1. The day which God appointed to be observed by the Jews as a day of rest from all secular labor or employments, and to be kept holy and consecrated to his service and worship. This was originally the seventh day of the week, the day on which God rested from the work of creation; and this day is still observed by the Jews and some christians, as the sabbath But the christian church very early begun and still continue to observe the first day of the week, in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ on that day, by which the work of redemption was completed. Hence it is often called the Lords day. The heathen nations in the north of Europe dedicated this day to the sun, and hence their christian descendants continue to call the day Sunday. But in the United States, christians have to a great extent discarded the heathen name, and adopted the Jewish name sabbath
1. A season or day of rest; one day in seven appointed for rest or worship, the observance of which was enjoined upon the Jews in the Decalogue, and has been continued by the Christian church with a transference of the day observed from the last to the first day of the week, which is called also Lord's Day.
2. The seventh year, observed among the Israelites as one of rest and festival.
3. Fig.: A time of rest or repose; intermission of pain, effort, sorrow, or the like.
SABBATH ( שבת), the day of sacred rest w hich among the Hebre w s follo w ed six days of labour and closed the week....
1. Observance of the Sabbath.— The later Jewish Sabbath, observed in accordance with the rules of the Scribes, was a very peculiar institution, and for m ed one of the m ost marked distinctions between the Hebrews and other nations, as appears in a striking way from the fact that on this account alone the Romans found themselves compelled to exe m pt the Jews from all military service. The rules of the Scribes enumerated thirty-nine main kinds of work forbidden on the Sabbath, and each of these prohibitions gave rise to new subtilties. Jesus’s disciples, for example, who plucked ears of corn in passin g throu g h a field on the holy day, had, accordin g to Rabbinicalcasuistry, violated the third of the thirty-nine rules, which forbade harvesting; and in healin g the sick Jesus Himself broke the rule that a sick m an should not receive medical aid on the Sabbath unless his life was in dan g er. In fact, as our Lord puts it, the Rabbinical theory see m ed to be that the Sabbath was not made for m an but man for the Sabbath, the observance of which was so m uch an end in itself that the rules prescribed for it did not require to be justified by appeal to any lar g er principle of reli g ion or humanity. The precepts of the law were valuable in the eyes of the Scribes because they were the seal of Jewish particularis m , the barrier erected between the world at lar g e and the exclusive community of Jehovah’s g race. For this purpose the most arbitrary precepts were the most effective, and none were more so than the complicated rules of Sabbath observance. The ideal of the Sabbath which all these rules ai m ed at realizin g was absolute rest from everythin g that could be called work; and even the exercise of those offices of humanity which the strictest Christian Sabbatarians re g ard as a service to God, and therefore as specially appropriate to His day, was looked on as work. To save life was allo w ed, but only because danger to life “superseded the Sabbath.” In like manner the special ritual at the temple prescribed for the Sabbath by the Pentateuchal law was not re g arded as any part of the hallowin g of the sacred day; on the contrary, the rule was that, in this re g ard, “Sabbath was not kept in the sanctuary.” Strictly speakin g , therefore, the Sabbath was neither a day of relief to toilin g humanity nor a day appointed for public w orship; the positive duties of its observance were to wear one’s best clothes, eat, drink, and be g lad (justified fro m Isa. lviii. 13). A m ore directly reli g ious element, it is true, was introduced by the practice of attendin g the syna g o g ue service; but it is to be remembered that this service was primarily regarded not as an act of worship but as a m eetin g for instruction in the law. So far, therefore, as the Sabbath existed for any end outside itself it was an institution to help every Jew to learn the law, and from this point of view it is re g arded by Philo and Josephus, who are accustomed to seek a philosophical justification for the peculiar institutions of their reli g ion. But this certainly was not the leadin g point of view with the mass of the Rabbins; and at any rate it is quite certain that the syna g o g ue is a post-exilic institution, and therefore that the Sabbath in old Israel m ust either have been entirely different from the Sabbath of the Scribes, or else must have been a m ere day of idleness and feastin g , not accompanied by any properly reli g ious observances or havin g any properly reli g ious m eanin g. The second of these alternatives may be dismissed as quite inconceivable, for, thou g h m any of the reli g ious ideas of the old Hebre w s were crude, their institutions were never arbitrary and m eanin g less, and when they spo k e of consecratin g the Sabbath they m ust have had in view some reli g ious exercise of an intelli g ible kind by which they paid w orship to Jehovah.
