CHAPTER III
THE BABYLONIAN SABBATH
Feast of Marduk and Zarpanit. A Day Called Shabatum. A Day in Some Tablets at Yale.
1. Feast of Marduk and Zarpanit.
The seventh day is the feast of Marduk and Zarpanit. It is an evil day. The shepherd of the great people shall not eat flesh cooked on the coals which is smoked. The garment of his body he shall not change; a clean one he shall not put on. A sacrifice he shall not offer. The king in a chariot shall not ride. In triumph he shall not speak. In the secret place a seer shall not give an oracle. The physician shall not lay his hand on the sick. It is not fitting to utter a malediction. At night before Marduk and Ishtar the king shall bring his offering; a libation he shall pour out. The lifting up of his hands shall then be pleasing to the gods.[365]
This passage occurs in a tablet which describes the nature of all the days of a month. The same prohibitions are recorded for the fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days. The tablet has often been brought into comparison with the Hebrew sabbath, partly because the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days are involved, partly because the prohibitions remind the reader of Exodus 20:8-11 and Deut. 5:12-15.
Exod. 20:8-11. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is a sabbath unto 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: 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.
Deut. 5:12-15. Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord thy God commanded thee. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is a sabbath unto the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God brought thee out thence by a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.
In reality the Babylonian prohibitions apply to certain classes of people only, and not to the whole population. A study of the contract literature shows that there was no cessation of business upon these days of the month, so that resemblance to the Hebrew sabbath is really quite slight.
2. A Day Called Shabatum.