THE SABBATH CHANGED ONE THOUSAND TIMES
A copy of the Herald, containing Eld. P.’s argument, reached me on the 14th of Nov. I responded in the following article, which, coming after the above reply and also after an answer from an Anti-sabbatarian had both been given, was not inserted in that paper. My reply is confined to the one point which he brings forward as his ground of argument for the annual change of the Sabbath, and is as follows:— THE SABBATH CHANGED ONE THOUSAND TIMES.
Editor of the Herald: Your paper of the 10th inst. contains an article entitled, “Saturday not the Christian Sabbath,” in which some things are said that should be corrected. According to this article, the Sabbath has been changed not less than one thousand times! In other words, it was changed each year from the time of Moses to that of Christ, except about one year in every seven when the passover fell on Friday, in which case the weekly cycle continued unchanged for two years at a time. It is, therefore, a very moderate estimate that the Sabbath was changed, in the period of nearly fifteen hundred years, at least one thousand times! But what authority has this writer for asserting these annual changes of the Sabbath? Every thoughtful reader of the Herald, whether in favor of, or opposed to, the observance of the weekly Sabbath, cannot but be interested to know on what evidence such a statement was made. Look at this new Sabbatic theory: 1. “The Jews did not observe a regular succession or continued cycles of seventh-day Sabbaths only a year at a time, except when their passover fell on what we now call Friday.” 2. “As the passover must be holden ‘in the fourteenth day of the first month,’ the day following the passover was to the Jews their annual, or first weekly Sabbath in that year, by which they were to be governed by cycles of sevens for the year then next following.” If these two propositions are true, several conclusions follow: 1. That the week observed58by the Jews was changeable; one kind of week lasting one year, and then giving place to another kind which was to serve for the next year. 2. That though the weekly Sabbath of the Jews was the last day of each of their weeks, yet in consequence of the fact that the week was changed each year, the Sabbath was not the same day from year to year. 3. That it is incorrect to represent the Jews as observers of Saturday, rather than Sunday; for, according to this writer, they honored each day of the week as the Sabbath, by giving it that place for one year, and then adopting in its stead another day. 4. The Sabbath could not therefore have been changed from Saturday to Sunday at the resurrection of Christ, inasmuch as Saturday was not the Sabbath of the old dispensation, but all the days were such by turns; and therefore the change could only be from this peculiar arrangement to that of hallowing one definite day for the present dispensation. 5. As this writer informs us that the fifteenth day of the first month was to the Jews “the first weekly Sabbath” in each year, it follows that there were at the commencement of each year fourteen days without a Sabbath! And as the old year might end from one to six days after the last Sabbath of that year, there would be this number of days at the close of the old year to add to the fourteen days at the commencement of the new, in which the Jews had no weekly Sabbath! 6. But should this writer retract his statement that the fifteenth day of the first month was the “first weekly Sabbath in that year,” and assert that the first and eighth days of that month were weekly Sabbaths also, he would still have, generally, year by year, a space varying from one to five days between the last Sabbath of the old year and the first one of the new, though sometimes the two Sabbaths would have no day between! But how does this writer know that the Sabbath was changed annually? Is there such a statement in the Bible? Not one. How does he then prove this doctrine? He refers to Lev. 23: 9–11, to show that the Jews must offer the sheaf of the first-fruits of barley harvest on the morrow after the Sabbath; and he asserts that this Sabbath was the fifteenth day of the first month. But here are the words from which this doctrine is deduced: “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest; and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you; on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.” It is from this text the thousand changes of the weekly Sabbath are proved! The fifteenth day of the first month being the next day after the passover, was to be a day in which no servile work should be done. Lev. 23: 5, 6. And after five days’ time came another of these annual Sabbaths. Verses 7, 8. These were not weekly Sabbaths, being only five days apart, and coming without regard to the day of the week. And now observe his argument. He teaches that the Sabbath referred to in Lev. 23: 9–11, after which the first-fruits were to be offered, was this fifteenth of the first month mentioned in verses 5, 6; and hence asserts that this annual Sabbath was identical with the regular weekly Sabbath; and from this, reasons that the weekly Sabbath was governed by the lunar arrangement of the months; and, assuming that this was so, concludes that the order of the weeks was changed every year, and thence asserts that the Sabbath must have been changed annually! And so we have not less than one thousand changes of the Sabbath proved from a text that has no well ascertained reference to the fifteenth day of the first month, and that can only be identified with that day by first proving that the Sabbath of this text is not a weekly Sabbath, and when this is done it leaves this new doctrine without even the shadow of support.