How and When the Seventh Day Became Shabbat

After publishing the original essay, a friend (Albert Dov Friedberg) called my attention to a possible support for this thesis. Leviticus 23:15 states that the counting of the omer should begin ממחרת השבת (on the day after Shabbat.) This obscure phrase gave rise to various sectarian interpretations. The Qumran sect and the Sadducees interpreted this to mean literally the day after Shabbat, i.e. Sunday, and assumed it referred to either the Shabbat of Chag HaMatzot or the Shabbat afterwards (the Torah does not specify.) The rabbis interpreted it as the day after Yom Tov, but then why would it be called the day after Shabbat? If we assume that the Priestly author was using the older term, then Shabbat would refer to Full-Moon precisely when the first day of Passover fell ( the 15th of Nisan). The next day would then properly be called “the day after Shabbat”! Interestingly, this actually supportsthe rabbinic position, against those who began counting the Omer on Sunday. (The rabbinic position is also supported by the account of the first Pesach in the land in Joshua 5:11-12 – but a discussion of this would lead us too far afield.) See also the discussion, and the quote of Beer’s words, in Theophile James Meek, “The Sabbath in the Old Testament,” Journal of Biblical Literature 33 (1914): 201-12.

The possibility of a two-day Chodesh celebration in ancient times is implied in the story of Jonathan and Saul in 1 Samuel 20:27, when Saul notes that David missed the feast two days in a row. This interpretation of the verse is uncertain (the NJPS translates the phrase as “the day after the Chodesh”), but if correct, the fourth rest day would thus coincide with the first day of Chodesh in this model.

I will deal with the midrashic connection to the verb ש-ב-ת later in the essay.

See discussion in Grund, Entstehung, pp. 106-110.

The full-moon celebration was folded into holidays that begin in the middle of the month.

The challenge to create an aesthetically pleasing calendar where weeks and months would work together and not independently of each other was one of the motivations for the sectarian 364 day calendar adopted by the book of Jubilees and the Qumran community. For more details, see Michael Segal’s TABS essay, “The Jewish Calendar in Jubilees.”

A number of biblical texts link Shabbat to the king. For example, 2 Kings 16:18 refers to a portal that had been built in the palace for Shabbat. See also 2 Kings 11:4-12.

וְעַֽל־הַנָּשִׂ֣יא יִהְיֶ֗ה הָעוֹל֣וֹת וְהַמִּנְחָה֘ וְהַנֵּסֶךְ֒ בּחַגִּ֤ים וּבֶחֳדָשִׁים֙ וּבַשַּׁבָּת֔וֹת בְּכָֽל־מוֹעֲדֵ֖י בֵּ֣ית יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל

This placement of the (full-moon) Shabbat after New Moon is found also in a late post-exilic passage from Third-Isaiah (see 66:23 and the discussion in part one on “New Moon and Shabbat).

See esp. Hosea 2:13 (see part one of this article) and Leviticus 26:34-35.

וַיִּשְׁבֹּת֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י מִכָּל־מְלַאכְתּ֖וֹ… כִּ֣י ב֤וֹ שָׁבַת֙ מִכָּל־מְלַאכְתּ֔וֹ

See e.g. Isaiah 56, and well as Isaiah 58, Jeremiah 17, and Nehemiah 13. On the first text, see the article I wrote with Michael Chan, “King and Eunuch: Isaiah 56:1-8 in Light of Honorific Royal Burial Practices,” JBL 131 (2012): 99-119, which can be read here.

This explains the shift from agricultural activities in the two laws from Exodus examined above to the Priestly prologue (Gen 2:1-3) that depicts God sanctifying the seventh day and resting from all his creative labors, using the most general word for “work” (mlachah).

Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, and other mefarshim (as well as critical scholars such as Wellhausen) explained the presence of this isolated unit (at the beginning of the instructions for setting up the Mishkan) as an attempt to affirm that Shabbat trumps even the sacred work on building the Mishkan. Here we see how time (the observance of Shabbat) takes precedence over place (the building of the sanctuary, even if it is a transportable one).

The editing of this chapter seeks to resolve the problems posed by the presence of the Shabbat laws later in the book: If Shabbat no longer designates the full-moon phase, it cannot be discerned in nature and thus must be revealed. This larger meta-narrative concern can best explain the formulation of the (supplementary) lines pertaining to Shabbat in Exodus 16. One could however read this text under the assumption that they were counting seven days from New Moon (instead of from some fixed point such as creation).

This temporal dimension of Shabbat lends itself to teleological and eschatological interpretations: A long period of labor culminates in rest. A future age (the world to come) erupts in the here and now, interrupting our natural, quotidian cycles. Here the holy and profane origins of Shabbat, which I treated in part one of this article, are fully integrated: the sacred, auspicious feast-time (chag) of Full Moon, on the one side, and the forward-moving rhythm of weekly labor, on the other.

See footnote 27 in part one of this article.

The cultic-sacral versus the ethical character of Shabbat is reflected in the fundamental differences between the famous sayings of Achad Ha-Am and Jesus. To the first is attributed the statement: “More than Israel has kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept Israel.” This sacred identity-shaping character of Shabbat contrasts with the emphasis on social justice in the saying attributed to Jesus: “The Sabbath was created for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).