Let me answer your question with another question.

Was forbidding Adam & Eve to eat from the tree in the midst of the Garden of Eden arbitrary?

Absolutely not.

Is the Sabbath arbitrary?

Define arbitrary.

Webster 1828 dictionary:
Arbitrary
ARBITRARY, a. [L. arbitrarious.]

1. Depending on will or discretion; not governed by any fixed rules; as, an arbitrary decision; an arbitrary punishment.

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

2. Despotic; absolute in power; having no external control; as, an arbitrary prince or government.

Webster 2010
1. subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one's discretion: an arbitrary decision.
2. decided by a judge or arbiter rather than by a law or statute.
3. having unlimited power; uncontrolled or unrestricted by law; despotic: an arbitrary government.
4. capricious; unreasonable; unsupported: an arbitrary demand for payment.
5. Math. undetermined; not assigned a specific value: an arbitrary constant.

In his monumental work on the Sabbath, Sigve Tonstad deals with "arbitrary" in connection with the Sabbath as well as all of the commandments. If you consider Sabbath keeping as arbitrary or "a stern commandment" it "calls God's character into question" and this seems to be Luther's view, with little difference to the Roman Catholic view and it "calls God's character into question".

It is remarkable that when referring to the 10 commandments in Scripture they are termed a covenant. Any covenant is based on religious liberty and is not arbitrary.

God instituted the seven day week at creation.

It is very plainly stated that in six days God created the heavens and the earth and rested the seventh day -- blessing and sanctifying it.

This had nothing to do with the moon -- the moon wasn't even created until the fourth day.

The seven day cycle was set in motion at creation by the work and blessing of God.
The world may have lost it in different places and times,
but it was given again at Sinai.
It is a memorial to creation. That is not "arbitrary" any more than your birthday is arbitrary, or your wedding anniversary.

Six days the manna fell, double on the sixth day, none on the seventh. I see absolutely nothing in scripture that speaks of an eight or nine day week at the end of every month.

Since 29.5 is not divisible by 7, it is impossible to have six days of work, followed by one day of rest in a consistent pattern.
So every fourth week the lunar calendar calls the 30th a "transition day" which somehow doesn't count as a week day, and the 1st is the "new moon day" which also somehow doesn't count.
But the reality is that from their Sabbath on the 29th till their next Sabbath on the 8th you do not have a seven day week.

Since this is the most Biblical defense I could find on this thread I thought I would explore it and comment on it.



So what we have thus far is the knowledge that Israel marked their year by monthly segments -- these months were calculated by the moon.

But already, I see a Biblical reason why I can't accept that the seventh day Sabbath is the same as the festival special days.
The 8th, the 15th, the 22nd and the 29th are supposedly Sabbaths on the lunar calendar. But on the 15th of the first month we see here that the children of Israel were collecting money and other valuables from their Egyptian neighbors, packing it, and all their other belongings and starting a long journey.

According to the book of Nehemiah this is NOT Sabbath activity.
So I really do not think the 15th was a seventh day Sabbath that month.


How many assumptions are made in the above quote?
1) The first assumption is that New Moon and Sabbath can NEVER happen together. Why not?
Where is there any Biblical proof for that assumption. Just because the gates were opened on New Moon and Sabbath days, does not at all prove this.
Since most of the time the new moon did not occur on the 7th day Sabbath, the comment is made that on New Moons the gates are also opened, but it doesn't mean the New Moon never fell on a Sabbath.

2) The second assumption is that the new week must begin on the day following the New Moon. Why?

3) The third assumption is that the festival special days are the same as the 7th day Sabbath.

One reason why I think they are NOT the same, is found in Lev. 23, and the feast of weeks. (The word weeks is actual sevens)

From the morning after the Sabbath they were to count 7 Sabbaths, unto the morning after the Seventh Sabbath which is day 50.
Yet, if the lunar calendar were followed,
1)22, 2)29 3)8th 4)15, 5)22, 6)29,7)8th (7+7+9+7+7+7+9) it would be the 53rd or 54th day. And not the day after seven sevens.





Ex. 16:1 "and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which [is] between Elim and Sinai on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt."

So actually it says they ARRIVED in the desert of Sin, on the 15th day. Again this does not sound like it was the Sabbath. It doesn't say they arrived on the 14th and rested on the 15th -- now that would be evidence, yet the text simply says after a full month of travel they arrived in the desert.







Maybe it was still the 15th or maybe it was a little later, we can't be sure from the text.

Yet, the strange part about the manna -- there is absolutely NO instructions concerning the 4th lunar week in each month, in which they had extra days. Did they gather manna on "transition days" (30th) or on "New Moon Days" (1st). Or did they have to gather for four days on the 28th to make it through the 29th, 30th and 1st? And only then was this followed by six regular days before another Sabbath arrived.

The record simply gives the six days manna, seventh day no manna falls.
There is no evidence of a monthly recurring 8 or 9 day week.

To me this is strong evidence that the 7th day Sabbath is a continuous seven day cycle. Not one that is broken every fourth week.



But it is an assumption. The only thing we know for sure is that Israel left Egypt on the 15th of the 1st month, and arrived in the desert of Sin, on the 15th of the second month. To me this shows the 15th as a major traveling day.





So again they ARRIVE at Sinai on the 15th. Again it was a traveling day. They should have arrived on the 14th and rested on the 15th if it really were a Sabbath.





It's like saying -- The children of Israel left Egypt on April the 15th, they arrived in the desert of Sin a month later on May the 15th, and another month later they arrived at Sinai on June the 15th.

You are mixing Sabbaths. There are seven, 7, annual sabbaths connected with the sacrificial law that have nothing to do with the weekly Sabbath sistituted at Creation.

Are you referring to me, or to the writer of the post I was answering. Because if you are referring to me I must have really been unclear in my answers, for you to come to the opposite conclusion as to what I was trying to say!

The lunar calendar looks to the festival special days as the same as the seventh day Sabbath.
My two posts tried to show why I don't see this as possible.

I agree -- the festival "Sabbaths" are NOT the same as the seventh-day Sabbath of creation.

It seems Pod has become quite busy and hasn't had a chance to respond yet.

It's interesting that he says he's certain it will be perfectly clear if only he can post pictures. He does. Unfortunately, I cannot determine how posting a moon phase chart and the times of rising and setting of the moon makes anything clear about how many days are in a week or if it should be restarted at times.
Too little delivered, too late.

I found some other posts by others on the internet of people promoting an idea, and being requested to support it Biblically. The others become frustrated because after 100s of pages, the promoter just urges acceptance with nothing more than they saying others will be eternally lost unless they blindly accept what's being promoted. I see a pattern.