[1] For the scriptural and traditional evidence on this point, see Shimeall’s Bible Chronology, part i. chap. vi; Taylor’s Voice of the Church, pp. 25-30; and Bliss’ Sacred Chronology, pp. 199-203.
[2] Isa. 57:15; 1 Sam. 15:29, margin; Jer. 10:10, margin; Micah 5:2, margin; 1 Tim. 6:16; 1:17; Ps. 90:2.
[3] Dr. Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on Gen. 1:1, uses the following language: “Created] Caused that to exist which previously to this moment, had no being. The rabbins, who are legitimate judges in a case of verbal criticism on their own language, are unanimous in asserting that the word bara, expresses the commencement of the existence of a thing: or its egression from nonentity to entity.... These words should be translated: ‘God in the beginning created the substance of the heavens and the substance of the earth; i. e., the prima materia, or first elements, out of which the heavens and the earth were successively formed.’”
Purchase’s Pilgrimage, b. i. chap, ii., speaks thus of the creation: “Nothing but nothing had the Lord Almighty, whereof, wherewith, whereby, to build this city” [that is the world].
Dr. Gill says: “These are said to be created, that is, to be made out of nothing; for what pre-existent matter to this chaos [of verse 2] could there be out of which they could be formed?”
“Creation must be the work of God, for none but an almighty power could produce something out of nothing.” Commentary on Gen. 1:1.
John Calvin, in his Commentary on this chapter, thus expounds the creative act: “His meaning is, that the world was made out of nothing. Hence the folly or those is refuted who imagine that unformed matter existed from eternity.”
The work of creation is thus defined in 2 Maccabees 7:28: “Look upon the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, and consider that God made them of things that were not; and so was mankind made likewise.”
That this creative act marked the commencement of the first day instead of preceding it by almost infinite ages is thus stated in 2 Esdras 6:38: “And I said, O Lord, thou spakest from the beginning of the creation, even the first day, and saidst thus: Let heaven and earth be made; and thy word was a perfect work.”
Wycliffe’s translation, the earliest of the English versions, renders Gen. 1:1, thus: “In the first, made God of naught heaven and earth.”
[4] Heb. 11:3; Gen. 1.
[5] Gen. 1:1-5; Heb. 1.
[6] Gen. 1:6-8; Job 37:18.
[7] Gen. 1:9-13; Ps. 136:6; 2 Pet. 3:5.
[8] Gen. 1:14-19; Ps. 119:91; Jer. 33:25.
[9] Gen 1:20-23.
[10] Gen. 1:24-31; 2:7-9, 18-22; 3:20; Job 38:7.
[11] “On the sixth day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day,” &c., is the reading of the Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Samaritan; “and this should be considered the genuine reading,” says Dr. A. Clarke. See his Commentary on Gen. 2.
[12] Gen. 2:2; Ex. 31:17.
[13] Isa. 40:28.
[14] Gen. 2:3; Ex. 20:11. In an anonymous work entitled “Morality of the Fourth Commandment,” London, 1652, but not the same with that of Dr. Twisse, of the same title, is the following striking passage:
“The Hebrew root for seven signifies fullness, perfection, and the Jews held many mysteries to be in the number seven: so John in his Apocalypse useth much that number. As, seven churches, seven stars, seven spirits, seven candlesticks, seven angels, seven seals, seven trumpets; and we no sooner meet with a seventh day, but it is blessed; no sooner with a seventh man [Gen. 5:24; Jude 14], but he is translated.” Page 7.
[15] Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary on the words sanctify and hallow. Ed. 1859.
The revised edition of 1864 gives this definition: “To make sacred or holy; to set apart to a holy or religious use; to consecrate by appropriate rites; to hallow. God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it. Gen. 2:3. Moses ... sanctified Aaron and his garments. Lev. 8:30.”
Worcester defines it thus: “To ordain or set apart to sacred ends; to consecrate; to hallow. God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. Gen. 2:3.”
[16] Gen. 2:15; 1:28.
[17] Morality of the Fourth Commandment, pp. 56, 57, London, 1641.
[18] Hebrew Lexicon, p. 914, ed. 1854.
[19] Josh. 20:7; Joel 1:14; 2:15; 2 Kings 10:20, 21; Zeph. 1 7, margin.
[20] Ex. 10:12, 23.
[21] Dr. Lange’s Commentary speaks on this point thus, in vol. i, p. 197: “If we had no other passage than this of Gen. 2:3, there would be no difficulty in deducing from it a precept for the universal observance of a Sabbath, or seventh day, to be devoted to God, as holy time, by all of that race for whom the earth and its nature were specially prepared. The first men must have known it. The words, ‘He hallowed it,’ can have no meaning otherwise. They would be a blank unless in reference to some who were required to keep it holy.”
