APPENDIX P. Schottgen on Ps. xcii. 1, A song of praise for the Sabbath-day, for all eternity is a Sabbath. Jalkut Rubeni says, at the time when God gave the Law, he called the Israelites, saying, My sons, I have a good gift in the world, and I will give it you always and for ever, if ye receive my law, and keep my commandments. The Israelites answered, and said: Lord of the whole world, what is that good gift which thou wilt give us, if we keep thy Law? The holy and blessed God answered, and said: The world to come! The Israelites answered, and said: Lord of the whole world, shew us a pattern of the world to come. God answered them: The pattern is the Sabbath. Rab. Simeon said, because they taught that the Sabbath is the pattern of the world to come. Indeed, this is acknowledged by all; therefore, the seventh year and the Jubilee have the same type as the Sabbath, Rab. Nathan asks, What did Adam sing of the Sabbathday? Answer, Psalm xcii, A Song of Praise for the Sabbath-day, indeed that day is understood, which is all Sabbath; in which there is no room for meat, or drink, or business; but the righteous sit, wearing crowns on their heads, and enjoy the brightness of the Sheckinah, Exod. xxiv. 11. And they saw God, and did eat and drink with the ministering angels. But why are all these things said? Answer, That man may immediately gird himself for the Sabbath-feast. Again, on the Sabbath-day, the Levites, during the sacrifices of bondage, sing the 92d Psalm, whose title is a Song of Praise for the Sabbathday, that is, a song of praise for the time to come, viz. that day which is all Sabbath, and rest to everlasting life. Dr. Holmes observes, on ch. iv. 9, Now what Sabbatism, septennary, or seventh of rest, can we find out, besides those aforesaid, (viz. seventh day, year, &c.) but the seventh thousand of years, that is, the last thousand of years of the world, before the ultimate general judgments? Thus the Rabbins, (R. Ketina, R. David, Kimchi, R. Schelomo, &c.) assert with one consent, grounding themselves upon the Scriptures. Their words, in sum, are these: "As every seventh year is a year of release, so xc. 4. the seventh thousand of years of the world is the time of the APPENDIX P. release of the world, according to the 92d Psalm, A Psalm Ps. xcii. and for the Sabbath-day; and Ps. xc. ver. 4, "A thousand years, in thy sight, are but as yesterday." Holmes also records the Jews' opinions on Isa. ii. Their Talmuds, Gemara, Sanhedrim pereck, R. Ketina, &c. assert, that this world doth continue six thousand years-in one it shall be destroyed, so as to be purified, as gold, and freed from the curse; of which it is said, the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. Gill also mentions, that "the Jews call the world to come, the times of the Messiah, the great Sabbath." Zohar in Gen. Sheane Ora Caphtor. Nolan, the learned author of the Strictures on Gries- Nolan. bach, says, " To the millenial state of rest, which is to be hereafter enjoyed by the Church, there is the plainest .... allusion, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, (iv. 1-11;) on Heb. iv. i. 11. the assumption of its truth, the whole tenor and consistency of the author's reasoning is, indeed, wholly dependant. In the consciousness under which he wrote, that his readers were not unversed in the subject, we find a sufficient justification of the general terms under which he expresses himself respecting it. . . . . The point seems to be placed beyond ambiguity, by an apostolical Father, to whom the translation of the epistle to the Hebrews into Greek has been ascribed, and who was not only the companion of St. Paul, but addressed his epistle to the same people, and on the same subject, as the great Apostle. St. Barnabas, while he delivers himself more fully respecting it, has established the connexion, which is merely intimated by St. Paul, between the Sabbath of God' and the Sabbatism reserved for his people.' He accordingly shews, that the period of seven days was chosen by the Almighty, who might have at once called the creation into existence, as indicative of the term of seven thousand years, which he had prescribed to the world that he had created..... and he justifies the analogy on which he reasons by the authority and language of Scripture; to which St. Peter has given a similar application, when, apparently delivering himself on the same subject, (Ps. xc. 4.) concluding, that as one day was Ps. xc. 4. with the Lord, as a thousand years, the world would be Heb. iv. 9, 10. APPENDIX P. only oppressed with toil and sorrow for so many thousand years as days had been consumed in the work of the creation. With this illustration, the connexion in St. Paul's reasoning becomes obvious and conclusive..... "There remaineth, therefore, a Sabbatism to the people of God;" "for he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his works, as God did from his." The Sabbath being allowed, as St. Barnabas assumes, to be the type of the Sabbatism,' it was necessary to be inferred from the rest in which God entered, that "a rest remained to his people." (it is also) "obvious, that while St. Peter alludes to the time of the creation, from which the doctrine of the Millenium is deduced by St. Paul, and to the destruction and renovation of the earth, with which it is connected in the Apocalypse by St. John, he asserts the analogy between the length of a day and the period of a thousand years, on which the certainty of that great Sabbatism was established from its type in the Sabbath." Gen. ii. 2. Ex. xx 11; xxxi. 17. ..... The passage in St. Barnabas, to which Nolan appears to refer, is as follows: "And even in the beginning of the creation he makes mention of the Sabbath." And God made, in six days, the works of his hand; and he finished them on the seventh day, and he rested the seventh day, and sanctified it." Consider, my children, what that signifies, he finished them in six days. The meaning of it is this; that in six thousand years, the Lord God will bring all things to an end. For with him one day is a thousand years; as himself testifieth, saying, behold this day shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, shall all things be accomplished. And what is that he saith, and he rested the seventh day? he meaneth this; that when his son shall come, and abolish the season of the Wicked One, and judge the ungodly; and shall change the sun, and the moon, and the stars; then he shall gloriously rest in that seventh day."-Ep. St. Barnabas in Coll. Ep. of Apostol. Fathers, by Wm. A. Bp. of Canterbury, p. 187. To these we add the authority of Bunyan, for interpreting the fourth of Hebrews in a similar manner. |