Rest Days; A Sociological Study 139 



pages have supplied too many illustrations of the transformation 

 of fast days into feast days for such an explanation to be dis- 

 missed as an idle conjecture. 



Even the rules which required rest on the Sabbath day betray 

 in their original form something quite different from a humani- 

 tarian purpose to provide a season of relaxation and repose for 

 man and beast. No plea of necessary labor is to be accepted at 

 even the busiest seasons of the year : " In plowing time and in 

 harvest thou shalt rest."^^ When the Israelites were in the wilder- 

 ness and dependent on manna for their sustenance, the heavenly 

 food was not to be gathered on the Sabbath day and those who 

 went out to seek it found none in the fields. But that which was 

 gathered during the preceding day preserved its freshness through- 

 out the Sabbath. ^^ In the Decalogue {Exodus, xx. 10), the sev- 

 enth day is stated to be a Sabbath not only for the householder 

 and his family, but for the stranger within the gates and for the 

 cattle. Xo utilitarian reason is here assigned for the prohibition 

 of labor nor does the commandment indicate that its author was 

 inspired with sentiments of consideration for the lower creation. 

 It is only in passages belonging to a far later period of Hebrew 

 history that we find the priestly writers enjoining the Sabbath 

 observance " that thine ox and thine ass may have rest, and the 

 son of thine handmaid, and the sojourner, may be refreshed."^*' 



When the notion of a weekly Sabbath was extended to the Sab- 

 batical year the seventh year was to be " a Sabbath of solemn rest 

 for the land," not because of the advantage of allowing soil to 

 lie fallow at regular intervals, but because the land itself was con- 

 secrated as " a Sabbath unto Jehovah.""^ The regulation does 

 not imply that as a consequence of a fallow year the land will pro- 

 duce better harvests on the succeeding year. It is expressly said 

 that the year before the Sabbath year is the one to be conspicuous 



^^ Exodus, xxxiv. 21. 



^' Ihid., xvi. 24 sqq. 



^ Ibid., xxiii. 12. Cf. Dcutcroiwmy, v. 14. 



*' Leviticus, xxv. 4. That this law was occasionally productive of great 

 distress we may learn from / Maccabees, vi. 48, 53. Cf. Josephus, Anti- 

 quifafcs Jndacortim, xiv. 16, 2. 