Dr. Nicholas Bound, in his “True Doctrine of the Sabbath,” London, 1606, page 7, thus states the antiquity of the Sabbath precept:
“This first commandment of the Sabbath was no more then first given when it was pronounced from Heaven by the Lord, than any other one of the moral precepts, nay, that it hath so much antiquity as the seventh day hath being; for, so soon as the day was, so soon was it sanctified, that we might know that, as it came in with the first man, so it must not go out but with the last man; and as it was in the beginning of the world, so it must continue to the end of the same; and, as the first seventh day was sanctified, so must the last be. And this is that which one saith, that the Sabbath was commanded by God, and the seventh day was sanctified of him even from the beginning of the world; where (the latter words expounding the former) he showeth that, when God did sanctify it, then also he commanded it to be kept holy; and therefore look how ancient the sanctification of the day is, the same antiquity also as the commandment of keeping it holy; for they two are all one.”
[22] Ex. 20:8-11.
[23] Buck’s Theological Dictionary, article, Sabbath; Calmet’s Dictionary, article, Sabbath.
[24] Ex. 16:22, 23.
[25] John 1: 1-3; Gen. 1:1, 26; Col. 1:13-16.
[26] Mark 2:27.
[27] Barrett’s Principles of English Grammar, p. 29.
[28] Job 14:12; 1 Cor. 10:13; Heb. 9:27.
[29] Dr. Twisse illustrates the absurdity of that view which makes the first observance of the Sabbath in memory of creation to have begun some 2500 years after that event: “We read that when the Ilienses, inhabitants of Ilium, called anciently by the name of Troy, sent an embassage to Tiberius, to condole the death of his father Augustus, he, considering the unseasonableness thereof, it being a long time after his death, requited them accordingly, saying that he was sorry for their heaviness also, having lost so renowned a knight as Hector was, to wit, above a thousand years before, in the wars of Troy.”—Morality of the Fourth Commandment, p. 198.
[30] Ex. 16:23.
[31] Ex. 16.
[32] Ex. 20:8-11.
[33] Compare Gen. 2:1-3; Ex. 20:8-11.
[34] Heb. 3:4; Jer. 10:10-12; Rom. 1:20; Ps. 33:9; Heb. 11:3.
[35] Antiquities of the Jews, b. i. chap. i. sect. 1.
[36] Works, vol. i. The Creation of the World, sect. 30.
[37] Isa. 58:13, 14; Heb. 9:10.
[38] Gen. 3; Rom. 5:12.
[39] Gen. 9:5, 7.
[40] Gen. 5:24; 6:9; 26:5.
[41] See the beginning of chap. viii. of this work.
[42] Ezra 3:1-6; Neh. 8:2, 9-12, 14-18; 1 Kings 8:2, 65; 2 Chron. 5:3; 7:8, 9; John 7:2-14, 37.
[43] “The week, another primeval measure, is not a natural measure of time, as some astronomers and chronologers have supposed, indicated by the phases or quarters of the moon. It was originated by divine appointment at the creation—six days of labor and one of rest being wisely appointed for man’s physical and spiritual well-being.”—Bliss’ Sacred Chronology, p. 6; Hale’s Chronology, vol. i. p. 19.
“Seven has been the ancient and honored number among the nations of the earth. They have measured their time by weeks from the beginning. The original of this was the Sabbath of God, as Moses has given the reasons of it in his writings.”—Brief Dissertation on the first three Chapters of Genesis, by Dr. Coleman, p. 26.
[44] Gen. 29:27, 28; 8:10, 12; 7:4, 10; 50:10; Ex. 7:25; Job 2:13.
[45] Ex. 16:22, 23.
[46] The interest to see the first man is thus stated: “Sem and Seth were in great honor among men, and so was Adam above every living thing in the creation.” Ecclesiasticus 49:16.
[47] Gen. 26:5; 18:19.
[48] Gen. 2-6; Heb. 11:4-7; 1 Pet. 3:20; 2 Pet. 2:5.
[49] Gen. 7; Matt. 24:37-39; Luke 17:26, 27; 2 Pet. 3:5, 6.
[50] Deut. 32:7, 8; Acts 17:26.
[51] Gen. 11:1-9; Josephus’ Ant., b. i. chap. iv. This took place in the days of Peleg, who was born about one hundred years after the flood. Gen. 10:25, compared with 11:10-16; Ant., b. i. chap. vi. sect. 4.
[52] Rom. 1:18-32; Acts 14:16, 17; 17:29, 30.
