My sabbaths ye shall keep: this precept is here repeated, either,
1. To show the chief use of the tabernacle, and all this cost and trouble about it, to wit, that they might there acceptably serve God, as in some measure upon every day, so especially upon the sabbath day. Or rather,
2. To restrain the time for the doing of the forementioned works: q.d. Though the work of the tabernacle and utensils be holy, and for a holy use, yet I will not have it done upon my holy day. The sabbath was not made for them, but they for it, and therefore they shall give place to it. It is a sign between me and you. The sabbath is a fivefold sign:
1. Commemorative, of God's creation of and dominion over them and all other things, to whom they do hereby profess their subjection.
2. Indicative, showing that they were made to be holy, and that their sanctification can be had from none but from God, as it here follows, and from the observation of God's days and appointments.
3. Distinctive, whereby they owned themselves to be the Lord's peculiar people, by a religious keeping of those sabbaths, which the rest of the world grossly neglected and profanely scoffed at.
4. Prefigurative, of that rest which Christ should purchase for them, to wit, a rest from the burden of the ceremonial, and from the curses and rigours of the moral law, as also from sin and the wrath of God for ever. See Heb 4.
5. Confirmative, both assuring them of God's good will to them, and that as he blessed the sabbath for their sakes, so he would bless them in the holy use of it with temporal, spiritual, and everlasting blessings, as he declares in many places of Scripture; and assuring God of their standing to that covenant made between God and them. So that this was a mutual stipulation or ratification of the covenant of grace on both sides. That doth sanctify you; that selecteth you out of all people, and consecrateth you to myself, and to my service and worship, a great part whereof is the observation of the sabbath. Or, that sanctifieth you by my word and ordinances, which are in more eminent and solemn manner dispensed upon the sabbath day, by the observation whereof you declare that you own me as your only Sanctifier; and so we may observe, the sabbath owns the Lord as our Creator, and as our Redeemer, and as our Sanctifier; and therefore it is no wonder God so severely enjoins the sanctification of the sabbath, and punisheth the neglect of it, it being a tacit renouncing or disowning of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.