Shabbat, Mid-Fifth Century B.C.E.

[1] The intercalary month of Adar (inserted into the calendar seven times every nineteen years) is also Babylonian in origin. For exhaustive studies comparing the histories of the various Jewish, Babylonian, and Ancient Near Eastern calendrical systems, see Mark Cohen, Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 1993); Jonathan Ben-Dov, Head of All Years: Astronomy and Calendars at Qumran in their Ancient Context (Leiden: Brill, 2008); and Jonathan Ben-Dov, Wayne Horowitz, and John Steele, Living the Lunar Calendar (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2012).

[2] Editor’s note: See, e.g., Jacob L. Wright, “How and When the Seventh Day Became Shabbat,” TheTorah (2015).

[3] For a brief survey of the literature regarding the Babylonian word šapattum, see Mark Geller, “Šapattu,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie, vol. 12 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), 25-27; Gard Granerød, Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period: Studies in the Religion and Society of the Judaean Community at Elephantine, BZAW 488 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016). See also the discussion in Jon D. Levenson, Israel’s Day of Light and Joy: The Origin, Development, and Enduring Meaning of the Jewish Sabbath (University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2024), 24-48, who provides a detailed analysis of arguments both for and against the possible connection between Shabbat and the Babylonian šapattu/šabattu.

[4] Herman Vanstiphout, “Enūma eliš: Tablet V lines 15–22,” JCS 33 (1981): 196–98. Lunar alignment occurs when the sun, earth and moon all line up. When perfectly aligned, eclipses result, both solar (when the moon is between the sun and earth) and lunar (when the earth is between the sun and moon).

[5] Some scholars have contended that Shabbat was originally, in the pre-exilic period, a monthly celebration of the full moon. See, e.g., Jacob L. Wright, “Shabbat of the Full Moon,” TheTorah (2015) and “How and When the Seventh Day Became Shabbat.” Levenson, Israel’s Day of Light and Joy, 48, finds this intriguing, but concludes that “the claim that šabbāt in preexilic texts refers to the day of the full moon and not to the Sabbath remains a tantalizing speculation, one with some philological support but, as of yet, no conclusive evidence.”

[6] Elias Bickerman, “The Generation of Ezra and Nehemia.” TSAAJR 45 (1978): 1–28 (24-25), proposes that the activities of Ezra and Nehemiah, dispatched by the Achaemenid authorities in 458 and 445 B.C.E., respectively, reflected the zealous adherence to Yahwistic principles within the Judean community in Babylonia. If so, it is possible that this was expressed in the near complete absence of names with Babylonian divine associations among offspring born into the Judean community in Babylonia during this period, offering valuable insights into the evolving naming conventions and social history of Judeans in Babylonia in the early fifth century B.C.E.

[7] The order of events in this account differs from Exodus. In Exodus 16, Shabbat observance appears in the context of the giving of manna from heaven, before the events at Sinai (Exodus 19-24). Nehemiah 9, however, highlights Shabbat specifically in connection with Sinai (v. 13), emphasizing its covenantal significance, and places Sinai before the manna episode (referred to in v. 15). Editor’s note: For more on this episode and its significance, see Hava Shalom-Guy, “Nehemiah 9: The First Historical Survey in the Bible to Mention Sinai and Torah,” TheTorah (2018).

[8] Translations from NJPS with modifications. Hannah K. Harrington, The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2022), 390, highlights the significance of the combination “holy Sabbath,” mentioned only twice in scripture—here and in Exodus 16:23. She concludes that the passage in Exodus serves as a backdrop to this verse, suggesting that observing Shabbat constitutes the believer’s affirmation that God will provide his or her needs.

[9] Harrington, Ezra and Nehemiah, 464, asserts that “the Sabbath becomes a stronger distinctive between Jews and gentiles living in close quarters in the postexilic period.” Regardless of whether this was the case, the text specifies that the “peoples of the land”—the non-Judeans—engaged in trading items to sell in Jerusalem on Shabbat. This practice seems to have been accepted by some people of Judah, who depended on the gentiles and refrained from their regular work on Shabbat.