[53] Gen. 12:1-3; Josh. 24:2, 3, 14; Neh. 9:7, 8; Rom. 4:13-17; 2 Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:8; James 2:23.
[54] Gen. 18:19.
[55] Gen. 17:9-14; 34:14; Acts 10:28; 11:2, 3; Eph. 2:12-19; Num. 23:9; Deut. 33:27, 28.
[56] Gen. 15; Ex. 1-5; Deut. 4:20.
[57] Ex. 12:29-42; Gal. 3:17.
[58] Ps. 105:43-45; Lev. 22:32, 33; Num. 15:41.
[59] Gen. 2:2, 3; 26:5; Ex. 16:4, 27, 28; 18:16.
[60] Ps. 90:2.
[61] Ex. 19:3-8, 24:3-8; Jer. 3:14, compared with last clause of Jer. 31:32.
[62] Ex. 20:2; 24:10.
[63] Ex. 20:10; Deut. 5:14; Neh. 9:14.
[64] On this verse Dr. A. Clarke thus comments:—“On the sixth day they gathered twice as much—This they did that they might have a provision for the Sabbath.”
[65] The Douay Bible reads: “To-morrow is the rest of the Sabbath sanctified unto the Lord.” Dr. Clarke comments as follows upon this text: “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath. There is nothing either in the text or context that seems to intimate that the Sabbath was now first given to the Israelites, as some have supposed; on the contrary, it is here spoken of as being perfectly well known, from its having been generally observed. The commandment, it is true, may be considered as being now renewed; because they might have supposed, that in their unsettled state in the wilderness, they might have been exempted from the observance of it. Thus we find, 1. That when God finished his creation he instituted the Sabbath; 2. When he brought the people out of Egypt, he insisted on the strict observance of it; 3. When he gave the law, he made it a tenth part of the whole: such importance has this institution in the eyes of the Supreme Being!”
Richard Baxter, a famous divine of the seventeenth century, and a decided advocate of the abrogation of the fourth commandment, in his “Divine Appointment of the Lord’s Day,” thus clearly states the origin of the Sabbath: “Why should God begin two thousand years after [the creation of the world] to give men a Sabbath upon the reason of his rest from the creation of it, if he had never called man to that commemoration before? And it is certain that the Sabbath was observed at the falling of the manna before the giving of the law; and let any considering Christian judge..... 1. Whether the not falling of the manna, or the rest of God after the creation, was like to be the original reason of the Sabbath. 2. And whether if it had been the first, it would not have been said, Remember to keep holy the Sabbath-day; for on six days the manna fell, and not on the seventh; rather than ‘for in six days God created heaven and earth, &c., and rested the seventh day.’ And it is casually added, ‘Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it.’ Nay, consider whether this annexed reason intimates not that the day on this ground being hallowed before, therefore it was that God sent not down the manna on that day, and that he prohibited the people from seeking it.”—Practical Works, Vol. iii. p. 784. ed. 1707.
[66] The Douay Bible reads: “Because it is the Sabbath of the Lord.”
[67] Ex. 16.
[68] It has indeed been asserted that God by a miracle equalized the portion of every one on five days, and doubled the portion of each on the sixth, so that no act of the people had any bearing on the Sabbath. But the equal portion of each on the five days was not thus understood by Paul. He says: “But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want; that there may be equality; as it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack.” 2 Cor. 8:14, 15. And that the double portion on the sixth day was the act of the people, is affirmed by Moses. He says that “on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread.” Verse 22.
[69] Gen. 7:4, 10; 8:10, 12; 29:27, 28; 50:10; Ex. 7:25; Job 2:13.
[70] By this three-fold miracle, occurring every week for forty years, the great Law-giver distinguished his hallowed day. The people were therefore admirably prepared to listen to the fourth commandment enjoining the observance of the very day on which he had rested. Ex. 16:35; Josh. 5:12; Ex. 20:8-11.
[71] The twelfth chapter of Exodus relates the origin of the passover. It is in striking contrast with Ex. 16, which is supposed to give the origin of the Sabbath. If the reader will compare the two chapters he will see the difference between the origin of an institution as given in Ex. 12, and a familiar reference to an existing institution as in Ex. 16. If he will also compare Gen. 2 with Ex. 12, he will see that the one gives the origin of the Sabbath in the same manner that the other gives the origin of the passover.
[72] This implies, first, the fall of a larger quantity on that day, and second, its preservation for the wants of the Sabbath.
[73] This must refer to going out for manna, as the connection implies; for religious assemblies on the Sabbath were commanded and observed. Lev. 23:3; Mark 1:21; Luke 4:16; Acts 1:12; 15:21.
