Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
SABBATH
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: RON-SAC
del.icio.us it!
|
SABBATH , the See also:day of cessation from See also:work,' which among the See also:Hebrews followed six days of labour and closed the See also:week.
1. Observance.—The later Jewish Sabbath, observed in accordance with the rules of the See also:Scribes, was a very See also:peculiar institution, and formed one of the most marked distinctions between the Hebrews and other nations, as appears in a striking way from the fact that on this See also:account alone the See also:Romans found themselves compelled to exempt the See also:Jews from all military service. The rules of the Scribes enumerated See also:thirty-nine See also:main kinds of work forbidden on the Sabbath, and each of these prohibitions gave rise to new subtilties. Jesus's disciples, for example, who plucked ears of See also:corn in passing through a See also: The See also:root has nothing to do with resting in the sense of enjoying repose; in transitive forms and applications it means to " sever," to ' put an end to," and intransitively it means to " desist," to " come to an end." The grammatical form of shabbath suggests a transitive sense, " the divider," and apparently indicates the Sabbath as dividing the See also:month. It may mean the day which puts a stop to the week's work, but this is less likely. It certainly cannot be translated " the day of rest." 1 From the Thirty-ninth was deduced the See also:familiar" Sabbath day's See also:journey " (Acts i. 12), based primarily, it would seem, upon the command to Ex. xvi. 29. It was a distance of 2000 cubits. remembered that this service was primarily regarded not as an See also:act of worship but as a See also:meeting for instruction in the law. 2. Attitude of Jesus.—So far, therefore, as the Sabbath existed for any end outside itself it was an institution to help every See also:Jew to learn the law,. and from this point of view it is regarded by See also:Philo and See also:Josephus,.who are accustomed to seek a philosophical See also:justification for the peculiar institutions of their religion. But this certainly was not the leading point of view with the See also:mass of the Rabbins.;'l and at any See also:rate it is quite certain that the synagogue is a See also:post-exilic institution, and therefore that the Sabbath in old See also:Israel must have been entirely different from the Sabbath of the Scribes. But that it was destitute of any properly religious observance or meaning is inconceivable, for, though many of the religious ideas of the old Hebrews were crude, their institutions were never arbitrary and meaninglessr and when they spoke of consecrating the Sabbath they must have had in view some religious exercise of an intelligible See also:kind by which they paid worship to Yahweh. Indeed, that the old See also:Hebrew Sabbath was quite different from the Rabbinical Sabbath is demonstrated in the trenchant See also:criticism which Jesus, directed against the latter (Matt. xii. r-14; See also:Mark ii. 27). The See also:general position which He takes up, that " the Sabbath is made for man and not man fot the Sabbath,"T is only a special application of the wider principle that the law is not an end in itself but a help towards the realization in life of the See also:great ideal of love to God and man, which is the sum of all true religion. But Jesus further maintains that this view of the law as a whole, and the See also:interpretation of the Sabbath law which it involves, can be historically justified from the Old Testament. And in this connexion He introduces two of the main methods to which See also:historical criticism of the Old Testament has recurred in See also:modern times: He appeals to the See also:oldest See also:history rather than to the Pentateuchal See also:code as proving that the later conception of the law was unknown in See also:ancient times (Matt. xii. 3 seq.), and to the exceptions to the Sabbath law which the Scribes themselves allowed in the interests of worship (v. 5) or humanity (v. n), as showing that the Sabbath must originally have been devoted to purposes of worship and humanity, and was not always the purposeless arbitrary thing which the schoolmen made it to be. Modern criticism of the history of Sabbath observance among the Hebrews has done nothing more than follow out these arguments in detail, and show that the result is in agreement with what is known as to the See also:dates of the several component parts of the See also:Pentateuch. 3. Otd Usage.—Ofthe legal passages that speak of the Sabbath all those which show See also:affinity with the See also:doctrine of the Scribes—regarding the Sabbath as' an arbitrary sign between Yahweh and Israel; entering into details as to particular acts that are forbidden, and enforcing the observance by severe penalties, so that it no longer has any religious value, but appears as a See also:mere Iegal constraint-are post-exilic (Exod. xvi. 23-30, xxxi. See also:r2-17, =CV. 1-3; Num. xv. 32-36); while the older See also:laws only demand such cessation from daily toil, and especially from agricultural tabour, as among all ancient peoples naturally accompanied a day set apart as a religiousfestival,, and in particular See also:lay See also:weight on the fact that the Sabbath is a humane institution, a See also:holiday for the labouring classes (Feed. See also:xxiii. 