[10] Nehemiah grapples with multiple social and religious challenges in his second term. Neh 13:4–31 describes six key issues he addressed. These include a dispute with Eliashib, the high priest, leading to the purification of the chamber (13:4–9); organizing the gifts of the Levites and singers and appointing a committee to oversee it (13:10–14); addressing labor and trade on Shabbat and implementing the closure of Jerusalem’s gates on Shabbat (13:15–24); addressing marriages with foreign women (13:23–28); organizing the priestly and Levitical guards (13:29–30); and overseeing the offerings of trees and first-fruits (13:31). The conclusions presented here align with those of researchers who assert that the events described in chapter 13 took place in the mid-fifth century B.C.E. See Charles F. Fensham, The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982), 260; Sara Japhet, Ezra-Nehemiah, Perush Mada’i la-Mikra (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2019) [Hebrew], 9–10; Harrington, Ezra and Nehemiah, 11–15.

[11] Notably, these three actions, grape pressing, carrying loads, and engaging in trade, share the characteristic of not being explicitly mentioned in the laws of the Torah. While grape pressing is a form of agricultural activity, it is not specifically outlined in the Torah. Furthermore, the acts of carrying goods and trading are entirely absent from the Torah’s regulations.

[12] Nehemiah exclaims:

^{נחמיה יג:יז} וָאָרִיבָה אֵת חֹרֵי יְהוּדָה וָאֹמְרָה לָהֶם מָה הַדָּבָר הָרָע הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם עֹשִׂים וּמְחַלְּלִים אֶת יוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת. ^יג:יח הֲלוֹא כֹה עָשׂוּ אֲבֹתֵיכֶם וַיָּבֵא אֱלֹהֵינוּ עָלֵינוּ אֵת כׇּל הָרָעָה הַזֹּאת וְעַל הָעִיר הַזֹּאת וְאַתֶּם מוֹסִיפִים חָרוֹן עַל־יִשְׂרָאֵל לְחַלֵּל אֶת־הַשַּׁבָּת.

^{Neh 13:17} I censured the nobles of Judah, saying to them, “What evil thing is this that you are doing, profaning Shabbat day! ^13:18 This is just what your ancestors did, and for it God brought all this misfortune on this city; and now you give cause for further wrath against Israel by profaning Shabbat!”

Nehemiah underscores the significant role Shabbat held in his era and its association with the renewed construction of the Second Temple. This is in line with Isaiah 58:13–14, which connects marking Shabbat with God’s sanctity: “If you call Shabbat ‘delight’… and if you mark it and go not your ways … then you can seek God’s favor.”

[13] It appears that the title the Levite (“Halevi”) applies to the two last names on the list. While the first two individuals are identified using their fathers’ names, Meshullam and Shabbethai are labeled as Levites without further details about their status or role.

[14] While Shemaiah’s genealogy spans four generations, Shabbethai and Jozabad are mentioned without specifying their fathers’ names. The corresponding version of this list in Chronicles (1 Chr 9:14) omits the mention of Shabbethai and Jozabad. This may suggest that the name Shabbethai gained usage in a different period. For scholarly divisions regarding the relationship, including the chronological connection between Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles, see: Harrington, Ezra and Nehemiah, 15–17.

[15] Ran Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic Israelite Anthroponymy and Prosopography, OLA 28 (Leuven: Department Oriëntalistiek, 1988), 113. In this interpretation, the name Shabbataya is based on the noun Šabbāt with the adjectival “nisbe” ending -aya (-a-a), meaning “connected with” or “associated with.” In personal names, it often conveys that the person was born on or at a particular sacred day or time, thus, in this case, “born on Shabbat.” It is comparable to names such as Isinnāya in ADD (Claude Herman Walter Johns, Assyrian Deeds and Documents, 4 vols. [Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, 1898-1923] 265:3, meaning “born on the Isinun-festival” and Ešrāya, “born on the 20th day (of the lunar month).” 

