Sabaoth (Hastings' Dictionary)

See LORD OF Hosts. SABATEUS (B 'Afiralos, A DajS/SaTo/of, AV Ra- batras), 1 Ea 9" = Shabbethai, Neh 8', where the LXX omita the name. 8ABATHU8 (ild/Saffot, AV Sabatns), 1 Es 9= Zabiui, Ezr 10". SABBATEDS (ZajS^raiot, AV Sabbatheus), 1 Es 9". — 'Levis and Sabbatens correspond to 'Shab- bethai the Levite' of Ezr 10". SABBATH (n;5>; ai^^arov; also, both in LXX and NT, of a single day, rh crdjSjSaTa).

— The Hebrew name for the seventh day of the week, which became among the Israelites a centre of many important religious observances and associations. The word is in form, probably (as may be inferred from '1B3B' n'injB), contracted from innjs' (so Olsbausen, p. 349 ; Konig, ii. 180 f. : othenvise, but less probably, Bartb, Nominalbiidung^ p. 24 ; Jastrow [see ad yin.], p. 340). The root n?^ means (ee« Is 14 248) to delist, cease (ct.

Arab, eabata, to cut off, intercept, interrupt) ; hence the idea connected with the ' sabbath ' will be tliat of desisting, cessation — the doubled b having an inten- sive force, and implying? either complete cessation, or, perhaps, a making to cease. It should be borne in mind that the idea expressed by n^^ and npf is not the positive ' rest ' of relaxa- tion or refreshment (which is r53), but the negative 'rest of cessatUm from work or activity.

Whether, however, this etymolo^ expresses the original meaninj^ of ' sabbath,' mu»«* remain for the present an open question ; if it be true that ic and the Assyr. iabattum had a common origin, it may have denoted ori^nnally something different (see below, g ii., first par. in small type). i. History of the Institution in the OT.— The sabbath is mentioned in all the great Penta- teuchal codes, and there are also allusions to it in the historical and prophetical liooks.

It will be most instructive to consider the notices, as far as possible, chronologically. In the legislation of JE the sabbath appears as a day of cessation from (in particular) fi'.ld- labour, designed with a humanitarian end : Ex 23'* 'Six days shalt thou do tliy work (^'^H;?), and on the seventh day thou shalt desist (nifn), in order that thy ox and thy a.ss may rest (O'l;), and that the son of tliy maidservant, and thy 'stranger,' may be refreshed (t'rj:, pronerly 'got breath,' cf.

2S 16'''),' — conip. the similar motive for the sabbatical year, v." And in the parallel group of laws in ch. 34 (v.^'): 'Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt df.sist : in plowing time and in harvest tliou shalt desist.' In the Decalor;ue (Ex 'JU") the Israelite is commanded to ' keep ' the sabbath ' holy ' ; and the injunction is expanded in the following clauses, vv.

»- '" (which are probably an explanatory com- ment, not forming part of tiio original Ten Woi ds) : the seventh day, it is there said, is a sabbath ' unto ' (i.e. to be observed in honour of) Jehovah : no work — •i?i*l''?, more exactly business, the word generally used in connexion with the sabbath — is to be done in it by any member of the Israelite's household (including his servants), or by his cattle, or by the ' stranger ' settled in liis country ; and in Dent.

(5') a clause similar to Ex 23'^'' is added, ' in order that thy manservant and thy maid- servant may rest (nij;) as well as thou' (cf. for the philanthropic motive, 12"'" H"- 10"). In the early histori<'al books and prophets the sabbath is as.

sociated with the new moun, in a manner which implies that both were occasions of intermission from labour, and holidays : in 2 K 4'- • a visit to 318 SABBATH SABBATH a distance would, it is implied, be undertaken naturally only on a sabbath or new moon. Hos2" ('And I will cause all her mirtli to cease, her pil- {.'rinuiges, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her stated [rtlisious] seasons') implies that the sabbath, though it had a religious object (cf.

