Sabbath

Sabbath (Heb., shabbat; Yid., shabbas). The seventh day of the week, on which Jews abstain from work. According to the Bible, God worked for six days in creating the world and on the seventh day he rested. Therefore he blessed the seventh day and made it holy (Genesis 2. 1–3). Re rabbis classified thirty-nine main classes of work to be avoided (B.Shab. 7. 2), and required that, as it is a festive day, three meals should be eaten (B.Shab. 119a). It is the custom for the mother of the household to light two candles before the start of the Sabbath, and, before the special Sabbath Kiddush is recited (B.Pes. 106a), the parents bless the children. The reason for two Sabbath lights is to fulfil the two commandments, ‘Remember the Sabbath day’ (Exodus 20. 8) and ‘Observe the Sabbath day’ (Deuteronomy 5. 12); and there are generally two loaves of bread to commemorate the double portion of manna (Exodus 16. 22–6). The articles used for Sabbath ritual (candlesticks, Kiddush cups etc.) are frequently extremely artistic. Certain Sabbaths are regarded as ‘Special Sabbaths’, either because of the readings allocated to them, or because of their place in the calendar, especially when a Sabbath falls during a festival.

The Sabbath has been of paramount importance for Jews and Judaism: ‘More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews’ (Aḥad ha-ʿAm). The Sabbath takes Jews back to the condition which God originally intended in the Garden of Eden, but even more it anticipates the final state.

Since Christianity emerged as an interpretation of Judaism with Jesus accepted as messiah, many early ‘Christians’ (the name first appeared at Antioch, according to Acts 11. 26) observed the Sabbath and attended synagogue. The transfer of ‘rest’ from the Sabbath to Sunday began from about the 4th cent., but the reason given was to enable people to worship God, rather than to revive the abstention from work in imitation of the sabbath rest. The phrase ‘the Christian sabbath’ dates from about the 12th cent. The early Reformers (e.g. Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox), insisted on the day of rest, though not in imitation of the Sabbath. The Evangelical Revival reinforced strict sabbath observance in 19th cent. Britain (the Lord's Day Observance Society was founded in 1831), but the influence of Sabbatarian movements on the Continent was more limited. The erosion of ‘sabbath observance’ is now extensive. Seventh-Day Adventists believe that the churches have been in error in abandoning the observance of the Sabbath on the original day and have reverted to that practice.