The length of the Sabbath varies in the Scripture records all the way from a day to eternity; in fact, any religious festival or holiday was termed by the Hebrews "a sabbath unto the Lord." As a modern institution the Sabbath, or rest from labor, as the word implies, has lost through the centuries of materialism much of its original spiritual significance and in some countries is now regarded more as a secular festival than as a religious holy day. In order to understand and appreciate the original meaning and true value of the Sabbath it is necessary, therefore, to go back to the time of the Hebrew theocracy and to learn something of the Levitical law, in which the rules for its observance were first definitely incorporated.
In the Bible the earliest mention of a Sabbath is to be found in the second chapter of Genesis, wherein it is recorded that God rested after the six days of creation. Its first connection with human affairs occurs, however, in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, in which is told the story of the manna. This type of spiritual food, it will be remembered, was found on the ground every morning during the week except on the seventh day. On the sixth morning, notwithstanding the fact that at other times only sufficient manna was to be taken for the day, a double portion was gathered, so that the people might be free on the morrow to observe the Sabbath.
In the twentieth chapter of Exodus the observance of the Sabbath day is found incorporated into the fourth commandment of the Decalogue, and its reason as there given is that the Lord, who made heaven and earth, rested on the seventh day and hallowed it. The Hebrew law, as it was later developed, not only prohibited all unnecessary labor on the seventh day of the week but it also required that a Sabbath be kept on the first, tenth, fifteenth, and twenty-third days of the seventh month. On these days no servile work was to be done from the evening of the previous day until the evening of the Sabbath. During the feast of tabernacles, which lasted for the seven days between the fifteenth and twenty-third days of the seventh month, the Israelites are told to "dwell in booths," in order that they may be reminded that their forefathers dwelt in booths when God brought them out of the land of Egypt.
