Verse 12 I gave them my Sabbaths - The religious observance of the Sabbath was the first statute or command of God to men. This institution was a sign between God and them, to keep them in remembrance of the creation of the world, of the rest that he designed them in Canaan, and of the eternal inheritance among the saints in light. Of these things the Sabbath was a type and pledge.

Northward - Ahaz had removed it from the middle of the court and set it near this north gate, to which it gave name. Entry - In the very passage to the temple, to affront the worship of God.

Eze 20:12

I gave them my sabbaths, etc. As in Exo 31:12-17, the sabbath is treated as the central sign (we might almost say sacrament) of the Jewish Church, not only as a mark differencing them from other nations, but as between Jehovah and them, a witness of their ideal relation to each other, a means of making that ideal relation a reality.