See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day.”[67] This narrative shows, 1. That God had a law and commandments prior to the giving of the manna. 2. That God in giving his people bread from heaven designed to prove them respecting his law. 3. That in this law was the holy Sabbath; for the test relative to walking in the law pertained directly to the Sabbath; and when God said, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” it was the Sabbath which they had violated. 4. That in proving the people respecting this existing law, Moses gave no new precept respecting the Sabbath, but remained silent relative to the preparation for the Sabbath until after the people, of their own accord, had gathered a double portion on the sixth day. 5. That by this act the people proved not only that they were not ignorant of the Sabbath, but that they were disposed to observe it.[68] 6. That the reckoning of the week, traces of which appear through the patriarchal age,[69] had been rightly kept, for the people knew when the sixth day had arrived. 7. That had there been any doubt existing on that point, the fall of the manna on the six days, the withholding of it on the seventh, and the preservation of that needed for the Sabbath over that day, must have settled that point incontrovertibly.[70] 8. That there was no act of instituting the Sabbath in the wilderness of Sin; for God did not then make it his rest-day, nor did he then bless and sanctify the day. On the contrary, the record shows that the seventh day was already the sanctified rest-day of the Lord.[71] 9. That the obligation to observe the Sabbath existed and was known before the fall of the manna. For the language used implies the existence of such an obligation, but does not contain a new enactment until after some of the people had violated the Sabbath. Thus God says to Moses, “On the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in,” but he does not speak of the seventh. And on the sixth day Moses says, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord,” but he does not command them to observe it. On the seventh day he says that it is the Sabbath, and that they should find no manna in the field. “Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none.” But in all this there is no precept given, yet the existence of such a precept is plainly implied. 10. That when some of the people violated the Sabbath they were reproved in language which plainly implies a previous transgression of this precept. “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” 11. And that this rebuke of the Law-giver restrained for the time the transgression of the people.