From all this we infer that before coming in contact with, the Babylonian Assyrians the Israelites had no weekly sabbath or day of rest recurring every seventh day, but had a festival of the new moon on the first day of the lunar month (I Samuel, xx, 27), which, as we shall show, was observed by them as a day of rest, as it is by other peoples at the present day. After they had adopted the weekly sabbath from the Babylonians, they endeavored, through national vanity, to show that they had always observed it, and to account for it they inserted in their books two traditions of its origin which are fatally at variance. Exodus, xx, 10, 11, says: "For in six days Jahveh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore Jahveh blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it"; while in Deuteronomy, V, 15, we read: "And remember thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that Jahveh, thy God, brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm: therefore Jahveh, thy God, commanded thee to keep the sabbath day."
In the later books, written after contact with the Babylonians, we find sabbaths frequently mentioned and strongly insisted upon, but nearly always in connection with new moons. Thus, in Nehemiah,x, 33, we read, "For the continual burnt offering, of the sabbaths, of the new moons"; in Isaiah, i, 13, "The new moons and sabbaths"; in Isaiah, Ixvi, 23, "And it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith Jahveh"; in Ezekiel, xlv, 17, "In the feasts, and in the new moons and in the sabbaths"; and in Hosea, ii, 11, "Her feasts, her new moons, and her sabbaths." New moons and sabbaths are also mentioned together in I Maccabees, x, 24; I Esdras, v, 32, and in Judith, viii, 6. In Ezekiel, xlvi, i, we read that the gate of the inner court of the temple was to "be shut the six working days," and opened on the sabbath and the day of the new moon, which shows that the latter was a day of rest. The offering to be made on the day of the new moon was superior to that to be made on the sabbath (v, 4, 5). In Amos, viii, 5, we read: "When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn, and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?" which again shows that the day of the new moon was a day of rest.[1]
In no one of these passages is the new-moon festival spoken of as inferior in importance to the sabbath. On the contrary, since the offering was superior, it is to be presumed that the festival was also superior. Each was a day of rest. The explanation doubtless is that, while adopting a seventh-day sabbath from the
- ↑ New moons are mentioned alone—that is, without sabbaths—in Ezra, iii, 5. Ezra does not anywhere mention the sabbath.
