110 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



The first institution of the Sabhath : Confirmed by Scripture declarations. 



— douhtless] they shall prepare tbat which they bring in, and 

 it shall be twice as much as they gather daily." When this 

 was accordingly done, the " rulers" or subordinate captains, 

 unacquainted with the regiilation, evidently considered this a 

 violation of the previous injunction: "Let no man leave of it 

 till morning ;" (v. 19, 20 ;) " and all the rulers of the congre- 

 gation came and told Moses ;'^ (v. 22;) when they were in- 

 formed that it was according to the Lord's command — " To- 

 morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord : bake 

 that which ye will bake — to-day'' {v. 23.) On the seventh 

 day, Moses again formally announced : " To-day is a Sabbath 

 unto the Lord." {y. 25.) Notwithstanding which, " there 

 went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, 

 and they found none." {v. 27.) To whom the commandment 

 was once more proclaimed : '^ See, for that the Lord liatli 

 given you the Sabbath." {v. 29.) '' So the people rested on 

 the seventh day." {v. 30.) 



The narrative requires no comment : every circumstance 

 contradicts the theoi*y of a previous Sabbath law. Yery 

 shortly afterward, the institution was embodied in the fourth 

 commandment {Exod. xx. 8) ; and Moses, in referring to the 

 Decalogue many years after, says expressly : " The Lord made 

 not this covenant with our fathers, hut with us.'' {Deut. v. 

 3.) So in Nehem. ix. 13, 14: "Thou camest down also upon 

 Mount Sinai .... and madest known unto tliem thy holy 

 Sabbath . . . hy the hand of 3Ioscs thy BerYnnt." No ingenu- 

 ity has successfully evaded the force of this deliberate declara- 

 tion. " I caused them to go forth out of the laud of Egypt, 



and brought them into the wilderness I gave them 



my Sabbaths* to be a sign betwccn me and them, that they 

 might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them :" DLynpD 



* " It is not said lie restored them, but ^ gave' them, denoting a 

 new institution, and as peculiarly belonging to them ; and this is the 

 sense of the Jewish nation in general, that the Sabbath only belongs 



