Seven-day week By
synecdoche (naming the whole for a part), in Jewish sources by the time of the
Septuagint, the term "Sabbath" (
Greek Sabbaton, Strong's
4521) also came to mean an entire "
se'nnight" or seven-day week, the interval between two weekly Sabbaths.
Jesus's
parable of the
Pharisee and the Publican () describes the
Pharisee as fasting "twice a week" (
Greek dis tou sabbatou, literally, "Twice of the Sabbath"). Philo of Alexandria states in Decalogue XX. (96) The fourth commandment has reference to the sacred seventh day, that it may be passed in a sacred and holy manner. Now some states keep the holy festival only once in the month, counting from the new moon, as a day sacred to God; but the nation of the Jews keep every seventh day regularly, after each interval of six days; (97) and there is an account of events recorded in the history of the creation of the world, constituting a sufficient relation of the cause of this ordinance; for the sacred historian says, that the world was created in six days, and that on the seventh day God desisted from his works, and began to contemplate what he had so beautifully created; (98) therefore, he commanded the beings also who were destined to live in this state, to imitate God in this particular also, as well as in all others, applying themselves to their works for six days, but desisting from them and philosophising on the seventh day, and devoting their leisure to the contemplation of the things of nature, and considering whether in the preceding six days they have done anything which has not been holy, bringing their conduct before the judgment-seat of the soul, and subjecting it to a scrutiny, and making themselves give an account of all the things which they have said or done; the laws sitting by as assessors and joint inquirers, in order to the correcting of such errors as have been committed through carelessness, and to the guarding against any similar offences being hereafter repeated.
High Sabbaths "High Sabbaths" are observed by Jews and some Christians. Seven annual Biblical festivals, called
miqra ("called assembly") in Hebrew and "High Sabbath" in English and serving as supplemental testimonies to Sabbath, are specified in the books of
Exodus and
Deuteronomy; they do not necessarily fall on weekly Sabbath. Three occur in spring: the first and seventh days of
Pesach (
Passover), and
Shavuot (
Pentecost). Four occur in fall, in the seventh month, and are also called
Shabbaton:
Rosh Hashanah (
Trumpets);
Yom Kippur, "Sabbath of Sabbaths" (
Atonement); and the first and eighth days of
Sukkoth (
Tabernacles). "High Sabbaths" is also often used as a synonym for "
High Holy Days", viz., Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Shmita Shmita (, Strong's 8059 as
shemittah, literally "release"), also called sabbatical year, is the seventh (שביעי, Strong's 7637 as ''shebiy'iy
) year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by Torah for the Land of Israel, relatively little observed in Biblical tradition, but still observed in contemporary Judaism. During Shmita
, the land is left to lie fallow and all agricultural activity, including plowing, planting, pruning, and harvesting, is forbidden by Torah and Jewish law. By tradition, other cultivation techniques (such as watering, fertilizing, weeding, spraying, trimming and mowing) may be performed as preventive measures only, not to improve the growth of trees or plants; additionally, whatever fruits grow of their own accord during that year are deemed hefker (ownerless), not for the landowner but for the poor, the stranger, and the beasts of the field; anyone may pick these fruits. A variety of laws also apply to the sale, consumption, and disposal of Shmita
produce. When the year ended, all debts, except those owed to foreigners, were to be remitted (); similarly, the Torah required that an enslaved person who had worked for six years be set free in the seventh year. Leviticus 25 promises bountiful harvests to those who observe Shmita
, and describes its observance as a test of religious faith. The term Shmita
is translated "release" five times in the Book of Deuteronomy (from the root שמט, shamat
, "desist
, remit''", 8058).
