DAY ONE TO THE SABBATH.
By W. M. Jones
The rendering “the first day of Sabbath,” is good in part, but not quite clear enough for the English reader. He may understand it day one of the Sabbath that is past, or of that which is coming. Some one lately wrote, “First day after the Sabbath,” but the Shemetic languages, and especially the Hebrew, give the idea of tendency toward, or of proceeding on to the coming Sabbath. This is true of each of the six days; and when speaking in Hebrew, the Jews of to-day, say, Yom ekhad Beshabbath, יום אחד בשבת the preposition be, (that is Beth—and sheva) is to be understood of tendency forward NOT backward. Hence Day One to, or One Day to; Two Day to and Three or Third Day to the Sabbath; for all belong to the coming Sabbath, and not to the Sabbath that is past. There was no Sabbath till six days had elapsed, and so of every succeeding Sabbath. We must pin our first-day friends to this overwhelming truth, that according to nature’s chronological law there cannot be a Sabbath without six preceding days. The Hebrew idiom, for the hebdomad or our Romanized and Saxon watch time—otherwise, week, is the most perfect. The Sabbath by that idiom controlled the elapsed six days. The first, second, and third days looked forward to the seventh day as the END of the cycle, just as the laboring man naturally wants rest at the end of six days of toil. This idiom is conserved in the Greek, but with majestic force, by employing the genitive plural instead as in Hebrew of the dative singular. So we read Elohim, pl., instead of El, sing., for God. Mia tone Sabbatome should be understood from the Hebrew standpoint; for our New Testament, though in a Greek garb, is nevertheless dyed with Hebrew coloring, or in other words, was written under the shade of Abraham’s oak; and though the word Sabbaths is employed when fastening the six days to one Sabbath, it is rather the DIGNITY of the Sabbath that is intended; the Sabbath being the ruling head or end of each of this easily understood division of time. Allow me to refer you to my Chart of Days in the bound part of the Memorial recently sent to the REVIEW Office. In the Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Hindostani languages you will see that I have corrected them, by drawing the pen through the word from, and have supplied proceeding on to or, simply to the Sabbath. See also the Targum Dialect and Chaldee Syriac on page 18. On the same page note the article, “The Table of Days;” and also at page 24 the articles, “Chart of Days,” and “Day One to the Sabbath.” I have been at long wearied study with natives and with numerous authorities before me—I cannot say how long, but for many years—and I find but one uniform testimony, which confirms nature’s order, as given in the first chapter of Genesis. Any Hebrew Rabbi, who is at all versed in his tongue, will sustain the idea that Beshabbath means to or toward the Sabbath. The Greeks were too near Shemdom not to understand that their own idiomatic use of what we call the week was an intensified conformity to the Hebrew idiom or form of expression. The starting point was not with the Sabbath, but with the First Day, or Day One, and so on to the Sabbath—the end—or hitching post for the cycle of seven days. The whole thing is simple and striking. Our word week is not a literal translation, but it is the best we have, unless we resort to a cumbersome use of words which no one would relish in English. Therefore the first day of the week is good enough. Mill Yard, London. W. M. JONES.