'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: therefore the Son of man

is Lord also of the Sabbath.'--Mark 2:27, 28

It is a beautifully significant practice of the modern Jews, that, before fulfilling any

special observance directed in their Law, they always first bless God for the giving of it.

One might almost compare the idea underlying this, and much else of a similar character

in the present religious life of Israel, to the good fruits which the soil of Palestine bore

even during the Sabbatical years, when it lay untilled. For it is intended to express that

the Law is felt not a burden, but a gift of God in which to rejoice. And this holds

specially true of the Sabbath in its Divine institution, of which it was distinctly said , 'I

gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that

I, Jehovah, sanctify them' (Eze 20:12). In the same sense, the Sabbath is called 'a delight,

the holy of Jehovah, honourable' (Isa 58:13); and the great burden of the Sabbath-Psalm

(Psa 92) 98 is that of joyous thanksgiving unto God.

The term Sabbath, 'resting,' points to the origin and meaning of the weekly festival. The

Rabbis hold that it was not intended for the Gentiles, and most of them trace the

obligation of its observance only to the legislation on Mount Sinai. Nor is another

Rabbinical saying, that 'circumcision and the Sabbath preceded the law,' inconsistent

with this. For even if the duty of Sabbath-observance had only commenced with the

promulgation of the law on Mount Sinai, yet the Sabbath-law itself rested on the original

'hallowing' of the seventh day, when God rested from all His works (Gen 2:3). But this

was not the only rest to which the Sabbath pointed. There is also a rest of redemption,

and the Sabbath was expressly connected with the deliverance of Israel from Egypt.

'Remember that thou was a servant in the land of Egypt, and that Jehovah thy God

brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore

Jehovah thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day' (Deut 5:15). At the close of

the work-a-day week, holy rest in the Lord; at the end of the labour and sorrow of Egypt,

redemption and rest; and both pointing forward to the better rest (Heb 4:9), and

ultimately to the eternal Sabbath of completed work, of completed redemption, and

completed 'hallowing' (Rev 11)--such was the meaning of the weekly Sabbath. It was

because this idea of festive rest and sanctification was so closely connected with the

weekly festival that the term Sabbath was also applied to the great festivals (as Lev

23:15,24,32,39). For a similar reason, the number seven, which was that of the weekly

Sabbath (the first seven that had appeared in time), became in Scripture -symbolism the

sacred or covenant number. 99

It is necessary to bear all this in remembrance when thinking of what the perverted

ingenuity of the Rabbis made the Sabbath at the time of Christ, and probably even more

in the generations following. For there is evidence that the Sabbath-law has become

stricter than it had been, since, for instance, the practice of taking an ox or an ass out of

a pit, to which our Saviour alludes (Luke 14:5) as uncontroverted, would now no longer

be lawful, unless, indeed, the animal were in actual danger of life; otherwise, it is to

receive food and water in the pit. This 'actual danger to life,' whether to beast or to man

(at any rate, to Israelites), determined the only cases in which a breach of the law of