[74] John 7:22.
[75] Gen. 17:34; Ex. 4. Moses is said to have given circumcision to the Hebrews; yet it is a singular fact that his first mention of that ordinance is purely incidental, and plainly implies an existing knowledge of it on their part. Thus it is written: “This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof; but every man’s servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof.” Ex. 12:43, 44. And in like manner when the Sabbath was given to Israel, that people were not ignorant of the sacred institution.
[76] Eze. 20:12; Ex. 31:17.
[77] Jer. 10:10-12.
[78] That the Lord was there in person with his angels, see besides the narrative in Ex. 19; 20; 32-34, the following testimonies: Deut. 33:2; Judges 5:5; Nehemiah 9:6-13; Ps. 68:17.
[79] Ex. 24:10; Lev. 22:32, 33; Num. 15:41; Isa. 41:17.
[80] Ps. 147:19, 20; Rom. 3:1, 2; 9:4, 5. The following from the pen of Mr. Wm. Miller presents the subject in a clear light: “I say, and believe I am supported by the Bible, that the moral law was never given to the Jews as a people exclusively; but they were for a season the keepers of it in charge. And through them the law, oracles, and testimony, have been handed down to us. See Paul’s clear reasoning in Rom. chapters 2, 3, and 4, on that point.”—Miller’s Life and Views, p. 161.
[81] Ex. 19; Deut. 7:6; 14:2; 2 Sam. 7:23; 1 Kings 8:53; Amos 3:1, 2.
[82] Ex. 20:1-17; 34:28, margin; Deut. 5:4-22; 10:4, margin.
[83] Deut. 5:22.
[84] He who created the world on the first day of the week, and completed its organization in six days, rested on the seventh day, and was refreshed. Gen. 1; 2; Ex. 31:17.
[85] To this, however, it is objected that in consequence of the revolution of the earth on its axis, the day begins earlier in the East than with us; and hence that there is no definite seventh day to the world of mankind. To suit such objectors, the earth ought not to revolve. But in that case, so far from removing the difficulty, there would be no seventh day at all; for one side of the globe would have perpetual day and the other side perpetual night. The truth is, everything depends upon the revolution of the earth. God made the Sabbath for man [Mark 2:27]; he made man to dwell on all the face of the earth [Acts 17:26]; he caused the earth to revolve on its axis that it might measure off the days of the week; causing that the sun should shine on the earth, as it revolves from west to east, thus causing the day to go round the world from east to west. Seven of these revolutions constitute a week; the seventh one brings the Sabbath to all the world.
[86] Luke 23:54-56; 24:1.
[87] See also Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1, 2.
[88] Neh. 9:13, 14.
[89] This expression is strikingly illustrated in the statement of Eze. 20:5, where God is said to have made himself known unto Israel in Egypt. This language cannot mean that the people were ignorant of the true God, however wicked some of them might be, for they had been God’s peculiar people from the days of Abraham. Ex. 2:23-25; 3:6, 7; 4:31. The language implies the prior existence both of the Law-giver and of his Sabbath, when it is said that they were “made known” to his people.
[90] It should never be forgotten that the term Sabbath day signifies rest-day; that the Sabbath of the Lord is the rest-day of the Lord; and hence that the expression, “Thy holy Sabbath,” refers the mind to the Creator’s rest-day, and to his act of blessing and hallowing it.
[91] Ex. 20-24.
[92] Ex. 23:12.
[93] See also Ex. 20:10; Deut. 5:14; Isa. 56.
[94] Ex. 12:43-48.
[95] Ex. 24:3-8; Heb. 9:18-20.
[96] Dr. Clarke has the following note on this verse: “It is very likely that Moses went up into the mount on the first day of the week; and having with Joshua remained in the region of the cloud during six days, on the seventh, which was the Sabbath, God spake to him.”—Commentary on Ex. 24:16. The marking off of a week from the forty days in this remarkable manner goes far toward establishing the view of Dr. C. And if this be correct, it would strongly indicate that the ten commandments were given upon the Sabbath; for there seems to be good evidence that they were given the day before Moses went up to receive the tables of stone. For the interview in which chapters 21-23 were given would require but a brief space, and certainly followed immediately upon the giving of the ten commandments. Ex. 20:18-21. When the interview closed, Moses came down to the people and wrote all the words of the Lord. In the morning he rose up early, and, having ratified the covenant, went up to receive the law which God had written. Ex. 24:3-13.
[97] Ex. 24:12-18.
[98] Ex. 25-31.
[99] Ex. 31:12-18.
[100] Eze. 20:11, 12, 19, 20.
