THE SABBATH IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE.
By J. O. Corliss
Nothing is plainer to my mind than the fact that the patriarchs kept the Sabbath—the seventh day of the fourth commandment—and that they observed laws, among whose precepts one existed which regulated the observance of that day. That God had a law at that time is plainly evident from his own word. In repeating the promise to Isaac which he had sworn to Abraham, he declares he will perform it, “because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws.” Gen. 26:5. Then in Abraham’s time God had an instrument he denominated “my laws.” Now the question arises, Was the Sabbath command among them? We think it was for the following reasons: After the children of Israel had left Egypt, at least one month before God uttered his law from Sinai to the assembled multitude, he spoke to Moses and said, “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.” Ex. 16:4. Had the record been left here, no one would be able to understand how they could be tested on God’s law by simply gathering their daily food; but the sequel shows how and on what part of his law the test came. Soon the manna fell, and the people gathered it every morning as ordered (verse 21); but when the sixth day came, they gathered a double portion to last over the next day, thus pointing out, unmistakably, their knowledge of the existence of the Sabbath, and their manner of observing it. The twenty-seventh verse in continuing the narrative says, “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?” showing that the test of obedience fell on the observance of the Sabbath, which was the seventh day, and that that Sabbath comprised a part of what God called “my laws.” Again, we find all through the patriarchal age the custom of measuring time by weeks, a thing impossible had there not been one day among them—a day of rest, distinct from the others—which could mark the end of each week; and the fact that afterward, six days of time did pass each week without a name, followed by one with a descriptive term, and that term the sacred title of “Sabbath of the Lord,” is certainly a sufficient mark to distinguish it from all other days. This mark we believe was recognized in the patriarchal age from the fact that the same week of seven days is recognized at the transition from the patriarchal to the Mosaic age, that is brought to view at the ushering in of the patriarchal. See Gen. chapters 1 and 2: 1–3; also Ex. 16, and 20: 8–11. This custom, too, as we learn from good authority, was not confined to the patriarchs alone, but was observed by all the heathen nations, which would show that it had been handed down from Adam, the common father of mankind. Josephus says, “There is no city, Greek or barbarian, in which the custom of resting on the seventh day is not preserved.”—Contra Apion, lib. 2. Dion Cassius (lib. 33) states “that the custom of computing the time by weeks was derived from the Egyptians to all mankind; and that this was not a new, but a very ancient, custom,” in which Herodotus concurs. Grotius informs us that the memory of the six days’ work was preserved not only among the Greeks and Italians by honoring the seventh day, but also among the Celts and Indians, who all measured the time by weeks.—De Veritate, lib. 1, sect. 16. “The Mosaic law imposed no new obligation on Gentiles, and, as the strangers residing among the Jews were required to observe the Sabbath, this requirement must have been based upon, and acquired its force from, patriarchal law.”—De Legibus Patriarcharum, p. 464. When God spake the commandments from Sinai, he said, “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,” etc., and he gave as a reason for the command that he had rested on that day, and blessed and hallowed it, after creating the world in six days; thus pointing their minds back to the time when the sanctification of the day took place; namely, at the close of the first week of time. Then, in Eden, before man fell, the Sabbath was appointed for him, and kept by the patriarchs of old; and when Eden is restored and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob find a place there, with all who are their associates in that holy place, they will keep God’s holy Sabbath and come to worship before him. Isa. 66:22, 23.