Quote:
Originally Posted by Esaias
Is there a different calendar in operation in the arctic regions? No.
Anybody in Nome, Alaska or Novaya Zemlya can know when the seventh day of the week is. This argument is one of the weakest arguments I've come across. And, logically, it fails even if the premises were true. All it would prove is either that only those in the arctic are relieved of the obligation (is the reader in the arctic? No? Then...) or it proves that if ONE person anywhere anytime cannot keep a commandment then nobody everywhere everytime is required to keep the commandment. So, orphans can't keep the 5th commandment therefore none of us have to?
But for those who might still be thinking the arctic argument has any merit, here:
The Bible defines the Sabbath as the seventh day of the week. The Bible defines a day as beginning at evening, running from one evening to the next. So the Sabbath occurs every seventh evening.
What is evening? In most areas, the evening occurs as the sun approaches the horizon, then "sets", then night occurs. The key though is that evening is the period just before and just after sunset.
Does the sun set in the arctic? Is there an evening in the arctic?
YES.
Even though in the extreme north and south lattitudes the sun does not go BELOW the horizon in summer, it nevertheless descends toward the horizon, then rises again. It is in fact sunset and sunrise, it just does not go below the horizon. The Bible never said the sun must go below the horizon (or rise above the horizon in winter). So there IS a daily sunset, a daily evening, in the arctic. The evenings occur about every 24 hours apart, just as they do everywhere else on the planet. Therefore, Sabbath keeping is no different in the arctic than anywhere else, except it doesn't get AS DARK at night in the summer or AS BRIGHT during the day in winter.
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Just to give your post a more fair response.
To say the night does not get as dark at night in the summer is an understatement. It DOES NOT GET DARK AT ALL.
Only as the year gets closer to autumn does it even lessen any brightness at all.
God's word was clear in Genesis. He called light day and the darkness night. It is not night if it is not dark. Period.
All in all, these verses says IT IS FOR ISRAEL:
Exodus 31:12-18 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the
children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. 17
It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed. And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.