lucky day'), on which certain actions had to be avoided by important personages (king, priest, physician) (IV R. 32 f., 33). Now, no evidence has ever been produced that these dies nefasti bore the name šabattu; and the likelihood that this was the case is distinctly lessened by the Pinches fragment, where the name is applied to the 15th day, but not to the 7th, although it also is mentioned on the tablet. The question, therefore, has assumed a new aspect; and Meinhold (Sabbath u. Woche im AT [1905], and more recently [1909], ZATW, xxix. 81 ff.), developing a hint of Zim., has constructed an ingenious hypothesis on the assumption that in Bab. šabattu denotes the day of the full moon. He points to the close association of new-moon and Sabbath in nearly all the pre-exilic references (Am. 85, Hos. 213, Is. 113, 2 Ki. 422f.); and concludes that in early Israel, as in Bab., the Sabbath was the full-moon festival and nothing else. The institution of the weekly Sabbath he traces to a desire to compensate for the loss of the old lunar festivals, when these were abrogated by the Deuteronomic reformation. This innovation he attributes to Ezekiel; but steps towards it are found in the introduction of a weekly day of rest during harvest only (on the ground of Dt. 169; cf. Ex. 3421), and in the establishment of the sabbatical year (Lv. 25), which he considers to be older than the weekly Sabbath. The theory involves great improbabilities, and its net result seems to be to leave the actual Jewish Sabbath as we know it without any point of contact in Bab. institutions. It is hard to suppose that there is no historical connexion between the Heb. Sabbath and the dies nefasti of the Bab. calendar; and if such a connexion exists, the chief difficulties remain where they have long been felt to lie, viz., (a) in the substitution of a weekly cycle running continuously through the calendar for a division of each month into seven-day periods, probably regulated by the phases of the moon; and (b) in the transformation of a day of superstitious restrictions into a day of joy and rest. Of these changes, it must be confessed, no convincing explanation has yet been found. The established sanctity of the number seven, and the decay or suppression of the lunar feasts, might be contributory causes; but when the change took place, and whether it was directly due to Babylonian influence, or was a parallel development from a lunar observance more primitive than either, cannot at present be determined. See Hehn, Siebenzahl u. Sabbat, 91 ff, esp. 114 ff.; cf. Gordon, ETG, 216 ff.
4a. These are the generations, etc.] The best sense that
can be given to the expression is to refer the pronoun to
4a. (
Hebrew characters)] only in pl. const. or with suff.; and confined to P, Ch.
and Ru. 418. Formed from Hiph. of (Hebrew characters), it means properly 'begettings';
not, however, as noun of action, but concretely (= 'progeny'); and this
is certainly the prevalent sense. The phrase (Hebrew characters) (only P [all in Gn.
except Nu. 31], 1 Ch. 129, Ru. 418) means primarily "These are the
descendants"; but since a list of descendants is a genealogy, it is
practically the same thing if we render, "This is the genealogical
register." In the great majority of instances (Gn. [51] 101 1110 1127 2512