12; Dent. v. 13-15). As it stands in these ancient laws, the Sabbath is not at all the unique thing which it was made to be by the Scribes. " The Greeks and the barbarians," says See also:Strabo (x. 3, 9), " have this in See also:common, that they accompany their sacred See also:rites by a festal remission of labour." So it was in old Israel: the Sabbath was one of the stated religious feasts; like the new See also:moon and the three great agricultural sacrificial celebrations (See also:Hosea ii.. it); the new moons and the Sabbaths alike called men to the sanctuary to do See also:sacrifice (Isa. i. 14); the remission of See also:ordinary business belonged to both ' See the Mishnah, See also:tract. "Shabbath " and the alleviation permitted in the. tract. " Enable "; and compare Scharer, Gesch. d. See also:jud. Volkes9> pp. 393 seq., where the Rabbinical Sabbath is well explained and illustrated in detail. 2 Cp. the discussion in See also:Talmud Yoma, fol. 85b: " The esabbath is delivered into your hands, not you into the hands of the Sabbath " (cited by S, R. ,See also:Driver, See also:Hastings` See also:Diet. See also:Bible, See also:art. " Sabbath," iv.. p. 322). See also, art.„ Iylidrash, § 4, end.alike (See also:Amos viii. 5), and for precisely the same . reasohi :Hosea even takes it for granted that in captivity the Sabbath, will be suspended, like all, the other feasts, because in his day a'feast implied a sanctuary. This conception of the Sabbath, however, necessarily underwent an important modification when the See also:local sanctuaries were abolished under the " Deuteronomic " reform, and those sacrificial rites and feasts which in Hosea's See also:time formed the essence of every act of religion were limited to the central See also:altar, which most men could visit only at rare intervals. From this time forward the new moons, which till then had been at least as important as. the. Sabbath and were celebrated by sacrificial feasts as occasions of religious gladness, fall into insignificance, except in the conservative temple ritual. The Sabbath did not See also:share the same See also:fate, but with the abolition of local sacrifices it became for most Israelites an institution of humanity divorced from ritual. So it appears in the Deuteronomic See also:decalogue, and presumably also in _Ter. xvii. 19 seq. In this form the seventh day's rest was one of the few outward ordinances by which the Israelite could still show his fidelity to Yahweh and mark his separation from the See also:heathen. Hence we understand the importance attached to it in the exilic literature (Isa. lvi. 2 seq., lviii. 13), and the See also:character of a sign between Yahweh and Israel ascribed to it in the post-exilic ,law. This See also:attachment to the Sabbath, beautiful and touching so See also:long as it was a spontaneous expression of continual devotion to Yahweh, acquired a less pleasing character when, after the See also:exile, it came to be enforced by the See also:civil See also:arm (Neh. xiii.), and when the later law even declared Sabbath-breaking a See also:capital offence. This increasing strictness is exemplified by the attitude of the See also:Book of See also:Jubilees (ii, 17-32, I. 6-13). But it is just to, remember that without the stern discipline of the law the community of the second temple could hardly have escaped See also:dissolution, and that Judaism alone preserved for See also:Christianity the hard-won achievements of the prophets .3
4. See also:Early Christian See also: The festal character of the Sabbath was long recognized in a modified form in the Eastern church by a See also:prohibition of See also:fasting on that day, which was also a point in the Jewish Sabbath law (comp. See also:Judith: viii. 6). On the other hand, See also:Paul had quite distinctly laid down from the first days of See also:Gentile Christianity that the Jewish Sabbath was not binding on Christians (Rom. xiv. 5 seq.; Gal. iv. to; See also:Col. ii. 16), and controversy with Judaizers led in See also:process of time to See also:direct condemnation of those who still kept the Jewish day (e.g. Co. of See also:Laodicea, A.D. 363). See also:Nay, in the See also:Roman church a practice of fasting on Saturday as well as on See also:Friday was current before the time of See also:Tertullian. The steps by which the practice of resting from labour on the Lord's day instead of on the Sabbath was established in Christendom and received civil as well as ecclesiastical See also:sanction are dealt with under See also:SUNDAY; it is enough to observe here that this practice is naturally and even necessarily connected with the religious observance of the Lord's day as a day of worship and religious gladness, and is in full accordance with the principles laid down by Jesus in His criticism of the Sabbath of the Scribes. But of course the 8 In actual life the Sabbath was often far from being the See also:burden which the Rabbinical enactments would have led us to expect. It " is celebrated, by the very See also:people who did observe it, in hundreds of See also:hymns, which would fill volumes, as a day of rest and joy, of presentiment of the pure See also:bliss and happiness which are stored 'up for the righteous'in the world to come " (S. Schechter, Jewish Quart. See also:Review, iii; p. 763; op. id., Studies in Judaism, pp. 296 sqq•). See also:complete observance of Sunday rest was not generally possible to the early Christians before Christendom obtained civil recognition.' 