Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Exodus · About this commentary
A Sabbath Before Sinai
Exodus 16:22-36
22 On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one; and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. · WEB
A month before any law is given at the mountain, the Sabbath is already in force, already known, and already being broken.
On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one; and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses Exodus 16:22.
The double portion appears before anyone asks for it, and the rulers report it as an anomaly. Moses' answer treats the day as established fact rather than as news: this is that which Yahweh has spoken, "Tomorrow is a solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to Yahweh" Exodus 16:23.
The timing of this chapter carries more weight than anything in it. Israel is in the wilderness of Sin on the fifteenth day of the second month Exodus 16:1. They do not reach Sinai until the third month Exodus 19:1, and the commandments are not given for weeks after that. The Sabbath is therefore in force, and referred to as something already spoken, at least a month before a word of the law is delivered from the mountain.
What follows from that is not small. The fourth commandment, when it does come, does not say institute a Sabbath; it says remember the Sabbath day Exodus 20:8, and grounds it not in the exodus but in the making of the world — for in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth... and rested the seventh day Exodus 20:11. The account of creation says the same thing in the same order, that God rested on the seventh day... and God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy Genesis 2:2–3, and that blessing is pronounced when there is one family on the earth and no nation, no covenant, and no Israel to give it to.
So the day is not being introduced here and it is not the property of one people. It is older than the law that regulates it, and this chapter is the demonstration: a nation that has received no legislation whatever is already expected to know which day it is, and is rebuked when it does not.
On the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather, and they found none Exodus 16:27.
The experiment is run, and the result is a locked field. Then the rebuke, and its wording is the second thing this chapter settles: how long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? Exodus 16:28. Commandments and laws exist to be refused, a month before Sinai. Whatever was given at the mountain, it was not the first anyone had heard of God's requirements.
Because Yahweh has given you the Sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days Exodus 16:29.
The day is called a gift, and the provision is arranged around it rather than the reverse. God alters his own supply schedule so that resting is possible — the double portion on Friday exists precisely so that no one has to choose between eating and obeying. And the manna that spoiled overnight every other day of the week keeps perfectly on this one Exodus 16:24, which is a weekly miracle performed fifty-two times a year for four decades in defense of a single command.
So the people rested on the seventh day Exodus 16:30. A pot of it is kept as evidence for later generations Exodus 16:33.
settled What this mark means