Ezekiel 20:12
Moreover, also, I gave them my sabbaths
The Targum is,
``the days of the sabbaths;''
or sabbath days, the seventh day sabbaths, which recurring
throughout the year are many; but, besides these, there were the
year of remission, for the seventh year sabbath; and the jubilee
year, the great sabbath of all, once in fifty years; yea, Kimchi
thinks the feasts, such as the passover are included: now these are
distinguished from the statutes and judgments, or the precepts of
the law, which were of a moral nature; these being ritual and
ceremonial, and were peculiar to the Jews, and continued but for a
while; however, they were gifts, and valuable ones, of considerable
use and significance:
to be a sign between me and
them;
of his being their God, and they being his people; of his favour
and good will to them, and of the, obligations they were under to
him; of his having separated and distinguished them from all other
nations of the world; these sabbaths being only given to them as a
memorial of their deliverance out of Egypt, and as a pledge of
their entering into the land of rest; and of the future rest to be
enjoyed by Christ, and in heaven, to all eternity; for these were
shadows of things to come, (
Colossians
2:16 Colossians
2:17 ) ;
that they might know that I [am] the Lord that
sanctify them;
separate them from other nations, and, by such means and
opportunities, begin and carry on the work of sanctification in
them; for the sabbaths, and the services of them, were useful to
such purposes; as Lord's days, and the work of them, are now.