Rest Days; A Sociological Study I2i 



mern suggests that sabattu may be derived from the verb sabatu 

 with the sense of " discontinue " or " desist " apphed to the anger 

 of the gods.** Pinches on the contrary, beHeves that sabattii 

 comes from the Sumerian sa^bat wliich probably had no con- 

 nection with the Semitic verb sabatu}^ Nielsen, who like 

 Pinches, derives sabattu from sabat, goes still further afield for 

 a satisfactory explanation, and considers sabat a term taken over 

 from the Arabian tJiabat from a root meaning " rest " applied 

 to the lunar phases.*" As the outcome of extensive philological 

 study Hehn argues that sabattu meant originally " fullness," 

 "completeness," the notion of rest being later and entirely sec- 

 ondary.*^ Finally, in . a brief, though highly suggestive study, 

 Professor Toy holds that the root idea in the Babylonian expres- 

 sion was that of abstinence, though sabattii might also have been 

 regarded as a day of propitiation because of the restrictions at- 

 tached to it.*^ 



These conflicting interpretations scarcely make for confidence 

 in the results of a purely philological analysis. A late discovery, 

 however, has thrown new and unexpected light on the problem. 

 We now know, with certainty, that the term sabattu (sapattu) 

 was applied to at least one day in the Babylonian month. Mr. 

 T. G. Pinches has recently published a list of the Sumerian and 



^^ Zimmern, in Schrader, Kci'AnscJiriften^ 593. In one cuneiform list 

 (Rawlinson, op. cit., v. pi. 28, 1. e-f) the verb sabatu is equated with 

 gamaru which is thought to mean " be complete," " be full," though in 

 some other syllabaries it apparently has the sense of " pacify." In the 

 light of the meaning now assigned to "sabattu both translations appear to 

 be intelligible and harmonious. 



''^T. G. Pinches, The Old Testament, London, 1902, p. 327. 



" Nielsen, Die altarabische Mondreligion, 87 sq. He also sees in sabat 

 a variant of the Babylonian sitbtu used as a terminus tcchnicus for the 

 moon-stations {op. cit., 69). 



" " Siebenzahl und Sabbat," 98. 



■** C. H. Toy, "The Earliest Form of the Hebrew Sabbath." Journal 

 of Biblical Literature, 1899, xviii. 190 sqq. The author in this article was 

 the first to recognize the original identity of the Sabbath and primitive 

 seasons of taboo. 



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