Indeed, that the old Hebrew Sabbath was quite different from the Rabbinical Sabbath is de m onstrated in the trenchant criticis m which Jesus directed a g ainst the latter (Matt. xii. 114; Mark ii. 27). The g eneral position which He takes up, that “the Sabbath is made for man and not m an for the Sabbath,” is only a special application of the wider principle that the law is not an end in itself but a help towards the realization in life of the g reat ideal of love to God and m an, which is the su m of all true reli g ion. But Jesus further m aintains that this view of the law as a whole, and the interpretation of the Sabbath law which it involves, can be historically justified fro m the Old Testament. And in this connexion He introduces two of the main m ethods to which historical criticism of the Old Testa m ent has recurred in modern times: He appeals to the oldest history rather than to the Pentateuchal code as provin g that the later conception of the law was unkno w n in ancient times (Matt. xii. 3, 4), and to the exceptions to the Sabbath law which the Scribes the m selves allo w ed in the interests of worship (ver. 5) or hu m anity (ver. 11), as showin g that the Sabbath m ust ori g inally have been devoted to purposes of worship and humanity, and was not al w ays the purposeless arbitrary thin g which the schoolmen made it to be. Modern criticism of the history of Sabbath observance amon g the Hebrews has done nothin g more than follow out these argu m ents in detail, and show that the result is in a g ree m ent with what is known as to the dates of the several co m ponent parts of the Pentateuch. Of the le g al passa g es that speak of the Sabbath all those which show affinity with the doctrine of the Scribes— regarding the Sabbath as an arbitrary sign between Jehovah and Israel, entering into details as to particular acts that are forbidden, and enforcing the observance by severe penalties, so that it no longer has any religious value, but appears as a mere legal constraint—are post-exilic (Exod. xvi. 23-30, xxxi. 12-17, xxxv. 1-3; Num. xv. 32-36); while the older laws only demand such cessation from daily toil, and especially from agricultural labour, as among all ancient peoples naturally accompanied a day set apart as a religious festival, and in particular lay weight on the fact that the Sabbath is a humane institution, a holiday for the labouring classes (Exod. xxiii. 12; Deut. v. 13-15). As it stands in these ancient laws, the Sabbath is not at all the unique thing which it was made to be by the Scribes. “The Greeks and the barbarians,” says Strabo (x. 3, 9), “have this in common, that they accompany their sacred rites by a festal remission of labour.” So it was in old Israel: the Sabbath was one of the stated religious feasts, like the new moon and the three great agricultural sacrificial celebrations (Hosea ii. 11); the new moons and the Sabbaths alike called men to the sanctuary to do sacrifice (Isa. i. 14); the remission of ordinary business belonged to both alike (Amos viii. 5), and for precisely the same reason. Hosea even takes it for granted that in captivity the Sabbath will be suspended, like all the other feasts, because in his day a feast implied a sanctuary.
This conception of the Sabbath, however, necessarily underwent an important modification in the 7th century b.c., when the local sanctuaries were abolished, and those sacrificial rites and feasts which in Hosea’s time formed the essence of every act of religion were limited to the central altar, which most men could visit only at rare intervals. From this time forward the new moons, which till then had been at least as important as the Sabbath and were celebrated by sacrificial feasts as occasions of religious gladness, fall into insignificance, except in the conservative temple ritual. The Sabbath did not share the same fate, but with the abolition of local sacrifices it became for most Israelites an institution of humanity divorced from ritual. So it appears in the Deuteronomic decalogue, and presumably also in Jer. xvii. 19 sq. In this form the institution was able to survive the fall of the state and the temple, and the seventh day’s rest was clung to in exile as one of the few outward ordinances by which the Israelite could still show his fidelity to Jehovah and mark his separation from the heathen. Hence we understand the importance attached to it in the exilic literature (Isa. lvi. 2 sq., lviii. 13), and the character of a sign between Jehovah and Israel ascribed to it in the post-exilic law. This attachment to the Sabbath, beautiful and touching so long as it was a spontaneous expression of continual devotion to Jehovah, acquired a less pleasing character when, after the exile, it came to be enforced by the civil arm (Nell, xiii.), and when the later law even declared Sabbath-breaking a capital offence. But it is just to remember that without the stern discipline of the law the community of the second temple could hardly have escaped dissolution, and that Judaism alone preserved for Christianity the hard-won achievements of the prophets.
