In Defense of the Faith

Not Lost In Egypt

“Coming a little further down, was not the Sabbath lost in Egypt? Let us read, in Exodus 16, what occurred immediately on their coming out of Egypt: ‘Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law, or no. And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which, they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.’ ‘And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating; and when the sun waxed hot, it melted. And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man; and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said, Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord; bake that which you will bake today, and seethe that you will seethe; and that which remains over lay up for you to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade; and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that today; for today is a Sabbath unto the Lord: today you shall not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none. And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse you to keep My commandments and My laws? See, for that the Lord bath given you the Sabbath, therefore He gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide you every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day.’ ‘And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.’ Verses 4, 5, 21-30, 35.... DOF 96.1

“This was the special work of the Almighty, to teach the Jews to remember, reverence, and keep, holy His sanctified Sabbath day.... Truly, had all traces of the Sabbath been lost, it was here so forcibly restored that none could doubt when it came. Here it was certainly restored if it was ever lost. DOF 96.2

“But was this the true, original seventh day here pointed out? It would be preposterous to claim anything else. 1. God certainly knew when His original, true seventh-day Sabbath came, and was able to point it out. 2. That He should give them another day and teach them by the falling manna, etc., to violate His own holy Sabbath, is highly unreasonable, and not to be supposed unless most distinctly so stated. 3. The record directly says that that day was ‘the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord’ (verse 23), the seventh day which is the Sabbath.’ Verse 26. These statements are repeated several times in the above record. 4. Shortly after the manna began to fall on the six days and none on the seventh, while the whole nation was keeping that day as the Sabbath, according to God’s direct instructions, the Lord came down upon Mt. Sinai and gave them the Ten Commandments. The fourth one relates to the Sabbath, and reads thus: ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shall not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.’ Exodus 20:8-11. DOF 97.1

“What does this command require? That they keep ‘the day,’ ‘the seventh day,’ ‘the Sabbath of the Lord,’ the day which God had rested upon, and blessed and sanctified at creation, after working six days. In short, it points out and specifies in the most definite manner the very day we started. With in Genesis 2:1-3. No candid person can doubt this who will compare the two records. So, then, at the entrance of the Jews into Canaan, 2,553 years after the creation of the world, we are certain that we have the true seventh day. DOF 97.2

“In the Promised Land, they became a great and numerous people, a settled and established nation for over 800 years. During all this time, they had the strictest laws and regulations touching the observance of the Sabbath. During this time, God often spoke to them by His prophets, and frequently called their attention to His holy Sabbath. (See 2 Kings 4:23; 1 Chronicles 9:32; Isaiah 56:2-6; 58:13; Jeremiah 17:24-27; Ezekiel 20:10-24; Amos 8:4-6.) Samuel, David, Solomon, Hezekiah, and all the noted kings of Israel lived in this time. To suppose that the Sabbath was lost during this time would be simply absurd. It would have been impossible.... DOF 98.1