The testimony of our divine Lord relative to the origin and design of the Sabbath is of peculiar importance. He is competent to testify, for he was with the Father in the beginning of the creation.[25] “The Sabbath was made for man,” said he, “not man for the Sabbath.”[26] The following grammatical rule is worthy of notice: “A noun without an adjective is invariably taken in its broadest extension, as: Man is accountable.”[27] The following texts will illustrate this rule, and also this statement of our Lord’s: “Man lieth down and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.” “It is appointed unto men once to die.”[28] In these texts man is used without restriction, and, therefore, all mankind are necessarily intended. The Sabbath was therefore made for the whole human family, and consequently originated with mankind. But the Saviour’s language is even yet more emphatic in the original: “The Sabbath was made for THE man, not THE man for the Sabbath.” This language fixes the mind on the man Adam, who was made of the dust of the ground just before the Sabbath was made for him, of the seventh day. This is a striking confirmation of the fact already pointed out that the Sabbath was given to Adam, the head of the human family. “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; yet he made the Sabbath for man. God made the Sabbath his by solemn appropriation, that he might convey it back to us under the guarantee of a divine charter, that none might rob us of it with impunity.” But is it not possible that God’s act of blessing and sanctifying the seventh day did not occur at the close of the creation week? May it not be mentioned then because God designed that the day of his rest should be afterward observed? Or rather, as Moses wrote the book of Genesis long after the creation, might he not insert this account of the sanctification of the seventh day with the record of the first week, though the day itself was sanctified in his own time?