5. Origin.—As the Sabbath was originally a religious feast, the question of the origin of the Sabbath resolves itself into 'an inquiry why and in what circle a festal See also:cycle of seven day§ was first established. In Gen. ii. 1-3 and in Exod. xx. 11 the Sabbath is declared to be a memorial of the completion of the work of creation in six days: But it appears certain that the decalogue as it lay before the Deuteronomist did not contain any allusion to the creation (see DECALOGUE), and it is generally believed that this reference was added by the same post-exilic hand that wrote Gen. i. i–il. 4a. The older account of the creation in Gen. ii. 4b seq. does not recognize the hexaemeron, and it is even doubtful whether the See also:original See also:sketch of Gen. i. distributed creation over six days. The connexion, therefore, between the seven days' week and the work of creation is now generally recognized as secondary? But, if the week as a religious cycle is older than the See also:idea of the week of creation, we cannot See also:hope to find more than probable See also:evidence of the origin of the Sabbath. Unless the Sabbath was already an institution peculiarly Jewish, it could not have served as a mark of distinction from heathenism. This, however, does not necessarily imply that in its origin it was specifically Hebrew, but only that it had acquired distinguishing features of a marked kind. What is certain is that the origin of the Sabbath must be sought within a circle that used the week as a division of time. Here again we must distinguish between the week as such and the astrological week, i.e. the week in which the seven days are named each after the See also:planet which is held to preside over its first See also:hour? It is See also:plain, however, that there is a long step between the astrological assignation of each hour of the week to a planet and the recognition of the week as an ordinary division of time by people at large. See also:Astrology is in its nature an occult See also:science, and there is no trace of a day of twenty-four See also:hours among the ancient Hebrews. Moreover, it is doubtful from extant remains of See also:Assyrian calendars whether the astrological week prevailed in civil life even among the Babylonians and Assyrians. They did not dedicate each day in turn to its astrological planet; and it is therefore See also:precarious to assume that the Sabbath was in its origin what it is in the astrological week, the day sacred to See also:Saturn, and that its observance is to be derived from an ancient Hebrew worship of that planet.' The week, however, is found in various parts of the world' in a form that has nothing to do with astrology or the seven See also:planets, and with such a See also:distribution as to make it See also:pretty certain that it had no artificial origin, but suggested itself independently, and for natural reasons, to different races. In fact, the four quarters of the moon See also:supply an obvious division of the month; and, wherever new moon and full moon are religious occasions, we get in the most natural way a sacred cycle of fourteen or r See, further, E. Schtirer in Zeit. f. Neu-Test. Wissens. (1905), pp. 1-66. For the theological discussions whether and in what sense the See also:fourth commandment is binding on Christians, see DECALOGUE. 2 " The week, ended by the Sabbath, determined the ' days ' of creation, not the ' days' of creation the week" (S. R. Driver, See also:Genesis (19o9), p. 35). At the same time, there was a peculiar appropriateness In associating the Sabbath with the doctrine that Yahweh is the Creator of all things; for we see from Isa. xl.-lxvi. that this doctrine was a mainstay of Jewish faith in those very days of exile which gave the Sabbatle a new importance for the faithful. , If the day is divided into twenty-four hours and the planets preside in turn over each hour of the week in the See also:order of their periodic times (Saturn, See also:Jupiter, See also:Mars, See also:Sun, See also:Venus, See also:Mercury, Moon), we get the order of days of the week with which we are familiar. For, if the Sun presides over the first hour of Sunday, and therefore also over the eighth, the fifteenth and the twenty-second, Venus will have the twenty-third hour, Mercury the twenty-fourth, and the Moon, as the third in order from the Sun, will preside over the first hour of See also:Monday. Mars, again, as third from the Moon, will preside over Tuesday (See also:Dies Martis, Mardi), and so forth. This astrological week became very current in the Roman See also:empire, but was still a novelty in the time of Dio See also:Cassius (See also:xxxvii. 18). * The evidence of the worship of Saturn among the oldest Hebrews is doubtful. Amos v. 26 (where Chiun is taken to represent Kawan-Saturn) is of uncertain interpretation, see W. R. Harper's discussion; Hosea, pp. 139-141 (See also:International Crit. See also:Comm., 1905). xxiii. 