Is 1"), was also an occasion of social relaxation : Am 8° ('When will the new moon be gone, that we ma}' sell corn? and the sal>bath, that we may open out wheat ? ') shows that trade as well as field- laliour was intermitted on it. The passages quoted make it evident that in the 8th cent. B.C. the sabbath was regarded as sacred to J", and that it was marked by abstention from at least ordinary occu]iatiuns.

The first of these facts implies naturallj' iix addition that some special sacriUces were oH'ered on it — an inference which might also be drawn from the connexion in which it is mentioned in Is 1". In later times, both the religious observances and also the absten- tion from labour were more fully defined and specialized.

Jeremiah (17"*"") has a prophecy re- lating to the sabbath : the people are solemnly charged by him, ' Bear no burden on the sabbath day, neither bring in by the gates of Jerusalem, nor carry forth a burden out of your houses, nor do any business; but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers ' ; the command, it is added, had been imperfectly observed, but Jer. attaches to Its obserx ance now a promise of the permanence of the Davidic draasty, and the safety of Jerusalem. Jer.'

s authorship of this prophecy has been questioned by recent critics ; out it is exactly in Jer.'s style : the high imjiort- ance attached to the sabbath, even before Jer.'s time, is shown by the place which it holds in the Decalogue (to which Jer.

plainly refers) ; and no doubt the prophet emphasized the sabbath, not simply for its own sake, but as a typical religious observance ; it was an institution the observance or non-observance of which might be taken as a criterion of the general faithfulness or disloyalty of the nation. In the ' Law of Holiness' (chiefly Lv 17-26), the individual laws in which, though their setting is later, may in many cases be as old as the 8th cent, or older (cf. vol. iii. pp. 69 f.

, 108»), the observance of the sabbath is inculcated more than once ('Ye shall keep my sabbaths,' Lv 19^- ^^ 26-), even under pain of death (Ex 31'' [a fragment of H] ' verily ye shall keep my sabbaths, for it is a sign between me and you [i.e. a mark, or token, like circum- cision ((!n 17"), of your being my people] ... to know tliat I am J "which sanctilieth you.

And ye shall keep the sabbath, for it is holy unto you ; every one that profaneth it shall surely be put to deatli ') ; and Lzekiel (who elsewhere also shows himself to be strongly influenced by this body of laws: LOT 13S-144 ["" 145-152]) lays great stress ujKm it likewise : with evident reference to the language of H, he declares it to be an ancient ordinance of J" (20'' 'moreover I gave them my sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, to know that I am J" which sanctilieth them,' v.

(I said) '. . and hallow my sabbaths'; cf., of the priests, 44), and reproaches the [icople with having deliantly 'profaned' it (20'»-"-='-^ 22" 23'«), or ' hidden their eyes' from it (22-'). It is probable that at this time an increased significance began to be attached to the sabbath on account of its being one of the few distinctive institutions of Israel which could be observed in a foreign land. The same prophet in 45" 46"* (cf. w.'

-') also gives directions — based, it may be presumed, upon ex- isting usa''e — resjiecting the sacrifices to be offered every sabbath by the ' prince ' on behalf of the nation in the restored temple, viz. six lambs and •ne ram as a burnt-offering, with accompanying meal-offerings (the clnil)/ offering, according to Ezk 46'^'', was to be one lamb, with an accompany- ing meal-offeiing). The later exilic references to the sabbath are in a similar strain to the reference of Jeremiah.

Its observance is the typical religious duty, and the test of general allegiance to J' (Is 56^*-''); and a promise of restoration to Palestine is given to those Israelites who faithfully observe it, regarding it as a ' delight,' and refrainmg on J"'s 'holy day from 'doing' their (ordinary) 'ways,' or 'find- ing' their own 'pleasure,' or 'speaking' [vain] 'words' (Is 58'^'): in Is 66", also, it is pictured as being (in the restored Jerusalem) a weekly occasion of worship before J" for 'all flesh,' as the new moon would be analogously a monthly occasion.

