“See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days:[72] abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.”[73] As a special trust, God committed the Sabbath to the Hebrews. It was now given them, not now made for them. It was made for man at the close of the first week of time; but all other nations having turned from the Creator to the worship of idols, it is given to the Hebrew people. Nor does this prove that all the Hebrews had hitherto disregarded it. For Christ uses the same language respecting circumcision. Thus he says, “Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision; not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers.”[74] Yet God had enjoined that ordinance upon Abraham and his family four hundred years previous to this gift of it by Moses, and it had been retained by them.[75] The language, “The Lord hath given you the Sabbath,” implies a solemn act of committing a treasure to their trust. How was this done? No act of instituting the Sabbath here took place. No precept enjoining its observance was given until some of the people violated it, when it was given in the form of a reproof; which evinced a previous obligation, and that they were transgressing an existing law. And this view is certainly strengthened by the fact that no explanation of the institution was given to the people; a fact which indicates that some knowledge of the Sabbath was already in their possession. But how then did God give them the Sabbath? He did this, first, by delivering them from the abject bondage of Egypt, where they were a nation of slaves. And second, by providing them food in such a manner as to impose the strongest obligation to keep the Sabbath. Forty years did he give them bread from heaven, sending it for six days, and withholding it on the seventh, and preserving food for them over the Sabbath. Thus was the Sabbath especially intrusted to them. As a gift to the Hebrews, the Creator’s great memorial became a sign between God and themselves. “I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” As a sign, its object is stated to be, to make known the true God; and we are told why it was such a sign. “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.”[76] The institution itself signified that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. Its observance by the people signified that the Creator was their God. How full of meaning was this sign!