31fifteen days, of which the week of seven or eight days (determined by See also:half moon) is the half. Thus the old See also:Hindus See also:chose the new and the full moon as days of sacrifice; the See also:eve of the sacrifice was called upavasatha, and in See also:Buddhism the same word (uposatha) has come to denote a Sabbath observed on the full moon, on the day when there is no moon, and on the two days which are eighth from the full and the new moon respectively, with fasting and other religious exercises? From this point of view it is most significant that in the older parts of the Hebrew Scriptures the new moon and the Sabbath are almost invariably mentioned together.6 Nor are other traces wanting of the connexion of sacrificial occasions—i.e. religious feasts—with the phases of the Moon among the Semites. Thus the Harranians had four sacrificial days in every month, and of these two at least were determined by the See also:conjunction and opposition of the moon? That full 'moop as well as new moon had a religious significance among the ancient Hebrews seems to follow from the fact that, when the great agricultural' feasts were fixed to set days, the full moon was chosen. In older times these feast-days appear to have been Sabbaths (Lev. xxiii. II; comp. the See also:article See also:PASSOVER). A week determined by the phases of the moon has an See also:average length of 291+4 29±4=7I days, i.e. three See also:weeks out of eight would have eight days. But there seems to be in I Sam. xx. 27, compared with verses 18, 24, an indication that in old times the feast of the new moon lasted two days .8 In that See also:case a week of seven working days would occur only once in two months. We cannot tell when the Sabbath became dissociated from the month; but the See also:change seems to have been made before the Book of the See also:Covenant, which already regards the Sabbath simply as an institution of humanity and ignores the new moon. In both points it is followed by See also:Deuteronomy., (W. R. S.; S. A. C.)
[6. The Babylonian and Assyrian Sabbath.—The Babylonian calendars contain explicit directions for the observance of abstention from certain See also:secular acts on certain days which forms a See also:close parallel to the Jewish Sabbatical rules. Thus for the 7th, 14th, 21st. 28th and also the 19th days of the See also:intercalary Elul it is prescribed' that " the shepherd of many nations is not to eat See also:meat roast with See also:fire nor any See also:food cooked by fire, he is not to change the clothes on his See also:body nor put on gala See also:dress, he may not bring sacrifices not may the See also: There is no evidence that these days were called shabattu, a word which is rendered by limn nu(Z libbi, " day of rest of the See also:heart," and has been' thought to be the origin of Sabbath. This name shabattu was certainly applied to the 15th de v of the month, and um nub libbi could mean " day of rest in th See also:middle," referring to the moon's pause at the full. The frequent )ld Testament association of " new moons and Sabbaths " may poi t to an original observance of the 1st and 15th days of the moo h. Many days. are indicated in the See also:calendar as nubattu, a terrn which signifies rest, pause, and especially a god's connubial rest with his See also:consort goddess. The observance of such days was a See also:bar to attending even to important See also:diplomatic business or setting out on a journey. Such nubattu days See also:fell on the 3rd, 7th and 16th of the intercalary month of Elul, and were noted as the nubattu of Marduk and his consort. It would be precarious to assume that the same days in each month were nubattu, for the nubattu fell on the 4th of lyar on one occasion: 6 Childers1 See also:Pali Pict. p. 535; See also:Kern, See also:Manual of Buddhism, p. 99, Mahavagga, u, 1, i (Eng. trans. i. 239, 291). 6 Both were days of cessation from business (Amos viii. 5), and were fitting occasions to visit a See also:prophet (2 See also:Kings iv. 23). They naturally take their rise among an agricultural folk. On See also:abstinence from work on the New Moon by Jewish See also:women of the See also:present time, see M. See also:Friedmann, Jew. Quart. Rev. iii. (1891), p. 712. See also I. Benzinger, Encyc. Biblica, cols. 3401 sqq. 7 The others—according to the Fihrist, 319, 14—are the 17th and the 28th; see Chwolsohn, Ssabier, ii. 8, 94 seq. 8 It appears from Judith viii. 6 that even in later times there were two days at the new moon on which it was not proper to fast. , See further J. M. Meinhold, Sabbat and Woche See also:im See also:Alten Test. (See also:Gottingen, 1905) ; Zeit. f. Altlest. Wissens. 