Babylonian rest days Counting from the new moon, the
Babylonians celebrated the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th as holy days, also called "evil days", meaning "unsuitable" for prohibited activities. On these days, officials were prohibited from various activities, and ordinary people were forbidden to "make a wish"; at least the 28th was known as a rest day. On each of them, offerings were made to a different god and goddess. Tablets from the 6th-century BCE reigns of
Cyrus the Great and
Cambyses indicate these dates were sometimes approximate. The
lunation of 29 or 30 days essentially consisted of three seven-day weeks followed by a final period of nine or ten days, breaking the continuous seven-day cycle. The Babylonians additionally celebrated the 19th as a special "evil day", the "day of anger", because it was roughly the 49th day of the (preceding) month, completing a "week of weeks", also with sacrifices and prohibitions. Difficulties with
Friedrich Delitzsch's
origin theory connecting Shabbat with the
Babylonian calendar include reconciling the differences between an unbroken week and a lunar week and explaining the absence of texts naming the lunar week as
Shabbat in any language. Reconstruction of a broken tablet seems to define the rarely attested
Babylonian word
Sapattum or
Sabattum as the
full moon. This word is cognate to or the origin of the Hebrew "Shabbat", but it is observed monthly rather than weekly. It is regarded as a form of
Sumerian
sa-bat ("mid-rest"), attested as an
um nuḫ libbi ("day of mid-repose"). This conclusion is a contextual restoration of the damaged
Enūma Eliš creation myth, which is read as: "[Sa]pattu shalt thou then encounter, mid[month]ly." The
pentecontad calendar, believed to have originated from the
Amorites, includes a period known to the Babylonians as
Shappatum. The year is broken down into seven periods of fifty days: seven weeks of seven days, containing seven weekly Sabbaths, and an extra fiftieth day known as the
atzeret "assembly", plus an annual supplement of fifteen or sixteen days, called
Shappatum, the period of
harvest at the end of each year. Identified and reconstructed by Hildegaard and Julius Lewy in the 1940s, the calendar's use dates back to at least the 3rd millennium BCE in western
Mesopotamia and surrounding areas; it was used by the
Canaanite tribes, thought by some to have been used by the Israelites before
Solomon and related to the
liturgical calendar of the
Essenes at
Qumran. Used well into the modern age, forms of it have been found in
Nestorianism and among
Palestinian fellaheen. Julius Morgenstern believed that the calendar of the
Jubilees had ancient origins as a somewhat modified survival of the pentecontad calendar.
Buddhist rest day The
Uposatha has been observed since
Gautama Buddha's time (500 BCE) and is still observed today in
Theravada Buddhist countries. It occurs every seven or eight days, in accordance with the four phases of the moon. Buddha taught that
Uposatha is for "the cleansing of the defiled mind", resulting in inner calm and joy. On this day,
disciples and
monks intensify their practice, deepen their knowledge, and express communal commitment through millennia-old acts of lay-monastic reciprocity.
Thai Chinese likewise observe their Sabbaths and
traditional Chinese holidays according to lunar phases, but not on the same days as
Uposatha. These Sabbaths cycle through the month with respect to the
Thai solar calendar, so common Thai calendars incorporate Thai and
Chinese calendar lunar dates, as well as
Uposatha dates, for
religious purposes.
Cherokee rest days The first day of the
new moon, beginning at sunrise, is a
holiday of
quiet reflection and
prayer among the
Cherokee. Monthly
fasting is encouraged, for up to four days. Work, cooking, sex, and childbirth were also prohibited during the empty moon days, called "un-time" or "non-days"; childbirth during these days was considered unlucky. The Cherokee
new year, the "great new moon" or "Hunting Moon", is the first new moon in
autumn, after the setting of the
Pleiades star cluster and around the time of the
Leonids meteoric shower.
Sabbath as Saturday One
folk tradition in English is the widespread use of "Sabbath" as a synonym of midnight-to-midnight "Saturday" (literally,
Saturn's day in at least a dozen languages): this is a simplification of the use of "Sabbath" in other religious contexts, where the two do not coincide. (Using midnight instead of sundown as a delimiter dates back to the
Roman Empire.) In over thirty other languages, the
common name for this day in the
seven-day week is a cognate of "Sabbath". "
Sabbatini", originally "Sabbadini", often "Sabatini", etc., is a very frequent Italian name form ("
Sabbatos" is the Greek form), indicating a family whose ancestor was born on Saturday, Italian
sabato; "Domenico" indicated birth on Sunday. In
vampire hunter lore, people born on Saturday were specially designated as
sabbatianoí in
Greek and
sâbotnichavi in
Bulgarian (rendered in English as "Sabbatarians"). It was also believed in the
Balkans that someone born on a Saturday could see a
vampire when it was otherwise invisible.
Wicca The annual cycle of the Earth's seasons is called the Wheel of the Year in
Wicca and
neopaganism. Eight
sabbats (occasionally "sabbaths", or "Sun sabbats") are spaced at approximately even intervals throughout the year.
Samhain, which coincides with
Halloween, is considered the first sabbat of the year. An esbat is a ritual observance of the
full moon in Wicca and neopaganism. Some groups extend the esbat to include the dark moon and the first and last quarters. "Esbat" and "sabbat" are distinct and are probably not
cognate terms, although an esbat is also called "moon sabbat". European records from the
Middle Ages to the 17th century or later also place Witches' Sabbaths on similar dates to sabbats in modern Wicca, but with some disagreement; medieval reports of sabbat activity are generally not firsthand and may be imaginative, but many persons were accused of, or tried for, taking part in sabbats.
Unification Church The
Unification Church has a regular Sunday worship service. Still, every eight days, Unificationists celebrate the day of Ahn Shi Il, considered a Sabbath that cycles through the weekdays of the Gregorian calendar. The
Family Pledge, formerly recited at 5:00 a.m. on Sundays, was moved to Ahn Shi Il in 1994 and includes eight verses containing the phrase "by centering on true love".
Baháʼí Faith The day of rest in the
Baháʼí Faith is Friday. ==Secular traditions==