340 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



moon-substance, or moon-stone. Here, then, are cases of a moon 

 sabbath recurring every seventh day, or four times in a lunar 

 month. Similarly, the first day of the Ibo week of four days is a 

 day of rest, on which no regular work may be done. The first 

 day of the Yoruba five-day week is called Ako-ojo, '' first day." 

 It is considered unlucky, and no business of importance is ever 

 undertaken on it. On Ako-ojo all the temples are swept out, and 

 it is, properly speaking, a general day of abstention from work, 

 while the other days of the week are only sabbaths for the fol- 

 lowers of the gods to which they are dedicated. 



When a sabbath recurs every fourth, fifth, or seventh day, the 

 day on which it falls naturally comes in course of time to be called 

 the fourth, fifth, or seventh clay, though really properly the first 

 day of the week. Thus Ako-ojo is always called the fifth day, 

 though the words themselves mean " first day." The same change 

 seems to have taken place among the Israelites. On the twenty- 

 ninth day of the moon 'they began to watch for the new moon, and 

 the day after its appearance was the first day of the new moon or 

 month. Supposing them to have had a seven-day week and a 

 moon sabbath on the day of the new moon, the sabbath would 

 have fallen on the first day of the week, but as people would 

 naturally count from one sabbath to the next, the day after the 

 sabbath would be termed the first day the next, the second, and 

 so on, so that the sabbath itself would come to be called the 

 seventh day. This is, no doubt, the explanation of the sixth- 

 seventh day being sacred to the new-moon festival, as stated in 

 the hymn to Amen-Ra, for the day of the new moon must have 

 been the first day of the lunar month, and also the first day of the 

 week, or subdivision of the lunar month. 



Though it is quite possible that the Israelites may have in- 

 vented a seven-day week and a weekly sabbath spontaneously, 

 like the Tshi and Ga tribes, yet the evidence of the books of the 

 Old Testament goes to show that tbey borrowed both these insti- 

 tutions from the Babylonian Assyrians during the captivity, and 

 that prior to that epoch they had, like the Mendis, Bechuanas, 

 and Sofalese, only a monthly sabbath, which was the festival of 

 the new moon. No mention of a weekly sabbath is to be found in 

 Joshua, Judges, the books of Samuel, or the first book of Kings. 

 After Deuteronomy, v, 15, no mention of a weekly sabbath is 

 found till we reach II Kings, iv, 23,* and the word sabbath does 



* In only two other places in the second book of Kings is it mentioned, viz., xi, 5, and xvi, 

 18 ; and, since the older books show that Saul, David, and Solomon knew nothing of a weekly 

 sabbath, we must regard these as interpolations. In II Kings, iv, the Shunamite woman 

 asks her husband to get ready one of the young men and one of the asses, so that she may 

 go to ihe man of God ; and her husband replies (v, 23) : " Wherefore wilt thou go to him 