1909, pp. 81-i i2. II Possibly the intercalary month was abnormal, the incidence of observances depending not on the day of the month in ordinary months but on the day of the week reckoned consecutively through the See also:year. For it is obvious that if each 7th day during the year was observed as above, it would, like our Sunday or a Jewish Sabbath, fall on a different day of the month in different months. It is quite possible that shabattum and nubattum are from the same root and originally denoted much the same thing—a pause, abstention, from whatever cause or for ceremonial purposes. The intercalary month being purely arbitrary may exhibit a normal arrangement, supposing that the month and the week begin together. There are traces of what may be called a " five-day week," but also some traces of a See also:period of seven days. The former would be an exact submultiple of the 3o-day month, but the exact relation of seven days to the month is not very clear. If the 15th always was full moon day, the 7th would coincide well with half moon, but the 21st and 28th would fall away considerably from the moon's phases. The significance of seven throughout Babylonian literature is very marked, and most of the material has been collected by J. Hehn, Siebenzahl and Sabbat (1907). It is quite consistent with the evidence to suppose that a seven-day week was in use in Babylonia, but each See also:item may be explained differently, and a definite See also:proof does not exist. The enormous number of dated documents has induced some scholars to See also:attempt a statistical See also:research into the observance of the 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th and 19th days of the months as Sabbaths. This has not been carried out with sufficient caution. If the Sabbath involved abstention from all such business as recorded in dated documents and always fell on these days, then the 7th, &c., should show a marked falling off in the number of dated documents. This appears actually to be the case in the period of the First See also:Dynasty of See also:Babylon and also in the 7th See also:century in See also:Assyria, where early Babylonian customs were kept up conservatively. In other cases the inclusion of documents See also:relating to the temple business, payments of See also:tithes and other dues, salaries to temple officials, and such ceremonies as marriages, &c., which may have demanded the presence of the See also:congregation and were at least partly religious in nature, have been allowed to complicate the See also:matter. Such business as did not profane the Sabbath according to Babylonian ideas cannot be quoted against their observance of their Sabbath. Further, if the Sabbaths fell on each 7th day through the year, any indication by dated documents of a falling off in the number of transactions on the 7th day of the month must obviously be completely disguised. As most of the records appealed to are from temple archives, it may be expected that the Sabbath days would show an increased number of records. For reasons above indicated the whole subject is in its See also:infancy. Even if it could be shown that the Pentateuchal regulations were universally observed in Israel from See also:Mosaic times, it would not preclude a certain indebtedness to Babylonia for at least the germ of the institution. On the other hand, complete indentity of regulations and observance in Babylonia and Israel at one period need not show more than development on the same lines. The evidence of Babylonian observance has not yet been exhaustively considered. Its most suggestive likenesses are indicated above, but further evidence may render the similarity less striking when the meaning of it is more fully understood. (C. H. W. J.)l 7. Sabbatical Year.—The Jews under the second temple observed every seventh year as a Sabbath according to the (post-exilic) law of Lev. See also:xxv. 1-7. It was a year in which all See also:agriculture was remitted, in which the See also:fields lay unsown and the vines See also:grew unpruned, only the spontaneous yield of the See also:land might be gathered. That this law was not observed before the captivity we learn from Le', See also:xxvi. 34 seq. (cp. 2 Chron. See also:xxxvi. 21); indeed, so long as the Hebrews were an agricultural people, in a land often ravaged by severe famines, the law of the Sabbatical year could not have been observed. Even in later times it was occasionally productive of great See also:distress (1 Mac. Vi. 49, 53; Jos. See also:Ant. xiv. 16, 2). In the older legislation, however, we already meet with a seven years' period in more than one connexion. The See also:release of a Hebrew servant after six years' labour (Exod. xxi. 2 seq.; Deut. xv. 12 seq.) has only a remote See also:analogy to the Sabbatical year. But in Exod. xxiii. 10 seq. it is prescribed that the See also:crop of every seventh year shall be See also:left for the poor, and after them for the beasts. The difference between this and the later law is that the seventh year is not called a Sabbath, and that there is no indication that all land was to See also:lie See also:fallow on the same year. In this form a law prescribing one year's fallow in seven may have been anciently observed, but it scarcely originated from the analogy of a seventh day of rest. It is extended in v ri to the vineyard and the See also:olive oil, but here the culture necessary to keep the vines and olive trees in order is not forbidden; the See also:precept is only that the produce is to be left to the poor. In Deuteronomy this law is not repeated,but a fixed seven years' period is ordained for the benefit of poor debtors, apparently in the sense that in the seventh year no See also:interest is to be exacted by the creditor from a Hebrew, or that no proceedings are to be taken against the debtor in that year (Dent. xv. r seq.). See the discussion by Driver, Internat. Grit. Comm., ad. loc., and the commentaries on Neb. v. Ir. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] SABBATAI SEBI (1626-1676) |
[next] SABBATION, or SAMBATYON |