Here is something I came across..
Was the Sabbath kept before God gave the Ten Commandments?
The Sabbath was created at the very beginning of human history. In
Genesis 2:1-3 we read that God blessed and sanctified the seventh day:
"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 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."
The Hebrew word translated "sanctified" in
Genesis 2:3 and "hallowed" in
Exodus 20:11 is qadash, a word meaning "to hallow, to pronounce holy, to consecrate, to set apart for holy use."
There is no denying that God was here setting aside the Sabbath as holy time. Is it logical to believe that God first created man, then the Sabbath, and then failed to mention to man that the seventh day was holy time? Certainly not! God must have immediately explained to Adam all about His sacred seventh day. We might say that God preached a sermon to Adam and Eve on the first Sabbath of human history, telling them how to observe His day as He wanted it to be observed.
Jonathan Edwards says in one of his sermons:
"What could be the meaning of God's resting the seventh day, and hallowing and blessing it, which He did, before the giving of the fourth commandment, unless He hallowed and blessed it with respect to mankind? . . . And it is unreasonable to suppose that He hallowed it only with respect to the Jews, a particular nation, which rose up above 2000 years after."
In
Mark 2:27, Jesus says: "The Sabbath was made for man." The Greek has an article before "man," so the phrase could be rendered, "The Sabbath was made for the man." This is a likely reference to Adam, the first man and representative of the whole race that descended from him. This reasonable conclusion that Adam kept the Sabbath is held by Jewish writers.
These are sensible and logical conclusions. It is just not reasonable to think that God would make the Sabbath for man and then keep it from him for over 2000 years until Moses. So the only fair conclusion is that Adam and Even were keeping the Sabbath from the very beginning.
The very fact that the seven-day week existed, is good evidence the Sabbath also existed.
Genesis 4:2-4
King James Version (KJV)
2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.
4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
The words "in process of time" are translated from the Hebrew mikkets yamim, meaning "at the end of the days." This can only be telling us that on the Sabbath, Cain and Abel, with the rest of Adam's family, gathered to worship God. Adam Clarke says,
"it is more probable that it means the Sabbath, on which Adam and his family undoubtedly offered oblations to God, as the divine worship was certainly instituted, and no doubt the Sabbath properly observed in that family."
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown say it was "probably on the Sabbath."
Another commentary has this to say:
"More likely this phrase denotes the Sabbath ... the end of the weekdays. And as it is plain that the Sabbath was observed as holy time since its formal institution by God in Paradise, it was doubtless kept holy by such appointments of worship as would distinguish the day."
There is nothing in nature that can be pointed to as measuring the week; only the Sabbath marks it. And only the Sabbath could come "at the end of days." Clearly, the family of Adam and Eve kept every Sabbath sacred....