[16] The Achaemenid period began in Judea and Mesopotamia in 539 B.C.E., with Persia’s conquest of Babylon, and in Egypt in 525 B.C.E., with Persia’s conquest of Egypt. Editor’s note: For more on the Achaemenid Empire, see Zev Farber, “The 220-Year History of the Achaemenid Persian Empire,” TheTorah (2017).

[17] See Ran Zadok, “Israelites and Judaeans in the Neo-Assyrian Documentation (732–602 B.C.E.): An Overview of the Sources and a Socio-Historical Assessment,” BASOR 374 (2015): 159–89.

[18] The Āl-Yāḫūdu corpus is a collection of just over two hundred Akkadian cuneiform tablets which were written between 572 and 477 B.C.E and pertain primarily to an exilic Judean community in the Babylonian (and subsequent Achaemenid) empire. One of the many Babylonian cities where these texts where written was a city called Āl-Yāḫūdu (city of Judah/Judahtown) or simply Jahud. Scholars debate what the corpus should be called, how many archives comprise it, and how many tablets are contained in the corpus, but such a discussion is far beyond the scope of this piece. For more on the exilic Judean community of Āl-Yāḫūdu, see Laurie Pierce, “Ezekiel: A Jewish Priest and a Babylonian Intellectual,” TheTorah (2017).

[19] The name Shabbataya appears only once in the Āl-Yāhūdu corpus—“Shabbataya son of Banā-Yawa”—in a text dated 509 B.C.E., which is thirty years into the Achaemenid period. See Laurie Pearce and Cornelia Wunsch. Documents of Judean Exiles and West Semites in Babylonia in the Collection of David Sofer, CUSAS 28 (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2014), no. 42.

[20] While Shabbataya son of Banā-Yawa must be a different individual than Shabbataya son of Ḫaggai, for example, we cannot know if Shabbataya father of Abī-Yawa is the same or different individual as Shabbataya father of Gadal-Yawa.

[21] The sources are Hermann Hilprecht and Albert Clay, Business Documents of Murashû Sons of Nippur: Dated in the Reign of Artaxerxes I (464–424), Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania 9 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1898); Albert Clay, Business Documents of Murashû sons of Nippur: Dated in the Reign of Darius II (424–404), Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania 10 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1904); Matthew Stolper, Entrepreneurs and Empire: The Murašu Archive, the Murašu Firm, and Persian Rule in Babylonia, PIHANS 54 (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 1985); and Arthur Ungnad, Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmäler der Königlichen Museen zu Berlin, Vol. 6 (Leipzig: Hinrichs Buchhandlung, 1908).

[22] Bickerman, in his study of Judean names in fifth-century Nippur, “Generation of Ezra and Nehemia,” 22–24, concludes that the discernible prevalence of Yahwistic or distinctly Hebrew names among the succeeding generation (contrasted with the preceding generation), alongside the virtual absence of names evoking Babylonian deities within the subsequent generation, indicates a resurgence in an exclusive commitment to Yahweh, adherence to biblical laws, and the Judean religious practices among the Judean populace residing in Babylonia during the period of the 470s–450s B.C.E.

[23] Some have suggested that this renewed status of Shabbat originated within the Judean Babylonian community during the exilic period. Rainer Albertz, Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the Sixth Century BCE, StBL 3 (Atlanta: SBL, 2003), 108, suggests that the exilic community combined the Temple festival and the day of rest: “Before the exile, the Sabbath had probably been a full moon festival, celebrated at the temple alongside the new moon festival.… The theological reforms of the exilic community probably combined these two institutions by detaching the Sabbath from the temple and the lunar cycle and combining it with the weekly day of rest. The temple festival became the Sabbath day.… Thus the golah gained a regular act of worship that could be observed by families without the temple and far from their homeland.” For another possibility, see Matthias Albani, “Israels Feste im Herbst und das Problem der Kalenderwechsels in der Exilszeit,” in Festtraditionen in Israel und im Alten Orient, ed. Erhard Blum and Rüdiger Lux, Veröffenlichungen der Wissenschaflichen Gesselschaft für Theologie 28 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2006), 111–56. Albani suggests that this shift was part of the changing fabric of the biblical calendar during the exilic period, including the system of names for the months and the move of the new year to the spring. Yigal Bloch, “Judean Identity during the Exile: Concluding Deals on a Sabbath in Babylonia and Egypt under the Neo-Babylonian and the Achaemenid Empires,” in A Question of Identity: Social, Political, and Historical Aspects of Identity Dynamics in Jewish and Other Contexts, ed. Dikla Rivlin-Katz et al. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 43–69 (43-44), challenges the idea that the practice of “Sabbath rest” was introduced during the exilic period and refutes the claim that Shabbat was initially a full moon festival, pointing to various studies which derive the etymology of the word šabbāt from the number seven and emphasizing its consistent association with the final day of a seven-day cycle in the Decalogues of Exodus and Deuteronomy. Additionally, biblical literature depicts Shabbat as a distinct observance separate from new moon festivals. See Tero Alstola, Judeans in Babylonia: A Study of Deportees in the Sixth and Fifth Centuries BCE, CHANE 109 (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 266–67, on Shabbat observance.