The Sabbath exercised a twofold influence on the early Christian church. On the one hand, the weekly celebration of the resurrection on the Lord’s day could not have arisen except in a circle that already knew the week as a sacred division of time; and, moreover, the manner in which the Lord’s day was observed was directly influenced by the synagogue service. On the other hand, the Jewish Christians continued to keep the Sabbath, like other points of the old law. Eusebius (H.E., iii. 27) remarks that the
Ebionites observed both the Sabbath and the Lord’s day; and this practice obtained to some extent in much wider circles, for the Apostolical Constitutions recommend that the Sabbath shall be kept as a memorial feast of the creation as well as the Lord’s day as a memorial of the resurrection. The festal character of the Sabbath was long recognized in a modified form in the Eastern Church by a prohibition of fasting on that day, which was also a point in the Jewish Sabbath law (comp. Judith viii. 6).
On the other hand, Paul had quite distinctly laid down from the first days of Gentile Christianity that the Jewish Sabbath was not binding on Christians (Rom. xiv. 5 sq.; Gal. iv. 10; Col. ii. 16), and controversy with Judaizers led in process of time to direct condemnation of those who still kept the Jewish day (e.g., Co. of Laodicea, 363 a.d.). Nay, in the Roman Church a practice of fasting on Saturday as well as on Friday was current before the time of Tertullian. The steps by "which the practice of resting from labour on the Lord’s day instead of on the Sabbath was established in Christendom and received civil as "well as ecclesiastical sanction will be spoken of in Sunday; it is enough to observe here that this practice is naturally and even necessarily connected with the religious observance of the Lord’s day as a day of worship and religious gladness, and is in full accordance with the principles laid down by Jesus in His criticism of the Sabbath of the Scribes. But of course the complete observance of Sunday rest was not generally possible to the early Christians before Christendom obtained civil recognition. For the theological discussions whether and in what sense the fourth commandment is binding on Christians, see Decalogue, vol. vii. p. 17.
2. Origin of the Sabbath.— As the Sabbath was originally a religious feast, the question of the origin of the Sabbath resolves itself into an inquiry why and in what circle a festal cycle of seven days was first established. In Gen. ii. 1-3 and in Exod. xx. 11 the Sabbath is declared to be a memorial of the completion of the work of creation in six days. But it appears certain that the decalogue as it lay before the Deuteronomist did not contain any allusion to the creation (see Decalogue, vol. vii. p. 16), and it is generally believed that this reference was added by the same post-exilic hand that wrote Gen. i. 1-ii. 4a. The older account of the creation in Gen. ii. 4b sq. does not recognize the hexaemeron, and it is even doubtful whether the original sketch of Gen i. distributed creation over six days. The connexion, therefore, between the seven days’ week and the work of creation is now generally recognized as secondary. The week and the Sabbath were already known to the writer of Gen. i., and he used them to give the framework for his picture of the creation, which in the nature of things could not be literal and required some framework. At the same time, there was a peculiar appropriateness in associating the Sabbath with the doctrine that Jehovah is the Creator of all things; for we see from Isa. xl.-lxvi. that this doctrine was a mainstay of Jewish faith in those very days of exile which gave the Sabbath a new importance for the faithful.