In the legislation of P the regulations respect- ing the sabbath are further developed and sys- tematized. Its institution is thrown back to the end of the week of Creation ; God, it is said (Gn 2'), then ' blessed the seventh day and hal- lowed it,' — i.e. set it apart for holy uses, and attached blessings to its observance, — ' because in it he desisted {n^y} from all his work (njK^:^ ' business ') ' of creation : similarly in the motive, based upon the representation of P, attached in Ex.

(20°) to the fourth commandment ; and in Ex 31" 'for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he desisted (njv'), and was refreshed (a';;!,— as above, in 23''^).' In Ex 31'*'" the old law, derived from H, is supple- mented by an addition (vv.

'■">"") emphasizing further the sanctity and permanence of the insti- tution, and the penalty (death) for its non- observance: Ex 35'"' (an injunction prefixed to the account of the construction of the tabernacle) the directions contained in 31'" are repeated almost verbatim (v.-), and in v.'

the kindling of fire on the sabbath is prohibited ; Lv 23' it is to be observed (like certain other sacred seasons) by a ' holy convocation,' or religious gathering ; Lv 24' the shewbread is to be renewed every sabbath : Nu 153', 3« relates how a man found gathering sticks on the sabbath was by Divine direction stoned to death ; Nu 28'- the special sacrifices for the sabbath are appointed, viz. double those offered on ordinary days (vv.'*), i.e.

two male lambs for a burnt-offering in the morning, and two in the evening, with twice the usual meal- and drink ollering'S. Lastly, in Ex 16'- ^-"*' the manna is stated to have been withheld on the sabbath, and given in double quantity on the previous day, in order to preserve the sanctity of the day ; anii the people are forbidden to leave their homes, and (indirectly) to bake or cook anything, on the sabbath.

In P the term thabbdthon (RV ' solemn rest [properly, cessa lion] ') is also used in connexion wiili the s;ilib.'ith, viz. Ex IG^ ' to-morrow is a i>o/<'//J« rest, a holy salibatli unto J"; 3ti5(cf. 352, Lv 23^) 'on the seventh da^'is a sabhath of solemn rest I'ln??' n?

B', holy unto J" ' (elsewhere shabhdthdn iu used of New Year's day, Lv 23*', of the flret and eighth days of the Feast of Booths, Lv 2339, and of the sahliatiojil year, Lv 25' ; and ' sabbath of solemn rest ' of the Day ot Atonement, Lv IBS' 23''^ (cf. in v.3b 'sabbath' alone), and of the sabbatical yeai, Lv 25-' t).— The terra "sabbath' is used al9o(!,v 2Wo(.)of the Sab- batical Year. On Lv 23"- '» see Wbbks (Fkast or).

In the history of the post-exilic period we read in Nell 10^' how the people, headed by Nehemiah, bound themselves, if foreigners offered wares or food for sale on the sabbath, not to buy of them ; and in Neh 13"-*' how Neh., finding this obligation disregarded, and also other kinds of work done on the sabbath (treading wine, presses, lading animals >vith com, bringin'; fruit and other wares into Jerus.

, and selling and buying them), remon- strated with the people, and had the gates of Jems, closed on that day, in order that merchants and SABBATH SABBATH 319 packmen mipht not brin^ tlieir ' burdens ' (cf. Jer IT-') into thiM'itv. Allusions tothesncrilicesollered on the sabbulli occur in Ncli 10», 2 Ch 2* 8'» 31>.

It will be evident, from the preceding survey, that in the priestly Law tlie original character aad objects of tlie sabbath have receded into the background, it lias become more distinctly a purely ceremonial institution, and the regulations for its observance have been made more strict. It will appear in the sec^uel (iii.) how in a still later age these characteristics are all intensilied. ii. Spf.culations OS THEOmoiy of the Sab- bath.

— It is not improbable that the sabbath is ultimately of Babylonian origin. In a lexico- graphical tablet (I r Rawl. 32, 1. 16) there occurs the equation — um nH/f libbi=ia-bnt-tum, or 'day of rest of the heart' {i.e. not, as was formerly supposed, a day of rest for man, but, a^ parallel occurrences of the same phrase show,* a day when the gods rested from their anger, a day for the pacification of a deity's anger) = sabbath.

