Biblical Hebrew Forum

[irene riegner <iriegner AT concentric.net>]

I sent this by mistake as a private e-mail to George Athas (I
used the reply button and didn't note the address), my apologies.

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• From: irene riegner <iriegner AT concentric.net>
• To: George Athas <gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au>
• Subject: Re: Sabbath Origins
• Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999 12:03:12 -0500

What about the decalogues? Unless you posit a very late origin,
a hellenistic origin---and this is not the concensus scholarly
opinion---the seventh day sabbath must have existed at the time
this commandment was written, well before the Maccabean period.
If one thinks the decalogue in Exodus is pre-exilic, then the 7th
day sabbath would be pre-exilic.

Jeremiah 17.19 to 27 doesn't mention the interval between
sabbaths, but it does describe in some detail the proper sabbath
observance. This may be an addition, and Holladay links it to
Neh 13.15-22, which is also concerned with labor on the sabbath.
In this case, the development of the sabbath with its laws about
labor may be seen as a post-exilic, innovation, perhaps a Persian
development which emerged from an earlier Judahite-Israelite
tradition. Lev 23.4 repeats the commandment to cease work on the
7th day.

Hosea mentions festivals, new moons and sabbaths
(2.13)---pre-exilic---and Lev 19.29 mentions sabbaths with the
implication that this was an important, regularly occurring
observance during the year.

But the question of a 7th day sabbath may be linked with the type
of calendar in use.
A 7th day sabbath may be connected to the lunar calendar,
measuring the quarters from new moon to new moon in a 28 day
lunar cycle. To state the time span between sabbaths would be
unnecessary since the locals would know it and understand it as
a measuring device between new moons. Time spans were often
measured in units of a 7-day week. Lev 23.15-16: the time span
between the wave?? offering and the grain offering was 50
days---7 weeks plus one day. Succoth lasts 7 days (Lev 23.34,
39-42). The festival of unleavened bread is 7 days (Ex 12.18;
Lev 23.6). And something marked these units---distinguished the
units. The sabbath?

The text wasn't written with us in mind, 2500 yrs later and in a
distant continent, but for people who lived when these texts were
produced and who would understand many of the cultural
assumptions inherent in the text. (Something like Presidents'
Day in the U.S. which is one day on the calendar, but those of us
in the U.S. know it's really a three day week-end---it's part of
our cultural baggage. And 10,000 yrs from now probably someone
will write a diss about whether it was celebrated one day or
three days)

However, if a solar calendar is in use, the logical connection
between the 7 day cycle and the calendar would be lost. And the
time unit, the 7 days, may need to be emphasized.

iriegner


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