But, if the week as a religious cycle is older than the idea of the week of creation, we cannot hope to find more than probable evidence of the origin of the Sabbath. At the time of the exile the Sabbath was already an institution peculiarly Jewish, otherwise it could not have served as a mark of distinction from heathenism. This, however, does not necessarily imply that in its origin it was specifically Hebrew, but only that it had acquired distinguishing features of a marked kind. What is certain is that the origin of the Sabbath must be sought within a circle that used the week as a division of time. Here again we must distinguish between the week as such and the astrolo g ical week , i.e., the wee k in which the seven days are named each after the planet which is held to preside over its first hour. If the day is divided into twenty-four hours and the planets preside in turn over each hour of the wee k in the order of their periodic times (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon), we g et the order of days of the wee k with which we are familiar. For, if the Sun presides over the first hour of Sunday, and therefore also over the eighth, the fifteenth, and the twenty-second, Venus will have the twenty-third hour, Mercury the twenty-fourth, and the Moon, as the third in order from the sun, will preside over the first hour of Monday. Mars, a g ain, as third from the Moon, will preside over Tuesday (Dies Martis, Mardi), and so forth. This astrolo g ical week became very current in the Roman empire, but was still a novelty in the time of Dio Cassius (xxxvii. 18). This writer believed that it came from E g ypt; but the old E g yptians had a wee k of ten, not of seven days, and the ori g inal home of astrolo g y and of the division of the day into twenty-four hours is Chaldaea. It is plain, however, that there is a lon g step between the astrolo g ical assi g nation of each hour of the week to a planet and the reco g nition of the week as an ordinary division of ti m e by people at large. Astrolo g y is in its nature an occult science, and there is not the sli g htest trace of a day of twenty-four hours a m on g the ancient Hebrews, who had the week and the Sabbath lon g before they had any acquaintance with the planetary science of the Babylonian priests. Moreover, it is quite clear from extant remains of Assyrian calendars that our astrolo g ical week did not prevail in civil life even amon g the Babylonians and Assyrians: they did not dedicate each day in turn to its astrolo g ical planet. These facts m a k e it safe to reject one often-repeated explanation of the Sabbath, viz., that it was in its ori g in what it is in the astrolo g icalwee k , the day sacred to Saturn, and that its observance is to be derived from an ancient Hebrew worship of that planet. In truth there is no evidence of the worship of Saturn amon g the oldest Hebrews; Arnos v. 26, where Chiun (Kaiwan) is taken by many to m eanSaturn, is of uncertain interpretation, and, when the tenses are ri g htly rendered, refers not to idolatry of the Israelites in the wilderness but to the ti m e of the prophet.
The wee k , however, is found in various parts of the world in a for m that has nothin g to do with astrology or the seven planets, and with such a distribution as to ma k e it pretty certain that it had no artificial ori g in, but su gg ested itself independently, and for natural reasons, to different races. In fact the four quarters of the m oon supply an obvious division of the month; and, w herever new moon and full moon are religious occasions, we g et in the m ost natural way a sacred cycle of fourteen or fifteen days, of which the wee k of seven or ei g ht days (deter m ined by half moon) is the half. Thus the old Hindus chose the new and the full m oon as days of sacrifice; the eve of the sacrifice was called upavasatha, and in Buddhism the same word (upōsatha) has come to denote a Sabbath observed on the full m oon, on the day when there is no m oon, and on the two days which are ei g hth from the full and the new m oon respectively, with fastin g and other reli g ious exercises.
From this point of view it is most si g nificant that in the older parts of the Hebrew Scriptures the new moon and the Sabbath are almost invariably mentioned together. The month is beyond question an old sacred division of time common to all the Semites; even the Arabs, who received the week at quite a late period from the Syrians
(Bîrûnî, Chronology, Eng. tr., p. 58), greeted the new moon with reli g ious acclamations. And this m ust have been an old Se m itic usage, for the word which properly m eans “to g reet the new m oon” (ahalla) is, as La g arde (Orientalia, ii. 19) has shown, etymolo g ically connected with the Hebrew words used of any festal joy. Amon g the Hebrews, or rather perhaps amon g the Canaanites, whose speech they borro w ed, the joy at the new moon became the type of reli g ious festivity in g eneral. Nor are other traces wantin g of the connexion of sacrificial occasions— i.e ., religious feasts—with the phases of the moon amon g the Semites. The Harranians had four sacrificial days in every m onth, and of these two at least were deter m ined by the conjunction and opposition of the moon.
That full moon as well as new moon had a religious si g nificance amon g the ancient Hebrews seems to follow from the fact that, when the g reat a g ricultural feasts were fixed to set days, the full moon was chosen. In older times these feast-days appear to have been Sabbaths (Lev. xxiii. 11; comp. Passover, vol. xviii. p. 344).
A week determined by. the phases of the moon has an avera g e len g th of 29 1/2 - 4 = 7 3/8 days, i.e ., three weeks out of ei g ht would have eight days. But there seems to be in 1 Sam. xx....
