LGW made an interesting point.
There is nothing in the Sabbath commandment about gathering on the Sabbath for worship. Therefore, you can't move Sunday worship to Saturday and call it Sabbath-keeping. Isn't that something? I'm stunned. I know, I know... it doesn't take much.
Can this be true? Why were the Israelites going to synagogue on the Sabbath if there is no commandment to do such in the law?
Exo 16:29 See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place,
let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.
Traveling on a Sabbath was something the elders made up, not something the law allowed:
Gill:
Which, is from Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey. The Syriac version renders it, "about seven furlongs", or near a mile; though Josephus (r) writes, that the Mount of Olives was but five furlongs from Jerusalem: perhaps this may be a mistake in the present copies of Josephus, since Chrysostom on this place cites this passage of Josephus, and reads seven furlongs; which exactly agrees with the Syriac version. A sabbath day's journey, according to the Jews, was two thousand cubits from any city or town, and which they often called, ???? ???, "the bound of the sabbath" (s); and which they collect partly from Num_35:4 which they understand thus (t):
"a thousand cubits are the suburbs (of the city), and two thousand cubits the bounds of the sabbath.
And these were so many middling paces; for so they say (u),
"a walk of two thousand middling paces, this is the bound of the sabbath.
And that this was the proper space they also gather from Jos_3:4 it being the distance between the ark and the people when they marched;
and though this was not fixed by the law, yet being a tradition of the elders, was strictly observed by them: so when Ruth desired to become a proselytess, the Targumist on Rth_1:16 introduces Naomi thus speaking to her,
"says Naomi, we are commanded to keep the sabbaths, and the good days, (or feasts,) and not to walk above "two thousand cubits";
i.e. on those days; for to go further was reckoned a profanation of them: so it is said (w),