Further, in a religious calendar for two months (the second, or intercalary Elul, and Marchesh- van), which we possess,! prescribing duties for the king, the 7th, 14th, 19th,t 2l8t, and 2Stli davs are entered as ' favourable day, evil day,' while the others are simply ' favouraVle ' daj-s.

On the five specilied days, the king is not, for instance, to eat food prepared by fire, not to put on royal dress or ofl'er sacrifice, not to rids in his chariot, or hold court, not to seek an oracle, or even to invoke curses on his enemies : on the other hand, as soon as the daj' is over, he may oiler a sacrifice which will be accepted.

The days, it is evident, are viewed superstitiouslj' : certain things are not to be done on them, in order to avoid arousing the jealousy or anger of the gods. The meaning of the expression ' favourable day, evil day' Ls that the day had an in- determinate character ; it could become either the one or the other, according as the precautions laid down for its observance were attended to or not.

§ Except in the possaffe quoted, hibaltum is known at present to occur only ^in the fomi Sabairhn) 2 or 3 times in syllabaries (Jenwn. ZA Iv. 274-s, /. /. Dnitttche Wort/ortirhumr, Sept. 1900, p. 153 (in an art. on the Week of seven days in Babylonia)) : in the first of these syllabaries it corresponds to a yuiuerian ideoj,Tnni meaning to pnci^i/ ; in the second (where Jensen con- tends that it occurs with the nicaninj?

to C07ne to re^t^ be calmfd, panned) ita occurrence is Questioned by Jastrow, AJTh ii. 816 n.; in the third (Z./. D. Wort/. 153) it corresponds strangely to the ideogram which means simply da;/, sun, lujht. The etymo- logy of iahattum is uncertain. The verb iabdtu is. in a k'xi<-o- Kri»i>liiriil tablet, f-quatfil with qami'int. which nieiins commonly !l)ei,iz«ch. my IS p. I'.l'.l) tit hriiii) to uii end, eumjdite. but which seems, to Judnc from two syllabariea (Z. /. D. Wort/.

153), to have sitfnifled also to paci/y, appease ; and Jensen, assuming that in the tablet iabdtu is qvioted with this excep- tional meaning of fjatwlm, explains iabattum, ia/'attim, from It. It remains however, lor the i)resent, a ditllculty that while in Heb. nbnbbuth is coimpcle<I (apparently) with ghdbath, to d<*wt, the Assyr. verb iabdtu means sometiiing different. These facts make it at lea.st a plausible con- jecture that the Heb. sabbath (which was likcwi.

se primarily a day of restrictions) was derived ulti- mately from Babylonia, || or, as .Jensen would prefer • K.g. Hgu nSJ tti>M = p«alm of propitiation (Joatrow, AJTh, »oL IL p 31«). t Jastrow. Rrlig. o/ Bah. and Aun/r. p. 376 ff. t I'erhnps the 7x7 = 4»th dav from the Ist of the preceding month— the month having 30 days. ( The ancient Assyrians ret;arded the simplest and most ordlnory occurrences as ominous of either good or evil (Jastrow, Hel. 0/ Dab. and Atai/r. p. 365, etc.)

; and, In fact, there is a calendar in which every day In the year Is marked as either lortimate or unfortunate for something or other (p. 878 II. ). » So Schnuler, KAT' on Cn '.!» ; Ixitz, Qwcutionft dt hist. Sabl>. (1883) 67; Sayce, IlC.\t 7(1 f.. KHB 193 (where, how- ever, the facta about the Bab. '.Sabbath' are overstated ; for thouu'h, no doubt (Lou, 681. laliattum might very naturallv be the name of the 7th, 14th. etc., davs of the two months referred to aliovc. It is not.

