THE ORIGINAL SABBATH

     The next step in the discussion is to consider several facts connected with the institution and observance of the original Sabbath.

     1. The primeval Sabbath was instituted and sanctified in Eden. "And God rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made; and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work" (Gen. 2:2,3). This was the Eden Sabbath. On those who contend for the keeping of Saturday as the original Sabbath day rests the burden of proving the identity of Saturday with the primeval day which was sanctified in Eden. In all arguments for the Saturday Sabbath, so far as we know, this point is assumed with no attempt to prove it. We shall now attempt to show,

     2. That the original Sabbath hallowed in Eden corresponds to the present First-day Sabbath observed by Christians:

     (1) From the creation to the giving of the law the primeval weekly Sabbath was generally observed. For scriptural proof of this the reader is referred to (a) Genesis 4:3, where Cain and Abel are said to have brought their offerings unto the Lord, "at the end of clays" (margin), which is generally understood as meaning at the end of a septenary, or week of seven days; (b) Genesis 8:10-12, where Noah, in sending out the dove is represented as having measured time by weeks of seven days; (c) Job 1:6 and 2:1, where a particular periodic day of appearing before the Lord for worship is mentioned as belonging to patriarchal times; and (d) Genesis 29: 27-28, where, in Jacob's negotiations for Rachel, the Hebrew custom of measuring time by weeks is unmistakably set forth. Other passages might be produced, but these will suffice to show that in patriarchal days the septenary division of time made by the hallowing of the original Sabbath day was generally observed.

     The testimony of scripture on this point is corroborated by profane history, and shows the practice of observing one day in seven not to have been confined to the patriarchal line, but to have been universal. Even heathen nations held to the septenary division of time, and observed a weekly Sabbath. Says Dr. M. H. Briggs, in his work on "The Sabbath:"

     "This fact we learn from Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, and other ancient writers. Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, says without qualification: 'The Sabbath is not a festival peculiar to my people or country, but is common to the whole world.' La Place has this strikingly philosophic statement: 'The week is perhaps the most incontestable monument of human knowledge. It appears to point out a common source whence that knowledge proceeded.' It is certain beyond attempt at contradiction that the septenary division of time prevailed among Egyptians, Phoenicians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks, Italians, Celts and Indians. Chaldean cuneiform characters show a weekly rest-day, the name of which bears a striking likeness to the Hebrew Sabbath and means 'a rest of the heart.'"

     In "The Sabbath and its Changes with the Chronology of the Ages," the Rev. H. T. Besse quotes as follows from profane historians on this point:

     "Porphyry says the 'Phoenicians consecrated one day in seven as holy.' Josephus says, 'There is no city, either of Greeks or Barbarians, or any other nation, where the religion of the Sabbath is not known.' Eusebius says, 'Almost all philosophers and poets acknowledge the seventh day as holy.' Grotius says, 'that the memory of the creation being performed in seven days was preserved, not only among the Greeks and Italians, but among the Celts and Indians, all of whom divide their time into weeks.'"

     Dr. Smith also informs us that he found an Assyrian calendar which divides every month into four weeks, and the seventh days are marked out as days in which no work is to be done.

     (2) The seventh day, observed as sacred among all nations before the giving of the law, was not the same as the seventh day afterward observed by the Hebrew race, but corresponded, if our investigations are correct, to our present First-day Sabbath. ^[1] A change was made in the Hebrew calendar, as we have seen, at the time of the Exodus. Compare Ex. 12:1, 2 with Ex. 23:15, and it will be seen that the month Abib became the first month of the Jewish year after the Exodus, though it had never been so reckoned before.

     A little careful study will also show that a new Sabbath day was given to this liberated people with this change of calendar. Formerly they had observed the primeval Sabbath day, in common with all other nations. The observance of a Sabbath among early heathen nations can be accounted for only on the ground that they had perpetuated the primeval Sabbath, though they had perverted it to a means of propagating idolatry. The earliest and most prevalent idolatry was that of sun worship. So the primeval Sabbath was perverted into Sun's day, or the day to worship the sun. For many generations the covenant people worshipped Jehovah on the same day. At last the religion of the Israelites became corrupted by association with heathen neighbors, and they too worshipped the Sun, as represented in the golden-headed bull of Egypt. Hence their relapse into this worship while Moses tarried in the mount of God. (For proofs of the foregoing see Ex. 32:1-24, Joshua 24:14, Ezek. 20:5-9, Acts 7: 41-42.)

     One object of changing the calendar when the Israelites departed from Egypt evidently was to cut them off more effectually from connection with idolaters. It was a wise and politic movement, worthy of the divine mind which ordained it. With the change of calendar Saturday (Saturn's day) became the new Hebrew Sabbath, and its observance was required to extend from evening to evening (Lev. 23:32). Those, therefore, who now keep Saturday as Sabbath are certainly not keeping the primeval Sabbath day which the Lord hallowed in Eden, but are rather observing that day which was set apart exclusively as a Jewish Sabbath day, and which, as a day for celebrating the Sabbath, was abolished when the ceremonial law was done away by Christ (See Col. 2:16, 17, and Gal. 4:9, 10).

     Jehovah's Sabbath, or the Lord's day, is that which was instituted in Eden, and not the day which temporarily memorialized Israel's emancipation and separated them from the idolatry into which they had fallen. The original Sabbath day, according to the best evidence we can gather from Biblical chronology, would, if carried forward to the beginning of the Christian era, be found identical with the present First-day Sabbath, which is called preeminently "the Lord's day," as it memorializes alike the completion of the Lord's creative and redemptive work.

1 See this point discussed ably and at length in Briggs on "The Sabbath," pp. 50-65.