Rest Days; A Sociological Study 129 



"month" \5 ycrah, from yareah, "moon"; it is called also 

 hodcsh which means new moon. In one of the most magnifi- 

 cent of the Psalms we read that Jehovah " appointed the moon 

 for the seasons "^^ ; all the Jewish festivals, like those of the 

 Hawaiians, were determined by the moon. At the same time 

 there is almost no Biblical testimony to indicate that the prim- 

 itive Hebrews ever conceived the moon as a divinity and ad- 

 dressed to that luminary specific acts of worship. The only 

 reference to a lunar cult in the Old Testament where the kissing 

 of the hand to the moon is mentioned^^ may have meant little 

 more than do some of our own popular superstitions regarding 

 the moon. In any case, one can hardly build up a theory of an 

 original worship of the moon among the early Israelites on the 

 basis of a single passage, and that more or less obscure. 



The evidence seems quite conclusive that of the lunar phases 

 it was especially the new and the full moon which first aroused 

 the attention of the Semitic nomads and evoked feelings of awe 

 and veneration. Even to-day " the first appearing of the virgin 

 moon is always greeted with a religious emotion in the deserts 

 of Arabia."-** In modern Palestine when the Bedouin and 

 Fellahin first see the lunar crescent, they exclaim : " God's new 

 moon has appeared in his exaltedness. May it be for us a 

 blessed new moon."-^ The Harranians, who long retained their 

 ancient customs, held a new moon festival as late as the eleventh 

 or twelfth century of our era. On the twenty-seventh day of 

 the lunar month ofiferings were made to the moon and the occa- 



" Psalms, civ. 19. Cf. Ecclesiasticus, xliii. 6-8 : " He made the moon 

 also to serve in her season for a declaration of times, and a sign of the 

 world. From the moon is the sign of feasts, a light that decreaseth in 

 her perfection. The month is called after her name, increasing wonder- 

 fully in her changing ..." 



^^ Job, xxxi. 26. 



^"Doughty, op. cit.. ii. 305 sq. Cf. Nielsen, op. cit., 50. For the inter- 

 esting Abyssinian customs see Littmann, in Archiv fiir Rcligionswissen- 

 schaft, 1908, xi. 313 sq. 



■^ (Mrs.) H. H. Spoer, in Folk-Lorc, 1910, xxi. 289. 



129 



