SIXTEENTH OF EXODUS by R. F. Cottrell

Publishing Committee · Rochester, N. Y. · Sep 19, 1854

SIXTEENTH OF EXODUS.

By R. F. Cottrell

THIS chapter seems to be very much in the way of our no-Sabbath friends, and it seems very unfortunate for them that it is in the Bible. They reject the Sabbath as instituted in Gen. ii, because no command to keep it is there given.

One takes his stand at Mt. Sinai, and says, Here the Jewish Sabbath was instituted; but the sixteenth of Exodus, which proves that the Sabbath was known and observed, at least a month before Israel came to Sinai, stares him in the face. The Sabbath is here acknowledged as a part of the law of God.

Another beholding the calamity of his brother, and observing the rock on which he split, takes his position in the wilderness of Sin, congratulating himself on the strength of this position; for, says he, the Sabbath is nowhere commanded in the record, till you come to the sixteenth of Exodus. Here he locates the making of the Jewish Sabbath; but what is his astonishment, when he finds that the Sabbath is not commanded here; so that, if a commandment is necessary in order to finish the institution, we must come to Sinai for it.

Our Saviour said, "The Sabbath was made for man." We take the ground, that it was made at the time when God rested on the seventh day, and then blessed and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested. He did not bless and sanctify the day for himself to rest upon; but after he had rested, he blessed and sanctified it, as we think for man; and his reason for this was, that he had rested upon it. At that time the Sabbath was made for man.

No, says the objector, the Sabbath was made for the Jews in the wilderness of Sin. It was not finished at the creation, because it was not then commanded. We understand him, then, that Jehovah commenced the work of making a Sabbath for the human family, at the creation, to commemorate that event; that after getting it about two-thirds, or three-quarters done, he gave up his design, and laid it aside, where it lay unfinished for 2500 years; that when he had brought Israel out of Egypt as far as the wilderness of Sin, it came into his mind to give them a Jewish Sabbath, to commemorate their deliverance from Egypt; so he takes up that old, unfinished Sabbath, and finishes it off for Jewish use, in these words: "To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord." This accounts for the reason given for the institution in the fourth (Jewish) commandment: "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."

When we hear men exclaiming, with the greatest emphasis, that we hear nothing of the Sabbath from the account of the creation down to the days of Moses, a period of 2500 years, we feel like informing them that Moses wrote the first of Genesis, as well as the last of Exodus. And that the history of the creation was probably written after the giving of the law at Sinai.

How much better to look at things in their natural order. We find the Sabbath existing, and the Israelites having a knowledge of it in the wilderness of Sin. A month after this the law is given at Sinai, and the Lord gives a reason for the Sabbath as old as the creation. Then Moses, being instructed by Jehovah, gives a brief history of the world, from the creation down to his own day, and in doing this, states the fact, that God rested on the seventh day, and then blessed and sanctified it. There is no necessity for him to go back there, and command Adam to keep it. Israel were keeping it before they came to Sinai, where the first commandment on record for keeping it was given; and the inspired testimony of Moses assures them that it was not merely a human tradition, but that it was instituted by God himself at the beginning.

The truth of God will bear investigation, and the more we examine it the brighter it shines.

R. F. COTTRELL.