Rest Days; A Sociological Study 133 



one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before 

 me, saith Jehovah. "^*^ 



This remarkable conjunction of the Sababth with new moon in 

 some of the oldest parts of the Hebrew Scriptures had been 

 previously noticed by such acute critics as Wellhausen and Robert- 

 son Smith, who, however, were unable to ofifer a satisfactory 

 solution of the problem thus presented. When, however, it was 

 learned from the cuneiform records that the Babylonian sabattu 

 fell on the fifteenth (or fourteenth) day of the month and meant 

 with great probability the day of the full moon {supra), it be- 

 came clear that in these Biblical passages we have a survival of 

 what must have been the original application of the Hebrew term 

 " sabbath. "^^ Among the Israelites, as among so many other 

 peoples, there were two lunar festivals, held on the day of the 

 new moon (hodesh) and on the day of the full moon sabbath). 

 These festivals, we have every reason to believe, reached back 

 into the dateless past of prehistoric times. 



If the analogies from contemporary and archaic societies have 

 any validity, the Hebrew seven-day week, in historic times a 

 periodic week, arose from the subdivision of the lunation as de- 

 termined by new and full moon. It must likewise have been 

 originally a lunar week, corresponding closely to the moon's four 

 phases, and not at first disassociated from the month. It is 

 scarcely possible to determine when such lunar cycles were in- 

 troduced among the early Hebrews. Comparisons with other 

 primitive peoples do not indicate that a division of the month 

 into lunar weeks is familiar to nomadic pastoral tribes which, in- 

 deed, would scarcely require them for their simple economy. 

 The Israelites may have originated their lunar weeks themselves 



^^ Isaiah, Ixvi. 23. 



'"This pregnant suggestion was first made by Zimmern in his comments 

 on the discovery by Pinches, Zeitschrift dcr deufschcn morgeJildndischen 

 GcseUschaft, 1904, Ivii. 202 with note i). Subsequently the hypothesis was 

 elaborated by J. Meinhold, Sabbat mid Woche im Alien Testament, 

 Gottingen, 1905. His main conclusions have been accepted by Karl Marti, 

 Religion of the Old Testament, London, 1907. pp. 150 sq., and T. K. 

 Cheyne, Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel, London, 1907, p. 69. 



133 