The obligation of a sabbatical institution upon Christians, as well as the extent of it, have been the subjects of much controversy. Christian churches themselves have differed; and the theologians of the same church. Much has been written upon the subject on each side, and much research and learning employed, sometimes to darken a very plain subject. The question respects the will of God as to this particular point,--Whether one day in seven is to be wholly devoted to religion, exclusive of worldly business and worldly pleasures. Now, there are but two ways in which the will of God can be collected from his word; either by some explicit injunction upon all, or by incidental circumstances. Let us then allow, for a moment, that we have no such explicit injunction; yet we have certainly none to the contrary: let us allow that we have only for our guidance, in inferring the will of God in this particular, certain circumstances declarative of his will; yet this important conclusion is inevitable, that all such indicative circumstances are in favour of a sabbatical institution, and that there is not one which exhibits any thing contrary to it. The seventh day was hallowed at the close of the creation; its sanctity was afterward marked by the withholding of the manna on that day, and the provision of a double supply on the sixth, and that previous to the giving of the law from Sinai: it was then made a part of that great epitome of religious and moral duty, which God wrote with his own finger on tables of stone; it was a part of the public political law of the only people to whom almighty God ever made himself a political Head and Ruler; its observance is connected throughout the prophetic age with the highest promises, its violations with the severest maledictions; it was ...among the Jews in our Lord’s time a day of solemn religious assembling, and was so observed by him; when changed to the first day of the week, it was the day on which the first Christians assembled; it was called, by way of eminence, “the Lord’s day;” and we have inspired authority to say, that both under the Old and New Testament dispensations, it is used as an expressive type of the heavenly and eternal rest. Now, against all these circumstances so strongly declarative of the will of God, as to the observance of a sabbatical institution, what circumstance or passage of Scripture can be opposed, as bearing upon it a contrary indication? Certainly, not one; for those passages in St. Paul, in which he speaks of Jewish Sabbaths, with their Levitical rites, and of a distinction of days, the observance of which marked a weak or a criminal adherence to the abolished ceremonialdispensation; touch not the Sabbath as a branch of the moral law, or as it was changed, by the authority of the Apostles, to the first day of the week. If, then, we were left to determine the point by inference, the conclusion must be irresistibly in favour of the institution.
It may also be observed, that those who will so strenuouslyinsist upon the absence of an express command as to the Sabbath in the writings of the evangelists and Apostles, as explicit as that of the decalogue, assume, that the will of God is only obligatory when manifested in some one mode, which they judge to be most fit. But this is a dangerous hypothesis; for, however the will of God may be manifested, if it is with such clearness as to exclude all reasonable doubt, it is equally obligatory as when it assumes the formality of legal promulgation. Thus the Bible is not all in the form of express and authoritative command; it teaches by examples, by proverbs, by songs, by incidental allusions and occurrences; and yet is, throughout, a manifestation of the will of God as to morals and religion in their various branches, and, if disregarded, it will be so at every man’s peril. But strong as this ground is, we quit it for a still stronger. It is wholly a mistake, that the Sabbath, because not reënacted with the formality of the decalogue, is not explicitlyenjoined upon Christians, and that the testimony of Scripture to such an injunction is not unequivocal and irrefragible. The Sabbath was appointed at the creation of the world, and sanctified, or set apart for holy purposes, “for man,” for all men, and therefore for Christians; since there was never any repeal of the original institution. To this we add, that if the moral law be the law of Christians, then is the Sabbath as explicitlyenjoined upon them as upon the Jews. But that the moral law is our law, as well as the law of the Jews, all but Antinomians must acknowledge; and few, we suppose, will be inclined to run into the fearful mazes of that error, in order to support lax notions as to the obligation of the Sabbath; into which, however, they must be plunged, if they deny the law of the decalogue to be binding. That it is so bound upon us, a few passages of Scripture will prove as well as many. Our Lord declares, that he “came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil.” Take it, that by “the law,” he meant both the moral and the ceremonial; ceremonial law could only be fulfilled in him, by realizing its types; and moral law, by upholding its authority. For “the prophets,” they