It appears Crib has deleted his entire post which contained questions about the law and the Sabbath. I'm not sure why he decided to do that but at any rate I will do as I said yesterday to the best of my knowledge. The only ones I can remember from my reading of his deleted post was for me to show how man kept the Sabbath from Gen 2:1-3 or before Ex 20. So let's look at some Bible texts and see. Gen 2:1-3
1
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and
he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
Heb 4:4
3
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
To show why I believe man kept the Sabbath from this time of creation I will use some key words we see in these verses.
1. In Verse 2 we read that God rested ( Sabbathed) .This refutes the notion that the word Sabbath is not used until Horeb. The original language says God Shabbathed which is a root word for Sabbath.
2. In verse 3 we read that God blessed the 7th day and
sanctified it. When we look up the definition of sanctified it literally means to "set aside for holy use." Whose use could possibly be considered here? Certainly God didn't need it for Himself only. God set it aside for man. This is confirmed in Mark 2:27 when Christ Himself said the Sabbath was made for man.
Now we can go even further with two more texts that tells us that God had statutes, commandments and laws before Sinai. Look up Gen 26:4-5
4
And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;
5
Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge,
my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.
Here we have God entering into a covenant with Abraham and in direct context with this covenant we have God telling us that Abraham kept Gods
commandments, statutes and laws .
Were these the ten commandments as the nation of Israel received on stone? I don't know for sure, the Bible does not tell us that they were but we can be assured that God had commandments, statutes and laws long before Sinai from this text alone.
The last text that deals with God's laws and the Sabbath is Ex 16:23-28
23
And he said unto them, This is that which the LORD hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the LORD: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.
24
And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade: and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein.
25
And Moses said, Eat that to day; for to day is a sabbath unto the LORD: to day ye shall not find it in the field.
26
Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none.
27
And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none.
28
And the LORD said unto Moses,
How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?
Here we have the children of Israel before Sinai gathering manna in the field for six days but were instructed not to gather on the Sabbath. Some did and in verse 28 we see where God asked them how long they would refuse to keep
commandments and laws.
Clearly this shows the Sabbath was kept before Horeb when the ten commandments were written on stone and spoken by God's own mouth out of the smoke on the mountain. It also shows along with Gen 26 that God had laws and commandments long before Sinai.
God bless
Jim Larmore
