These two things resemble one another, both having been accomplished by the will of God, not by accident or natural development; as He, who is blessed, says: ‘For ask now of the days past, which were before thee.’[139] ‘Did ever a people hear the voice of God.’[140] ‘Or hath God assayed.’[141] The observance of the Sabbath in itself has thus become an acknowledgment of the Godhead; nay, as it were, it is an acknowledgment of the creative utterance. For he who accepts the ordinance of the Sabbath, because the work of creation was finished on it, acknowledges the creation itself without doubt; and he who acknowledges the creation, acknowledges the Creator, the Maker, who is blessed. He, however, who does not accept it falls into the heresies of the world’s eternity, and his belief in the world’s Creator is not pure. Accordingly, the observance of the Sabbath brings one nearer to the Creator than do asceticism and monastic retirement. See how the divine influence, which had cleaved to Abraham and then to His chosen multitude, and to the Holy Land, kept on leading them from degree to degree, and guarded their posterity, so that none was detached. It put them in the best place, made them fruitful, and multiplied them in a miraculous manner, until it removed them, and planted them in a land worthy of a chosen people. He is therefore called the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, just as He is called Dweller above the Cherubim, Dweller in Zion, and Dweller in Jerusalem, these places being likened to heaven, as it is written: ‘O Thou that dwellest in the heaven’,[142] for His light shines in these places, as it shines in heaven, though only through mediums worthy of receiving that light which He sheds upon them. This is called His _love_, which was established for us, in which we are obliged to believe, and for which we have to thank Him in the prayer _With everlasting love dost Thou love us_; so that we should bear in mind that it originated with Him, not with us. To give an instance, we say concerning the creation of a living being that it did not create itself, but God formed and fashioned it, when He selected the matter fit for that form. In the same manner it was He, who is blessed, who initiated our delivery from Egypt, that we should be His own people, and He should be our King, as He repeatedly says: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God.’[143] He also says: ‘Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’[144] XXIV. MOSES B. MAIMON