When was the Sabbath Instituted?
Some have contended that the Sabbath was not instituted until the law was given to Moses at Mount Sinai. But there are serious difficulties in the way of this belief. In the second chapter of Genesis, after having given an account of the creation, the sacred historian says: “On the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 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.” Now, if any part of this narrative is to be construed literally, the whole of it must be; and if we may not venture to deny or explain away the account which Moses has given of the creation, then we may not deny or explain away this unequivocal statement respecting the original institution of the Sabbath in Paradise. The blessing and sanctifying of the seventh day is mentioned in connection with the first seventh day in the order of time, and it is so mentioned as most forcibly to impress the reader that the Sabbath was then instituted. God’s resting on the day is given as the reason for its sanctification; and it cannot be supposed that this reason existed two thousand five hundred years before the institution. We conclude, therefore, that the Sabbath was enjoined immediately after the close of the work of creation. This opinion is corroborated by some facts recorded in the Scriptures. There are frequent and early notices of reckoning by sevens. Noah observed a period of seven days in sending the raven and dove from the ark; the term week is used in the contract between Jacob and Laban; Joseph mourned seven days for his father; and Job and his friends observed the term of seven days. Nor is it in the sacred volume or among the Jews alone that such facts are found. Nearly all the nations of antiquity were acquainted with the weekly division of time. The Assyrians, Egyptians, Indians, Arabians, and, in a word, all the nations of the East, have in all ages made use of a week of seven days.—And we find that these nations not only divided time thus, but that they regarded as holy the very day which had been sanctified as a Sabbath, although they had forsaken the true worship of God. Homer, Hesiod, and Callimachus, say, “The seventh day is holy.” Theophilus of Antioch says, respecting the seventh day, “The day which all mankind celebrate.” Josephus asserts that, “no city of Greeks or barbarians can be found, which does not acknowledge a seventh day’s rest from labor.” And Philo says, that “the Sabbath was a festival not peculiar to any one people or country, but so common to all mankind, that it might be called a public and general feast of the nativity of the world.” These authors, who lived in different ages and were of different nations, cannot be supposed to have written thus in order to please the Jews, who were generally despised and persecuted; and this universal reverence for the seventh day cannot be accounted for upon any other supposition than that the Sabbath was instituted at the close of creation, and handed down by tradition to all the descendants of Adam. If additional proof of this early institution of the Sabbath is needed, it may be drawn from the manner in which it was revived in the wilderness. Before the children of Israel came to Mount Sinai we find them voluntarily making provision for the Sabbath, by gathering on the sixth day a double portion of manna. “And all the rulers came and told Moses. And he said unto them, this is that which the Lord hath said: to-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.” “And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day 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.”—The rebuke, how long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? implies the previous appointment of the Sabbath; and the positive assertion, the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, ought to settle the question in any mind disposed to understand the sacred historian. What day of the week do the Scriptures designate as the Sabbath?
To this question, it might be supposed that every person who has any acquaintance with the subject would readily reply—The seventh. We are aware, however, that efforts are made to render this a difficult point to determine. We shall, therefore, make a few remarks upon it. It is plainly recorded that the Creator, after laboring the first six days, in which he completed the work of creation, rested the following day, which was the seventh in the order of creation. This particular day God therefore sanctified and blessed. “And God blessed the seventh day.” When the law was given at Mount Sinai, the observance of the seventh day was commanded; and the manner in which the fourth commandment is expressed, shows beyond a doubt, that one particular and definite day was known to Israel by this name. Consequently, they needed no instruction as to what day was intended. This is observable in Ex. xvi, 22, where the sixth and seventh days of the week are mentioned by their ordinal names, as a subject with which the people were familiarly acquainted. In this place, also, the seventh day is declared to be the Sabbath. There can be no reasonable doubt but that the day which in the time of Moses was known as the seventh day, was the same in its weekly succession with that which is called the seventh day in Gen. ii, 3. If the seventh day mentioned in the fourth commandment was not the same day of the week mentioned in Gen. ii, 3, as some profess to think, it must be perfectly inexplicable, that no intimation is given in the history of those events that another seventh day was intended in the fourth commandment than the one mentioned in the institution of the Sabbath, especially since both are recorded in the same appellation in a direct series of events. But what removes all obscurity from the subject is, that God has positively declared that the day which he commanded to be observed in Ex. xx, is the same on which he rested at the close of the creation. “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 on the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” This language is definite; and while it assures us that the day here commanded to be observed is the same in its weekly returns with the day on which God rested, it assures us against any derangement of the week, or loss of time which might have been produced in the long lapse of time from the creation, by the general apostasy from the true worship of God. Had the true Sabbath been lost, it was certainly restored; and the day then known as the seventh day received the divine sanction. The same remark is applicable to the subject during the succeeding history of the Jewish nation. Had the weekly Sabbath fallen into total neglect, and the day of its regular recurrence been forgotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, by giving his divine example in favor of the day known by the Jewish nation as the proper seventh day of the decalogue, has settled the question conclusively, down to that time: so that the day known in the New Testament as the Sabbath, was the seventh day in regular succession from the creation of the world. A perfect uniformity among all the nations in the known world, as to the days of the2week, both before and since the advent of Christ, is a further testimony, that no derangement of the days of the week has ever taken place. Indeed, it will not be pretended that the account of time has been lost since the introduction of Christianity.—Since that period, the Jews as a people have maintained a perfect uniformity in the observance of the ancient Sabbath, though scattered through every nation of the globe; and the Christian church, in all its divisions, has been known to observe either the seventh or the first day of the week; and for a considerable length of time, both of these days. So that we are as certain that the day now known as the seventh day of the week, is the same with that enjoined in the fourth commandment, as we are of any fact, for the knowledge of which we are dependent on the testimony of mankind. In this connection, we would remark, that the sabbatical law does not appoint a seventh day, but the seventh day. It is but a flimsy subterfuge to pretend that the fourth commandment enjoins only a seventh part of our time to be kept holy. The people of Israel never so understood the law of the Sabbath; and their uniform conduct ever since shows that they understood it to mean the last day of the week, and that only. It will be admitted, that had the Jews, in the days of Moses, profaned the rest of the seventh day, under the pretext that they had rested on one of the preceding six days, they would have paid dearly for their presumption. If, then, their sense of this precept was correct, no person in any age has a right to understand it in a different sense, for a law cannot have a contrary or a double meaning. While the terms of that precept remain the same, its meaning must continue the same. It is true that the law which enjoins the observance of the last day of every seven, does as a consequence enjoin the seventh part of our time; but it is still the seventh day in its proper order that it requires, and not merely a seventh part. And it should be remembered, that Christ hath said, “not one jot or tittle shall in any wise pass from the law;” and that the most awful penalty is denounced on him who dares to explain away its proper meaning. It is obvious, also, that if a seventh day, or any one day after six of labor, be all that is required by the law of the Sabbath, the seventh or last must still be that day, from the fact, that to change it without divine authority would be to change the length of the week, and violate God’s established order. And as in the first instance it would be sin, time would never change the character of that act. A wrong never will become a right by our persisting in it. As it could not be changed without sin, so the sin must ever remain until repented of and retracted. It should be remembered, likewise, that by an admission that a seventh day or a seventh part of our time only is required, all argument for a change is effectually silenced; for if any good reason existed for one day more than another, the mere seventh part must be abandoned.