120 Hiitton Webster 



usual translation of the latter is " day of rest of (or for) the 

 heart" [s. c, "of the angered gods"). Various scholars in 

 England and Germany, intent on discovering Babylonian parallels 

 for all Hebrew institutions, have therefore explained sabattii and 

 its equivalent phrase by the five " evil days " found in the calen- 

 dar already noticed. ^° This identification was based on the ob- 

 servation that the " evil days " seemed also to be penitential days 

 when by special observances the gods must be appeased and their 

 anger averted. The Hebrew Sabbath would therefore represent 

 an institution directly derived from the Babylonian regulations 

 for the " evil days." 



Until the present time, however, Assyriology has sounded no 

 certain note concerning the etymology and significance of the 

 term sabattu. Thus Delitzsch holds that " the only meaning that 

 may be justifiably assumed is " ending (of work), cessation, keep- 

 ing holiday from work.' "*^ As the result of linguistic analy- 

 sis Hirschfeld concludes, on the contrary, that "the idea of rest- 

 ing for religious reasons after a certain spell of working days is 

 far too complicated to be the original meaning of a primitive 

 root."*-^ Jastrow, again, points out that um nuh libbi with which 

 sabattu has been provisionally equated, was a standing expression 

 for the pacification of a deity's anger. It occurs frequently in 

 Babylonian religious literature, where it is more particularly used 

 in hymns addressed by penitentials to some god who has shown 

 his ill-will to them. Sabattu implies therefore a day of propi- 

 tiation and the idea of rest involved refers to gods and not to 

 men — a refraining from or cessation of divine anger. *^ Zim- 



*^ Cf. Sayce, TJic Higlier Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments," 

 London, 1895, p. 74; Delitzsch, Babel and Bible, 41; Zimmern, in Schrader, 

 Keilinschriften^ 593. The purely conjectural character of this procedure 

 was pointed out as early as 1882 by Francis Brown in his article, " The 

 Sabbath in the Cuneiform Records," 'Presbyterian Review, iii. 693. Cf. 

 also A. T. Clay, Amurrii, Philadelphia, 1909, pp. 55 sqq. 



*' Babel and Bible, 99. 



" Hirschfeld, " Remarks on the Etymology of Sabbath," Journal of the 

 Royal Asiatic Society," 1896, n. s., xxviii. 358. 



*^ Jastrow, "The Original Character of the Hebrew Sal)bath," American 

 Journal of Theology, 1898, ii. 316 sq., 351. 



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