refreshment and mercy, arising from remembrance of God’s goodness as Creator and as the Deliverer
from bondage. The Sabbath was a perpetual sign and covenant, and the holiness of the day is
collected with the holiness of the people; “that ye may know that I am Jehovah that doth sanctify
you.” (Exodus 31:12-17; Ezekiel 20:12) Joy was the key-note Of their service. Nehemiah commanded
the people, on a day holy to Jehovah “Mourn not, nor weep: eat the fat, and drink: the sweet, and
send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared.” (Nehemiah 8:9-13) The Sabbath is named
as a day of special worship in the sanctuary. (Leviticus 19:30; 26:2) It was proclaimed as a holy
convocation. (Leviticus 23:3) In later times the worship of the sanctuary was enlivened by sacred
music. (Psalms 68:25-27; 150:1)... etc. On this day the people were accustomed to consult their
prophets, (2 Kings 4:23) and to give to their children that instruction in the truths recalled to memory
by the day which is so repeatedly enjoined as the duty of parents; it was “the Sabbath of Jehovah”
not only in the sanctuary, but “in all their dwellings.” (Leviticus 23:3) When we come to the New
Testament we find the most marked stress laid on the Sabbath. In whatever ways the Jew might err
respecting it, he had altogether ceased to neglect it. On the contrary wherever he went its observance
became the most visible badge of his nationality. Our Lord’s mode of observing the Sabbath was
one of the main features of his life, which his Pharisaic adversaries meet eagerly watched and
criticized. They had invented many prohibitions respecting the Sabbath of which we find nothing
in the original institution. Some of these prohibitions were fantastic and arbitrary, in the number
of those “heavy burdens and grievous to be borne” while the latter expounders of the law “laid on
men’s shoulders.” Comp. (Matthew 12:1-13; John 5:10) That this perversion of the Sabbath had
become very general in our Saviour’s time is apparent both from the recorded objections to acts of
his on that day and from his marked conduct on occasions to which those objections were sure to
be urged. (Matthew 12:1-16; Mark 3:2; Luke 6:1-5; 13:10-17; John 6:2-18; 7:23; 9:1-34) Christ’s
words do not remit the duty of keeping the Sabbath, but only deliver it from the false methods of
keeping which prevented it from bestowing upon men the spiritual blessings it was ordained to
confer.
Sabbathdays Journey
(Acts 1:12) The law as regards travel on the Sabbath is found in (Exodus 16:29) As some
departure from a man’s own place was unavoidable, it was thought necessary to determine the
allowable amount, which was fixed at 2000 paces, or about six furlongs from the wall of the city.
The permitted distance seems to have been grounded on the space to he kept between the ark and
the people, (Joshua 3:4) in the wilderness, which tradition said was that between the ark and the
tents. We find the same distance given as the circumference outside the walls of the Levitical cities
to be counted as their suburbs. (Numbers 33:5) The terminus a quo was thus not a man’s own house,
but the wall of the city where he dwelt.
Sabbatical Year
Each seventh year, by the Mosaic code, was to be kept holy. (Exodus 23:10,11) The
commandment is to sow and reap for six years, and to let the land rest on the seventh, “that the
poor of thy people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the held shall eat. It is added in (15:1)
... that the seventh Year should also be one of release to debtors. (15:1-11) Neither tillage nor
cultivation of any sort was to be practiced. The sabbatical year opened in the sabbatical month, and
the whole law was to be read every such year, during the feast of Tabernacles, to the assembled
people. At the completion of a week of sabbatical years, the sabbatical scale received its completion
in the year of jubilee. [Jubilee, The Year Of] The constant neglect of this law from the very first
frankie
(Frankie)
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