QUESTION FOR BRO. SMITH.
By Uriah Smith
Does the original of Matt. xviii, read, "In the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first-day Sabbath," when literally rendered? And can the places where the first day is mentioned in the New Testament be rendered first-day Sabbath with any propriety? This question has been suggested by reading a Sabbath Manual which is quite popular here. If you will please answer them through the Review you will greatly oblige.
T. K. HENRY. ANSWER.—We see by the above question that people have not yet ceased from their efforts to throw Greek dust into the eyes of the honest, thereby to blind, confuse, and deceive them on the subject of the Sabbath. We are not surprised at this. We expect the great Enemy of all truth will improve well his ground, and leave no stone unturned. His efforts on the Greek of Matt. xxviii, 1, and other places of like construction,70are only dangerous to those who have not given attention to the study of that language. Those who have any acquaintance with it, it matters not much how slight, will be able to detect at once the fallacy of that interpretation; and the ignorance or sophistry of those who urge it. In the expression, "In the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week," the words, Sabbath, and week, are translated from the same original word sabbaton; but this is susceptible of the clearest explanation, as we shall now show: 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" (neesteuso dis tou sabbatou). Will our new translators say that sabbatou here includes 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 try-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, 9; 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), tē epiphooskousee, as it began to dawn, eis, toward, 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 can not agree with sabbaton understood, as would necessarily be the case if it meant one (Sabbath) of a new series of Sabbaths then introduced; for mian is of the feminine gender, and sabbaton is neuter. There is no word with which, in this case, it can agree, except hemeran, 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 toward 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. In what light then shall we look upon those who boldly assert that the first day of the week is called the Sabbath, and base the assertion upon their translation of the above named texts, while at the same time they are either ignorant of, or intentionally conceal, the fact that the word sabbaton is sometimes used in a secondary sense, meaning the whole week, and especially so when preceded by a numeral adjective denoting the day of the week? Shall we look upon these efforts to defend Sunday-keeping as the result of ignorance only? or as a betrayal of the enmity that rankles in their hearts against the holy and good law of a righteous God? We are sorry to regard any one in such an unenviable light; but they thus place themselves before us, as often as they engage in such attempts to sustain a groundless position. And we would recommend those Sunday-keepers who have suddenly become enamored of the Greek, thinking to find therein something to support their cherished theory, to meditate carefully upon the word anomia, as it occurs in the following instances, beginning with the words of Christ, "Depart from me, ye that work (teen anomian) lawlessness;" or, ye law-breakers: Matt. vii, 23; xiii, 41; xxiii, 28; xxiv, 12; Rom. iv, 7; vi, 19; 2 Cor. vi, 14; 2 Thess. ii, 7; Titus ii, 14; Heb. i, 9; viii, 12; x, 17; 1 John iii, 4. The truth is, those who endeavor to ride away from the requirements of the moral law, upon the Greek language, "do, or ought to know" that they have mounted the wrong hobby.