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of Unleavened Bread were to be kept for religious assemblies 

 where " no toilsome work " was allowed.^- A like prohibition 

 characterized the Feast of Tabernacles : " on the first day shall 

 be a complete rest, and on the eighth day shall be a complete 

 rest."^^ When the priestly lawgivers arranged the post-Exilic 

 calendar the institution of a weekly Sabbath had come into exist- 

 ence. As a consequence the custom of observing every full moon 

 as a period of abstinence must have fallen into disuse except as 

 it was perpetuated in the Sabbatarian rules for the celebration of 

 the great agricultural festivals. 



In some of the older parts of the Bible, and especially during 

 the time of the earlier prophets, the new moon and the Sabbath are 

 repeatedly mentioned together. In the pathetic narrative which 

 describes how the Shunammite woman sought Elisha that the 

 prophet might restore her son to life, her husband asks : " Where- 

 fore will thou go to him to-day? It is neither new moon nor 

 Sabbath ? "^* The prophet Hosea, promising that the people's 

 unfaithfulness shall be punished, cries out wrathfully: "I will 

 also cause all her mirth to cease, her feasts, her new moons, and 

 her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies. "^^ Amos rebukes 

 the oppressors of his people " that would swallow up the needy, 

 and cause the poor of the land to fail, saying ' When will the new 

 moon be gone, that we may sell grain? and the Sabbath, that we 

 may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel 

 great ? ' "®® Isaiah condemns the formalism of the ancient faith in 

 striking words : " Bring no more vain oblations ; incense is an 

 abomination unto me; new moon and Sabbath, the calling of as- 

 semblies — I cannot away with iniquity and solemn meeting."^''' 

 Elsewhere, in the same work appears the prophecy : " And it shall 

 come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from 



^"Leviticus, xxiii. 6-8; Exodus, xii. 15-16; Numbers, xxviii. 17-18, 25. 

 ^^ Leviticus, xxiii. 39; Numbers, xxix. 12, 35. The eighth day was prob- 

 ably added by later lawgivers. 

 ^* 2 Kings, iv. 23. 

 ^' Hosea, ii. 11. 

 ^ Amos, viii. 4-5. 

 ^''Isaiah, i. 13. 



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