Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 2, 1916

The Sabbath Known in Ancient Babylon

MANY have held the view that the Sabbath was purely a Jewish institution, and that its sacred character was not known to the nations of the ancient world. The recent publication of a volume by Prof. A. T. Clay, of Yale University, gives additional proof that in ancient Babylonia a seventh day was recognized as a day of worship. Of this discovery the Independent of Feb. 14, 1916, says:—

“We now come to Professor Clay’s new evidence. In the Yale collection Professor Clay has found a group of twenty-three tablets containing a report of monthly receipts of sheep intended for temple service at Erech, a very ancient city in southern Babylonia. They are dated from the fifth year of Cyrus, 534 B. C., to the sixth year of Cambyses, 523 B. C. inclusive. The tablets are all of the same nature, and after stating that the sheep have been received for sacrifice, a report is made in four columns for each day. Now the important thing is that a note is added to the record for the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days, stating that an additional sacrifice of a lamb was offered on those days. Here is a definite recognition of a special religious observance celebrated at the temple on those days. The evidence is indubitable that four days which we may call sabbaths were observed each lunar month, seven days apart; and this evidence is of great value for religious history.”