The Story of Patriarchs and Prophets
by Ellen G. White
Appendix
NOTE 1. PAGE 258. In the command for Israel's release, the Lord
said to Pharaoh, "Israel is My son, even My first-born. . . . let My son
go, that he may serve Me." Exodus 4:22, 23. The Psalmist tells us why
God delivered Israel from Egypt: "He brought forth His people with
joy, and His chosen with gladness: and gave them the lands of the
heathen: and they inherited the labor of the people; that they might
observe His statutes, and keep His laws." Psalm 105:43-45. Here we
learn that the Hebrews could not serve God in Egypt.
In Deuteronomy 5:14, 15 we find special emphasis given to that
portion of the fourth commandment which requires the manservant
and the maidservant to rest, and the Israelite was told to remember that
he had been a servant in the land of Egypt. The Lord said, "The
seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do
any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor
thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor
thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy
maidservant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a
servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee
out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm: therefore
the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day." In
Exodus 5:5 we learn that Moses and Aaron made the people "rest from
their burdens."
From these facts we may conclude that the Sabbath was one of the
things in which they could not serve the Lord in Egypt; and when
Moses and Aaron came with the message of God (Exodus 4:29-31),
they attempted a reform, which only increased the oppression. The
Israelites were delivered that they might observe the statutes of the
Lord, including the fourth commandment, and this placed upon them
an additional obligation to keep the Sabbath strictly, as well as to keep
all the commandments. Thus in Deuteronomy 24:17, 18 the fact of
their deliverance from Egypt is cited as placing them under special
obligation to show kindness to the widow and the fatherless: "thou
shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor
take a widow's raiment to pledge: but thou shalt remember that thou
wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee
thence: therefore I command thee to do this thing." [p. 758]
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