BUT when we reach the seventh month, Dr. A. makes an earnest effort to identify the weekly Sabbath, observed by the Hebrews, with the several annual sabbaths which came in that month. As he claims 30 days to each month, a weekly Sabbath reckoned from Abib 15, would come on the third day of the seventh month. But the law distinctly states that the first day of the month should be a sabbath. Verse 24. So Dr. Akers lengthens the sixth month two days; or rather, he says, as the last month of the Jewish civil year, it once had thirty-five days, and he shortens it three days, so that it has thenceforth but thirty-two. And the month thus changed, as Dr. A. reckons it, is made to end on the sixth day of the week, so that the seventh month, beginning with an annual sabbath, has that sabbath come on the day of the weekly Sabbath, as Dr. A. reckons it from Abib 15.
It is with such violent efforts that Dr. A. succeeds in identifying one of his weekly Sabbaths, reckoned from Abib 15, with one of the subsequent annual sabbaths of Lev. 23. But the next sabbath of this series comes nine days later, and obstinately refuses to be identified with his weekly Sabbath. So Dr. A. finds an excuse, in that the people were to afflict their souls on this tenth day of the month, for declaring that it was not a Sabbath, though the law declares it to be one in the most emphatic manner. See Lev. 23:27-32.
Five days later than this was another annual sabbath; and one week from that was another, i. e., the fifteenth and the twenty-second days of the seventh month were sabbaths. But Dr. A. having pulled down the tenth day of the seventh month from the rank of the annual sabbaths, establishes out of his own heart a weekly Sabbath on the eighth day of the seventh month instead of the tenth day ordained of God for an annual sabbath. With this change, made by violent wresting of the ceremonial law, he is able to identify his weekly Sabbath from Abib 15 with the series of annual sabbaths in the seventh month; viz., the first, the fifteenth, and the twenty-second. But to do this he destroys one Sabbath expressly established by God, and establishes another out of his own heart.
Were it true that these were weekly Sabbaths, it would not be the case that the first two of them are only five days apart! That the third comes on the morrow after the Sabbath! That the next two are ten days apart! And that the next one comes in five days! These were simply annual sabbaths, and were different in their nature from the Sabbath of the Lord. And indeed, had they been simply weekly Sabbaths there would have been no need of enjoining them as days of the months, for in their turn they would all have been observed. It is manifest that this effort to reckon the year in such a manner that it shall end with the sixth day of the week, so that the new year, Abib 1, and the first day of unleavened bread, Abib 15, might always come on the day of the weekly Sabbath, is something which has no other support than is found in the ingenuity of its author. That these sabbaths of Lev. 23 come sometimes upon the weekly Sabbath is freely admitted. That they did not regularly come thus has been fully proved.
Dr. Akers brings forward one fact as a strong proof that the first day of the first month, and consequently the fifteenth day of that month, also, was the weekly Sabbath. It is this: That Moses, according to Exodus 40, set up the tabernacle, and set in it the table and the show bread on the first day of the first month. But the law (Lev. 24:5-9) commanded the priests to set forth the shew bread every Sabbath. Therefore when Moses set up the tabernacle, and set forth the show bread on Abib 1, that day must have been the Sabbath.
1. But this ceremonial precept touching the setting forth of the show bread on the Sabbath was not given till some time after Moses set up the tabernacle. So it furnishes no proof to sustain Dr. A. Compare Ex. 40 and Lev. 24.
2. It was a strict law, which we find in Lev. 16, that the high priest should enter the holiest only on the tenth day of the seventh month. But before this precept was given, it appears that Aaron entered that place at all times. Lev. 16:1, 2. This shows that, arguing from a precept of the ceremonial law before it has an existence, as does Dr. A., is very certain to lead to wrong conclusions.
3. The evidence that the tabernacle was set up on the Sabbath therefore amounts to nothing. And indeed, when God had plenty of time for the work, it was in the highest degree improbable that he would cause so extensive a labor to be performed upon the Sabbath. Even if it could be proved it would only show that the Sabbath did constitute the first day of that one year, and not that it did always begin the year. But it is not proved that it did even this one year; and hence the proof to be derived from it that the fifteenth of Abib was always a Sabbath amounts to nothing at all. In closing the examination of Dr. Akers' argument in support of his theory, several facts should be adduced which show that his establishment of the weekly Sabbath upon the fifteenth of Abib is absolutely without any foundation in truth.213
1. The fifteenth of Abib in Egypt was wholly unlike the weekly Sabbath of the Lord. Just after midnight Israel was thrust out, and taking what they could carry upon their shoulders, they thus started in the night, and that whole people, amounting to some three millions in all, marched from Rameses to Succoth, driving with them their flocks and their herds! Ex. 12:29-39.