admit of a similar distinction; they either enjoin morality, or utter prophecies of Christ; the latter of which were fulfilled in the sense of accomplishment, the former by being sanctioned and enforced. That the observance of the Sabbath is a part of the moral law, is clear from its being found in the decalogue, the doctrine of which our Lord sums up in the moral duties of loving God and our neighbour; and for this reason the injunctions of the prophets, on the subject of the Sabbath, are to be regarded as a part of their moral teaching. Some divines have, it is true, called the observance of the Sabbath a positive, and not a moral precept. If it were so, its obligation is precisely the same, in all cases where God himself has not relaxed it; and if a positive precept only, it has surely a special eminence given to it, by being placed in the list of the ten commandments, and being capable, with them, of an epitome which resolves them into the love of God and our neighbour. The truth seems to be, that it is a mixed precept, and not wholly positive, but intimately, perhaps essentially connected with several moral principles of homage to God, and mercy to men; with the obligation of religious _worship_, of _public_ religious worship, and of _undistracted_ public worship: and this will account for its collocation in the decalogue with the highest duties of religion, and the leading rules of personal and social morality. The passage from our Lord’s sermon on the mount, with its context, is a sufficiently explicitenforcement of the moral law, generally, upon his followers; but when he says, “The Sabbath was made for man,” he clearly refers to its original institution, as a universal law, and not to its obligation upon the Jews only, in consequence of the enactments of the law of Moses. It “was made for man,” not as he may be a Jew, or a Christian; but as man, a creature bound to love, worship, and obey his God and Maker, and on his trial for eternity.
Another explicit proof that the law of the ten commandments, and, consequently, the law of the Sabbath, is obligatory upon Christians, is found in the answer of the Apostle to an objection to the doctrine of justification by faith: “Do we then make void the law through faith?” Rom. iii, 31; which is equivalent to asking, Does Christianity teach that the law is no longer obligatory on Christians, because it teaches that no man can be justified by it? To this he answers, in the most solemn form of expression, “God forbid; yea, we establish the law.” Now, the sense in which the Apostle uses the term, “the law,” in this argument, is indubitably marked in Rom. vii, 7: “I had not known sin but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet:” which, being a plain reference to the tenth command of the decalogue, as plainly shows that the decalogue is “the law” of which he speaks. This, then, is the law which is established by the Gospel; and this can mean nothing else but the establishment and confirmation of its authority, as the rule of all inward and outward holiness. Whoever, therefore, denies the obligation of the Sabbath on Christians, denies the obligation of the whole decalogue; and there is no real medium between the acknowledgment of the divine authority of this sacred institution, as a universal law, and that gross corruption of Christianity, generally designated Antinomianism.
Nor is there any force in the dilemma into which the anti-sabbatarians would push us, when they argue, that, if the case be so, then are we bound to the same circumstantialexactitude of obedience with regard to this command, as to the other precepts of the decalogue; and, therefore, that we are bound to observe the seventh day, reckoning from Saturday, as the Sabbath day. But, as the command is partly positive, and partly moral, it may have circumstances which are capable of being altered in perfect accordance with the moral principles on which it rests, and the moral ends which it proposes. Such circumstances are not indeed to be judged of on our own authority. We must either have such general principles for our guidance as have been revealed by God, and cannot therefore be questioned, or some special authority from which there can be no just appeal. Now, though there is not on record any divine command issued to the Apostles, to change the Sabbath from the day on which it was held by the Jews, to the first day of the week; yet, when we see that this was done in the apostolic age, and that St. Paul speaks of the Jewish Sabbaths as not being obligatory upon Christians, while he yet contends that the whole moral law is obligatory upon them; the fair inference is, that this change of the day was made by divine direction. It is indeed more than inference that the change was made under the sanction of inspired men; and those men, the appointed rulers in the church of Christ; whose business it was to “set all things in order,” which pertained to its worship and moral government. We may therefore rest well enough satisfied with this,--that as a Sabbath is obligatory upon us, we act under apostolic authority for observing it on the first day of the week, and thus commemorate at once the creation and the redemption of the world.
