The sabbath was so solemnly and strictly kept, that it was not allowed to be broken even by the greatest of the festivals; it may indeed be said, that as being the oldest, it was the root and parent of all the rest. It was not merely a day of cessation from labour; its celebration was a weekly acknowledgment, that the One God was worshipped as the creator of heaven and earth; and thus it stood in the closest connection with the first of the ten commandments which God had given upon mount Sinai. The command for its observance, however, is as ancient as the first revelation made by God to man, forming a part of the narrative of the creation. At the giving of the law, the precept for its observance was renewed and enforced, “Remember the sabbath-day to keep it holy;” and its high import was expressed by the words, “Verily my sabbaths shall ye keep, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am the Lord that sanctifieth you. Six days shall ye work, but the seventh is the sabbath, a holy rest unto the Lord.”[125] And in the renewal of the law it is said, “Thou shalt remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence with a mighty and an outstretched arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath-day.”[126] So the prophets call the sabbath the sign of the covenant between Jehovah and his people.[127] It was besides a day of remembrance of the deliverance from Egypt, a weekly passover. The violation of the sabbath was punished with the severest penalties. “Whosoever maketh the sabbath unholy shall surely be put to death;” and when it is added, as an explanation, “whosoever _doeth any work_ on the sabbath-day, he shall surely be put to death,” this deeper meaning is conveyed, that there is a rest, which is more holy than labour. Outward rest, consisting in the cessation of motion and exertion, was the sign of that holy and inward rest. While in the desert Moses commanded the children of Israel, saying, “Behold the Lord hath given you the sabbath; therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days. Let every man therefore remain in his own place, and let no man go out on the seventh day.”[128] What a picture do these words convey, of so many millions of human beings, by whose activity the surrounding desert was enlivened on every other day, but of whose existence every trace seemed to vanish, as the sun went down on the evening when the seventh began! In pious fear of transgressing this law, the Jews, in later times, never went further than two thousand cubits; because they reckoned that the remotest tent in the camp would be one thousand cubits distant from the tabernacle, and that their forefathers must have gone and returned this distance, in order to appear before Jehovah.[129] Footnote 125: Exod. xxxi. 13. Footnote 126: Deut. v. 15. Footnote 127: Ezek. xx. 12. Footnote 128: Exod. xvi. 29.