Exodus 16:29 and Nehemiah 9:13-14 prove that the Sabbath was not given until Israel left Egypt. The very silence of the Scriptures regarding anyone's keeping it before that time is strong corroborative proof.
Two claims are here made: First, that the Sabbath was instituted in a Jewish setting. This claim is intended to prepare the way for the next claim, which is that the Sabbath was made only for the Jews.
The objector seems to believe that Exodus 16:29 and Nehemiah 9:13-14 neutralize the statement in Genesis 2:2-3 and expunge it from the record. But does one Scriptural statement do that to another? No. We must interpret all texts on a given topic to be in harmony with each other; if we are interpreting them to oppose each other, we are misinterpreting.
We have already seen—objection 20—that Genesis 2:2-3 firmly establishes that God rested on the seventh day of the first week of time, and then and there blessed the seventh day. If we are rightly interpreting the Scriptures, we must believe that whatever Exodus 16:29 and Nehemiah 9:13-14 teach, they do not teach contrary to Genesis 2:2-3.
Exodus 16:29 is part of the narrative of the giving of the manna, which was to be collected each day for the six working days, with twice as much to be collected the sixth day, because God gave no manna on the seventh day. But some of the Israelites, contrary to God's command, went out on the Sabbath day to collect it. This caused the Lord to inquire of Moses: “How long refuse you to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days.” Ex. 16:28-29.
Nehemiah, long afterward, recalls what God did for Israel in bringing them out of captivity, declaring in part: “Thou came down also upon mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: and made known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and, commanded them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant.” Neh. 9:13,14.
These passages deal with the same incidents and are so similar in construction that they may be considered together. Let us note certain phrases:
1. “The Lord bath given you the Sabbath.” Ex. 16:29.
2. “Gave them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments.” Neh. 9:13.
3. “Made known unto them thy holy Sabbath.” Neh. 9:14.
Clearly, the third of these three phrases, “made known”, implies that the Sabbath already existed. God declares, “I made myself known unto them [Israel], in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.” Ezek. 20:9. Obviously, God existed prior to the Exodus and “making Himself known” to Israel. By the same token, the Sabbath existed before it was made known to Israel during the exodus. The knowledge both of God and of the Sabbath had largely faded from the minds of the Israelites during their long Egyptian bondage
But what of the first and second construction, “giving” the Sabbath and other laws? First, we should note that the manna narrative takes place before the formal giving of the tables of stone on Mt. Sinai, which indicates that the Sabbath was already in existence before the formal “giving” of the law. That alone proves that the term “giving” cannot mean that the moral law was not in existence before it was formally given on Mt. Sinai, as the objector implies.
But let us follow the objector’s argument to its logical end. If we are to interpret Exodus 16:29 to mean that the Sabbath law did not exist until it was “given” at Sinai, we must interpret Nehemiah 9:13 by the same rules of construction, which would mean that none of the moral laws existed until they were “given” at Sinai. Therefore, not only would it have been no sin to work on the seventh day, but it would have been no sin, previous to Sinai, to have done any of the things prohibited by the various laws and commandments which God “gave them” at that time.
But are not the other nine of the Ten Commandments an expression of eternal moral principles? Does anyone believe for a moment that previous to the giving of the Sixth Commandment against adultery from Mt. Sinai, there was no divine ban on adultery and therefore no sin in taking one’s neighbor’s wife? The testimony of Scripture is that adultery was commonly known to be a sin long before Sinai. (See, e.g., Gen. 12:10-20; Gen. 20)
Even so with the Sabbath law. It, along with the other great precepts of the Ten Commandments, and many other statutes, was “given” to Israel in the sense of being made known to Israel as they began their national life. The long darkness of Egypt had quite blurred their understanding of God's will. They needed to be reminded of the divine precepts. Now by the light of the pillar of fire, God made clear to them all His requirements, including the Sabbath.
Only a word need be said in reply to the claim based on the fact that the Scriptures are silent about keeping the Sabbath before the Exodus. The few pages of the Bible that precede the account of the Exodus cover some twenty-five hundred years. Obviously, only a few highlights of that eon could be included in the Bible. Chiefly, Moses sought to provide a running narrative to connect creation with the events that followed the fall of man, on down through the Flood, the call of Abraham, the rise of Israel, and their exodus from Egypt. Little is mentioned of the religious activities in which men engaged during those twenty-five hundred years. To present this silence of Scripture as a proof against the seventh-day Sabbath is to rely on an exceedingly weak argument.
Those who promote the importance of Sunday generally include in their reasoning that man needs a recurring day of worship each week, and set no bounds of time or place on that claim. Hence, those who lived before the Exodus were also in need of such a recurring day. Seeing they were, would God fail to provide for that need? Indeed, did He not do that very thing when, at creation, He set apart for a holy use the seventh day? We do not need a specific mention of their keeping that day before we reasonably conclude that holy men like Enoch, Noah, and Abraham kept the Sabbath holy.