288 OF THE ORIGINAL OF THE SABBATH. [ EXERC. IT.
out of all sorts of their authors, and those duly alleged, according to their own sense and conceptions.
3. Marah was the first station that the children of Israel fixed in the wilderness of Shur, five days after their coming up out of the Red sea. Before their coming hither, they had wandered three days in the wilderness without finding any water, until they were ready to faint. The report of this their thirst and wandering was famous amongst the heathen, and mixed by them with vain and monstrous fables. One of the wisest amongst them puts as many lies together about it as so few words can well contain. “ Effigiem,” saith he, “animalis, quo monstrante errorem sitimque depulerant, penetrali sacravere,” Tacit. Hist., lib. v. cap. iv. He feigns that by fol- lowing some wild asses they were led to waters, and so made an end of their thirst and wandering; on the account whereof they afterwards consecrated in their temple the image of an ass. Others of them besides him say that they wandered six days, and finding water on the seventh, that was the occasion and reason of their perpetual ob- servation of the seventh day’s rest. In their journey from the Red sea to Marah, they were particularly pressed with wandering and thirst, Exod. xv. 22; but this was only for three days, not seven; “They went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.” The story of the ass’s image or head consecrated amongst them was taken from what fell out afterwards about the golden calf. This made them vile among the nations, and exposed them to their ob- loquy and reproaches. Upon the third day, therefore, after their coming from the Red sea, they came to Marah; that is, the place so called afterwards from what there befell them, for the waters which there they found being 52, “bitter,” they called the name of the place 172, or “ bitterness.” Hither they came on the third day; for although it is said that “they went three days in the wil- derness, and found no water,” Exod. xv. 22, after which mention is made of their coming to Marah, verse 23, yet it was in the evening of the third day, for they pitched that night in Marah, Num. xxxiii. 8. There, after their murmuring for the bitterness of the waters, and the miraculous cure of them, it is added in the story, “ There the LorD made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lorp thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lorp that healeth thee,” Exod. xy. 25, 26.
It is said that he gave them bavin PN, the words whereby sacred ordinances and institutions are expressed. What this “ statute and
SECT. 3, 4.] OF THE ORIGINAL OF THE SABBATH. 289
ordinance” were in particular is not declared. These, therefore, are suggested by the Talmudical masters. One of them, they say, was the ordinance concerning the Sabbath. About the other they are not so well agreed. Some refer it to the fifth commandment, of honouring father and mother; others to the ceremonies of the red heifer, with whose ashes the water of sprinkling was to be mingled: for which conjectures they want not suchi reasons as are usual amongst them. The two first they confirm from the repetition of the law, Deut. y. 12, 15; for there these words, “ As the Lorp thy God hath com- manded thee,” are distinctly added to those two precepts, the fourth and fifth, and tono other. And this could arise from no other cause but because God had before given them unto the people i in Marah, where he said he had given them D5¥: PN; that is, the ordinance and law of the Sabbath, and the judgment of obedience to parents and superiors! This is one of the principal ways whereby they con- firm their imaginations. And fully to establish the truth hereof, Baal Hatturim, or the small gematrical annotations on the Masore- tical Bibles, adds, that in these words, THOS nim WY WN, the final numeral letters make up the same number ae AND, the name of the place where these laws were given. And this is the sum of what is pleaded in this case.
4, But every one may easily see the vanity of these pretences, and how easy it is for any one to frame a thousand of them who knows not how better to spend his time. Aben Ezra and Abarbanel both confess that the words used in the repetition of the law, Deut. v., do refer to the giving of it on mount Sinai. And if we must seek for especial reasons for the inserting of those words, besides the sovereign pleasure of God, they are not wanting which are far more probable than these of the masters. (1.) The one of these commandments closing up the first table, concerning the worship of God, and the other heading the second table, concerning our duties amongst our- selves and towards others, this memorial, “As the Lorp thy God hath commanded thee,” is on that account expressly annexed unto them, being to be distinctly applied unto all the rest. (2.) The fourth commandment is, as it were, “custos prime tabule,” the keeper of the whole first table, seeing our owning of God to be our God, and our worship of him according to his mind, were solemnly to. be expressed on the day of rest commanded to be observed for that purpose, and in the neglect whereof they will be sure enough neglected; whence also a remembrance to observe this day is so strictly enjoined, And the fifth commandment is apparently “custos secunde tabule,” as appointed of God to contain the means of exacting the observation of all the duties of the second table, or of punishing the neglect of them and disobedience unto them. And therefore it may be the