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.

Sabbath A word meaning cessation (from work) and so the weekly day of rest, fundamental in Israelite life, sanctioned by God's rest from the work of creation (Gen. 2: 1–3) and accepted as such in all parts of the OT (though not mentioned in the Wisdom literature). Legislation for the Sabbath is outlined in Exod. 20: 8–11; 31: 12–17; 34: 21; Deut. 5: 12–15. It was a day for rejoicing (Hos. 2: 11) and for visiting the Temple (Isa. 1: 13). Before the Exile the discipline was not absolute, and it is recorded (2 Kgs. 11: 5–9) that Athaliah was arrested and executed on a sabbath. Indeed the regulations could hardly go back to the time of Moses, since they assume an agricultural society, not a heterogeneous collection of nomads. The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel insisted on strict observance of the Sabbath (Jer. 17: 19–27; Ezek. 20: 11–24) and it was an important aspect of Nehemiah's discipline after the Return (Neh. 13: 15–23). From then on it was an increasingly visible part of the Jewish sense of national identity. Early in the Maccabean struggle, Jews preferred to die rather than fight (1 Macc. 2: 38), but they recognized that if they continued that policy they would become extinct (1 Macc. 2: 41), and they therefore resolved to defend themselves on the Sabbath.

A Sabbatical Year was ordered every seventh year when the land was to lie fallow (Lev. 16: 31; 26: 34, 43) and ‘enjoy’ its rest. It deserved and needed a period of recovery after the strain on it through the people's sins.

Jesus worshipped in the synagogue on the Sabbath (Luke 4: 16) but the tradition of his ambivalent attitude to the Sabbath (Mark 2: 28), combined with the belief in his resurrection on the third day (our Sunday), soon turned the first day of the week instead of the last into the Christians' day of liturgical observance (1 Cor. 16: 2), which George Herbert (d. 1632) celebrates in his poem Sunday:
As Sampson bore the doors away,
Christ's hands, though nailed, wrought salvation,
And did unhinge that day.Nevertheless in modern popular non-Jewish usage ‘Sabbath’ is often made to refer to Sunday rather than Saturday.

SABBATH

The seventh day of the week; the day of religiously mandated rest.

In Judaism, the Sabbath (in Hebrew, Shabbat, or rest) was and is the holiest day of the week. Historically, no work of any kind could be done; hence, fire could not be made and, by extension, nothing that runs electrically or mechanically can be started up by observant Jews. Food is prepared in advance and special customs ensure rest and reflection on the past week, and thereby restoration of the soul for the coming week.

The Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown Friday and lasts twenty-five hours, until nightfall Saturday; the Christian Sabbath is usually celebrated on Sunday. In Israel on the Sabbath, public facilities are closed. Outside of Haifa, buses of the state cooperatives do not run, no El Al (Israeli) airliners take off or land, and no Hebrew newspapers are published.

Public observance of the Sabbath has been the source of some tension within Israeli society. Since the formation of the state, Orthodox and, in particular, haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews have been insistent that restaurants, movie theatres, and other "profane" public establishments remain closed in observance of the Sabbath. Although such closings have been common, increasing numbers of businesses are remaining open on the Sabbath.

There is no ban in Israel on the driving of private cars on the Sabbath, but haredi Jews, in an effort to enforce the religious prohibitions of the Sabbath, have periodically clashed with local authorities and drivers by demanding the closure to automobile traffic of public thoroughfares that pass near or through their enclaves on the holy day of rest. This has occasionally led to violent demonstrations, stone-throwing, and mass protests by Orthodox Jews against "desecration of the Sabbath." Although most of these demonstrations ultimately have led to the limitation or eventual halt of the flow of traffic on these thoroughfares during the Sabbath, the protests have also led to increased tensions between Orthodox and secular Israelis and often hostile debates about religious coercion in Israeli society.

samuel c. heilman

Sabbath [Heb.,=repose], in Judaism, last day of the week (Saturday), observed as a rest day for the twenty-five hours commencing with sundown on Friday. In the biblical account of creation (Gen. 1) the seventh day is set as a Sabbath to mark God's rest after his work. In Jewish law, starting with both versions of the Ten Commandments, the rules for the Sabbath are given in careful detail. The Sabbath is intended to be a day of spiritual refreshment and joy. Observant Jews wear special clothes, enjoy festive meals, and attend synagogue, where the weekly portion of the Pentateuch is read with an accompanying excerpt from the Prophets. In the home, the mistress of the house says a blessing and lights two candles in honor of the two biblical verses that enjoin Sabbath rest. Early Christians had a weekly celebration of the liturgy on the first day (Sunday), observing the Resurrection. Hence, among Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, Sunday is a liturgical feast; Protestants, applying the idea of the Jewish Sabbath to Sunday, forbade all but pious activity. The term "Lord's Day" was used, especially by Sabbatarians, to promote such observance (see blue laws ). Some denominations (e.g., Seventh-Day Baptists and Seventh-Day Adventists ) replace Sunday with Saturday. In Islam, Friday is the weekly day of public prayer.

Sabbath a day of religious observance and abstinence from work (the Sabbath), kept by Jews from Friday evening to Saturday evening, and by most Christians on Sunday; the idea that the Lord's Day is a ‘Christian Sabbath’ or a substitute for the Sabbath occurs in theologicial writings from the 4th century onwards, but was not popularly current before the Reformation. In English, Sabbath as a synonym for ‘Sunday’ did not become common until the 17th century.

Recorded from Old English, the name comes via Latin and Greek from Hebrew šabbāṯ, from šāḇaṯ ‘to rest’. ‘Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy’ is the fourth (or in medieval reckoning, the third) of the Ten Commandments.
Sabbath day's journey the distance (equivalent to 1225 yards) which (according to Rabbinical prescription in the time of Christ) was the utmost limit of permitted travel on the Sabbath.

See also witches' sabbath.

Sabbath. The seventh day of the Jewish week. It served the double purpose of being a day set apart for the worship of God (Exod. 31: 13–17) as well as for the rest and recreation of man and cattle (Deut. 5: 14). The prohibition of work was regulated by minute prescription. In NT times activities such as healing and plucking ears of corn were sometimes considered forbidden, but debate about the precise definition of the work that was prohibited continued to rabbinic times. One of the Pharisees' chief grievances against Christ was that He declared the Sabbath to have been made for man and not vice versa (Mk. 2: 27). Though the primitive Church continued to keep the seventh day as a day of rest and prayer, the fact that the Resurrection took place on the first day of the week soon led to the substitution of that day (Sunday) for the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday.

Sabbath seventh day of the week observed by Jews as a day of rest OE.; the Lord's Day, Sunday XVI; midnight meeting of demons and witches XVII. OE. sabat — L. sabbatum and (O)F. sabbat, †sabat — Gr. sábbaton — Heb. šabbāth, f. šābath rest. The sp. with th and the consequent pronunc. are due to learned assoc. with the Heb. form.

sab·bath / ˈsabə[unvoicedth]/ • n. 1. (often the Sabbath) a day of religious observance and abstinence from work, kept by Jews from Friday evening to Saturday evening, and by most Christians on Sunday. 2. (also witch·es' sab·bath) a supposed annual midnight meeting of witches with the Devil.

Sabbath Seventh day of the week, set aside as a sacred day of rest. For Jews, the Sabbath runs from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. Christians set aside Sunday for their Sabbath, making it a day of worship and rest from labour.

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