[24] See Granerød, Dimensions of Yahwism, 201.

[25] See, for example, the various volumes in the series edited by Radner and Baker, Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire: Karen Radner, ed., Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, 1/ I: A (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1998); Karen Radner, ed., Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, 1/ II: B– G (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1999); Heather Baker, ed. The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, 3/ II: Š– Z (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2011). See also Caroline Waerzeggers and Melanie Gross, eds., Personal Names in Cuneiform Texts from Babylonia (c. 750–100 BCE): An Introduction. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024).

[26] We follow Ran Zadok that “People bearing names with the theophoric element Yhw in Babylonia are definitely Judean, seeing that no other ethnic group in pre-Hellenistic Mesopotamia worshiped Yhw.” See Ran Zadok, “Judeans in Babylonia—Updating the Dossier,” in Encounters by the Rivers of Babylon: Scholarly Conversations Between Jews, Iranians and Babylonians in Antiquity, ed. Uri Gabbay and Shai Secunda (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 111. Although Satturu son of Šabbatāya does not bear a distinctly Hebrew name, he is mentioned along with the following individuals who are most certainly Judeans: Yadiʾ-Yawa/Banā-ilū, Ša-pi-kalbi/Aḫi-Yawa, and Pili-Yawa/Šilimmu (EE 98), as well as Yadiʾ-Yawa/ Banâ-il and his three sons Yahu-natan, Šamaḫunu, and Aḫi-Yawa, Igdal-Yawa/Nanaya-iddin (BE 9, 45). Šabbatāya the brother of Minyamen and son of Bēl-ab-uṣur acts as a witness for Yišrib-Yawa/Pill-Yawa. We therefore consider the name Šabbatāya to be a derivative of Shabbat and a strong indication that an individual is Judean. The Aramaic name Shabbethai (šbty) is not as straightforward, but the personal name Sheva bar Hoshea (šbh br hwšʿ), written on a wood label, may indicate Judean identity (Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt, 4 vols [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1986–1999], 4:250). The name Shabbethai was borne by various individuals, including Judeans, such as Shabbethai (son of) Yashib (TAD C3.28:86) and Shabbethai (son of) Haggai (TAD C3.28:101) in Porten and Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents, 3:266–67, Shallum son of Shabbethai (TAD D8.5:3) in Porten and Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents, 4:198), and Shabbethai/Meshullam (TAD D8.9:12) in Porten and Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents, 4:202–203). However, several individuals who do not appear to be Judean also bear the name Shabbethai. The non-Judean instances of the name Shabbethai are presented by Naomi G. Cohen, “The Name ‘Shabtai’ in the Hellenistic-Roman Period,” in These Are the Names, vol. 2, ed. Aaron Demsky (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan Press, 1999), 11–29 [Hebrew]. Cohen concludes that the name Shabti was not a Judean one, although it is likely that it was also given to Judeans. Cohen points out that the name Shabbati appears seven times in an Elephantine list of names that includes foreigners. Even if Cohen is right, and the name Shabbethai was given to foreigners during the Hellenistic period, the Judeans during the Persian period did indeed treat Shabbat as an element of identity—and as such its use as a name characterized Judeans.

