57—BEGINNING OF THE SABBATH
By L. C. C.
When does the Sabbath commence, and why? L. C. C. The day is marked off, in Genesis 1, by the evening and the morning, beginning at the evening, and ending at the evening. In Lev. 23: 32, where instruction is given in regard to one of the sabbaths, we read, “From even unto even, shall ye keep your sabbath.” The real question, then, is as to when the evening begins. This is quite clearly shown in the first chapter of Mark, the fourth of Luke, and the eighth of Matthew. The passage in Mark will probably be sufficient. The parallel passages can be easily looked up from this. The Jews did not bring the sick to be healed on the Sabbath day. Their traditions would not allow them to do so, and they waited until the Sabbath was over. The time the Sabbath was over was evening, and the time evening began was at the setting of the sun. Therefore we read, “At even, when the sun did set, they brought unto Him all that were sick.” This certainly makes it very clear that the evening began with the setting of the sun. The same thing is clearly implied in the thirteenth chapter of Nehemiah. The children of Israel were allowing strangers to come into Jerusalem and sell goods on the Sabbath day. Nehemiah truly felt that that day belonged to the Lord, and that Jerusalem was held in trust by God's people, and that the Sabbath ought to be kept. Therefore he set a watch by the gates, so that the gates should be closed. The time when these gates were to be closed was thus stated in verse 19: “It came to pass that, when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut, and commanded that they should not be opened till after the Sabbath.” We can understand that with the high walls of ancient times, when the sun was setting, the place where darkness would begin would be in the heavy shadows against the wall. This is perfectly in harmony with the quotation from Mark, that the evening began when the sun set. It is true that there are those who have thought the Sabbath ought to close by clock time, but there is a reason why the Lord has placed its beginning and close at the setting of the sun. In Gen. 1: 14 we read, “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.” The greater light, the sun, was to rule the day. That would be a clock to men wherever man could properly live on this earth. It would be a timepiece that would never get out of order. It would be applicable in all the nations of the earth. That would not be true as regards clocks. Men had no way to measure time anciently as they do now. They measured it by the sun, and there are nations that do about the same still. They can never make a mistake regarding that; and the Lord so regulated His Sabbath that nature itself would indicate the time of its beginning.