The Sabbath in the Greek Testament
By Wm. J. Hardy
Bro. Smith: Through the instrumentality of Bro. Frisbie, last Summer, I was led to see a beauty in what is termed present truth, especially the commandments of God. After being connected with the Free Will Baptists a number of years, I was led to cast my lot with the Sabbath-keepers in Caledonia; and I have never regretted that step. Last Sabbath we enjoyed the sweet, melting Spirit of the Lord. Our hearts were made glad; and we were enabled to "read our title clear to mansions in the skies." In conversation with my former pastor, he takes the ground that there might have been a change in the Sabbath at the resurrection, as there are two sabbaths in the original Greek, together. He says, Matt. xxviii, 1, reads in the Greek Testament, "In the end of the Sabbaton as it began to dawn towards the first of the Sabbaton, came Mary, &c.," day being put in by the translators, and Sabbaton taking the place of week. He says it is the same in all the gospels, and John xx, 19. Information on this subject is my apology for intruding this on a stranger, yet made near by the blood of Christ. Yours in hopes of the kingdom,
WM. J. HARDY. Note. In reference to the Greek of Matt. xxviii, 1, we append the following remarks from an article we had occasion to write on this subject in Review No. 21 Vol. viii: Robinson in his Greek Lexicon of the New Testament gives the following as a second definition of sabbaton : "2. Meton. a sabbath, put for the interval from sabbath to sabbath; hence a se'nnight, a week." One of the definitions which Greenfield also gives to this word, is "a period of seven days; a week," whether in the singular or plural. An instance of its use in this sense is found in Luke xviii, 12, where the proud Pharisee, in his self-righteousness, exclaimed, "I fast twice in the week," (nesteuo dis tou sabbatou) will any one say that sabbaton here means one day only, and that the old Pharisee fasted twice on the Sabbath? The word in this sense, according to Robinson, occurs elsewhere "only after numerals marking the days of the week ;" and in proof of this, he cites us to those very texts which some have of late been using in trying to make people believe that the term, Sabbath, is applied by Scripture to the first day of the week ; namely, Matt. xxviii, 1; Mark xvi, 2; Luke xxiv, 1; John xx, 1, 19; Acts xx, 7; 1 Cor. xvi, 2. In view of these facts let us look more particularly at Matt. xxviii, 1. Opse de sabbatoon, but in the end of the Sabbath (or week, the seventh day, or Sabbath, being the last day of the week,) tee epiphoskousee, as it began to dawn, eis, towards mian, the first, (the numeral, marking the day of the week, according to Robinson,) sabbatoon, of the week. Concerning the numeral mian, we would remark that it cannot agree with sabbaton understood, as would necessarily be the case if it meant one (Sabbath) of a new series of Sabbaths then introduced as the writer above quoted contends; for mian is of the feminine gender, and sabbaton is neuter. There is no word with which, in this case, it can agree, except heemerran, day, understood, as is given in the margin of the Greek Testament. With mian, therefore, agreeing with day understood, and sabbatoon denoting the week, the case clearly stands thus: "As it began to dawn towards the first (day) of the week." Hence any one can see that it is not possible, without doing violence to the sacred text, to give to such passages as Matt. xxviii, 1, a rendering essentially different from that of the common version.