The Astronomy of the Bible, E. Walter Maunder [the reading strategies book TXT] 📗

The Babylonians divided the month somewhat differently; the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-first and twenty-eighth days being regarded as "sabbaths."[284:1]

The sabbath enjoined upon the Hebrews was every seventh day. The week as defined by it was a "free" week; it was tied neither to month nor year, but ran its course uninterruptedly, quite irrespective of the longer divisions of time. It was, therefore, a different conception from that underlying the usages of the Greeks or Babylonians, and, it may be added, a more reasonable and practical one.

Four origins have been assigned for the week. There are those who assert that it is simply the closest possible approximation to the quarter-month; the mean month being 29-1/2 days in length, a quarter-month would be 7-3/8 days, and since fractions of a day cannot be recognized in any practical division of time for general use, the week of seven days forms the nearest approach to the quarter-month that could be adopted. This is undeniably true, but it is far more likely that such an origin would give rise to the Babylonian system than to the Jewish one, for the Babylonian system corrected the inequality of quarter-month and week every month, and so kept the two in harmony; whilst the Hebrew disregarded the month altogether in the succession of his weeks.

Next, it is asserted that the Hebrew sabbath was derived from the Babylonian, and that "it is scarcely possible for us to doubt that we owe the blessings decreed in the sabbath or Sunday day of rest in the last resort to that ancient and civilized race on the Euphrates and Tigris."[285:1]

There are two points to be considered here. Did the Babylonians observe their "sabbaths" as days of rest; and, were they or the Hebrews the more likely to hand on their observances to another nation?

We can answer both these questions. As to the first, a large number of Babylonian documents on tablets, preserved in the British Museum, have been published by Father Strassmaier, and discussed by Prof. Schiaparelli. In all there were 2,764 dated documents available for examination, nearly all of them commercial and civil deeds, and covering practically the whole period from the accession of Nebuchadnezzar to the twenty-third year of Darius Hystaspes. This number would give an average of 94 deeds for each day of the month; the number actually found for the four "sabbaths," i. e. for the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th days, were 100, 98, 121 and 91 respectively. The Babylonians evidently did not keep these days as days of rest, or of abstinence from business, as the Jews keep their sabbath, or Christian countries their Sunday. They cannot even have regarded it as an unlucky day, since we find the average of contracts is rather higher for a "sabbath" than for a common day.

The case is a little different with the 19th day of the month. This, as the 49th day from the beginning of the previous month, was a sabbath of sabbaths, at the end of a "week of weeks." In this case only 89 contracts are found, which is slightly below the average, though twelve common days show a lower record still. But in most cases the date is written, not as 19, but as 20-1; as if there were a superstition about the number 19. On the other hand, this method of indicating the number may be nothing more than a mode of writing; just as in our Roman numerals, XIX., one less than XX., is written for 19.

The Babylonians, therefore, did not observe these days as days of rest, though they seem to have marked them in the ritual of temple and court. Nor did they make every seventh or every fifth a rest-day, for Prof. Schiaparelli has specially examined these documents to see if they gave any evidence of abstention from business either on one day in seven or on one day in five, and in both cases with a purely negative result.

When we inquire which nation has been successful in impressing their particular form of sabbath on the nations around the case is clear. We have no evidence of the Babylonians securing the adoption of their sabbatic arrangements by the Persians, Greeks and Parthians who successively overcame them. It was entirely different with the Jews. The Jewish kingdom before the Captivity was a very small one compared with its enemies on either side—Assyria, Babylon and Egypt; it was but a shadow even of its former self after the Return. And imperial Rome was a mightier power than Assyria or Babylon at their greatest. If ever one state was secure from influence by another on the score of its greater magnitude and power, Rome was safe from any Jewish impress. Yet it is perfectly well known that the impression made upon the Romans by the Jews in this very matter of sabbath-keeping was widespread and deep. Jewish influence was felt and acknowledged almost from the time that Syria, of which Judæa was but a petty division, became a Roman province, and a generation had not passed away before we find Horace making jocular allusion to the spread of the recognition of the Jewish sabbath. In his ninth satire he describes himself as being buttonholed by a bore, and, seeing a friend pass by, as begging the latter to pretend business with him and so relieve him of his trouble. His friend mischievously excuses himself from talking about business:—