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here that God was revealing His weekly Sabbath cycle for the Israelites. If the 15th and the 22nd
were Sabbath days, so too were the 8th and the 29th days of the month! So we here see a pattern --
the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th. What significance do these dates have? Just this -- THEY CORRE-
SPOND TO THE PHASES OF THE MOON!! God was showing the Israelites that His Sabbath
days were to fall on the days of the month CORRESPONDING TO THE MOON'S PHASES, thus
revealing that the weekly Sabbaths were to be observed using THE SAME CALENDAR or reck-
oning used to determine the annual Sabbaths or feast days!

Unfortunately, Herbert Armstrong never made the connection (to our knowledge) between
these Sabbath days in Exodus 16 and the phases of the moon.

In the article Creation Weekly Sabbath the author DOES make the connection, however he
seems to have a problem with arithmetic!

In Exodus 16:1-30 Jahwah brought Israel into the Wilderness of Sin (which means
"Moon") to teach them the set-time ordinance of the Weekly Sabbath. The keeping of the
Sabbath was a test to prove Israel's obedience to Yahweh's torah/instructions. They en-
tered the Wilderness of Sin on the second month AND THE FIFTEENTH DAY that they
left Egypt. Counting six days: 2/15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 -- the Sabbath fell on the 21st
day of the month. (Lunar weekly Sabbaths fall on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days of the
month).

The author's arithmetic not withstanding, if you count seven days from the 15th you will ar-
rive at the 22nd -- not the 21st! Since he mentions that the weekly Sabbaths fall on the 7th, 14th,
21st and 28th days of the month, it seems evident that he is going by lunar observations. The mis-
counting of the days may be intentional to make the Exodus 16 account fit the author's own personal
theory.

Regarding the Israelites' new understanding of God's weekly Sabbath, Hutton Webster
makes the following observations --

The brief prohibitions of work found in the Pentateuch cannot be separated, by any suble-
ties of exegesis, from the numerous other taboos with which the institution was invested.
The rest on the Sabbath is only one of the forms of abstinence in CONNECTION WITH
LUNAR CHANGES; and if the Sabbath began as a festival at NEW MOON and FULL
MOON, it may well have been observed BY THE ISRAELITES BEFORE THEIR CON-
TACT WITH CANAANITISH CULTURE (Rest Days, p. 246).

From Joshua to the Babylonian Captivity

After wandering for 40 years in the wilderness because of their disobedience, the Israelites
finally crossed into the Promised Land under the able leadership of Joshua. After conquering the
various Canaanite tribes, the land was divided up and given to the 12 tribes as an inheritance. Dur-
ing this time, and up to the Assyrian captivity of the House of Israel, the lunar calendar was ob-
served -- even though surrounding nations were moving away from this type of calendar.

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