SHEMOT 31

13 Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am Yahweh that doth sanctify you.

Acceptable keeping of the Sabbath involved the exercise of mental discernment in relation to God. It required the mind to be fixed on Him in a special manner, as expressed in the message by Isaiah,

"If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of Yahweh, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in Yahweh; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth" (Isa. 58:13).

The reverse attitude is deprecated in those who said, 

"Behold, what a weariness is it! ....

When will the Sabbath be gone that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? Yahweh hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works. Shall not the land tremble for this?" (Mal. 1:13; Amos 8:5).

Even the eunuchs were commended who

"keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant"

(Isa. 56:4).

Nothing better could be conceived -- nothing more suited to man's spiritual requirements -- than this compulsory suspension of secular activity once in seven days, and this overt concentration of the mind, in a special manner, on the Creator who in all natural life is out of sight, and therefore liable to drop out of mind.

Law of Moses Ch 5.

17 It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in 6 days Yahweh made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.

Either the Lord in some sense made heaven and earth in six days, or the Bible is a human and fabulous writing. It is impossible that the intellect can receive the second of these alternatives when all the facts in the case are fully marshalled. With Christ at our right hand, we are bound to come to Genesis with the conviction that it is true, and that its statements must therefore be capable of harmonization with all other truth.

...We have therefore, to accept, without reserve, the statement of the Fourth Commandment that the Sabbath primarily originated in the extraordinary fact that

"in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed"

... The angels, as the instruments and users of the energy employed in the work, are not to be thought of as inexhaustible Deity.

Their power, though inconceivably higher than human, must be subject to a limitation unknown to

"the Creator of the ends of the earth, who fainteth not, neither is weary".

It is not, therefore, an inconceivable or anomalous idea that after the stupendous power put forth in the re-organization of this sublunary creation in six days, the Elohim should have welcomed the suspension of creative work on the seventh day, as affording an opportunity of replenishing spent energy by re-absorption from the Eternal Fountain.

...Man's work during the six days of the week is nothing to the work performed during the six days of creative work; but in relation to the strength of man, it is as great as the six days' creative work in relation to the strength of the angels. There is, therefore, a fitness in ordaining the Sabbath law on such a ground.

Law of Moses Ch 5