1-2 2 Htiiton Webster 



Babylonian names of the days of the month in which the 15th 

 day is called sa[>attu.*^ The choice of the 15th day has obviously 

 some reference to a two-fold division of the lunar month, which 

 in the earlier Babylonian period seems to have consisted regu- 

 larly of thirty days. The 15th is the day of the full moon in the 

 middle of the month. There is good evidence, however, for be- 

 lieving that the Babylonian months in the later period consisted 

 of twenty-nine and thirty days in alternation (supra). When 

 the month had twenty-nine days, the fifteenth day or sabattii 

 .would accordingly be equivalent to the fourteenth day from new 

 moon, as reckoned in the Babylonian list of " evil days.""" 



Though as yet the data cannot be supplied from the cuneiform 

 records we may now be well nigh certain that the term sobattn 

 was likewise applied to the other "evil days" (seventh, twenty- 

 first and twenty-eighth, perhaps also, the nineteenth), since all 

 possessed the same character as periods marked by the observance 

 of lunar taboos ; and we may now understand why sabattu 

 should be equated with the expression fnii nnh libbi as a day of 

 rest for the heart, or a day for appeasing the anger of the deity. 

 In the developed Babylonian cult the " evil days " were occasions 

 when the gods must be propitiated and conciliated. In the primi- 

 tive faith of the Semitic peoples they were occasions marked by 

 the changes of the moon and observed with superstitious con- 

 cern as times of fasting, cessation of activity, and other forms 

 of abstinence. 



*'^ " Sapaitii, the Babylonian Sabbath," Proceedings of the Society of 

 Biblical Archaeology, 1904, xxvi. 51-56. The tablet containing the list 

 formed a part of the library of Asshurbanipal. A portion of this list was 

 published in Rawlinson. of. cif., iii. pi. 56, no. 4, and additions to it were 

 subsequently identified by Pinches. See also the comments by Zimmern in 

 Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenldndischcn Gescllschaft, 1904, Iviii. 199- 

 202, 458-60. A division of the month found in K. 170 {Cuneiform Texts, 

 XXV. 50) gives first day, new moon; seventh day, moon as kidney (half- 

 moon) ; fifteenth day, full moon. Cf. supra. 



°"The remarkable parallel afforded by the Buddhist uposatha, a full- 

 moon day celebrated on the fifteenth of " long " months, the fourteenth of 

 "short" months, has already been discussed (supra). 



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