[27] A large number of letters were found at Elephantine. Some of them were written on papyri, and some, mostly personal correspondence, were written in ink on ostraca. All the letters with explicit references to Shabbat are on ostraca. See Bloch, “Judean Identity,” 56. Editor’s note: On the Jewish community at Elephantine and the significance of the collection of documents that has been found there, see Idan Dershowitz, “The Elephantine Passover Papyrus: Darius II Delays the Festival of Matzot,” TheTorah (2017) and Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, “The Passover Papyrus Orders a Religious Furlough for Judean Soldiers,” TheTorah (2020).

[28] Referred to on the ostraca (written in Aramaic) as שבה, “Shabbat” and definite שבתא, “the Sabbath.”

[29] The four are identified as TAD D7.10:5; D7.12:9; D7.28:4; D7.35:7 in Porten and Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents, 4:163, 164, 177, 180.

[30] Translation is from Porten and Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents, 4:187. They date both of these letters to the first quarter of the 5^th century B.C.E.

[31] Translation is from Porten and Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents, 4:168–69, with modifications.

[32] Bloch, “Judean Identity,” 57, concludes that “the very fact that the sender had to threaten Islaḥ with death should she fail to unload a cargo of legumes from a boat suggests that under regular circumstances Islaḥ would be less than willing to perform that activity on a Sabbath.” Bob Becking, Identity in Persian Egypt: The Fate of the Yehudite Community of Elephantine (University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2020), 125, however, contends that “the language does not hint at a case of emergency. The language of apology for trespassing the Sabbath is absent. On the other hand, however, to conclude that this ostracon reflects standard procedures in Elephantine is premature. What can be adduced is the fact that at least a few Judeans had no moral or religious problems with trade on a Sabbath.” This assumes that the sender of the letter who ordered Yislah/Islaḥ to work on Shabbat is also a Judean, but his identity is unknown.

[33] See Bezalel Porten, Archives from Elephantine: The Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 122-32; Bloch, “Judean Identity,” 56.

[34] Four papyri pertaining to Judeans contain Egyptian date formulas which correspond to a Julian calendar Saturday. However, three of those papyri also contain Babylonian date formulas which reveal that they were written before nightfall and not on Shabbat. See Bloch, “Judean Identity,” 65. For a list of all Babylonian dates in the Elephantine papyri and their Julian weekday equivalents, see Oded Tammuz, “The Sabbath as the Seventh Day of the Week and a Day of Rest: Since When?” ZAW 131 (2019): 287–94 (291). Tammuz (294) contends that the inception of Shabbat observance predates the Persian period. He argues, based on his observation, that none of the Elephantine texts concerning Jews were composed on Shabbat; he further observes from the legal and business contracts in the Āl-Yāhūdu texts that it is almost certain that Shabbat was observed both in Elephantine and in Āl-Yāhūdu. This is in contrast to Bīt Nasar, a town close to Āl-Yāhūdu, where he concludes that Shabbat was just another business day for the resident Judeans. See Yigal Bloch’s reply in “Was the Sabbath Observed in Āl-Yāḫūdu in the Early Decades of the Babylonian Exile?” ZAW 132 (2020): 117–20, which notes Tammuz’s distinction between the Judean population of Āl-Yāḫūdu and the Judean population of Bīt-Našar, who draws a similar conclusion. This is supported by additional evidence, as previously indicated in the context of Mesad Hashavyahu (for a comprehensive examination, refer to n. 2 in Tammuz’s article). Furthermore, extrabiblical sources from the later Second Temple period, such as the books of Maccabees and Jubilees and writings of Philo and Josephus, offer further insights into the significance of Shabbat observance during that era.

[35] Bloch, “Judean Identity,” 64-65.

[36] See Bloch, “Judean Identity” and “Was the Sabbath Observed.” For more on the debate about whether or not Judeans engaged in economic activities on holidays and Shabbat, see Ran Zadok, The Jews in Babylonia during the Chaldean and Achaemenian Periods According to the Babylonian Sources (Haifa: University of Haifa, 1979), 82.