2.―THE SABBATH AND THE NAME OF JEHOVAH.
AFTER the mention of the institution of the Sabbath, and the rest of the Creator, a long period of silence occurs in the Scriptures respecting the sacred day. The family of man was estranged from God, and violence grew till it filled the earth. God at length intervened and sent the flood, and, save Noah and his house, man was swept off from the face of the earth. After the flood, the human race once more multiplied, and man became idolatrous. Then from the mass of idolaters, God called out Abraham to a life of obedience to His word. Again after that event, some centuries elapsed, and the family of Abraham was found an enslaved nation in Egypt. Then God in pursuance of His promise, delivered Israel and led them out into liberty. Thus did some two thousand five hundred years pass by, and during the whole of this long period no mention of the Sabbath is made in Scripture.
Do we inquire, Why is this? The answer lies close to hand. The human family, as such, was estranged from God, and, therefore,
COULD NOT KEEP HOLY REST WITH GOD,
and God could not keep holy rest with it. God is recording the story of the human family, and therefore He does not speak of rest for man or holy Sabbath.
As a time measure, the seventh day would seem to have been accepted by the early patriarchs― possibly by the human race. Noah waited his seven days when in the ark. Jacob recognized the division of time into weeks of sevens and though the Egyptian week was one of ten days, it seems clear that Abraham’s descendants in Egypt maintained that of seven days. But we have to keep clearly before us the difference between observing the seventh day as having a sacred meaning or as a mere time measure. Since the idolaters of Babylonia so highly esteemed their sacred sabbath, it may be no unworthy imagination to picture the patriarchs keeping it as sacred to the living God.
A very important consideration relating to the mention of the Sabbath for the second time in the Scriptures, is its connection with the divine name Jehovah. The way in which it is introduced is remarkable; for, notwithstanding the long silence of Scripture as to the day, the mention of it comes in without any surprise, and as that which was certainly known.
When God brought Israel out of Egypt, He was fulfilling His own word, and by so doing He began a new work upon the earth. Never before had a nation been brought to Himself as His people. Never before had a nation been redeemed. Israel was instructed to commemorate their redemption, and they did so in a new manner—in a manner entirely new in the Bible record. They sang. “Thou hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed” was their song.
For two thousand five hundred years since the fall of man no such thoughts of God were expressed by human lips as “Thou hast redeemed.” The Scriptures supply a gradual unveiling of the divine plan. By degrees God unfolds His purposes and ways in His Word. Thus in admirable moral connection do
THE SONG AND THE SABBATH
appear within a few days of each other in the Book of God.
After Israel had been a few days’ journey in the wilderness, God sent them the manna from heaven, and at the close of the first week of this gift, Moses said, “This is that which Jehovah hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto Jehovah.” Redeemed Israel was to keep “holy” sabbath to Jehovah their Redeemer. And why? Because the manna, that great type of Christ the Redeemer, the gift of God, had been introduced on the earth. By Him, the original purpose of God should be realized. By Him, the redeemed people of the human family should keep
HOLY REST WITH GOD,
and God should rest with them. What man had by his sin rendered impossible, Christ should establish by virtue of His own excellence.
Two thousand five hundred years are with God but as one day, and He thought well to wait for this period of time before introducing in the manna the figure of His Son in His incarnation on earth; and having brought it in, He showed by it, that holy sabbath should yet be kept by man to Him on earth. If at the end of the six days of Creation the rest of God on earth was broken by man’s sin; at the end of the six days of this world’s work, the rest of God on the earth shall be established by the Man Christ Jesus.
The story of the six days and the seventh day referred to in the Bible story of the manna and the rest, while being an historic fact, is also a prophetic instruction.
THE EARTH SHALL, YET KEEP HER SABBATH.
Man upon it shall yet keep holy day, and this great end will be eventually brought to pass through redeemed Israel, which nation will be the channel of blessing to the Gentiles. Thus the second mention of the holy Sabbath in the Bible is one of the fullest meaning, and overflows with divine indications of His glory.
In fulfilling His word given to Abraham respecting Israel in Egypt, God expressly did so under the name “Jehovah.” A name of God implies a revelation of God by or in that name. This very important truth is known to the careful reader of the Word of God. In illustration we ask our reader’s attention for a moment to, say, two texts, taken from amongst many others occurring in the New Testament. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” “They shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father . . .” In these verses the divine names “God” and “Father” occur. Are the verses, therefore, the work of two writers―an ancient writer and also one who is comparatively modern? or does the writer, John, by his use of the two names, intend his reader to receive a definite instruction? Does “God” convey one group of truths and “Father” another group to the mind? We are very well aware that such is the case, and that the use of different divine names has invariably a definite intention attached to it. In the Old Testament, where the divine name is God, and where it is Jehovah, our wisdom is to learn why each name is made use of. There should never be any confusion in the matter whatever.
Jehovah’s name and Israel’s are divinely bound up together. In a kindred way the name “Father” and the name “child” are morally linked together in the New Testament. God’s character as He Who was, Who is, and Who is to come―the eternal AM―the immutable Promiser, who fulfils His word after the counsel of His own will, because HE IS, cannot be dissociated from His people, respecting whom He has made His promise.
True, the higher critics have been very busy with their scissors in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, where this splendid testimony to the divine purpose is recorded, and they would have us reverence their ignorance of “the glory of the Lord” there displayed, and relegate the divine picture of man brought into rest with God through the Christ of God, to the craft of “post exilic” forgers. They have found a great variety of writers in the chapter, they have assigned the greater part of its verses to different periods, they have left very little of it to Moses. A plain person can comprehend the chapter as it is, and perhaps may see the glory of God in it, but the scissors leave very little sense in it, and cut the ways and the purpose of God out of it.
From the time the institution of the Sabbath is thus re-introduced into the Scriptures, it never leaves the story of God’s people Israel. Whether in their blessing or in their judgment it occurs. This will be our theme on our next occasion when speaking of the Sabbath as a sign.