338 BABYLONIAN CONCEPTIONS ON JEWISH THOUGHT. 



only. His quotation refers to the seventh day of the month. By 

 the Semitic Babylonians the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty- 

 first and twenty-eighth days of the month were named umu limmi^ 

 " an evil day." But there is no evidence that business was sus- 

 pended. We have contract tablets dated on all these days. The 

 fifteenth day of the month was sacred, but the restrictions the 

 author quotes appear to have been imposed on the king only by the 

 priests. The name sha-hat, meaning " middle rest " or " heart rest," 

 appears to indicate that the word was originally astronomical and 

 was applied to the day when the moon was at the middle of her 

 course through the heavens, and after waxing was supposed to rest 

 before waning. 



These are by no means all the mistakes the author has made. 

 On p. 314 he does not appear to perceive that "the Canaanite was 

 then in the land," Gen. xii, 16, means that the Canaanite had then 

 settled in the land, and therefore is no proof that it was written 

 after the Canaanites had been expelled. His statement, also, that 

 the latter part of Gen. xiv is in confusion "from v. 17 onwards " 

 he makes no attempt to prove. The supposed confusion I have 

 never been able to discover. 



The author confesses that he has no expert knowledge of the 

 subjects with which he deals — subjects which needed very exact 

 expert knowledge. It is unfortunate also that whilst abounding 

 — indeed, consisting almost entirely of quotations, excepting when 

 he quotes some fifteen or twenty times from Professor Driver, who 

 is not an archaeologist, and cannot read a line of cuneiform inscrip- 

 tions, he so seldom tells us whence his quotations are taken. Some 

 of them I happen to know come from sources of very little value in 

 the light of more recent discoveries. 



Time and space will not permit me to add more. I can only say 

 how greatly I regret, with all my respect for the author, to be able 

 to say little or nothing in favour of his paper. 