[101] See third chapter of this work.
[102] “To sanctify, kadash, signifies to consecrate, separate, and set apart a thing or person from all secular purposes to some religious use.” Clarke’s Commentary on Ex. 13:2. The same writer says, on Ex. 19:23, “Here the word kadash is taken in its proper, literal sense, signifying the separating of a thing, person, or place, from all profane or common uses, and devoting it to sacred purposes.”
[103] Gen. 17:7, 8; 26:24; 28:13; Ex. 3:6, 13-16, 18; 5:3; Isa. 45:3.
[104] Lev. 11:45.
[105] See chapter third.
[106] As a sign it did not thereby become a shadow and a ceremony, for the Lord of the Sabbath was himself a sign. “Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in Mount Zion.” Isa. 8:18. In Heb. 2:13, this language is referred to Christ. “And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against.” Luke 2:34. That the Sabbath was a sign between God and Israel throughout their generations, that is, for the time that they were his peculiar people, no more proves that it is now abolished than the fact that Jesus is now a sign that is spoken against proves that he will cease to exist when he shall no longer be such a sign. Nor does this language argue that the Sabbath was made for them, or that its obligation ceased when they ceased to be the people of God. For the prohibition against eating blood was a perpetual statute for their generations; yet it was given to Noah when God first permitted the use of animal food, and was still obligatory upon the Gentiles when the apostles turned to them. Lev. 3:17; Gen. 9:1-4; Acts 15.
The penalty of death at the hand of the civil magistrate is affixed to the violation of the Sabbath. The same penalty is affixed to most of the precepts of the moral law. Lev. 20:9, 10; 24:15-17; Deut. 13:6-18; 17:2-7. It should be remembered that the moral law embracing the Sabbath formed a part of the civil code of the Hebrew nation. As such, the great Law-giver annexed penalties to be inflicted by the magistrate, thus doubtless shadowing forth the final retribution of the ungodly. Such penalties were suspended by that remarkable decision of the Saviour that those who were without sin should cast the first stone. But such a Being will arise to punish men, when the hailstones of his wrath shall desolate the earth. Our Lord did not, however, set aside the real penalty of the law, the wages of sin, nor did he weaken that precept which had been violated. John 8:1-9; Job 38:22, 23; Isa. 28:17; Rev. 16:17-21; Rom. 6:23.
[107] This fact will shed light upon those texts which introduce the agency of angels in the giving of the law. Acts 7:38, 53; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2.
[108] Ex. 32; 33.
[109] Ex. 34; Deut. 9.
[110] Ex. 34:21.
[111] The idea has been suggested by some from this verse that it was Moses and not God who wrote the second tables. This view is thought to be strengthened by the previous verse: “Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.” But it is to be observed that the words upon the tables of stone were the ten commandments; while the words here referred to were those which God spoke to Moses during this interview of forty days, beginning with verse 10 and extending to verse 27. That the pronoun he in verse 28 might properly enough refer to Moses, if positive testimony did not forbid such reference, is readily admitted. That it is necessary to attend to the connection in deciding the antecedents of pronouns, is strikingly illustrated in 2 Sam. 24:1, where the pronoun he would naturally refer to the Lord, thus making God the one who moved David to number Israel. Yet the connection shows that this was not the case; for the anger of the Lord was kindled by the act; and 1 Chron. 21:1, positively declares that he who thus moved David was Satan. For positive testimony that it was God and not Moses who wrote upon the second tables, see Ex. 34:1; Deut. 10:1-5. These texts carefully discriminate between the work of Moses and the work of God, assigning the preparation of the tables, the carrying of them up to the mount and the bringing of them down from the mount, to Moses, but expressly assigning the writing on the tables to God himself.
[112] Ex. 34:1, 28; Deut. 4:12, 13; 5:22.
[113] Ex. 24:12.
[114] Deut. 33:2. That angels are sometimes called saints or holy ones, see Dan. 8:13-16. That angels were present with God at Sinai, see Ps. 68:17.
[115] Deut. 10:4, 5; Ex. 25:10-22.
[116] 1 John 3:4, 5.
[117] Ex. 32; Josh. 24:2, 14, 23; Eze. 20:7, 8, 16, 18, 24.
[118] Amos 5:25-27; Acts 7:41-43; Josh. 5:2-8.
[119] Num. 14; Ps. 95; Eze. 20:13.
[120] Eze. 20:13-24.
[121] Ex. 32.
[122] Num. 14.
[123] Deut. 9:24.
[124] Num. 14; Heb. 3:16.
[125] Ex. 16; Josh. 5:12.
[126] Num. 11; 21.