We shall find that the Saviour never missed an opportunity to correct their false notions respecting the Sabbath; and that he selected, with evident design, the Sabbath as the day on which to perform many of his merciful works. It will be found that no small share of his teaching through his whole ministry was devoted to a determination of what was lawful on the Sabbath, a singular fact for those to explain who think that he designed its abrogation. At the opening of our Lord’s ministry, we read thus:—

“And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee; and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read.”[246]

Such was the manner of the Saviour relative to the Sabbath. It is evident that in this he designed to show his regard for that day; for it was not necessary thus to do in order to gain a congregation, as vast multitudes were ever ready to throng his steps. His testimony being rejected, our Lord left Nazareth for Capernaum. Thus the sacred historian says:—

“But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way, and came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath days. And they were astonished at his doctrine; for his word was with power. And in the synagogue there was a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil; and he cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth; art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not. And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out. And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about. And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon’s house. And Simon’s wife’s mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her. And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and it left her; and immediately she arose and ministered unto them.”[247]

These miracles are the first which stand upon record as performed by the Saviour upon the Sabbath. But the strictness of Jewish views relative to the Sabbath is seen in that they waited till sunset, that is, till the Sabbath was passed,[248] before they brought the sick to be healed. Thus it is added:—