The seventh day was to be a holy day—set apart and separate from the common uses of the other days. Holy not only in the sense that we ordinar rily interpret this word, The meaning is capable of a much wider definition. Israel was to be a holy people; the Sanctuary a holy place; the house of Levi were to be holy for the work of the Sanctuary, and the seventh day to be holy, set apart from all other days, A holy nation, a holy place, a holy day, all testified to the covenant relationship into Which Israel had been admitted and the claims of God upon them as His own people, This separation of the Sabbath Day had a very definite part and place in the vast and complicated system of the Law....a system which enshrined great spiritual truths which were thus revealed.
The manner in which the Sabbath was to be kept is very distinctly stated. The command was very definite, "In it thou shalt do no manner of work." And the penalty for the breach of this commandment was death, It seems a very severe punishment until we consider that Israel was a theocracy and the breaker of the law of the Sabbath destroyed, as far as in him lay the entire covenant, and if all did as he did the covenant would have been terminated. Hence it is that all through their history the maintenance or violation of the Sabbath was deemed an infallible sign of the health or decline of the state of consecration or apostasy.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.