Patriarchs and Prophets or The
Desire of Ages - Which is Correct?

The book Patriarchs and Prophets has an interesting statement regarding the timing of Pentecost. This page is a Spirit of Prophecy supplement to the page When is Pentecost? where it has been shown, Biblically, that Pentecost was and always is on a seventh-day Sabbath. Ellen White made statements that also support the theory that Pentecost was on a Sabbath.

In Patriarchs and Prophets it is recorded:

"Upon the seventh day, which was the Sabbath, Moses was called up into the cloud. The thick cloud opened in the sight of all Israel, and the glory of the Lord broke forth like devouring fire. And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount; and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights." (Patriarchs and Prophets p313)

If you carefully follow and compare the sequence of events given in Patriarchs and Prophets and the Bible that leads to the day mentioned in the verse above, you will see that it was on the previous Sabbath that the Ten Commandments were given along with the statutes and judgments.

Note re Genesis 24:13:
The "Moses rose up" of verse 13 is not introducing a new day. The "rose up" here is from a different word (quwm, Strong's 6965) than the "rose up early" (shakam, Strong's 7925) of verse 4. Here is a verse that uses both words and helps to make the distinction in meaning:

"And Abraham rose up early (shakam) in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up (quwm), and went unto the place of which God had told him." (Gen 22:3)

If you examine other uses of the word "quwm" it is frequently used in that way. The first verse in the Bible that uses it is:

"And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him." (Gen 4:8)

Cain was talking to his brother before he rose up and slew him, he was not sleeping.

The "Moses rose up" of Genesis 24:13 is probably referring to Moses standing up after they "did eat and drink" in verse 11.

So, the reference in Patriarchs and Prophets "Upon the seventh day, which was the Sabbath" is referring to the same event as Exodus 24:16 and we can now follow this back in time and see that the previous seventh-day Sabbath was:

1. the day that the Ten Commandments were spoken to Israel from Mt. Sinai.
2. the day the people agreed to the covenant saying "... with one voice ... All the words which the LORD hath said will we do." (Exo 24:3, also verse 7)
3. the day the covenant was ratified with the blood of the sacrifice (Exo 24:8)

Since Pentecost was on a seventh-day Sabbath, the wave sheaf offering of the Feast of First Fruits (50 days inclusive earlier) would also be on a seventh-day Sabbath. This, of course, fits with (as it must do) a Sabbath resurrection. Get the complete story on this in my new book In the Heart of the Earth.