Thus, even if it were conceded, that the change of the day was made by the agreement of the Apostles, without express directions from Christ, which is not probable, it is certain that it was not done without that general authority which was confided to them by Christ; but it would not follow even from this change, that they did in reality make any alteration in the law of the Sabbath, either as it stood at the time of its original institution at the close of the creation, or in the decalogue of Moses. The same portion of time which constituted the seventh day from the creation could not be observed in all parts of the earth; and it is not probable, therefore, that the original law expresses more, than that a seventh day, or one day in seven, the seventh day after six days of labour, should be thus appropriated, from whatever point the enumeration might set out, or the hebdomadal cycle begin. For if more had been intended, then it would have been necessary to establish a rule for the reckoning of days themselves, which has been different in different nations; some reckoning from evening to evening, as the Jews now do, others from midnight to midnight, &c. So that those persons in this country and in America, who hold their Sabbath on Saturday, under the notion of exactly conforming to the Old Testament, and yet calculate the days from midnight to midnight, have no assurance at all that they do not desecrate a part of the original Sabbath, which might begin, as the Jewish Sabbath now, on Friday evening, and, on the contrary, hallow a portion of a common day, by extending the Sabbath beyond Saturday evening. Even if this were ascertained, the differences of latitude and longitude would throw the whole into disorder; and it is not probable that a universal law should have been fettered with that circumstantial exactness, which would have rendered difficult, and sometimes doubtful, astronomical calculations necessary in order to its being obeyed according to the intention of the lawgiver. Accordingly we find, says Mr. Holden, that in the original institution it is stated in general terms, that God blessed and sanctified the seventh day, which must undoubtedly imply the sanctity of every seventh day; but not that it is to be subsequently reckoned from the first demiurgic day. Had this been included in the command of the Almighty, something, it is probable, would have been added declaratory of the intention; whereas expressions the most undefined are employed; not a syllable is uttered concerning the order and number of the days; and it cannot reasonably be disputed that the command is truly obeyed by the separation of every seventh day, from common to sacred purposes, at whatever given time the cycle may commence. The difference in the mode of expression here, from that which the sacred historian has used in the first chapter, is very remarkable. At the conclusion of each division of the work of creation, he says, “The evening and the morning were the first day,” and so on; but at the termination of the whole, he merely calls it the seventh day; a diversity of phrase, which, as it would be inconsistent with every idea of inspiration to suppose it undesigned, must have been intended to denote a day, leaving it to each people as to what manner it is to be reckoned. The term obviously imports the period of the earth’s rotation round its axis, while it is left undetermined, whether it shall be counted from evening or morning, from noon or midnight. The terms of the law are, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” With respect to time, it is here mentioned in the same indefinite manner as at its primeval institution, nothing more being expressly required than to observe a day of sacred rest after every six days of labour. The seventh day is to be kept holy; but not a word is said as to what epoch the commencement of the series is to be referred; nor could the Hebrews have determined from the decalogue what day of the week was to be kept as their Sabbath. The precept is not, Remember the seventh day of the week, to keep _it_ holy, but, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy;” and in the following explication of these expressions, it is not said that the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath, but without restriction, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” not the seventh according to any particular method of computing the septenary cycle, but, in reference to the six before mentioned, every seventh day in rotation after six of labour.
Thus that part of the Jewish law, the decalogue, which, on the authority of the New Testament, we have shown to be obligatory upon Christians, leaves the computation of the hebdomadal cycle undetermined; and, after six days of labour, enjoins the seventh as the Sabbath, to which the Christian practice as exactly conforms as the Jewish. It is not, however, left to every individual to determine which day should be his Sabbath, though he should fulfil the law so far as to abstract the seventh part of his time from labour. It was ordained for worship, for _public_ worship; and it is therefore necessary that the Sabbath should be uniformly observed by a whole community at the same time. The divine Legislator of the Jews interposed for this end, by special direction, as to his people. The first Sabbath kept in the wilderness was calculated from the first day in which the manna fell; and with no apparent reference to the creation of the world. By apostolic authority, it is now fixed to be held on the first day of the week; and thus one of the great ends for which it was established, that it should be a day of “holy convocation,” is secured.
