Genesis 2:3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
Many mistaken interpreters assert that Genesis 2:3 is the first mention of the Sabbath in the Bible.
However, the reference is to rest, not the Sabbath.
Genesis 2:3 speaks of God resting from the work of the days of creation, meaning He finished that work.
Man did not rest on that day. God is the One who rested or ceased from His work of Creation.
If man had rested on that day, he would not have worked six days and rested on the seventh day!
The Hebrew word for Sabbath does not appear anywhere in the text of Genesis.
The record given in Genesis 2:3 does not establish the Sabbath for man. There is absolutely no evidence in the pages of Genesis that the Sabbath involving a recurring weekly time of rest on the seventh day was ever practiced by the Patriarchs.
The Sabbath was instituted at the giving of the manna in Exodus 16:23-31,
Exo 16:23 And he said unto them, This is that which the LORD hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the LORD: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.
Exo 16:24 And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade: and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein.
Exo 16:25 And Moses said, Eat that to day; for to day is a sabbath unto the LORD: to day ye shall not find it in the field.
Exo 16:26 Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none.
Exo 16:27 And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none.
Exo 16:28 And the LORD said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?
Exo 16:29 See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.
Exo 16:30 So the people rested on the seventh day.
Exo 16:31 And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.
The statement in Deuteronomy 5:3 introducing the Ten Commandments explicitly states that “The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us.”
Therefore, Scripture itself declares the Sabbath Commandment was utterly unknown to prior generations. The rest of Scripture confirms this.
Deut 5:3 The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.
but with us. This is a most clear statement that the Law was given first on this occasion at Mount Horeb to Moses, and never given at a prior time, including the Sabbath commandment, an affirmation confirmed by the combined witness of the following Parallel Passages. +*Deut 5:2, %+*Gen 26:5, **Neh 9:13; **Neh 9:14, *Jer 11:4; Jer 34:13, **Ezk 20:9, 10, 11, 12; **Ezk 20:20, **Mal 4:4, **Rom 5:13; **Rom 5:14.
Nehemiah 9:12 Moreover thou leddest them in the day by a cloudy pillar; and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go.
Neh 9:13 Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments:
Neh 9:14 And madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant:
Neh 9:15 And gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and promisedst them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them.