2. Surely if this was the foundation of a new order of Sabbaths to be observed by the Hebrews, it was laid in a manner utterly unlike that of the Sabbath of the Lord. Gen. 2:1-3.
3. But if the following day, viz., Abib 16, was the true Sabbath of the Lord, as Dr. A. professes to be able to show by exact count that it was, did it not come in a good time, and must it not have been very acceptable to that people? Must it not have surprised them very much to have Moses say to them (provided that he did), that though that was the ancient Sabbath, they need not keep it, as their flight out of Egypt the previous day was all the Sabbath-keeping they needed for that week!
4. Did God sanctify this day for a weekly Sabbath? If so, where is the record of the fact? Did he take from them his ancient Sabbath? If so, what did he say on the point to Israel? If we have no record that he said anything of the kind, who knows that he did?
5. Did God then remove the sanctity from the true seventh day, his original Sabbath? If not, did not Israel, for the whole period from the exodus till Christ's resurrection, desecrate the sanctified rest-day of the Lord, provided Dr. Akers' theory is true? But if he did take away the sanctity of the ancient Sabbath at the exodus, did not the day need to be sanctified over again at the resurrection of Christ?
6. It is very true that God bade Israel remember the day on which they left Egypt. But was it to be commemorated weekly or annually? One test will determine. Did God say, "Remember the sixth day of the week, for in that day you were brought forth out of Egypt?" Or did he bid them remember the fifteenth day of the first month, for on that day they were brought forth of Egypt? If he said the first, it established a weekly celebration. If he said the last, it established simply an annual celebration. Does not every Bible student know that he did not then command the observance of a weekly, but of an annual, day of commemoration? How often can the fifteenth day of the first month come?
7. But they had one week in Egypt with only six days in it! And its sixth day was made into the Sabbath by their fleeing upon it! And they kept the day so effectually by thus fleeing, that they had no occasion to observe the following day which was the Sabbath of the Lord!
8. But what about this sixth-day keeping? Dr. Akers says, God then gave them the sixth day for the Sabbath. Did he then bid them to observe the sixth day as the Sabbath after the model of that Egyptian week? Oh! no; he made the sixth day into the seventh, as we are told by Dr. Akers!
9. But how could even the Almighty do this, seeing that he has no power to utter a falsehood?
10. And how does Dr. Akers know that he did thus change the Sabbath from the seventh day to the sixth? And what testimony does he find that God first gave Israel a week of six days, and then improved upon it by giving them a week which began on his own seventh day and ended on his sixth?
11. The reader need not be told that Dr. A. does this by counting. He counts from the resurrection of Christ, back to the rest-day of the Creator in Eden, and thus makes out that "the first day" in the one case is "the seventh day" in the other. Then he counts from the Lord's rest-day, forward to the exodus; and if he counts right, then Abib 16 was the true Sabbath. And if he can, in addition to, and independent of, all this, prove that Abib 15 was made into a weekly Sabbath at that time, then all this change of the Sabbath, and all this change of the week, follow as a matter of course. But if Dr. A. has made the mistake of just one day in this immense count, then all these wonderful changes are creations of his own fancy.
11. The fifteenth of Abib was of the same rank with the other annual sabbaths, of Lev. 23, with the exception of the tenth of the seventh month, which was more sacred than the rest. It came once a year, and not once a week, like the Sabbath of the Lord. And whereas no servile work was to be performed on Abib 15, no work at all was to be done on the seventh day. Lev. 23:3, 6-8.
12. Finally, the preparation of food was expressly allowed on the fifteenth of Abib, the first day of unleavened bread (Ex. 12:15, 16; Lev. 23:6-8), but was expressly forbidden upon the day of the weekly Sabbath. Ex. 16:23. This of itself is a clear proof that the fifteenth of Abib was not made to recur regularly on the day of the weekly Sabbath.
We have thus shown that Dr. Akers has no valid reasons to prove that the first day of unleavened bread was the seventh day of the week; and we have proved by positive evidence that such cannot possibly be the case.