Traces of the original appointment of the Sabbath, and of its observance prior to the giving forth of the law of Moses, have been found by the learned in the tradition which universally prevailed of the sacredness of the number seven, and the fixing of the first period of time to the revolution of seven days. The measuring of time by a day and night is pointed out to the common sense of mankind by the diurnal course of the sun. Lunar months and solar years are equally obvious to all rational creatures; so that the reason why time has been computed by days, months, and years, is readily given; but how the division of time into weeks of seven days, and this from the beginning, came to obtain universally among mankind, no man can account for, without having respect to some impressions on the minds of men from the constitution and law of nature, with the tradition of a sabbatical rest from the foundation of the world. Yet plain intimations of this weekly revolution of time are to be found in the earliest Greek poets: Hesiod, Homer, Linus, as well as among the nations of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. It deserves consideration, too, on this subject, that Noah, in sending forth the dove out of the ark, observed the septenary revolution of days, Gen. viii, 10, 12; and at a subsequent period, in the days of the Patriarch Jacob, a week is spoken of as a well known period of time, Gen. xxix, 27; Judges xiv, 12, 15, 17. These considerations are surely sufficient to evince the futility of the arguments which are sometimes plausibly urged for the first institution of the Sabbath under the law; and the design of which, in most cases is, to set aside the moral obligation of appropriating one day in seven to the purposes of the public worship of God, and the observation of divine ordinances. But the truth is, that the seventh day was set apart from the beginning as a day of rest; and it was also strictly enjoined upon the Israelites in their law, both on the ground of its original institution, Exod. xx, 8–11, and also to commemorate their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, Deut. v, 15.
“A Sabbath day’s journey” was reckoned to be two thousand cubits, or one mile, Acts i, 12. The sabbatical year was celebrated among the Jews every seventh year when the land was left without culture, Exod. xxii, 10. God appointed the observation of the sabbatical year, to preserve the remembrance of the creation of the world, to enforce the acknowledgment of his sovereign authority over all things, and in particular over the land of Canaan, which he had given to the Israelites, by delivering up the fruits to the poor and the stranger. It was a sort of tribute, or small rent, by which they held the possession. Beside, he intended to inculcate humanity upon his people, by commanding that they should resign to the slaves, the poor, and the strangers, and to the brutes, the produce of their fields, of their vineyards, and of their gardens. In the sabbatical year all debts were remitted, and the slaves were liberated, Exodus xxi, 2; Deut. xv, 2.
A profanation of the sabbath by violating the injunction of the fourth commandment, or the municipal laws of a state which require the observance of that day as holy time. All unnecessary secular labor, visiting, traveling, sports, amusements and the like are considered as sabbath-breaking
N.repose, rest, silken repose, sleep, # relaxation, breathing time, halt, stay, pause, respite, day of rest, dies non, sabbath, lord's day, holiday, red-letter day, vacation, recess
V.repose, rest, rest and be thankful, take a rest, take one's ease, take it easy, relax, unbend, slacken, take breath, rest upon one's oars, pause, stay one's hand, lie down, recline, recline on a bed of down, recline on an easy chair, go to rest, go to bed, go to sleep, take a holiday, shut up shop, lie fallow
V. perform service, do duty, minister, officiate, baptize, dip, sprinkle, anoint, confirm, lay hands on, give the sacrament, administer the sacrament, administer extreme unction, hear confession, administer holy penance, shrive, excommunicate, ban with bell book and candle, attend services, attend mass, go to mass, hear mass, take the sacrament, receive the sacrament, receive communion, attend the sacrament, partake of the sacrament, partake of communion, communicate, receive extreme unction, confess, go to confession, receive penance, anele, preach, sermonize, predicate, lecture
And he said unto them, This is that which the LORD hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the LORD: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.
He told them, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil. Then set aside whatever remains and keep it until morning.’”
See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.
Understand that the LORD has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day He will give you bread for two days. On the seventh day, everyone must stay where he is; no one may leave his place.”
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God, on which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant or livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates.
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.
Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that dothsanctify you.
“Tell the Israelites, ‘Surely you must keep My Sabbaths, for this will be a sign between Me and you for the generations to come, so that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you.
Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
Keep the Sabbath, for it is holy to you. Anyone who profanes it must surely be put to death. Whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from among his people.
Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.
For six days work may be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must surely be put to death.
Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.
For six days work may be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of complete rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on that day must be put to death.
Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.
For six days work may be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, a day of sacred assembly. You must not do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the LORD.
And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:
From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, you are to count off seven full weeks.
Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.
You shall count off fifty days until the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the LORD.
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