In ony text at present known, applied to them octually) ; Ounkel, Scli/ij>/. u, CT<io« (1895), 155. Nor Is there at present any evidence that a continuous succession of weeks,' each ending with a day marked by special obser^ancea, was a Bab. institution (Jensen, 1541 to say,* that the Heb. and Babylonian institu tions had a common origin : though naturally, like other Ueb.

institutions which were not originally confined to Israel, it assumed among the Hebrews a new character, being stripped nf its superstitious and heathen a.ssoeiations, and being made -sub- servient to ethical and religious ends. It is not difficult to imagine how, under the influence of Israel's religion, a change of this kind might gradually be wrought, though (supposing the hypothesis to be a sound one) we have no infor- mation of the .

stages by which it was actually ellected ; Jastrow's endeavour {A./T/i, vol. ii. pp. 321 ff., 332 fl., 345 ff.) to show that the Heb. sabhath had once (like the «»« niilj lilbi) a propitiatory character, and even that the verb sliubath, as applied to J", and shabbathon, expressed originally the ideas of ceasing from anger, being pacijicd, cannot be deemed convincing.

The sabbath, as a day of restriction, is an institution parallel to what is found among many early peoples, and indeed, as a survival from an earlier stage, among civilized peoples as well. The wide diffusion of periods of restriction makes it probable that they had their origin in simple ideas and social conditions. In all the cases known to us the restrictions are of the same general character — they refer to occupations, food, dress.

Thus, besides the Babylonian institution, which has been already referred to, the Egyptians had a list of days, on which certain acts were pro- hibited (AJTh, ii. p. 350 1). In Rome business was suspended during ihe ferim ; and on all dies nefasti courts of law and the comitia were closed. In the Hawaiian Islands, it was unlawful, on certain daj'S, to light fires or to bathe ; tlie king also at certain times withdrew into privacy, giving up his ordinarj' pursuits.

In Borneo, work was forbidden on certain days in connexion with the harvest. The origin of such times of restric- tion is lost in anti<iiiity : they come before us commonly as established ('Ustoms, resting on pre- cedent, and not sujiiiosed to need explanation.

They may have arisen from various causes : thus in some cases observation would show that par- ticular times were favourable or unfavourable to certain occupations ; but very often they would be determined uy superstitious or religious motives. The days thus fixed would gradually be tabulated and systematized ; and wlien calendars had been constructed, particular days would come to be marked upon them as lucky or unlucky, and in some cases these would agree with delinite pha.ses of the moon.

' Such a calendar the Hebrews may have inherited, or may have received from Baby- lonia or from some other source ' : if they received it from Balij-lonia, they dctaclied it from its con- nexion with the moon (fixing it for every seventh da3', irrespectively of the days of the month), they generalized the abstinence as.

sociated with it, and, more than all, they transformed it into an agency, which, though, like other institutions, capable of abuse, has nevertheless, partly as observed by the Jews themselves, partly (see below) as forming the model of the Christian Sunday, operated on the whole with wonderful elficiency in maintain- ing the life of a pure and spiritual religion.

J The question, which was formerly nuich debated, whether the sabbath W'os instituted at the close of the Crnalinn, or whether it was a purely Mosaic ordinance, was already answered by Dr. llesscy (p. 135 IT.) in the latter sense; and In the light In which the" earh- chapters of Gen. are at present regarded by scholars (cf. (Josmooony, and Kyle's Karty Sarratives o/ (Jenejtis), the question itself has become irrelevant.

It is plain that in (In 21-3 the sanotity of the seventh day of the week is • Z./. D. Wort/orschung, 164. ♦ .See also Maspcro, Daren o/ CivUitation, 210-212 ; Wlede mann, Jleliq. nf Ane. Eiti/pt. 2(13 f. With the lost paragraph cf. O. H. Toy, 'The earliest fora of the Sabbath,' in JUL, lb99, pp. 191-103.

320 SABBATH SABBATH explained unhistorically, and antedated : instead of the sai>- bath, closing the week, being sacred, because on it God ' desisted ' from His six days' work of creation, the work of creation waa distributed among six days, followed by a tlay of rest, because the week, ended by the sabbath, existed already as an institution, and the writer (P) wished to adjust artificially the work of creation to it.

In the Decalogue, ' Remember ' mav be interpreted quite naturally as signifying ' keep in mind ' in the future (cf. Ex 133, Dt i63). iii. The Sabbath in the later Judaism and