RUTH
relerenoes
to
any
one
kind,
and,
indeed,
some
kind
of
'
reed
'
(wh.
see)
is
quite
as
probable,
especially
in
Is
58'.
E.
W.
G.
Mastebman.
BtTTH
(meaning
uncertain).
—
A
woman
of
Moab,
who,
like
her
mother-in-law
Naomi,
and
her
sister-in-law
Orpah,
was
left
a
widow.
On
Naomi
desiring
to
return
to
her
own
people
in
Bethlehem-Judah
—
which
she
had
left
with
her
husband
owing
to
a
famine
—
Ruth
refused
to
leave
her,
and
the
two
returned
together
to
Bethlehem.
Here
she
became
the
wife
of
Boaz,
and
bore
him
Obed,
who
became
the
father
of
Jesse;
she
therefore
figures
in
the
genealogy
of
Christ
(Mt
1').
See,
further,
the
next
article.
W.
O.
E.
Oestekley.
RUTH
(Book
of).—
1.
Contents.—
The
book
is
really
the
narrative
of
a
family
story,
told
in
a
charmingly
idyllic
way.
The
fact
of
most
far-reaching
interest
which
it
contains
is
that
the
Moabitess
Ruth,
i.e.
one
who
is
non-Israelite,
is
represented
as
the
ancestress
of
the
house
of
David
;
this
is
very
important,
as
testifying
to
a
spirit
which
is
very
different
from
ordinary
Jewish
exclusiveness,
and
as
far
as
the
OT
is
concerned
can
be
paralleled
only
by
the
Book
of
Jonah.
A
point
of
subsidiary
but
yet
considerable
interest
in
the
book
SABBATH
is
its
archaeology;
the
notices
concerning
the
laws
of
the
marriage
of
next-of-kin
(22»
4"i),
and
of
the
method
of
transferring
property
(4'-
«),
and
of
the
custom
of
the
formal
ratification
of
a
compact
(4"-
>2),
are
all
evidently
echoes
of
usages
which
belonged
to
a
time
long
anterior
to
the
date
at
which
the
book
was
written,
though
in
part
still
in
vogue.
2.
Date.—
The
language
of
the
book
has
an
'Aramaici-zing
tendency';
it
implicitly
acknowledges
itself
to
have
been
written
long
after
the
time
of
the
events
it
professes
to
describe
(1'
4');
in
the
Hebrew
Canon
it
is
placed
among
the
Hagiographa;
these
considerations
lead
to
the
conclusion
that
the
book
must
be
of
late
date.
That
it
is
post-exilic
cannot
admit
of
doubt;
but
to
assign
to
it
a
date
more
definite
than
this
would
be
precarious.
This
much,
at
least,
may
be
said:
the
third
portion
of
the
Hebrew
Canon
was
completed,
at
the
earliest,
after
the
close
of
the
3rd
cent.
B.C.
Now
it
is
not
likely
that
a
book
which
purported
to
contain
a
fuller
genealogy
of
David
than
that
of
1
Samuel
would
have
been
long
in
existence
without
being
admitted
into
the
Canon.
W.
O.
B.
Oebtehley.
RYE.—
See
Rie.
SABACHTHANI.—
See
Eloi,
Eloi,
etc.
SABiEANS.—
See
Sheba.
SABANNEUS
(1
Es
9")-Zabad,
Ezr
lO'".
SABANNUS
(1
Es
8M)
=
Binnui,
Ezr
S^s.
SABAOTH.—
See
God,
2
(h),
and
Lord
of
Hosts.
SABATETTS
(.1
Es
g<8)
=
Shabbethai,
Neh
8^
SABATHUS
a
Es
92s)
=
Zabad,
Ezr
10^'.
SABBATEtJS
(1
Es
9")
=
Shabbethai,
Ezr
lO'^
SABBATH.—
1.
Origin
of
the
Sabbath.—
The
name
'Sabbath'
(Heb.
shabbath,
from
a
verb
shabath,
meaning
'to
desist')
might
be
applied
to
any
sacred
season
as
a
time
of
cessation
from
labour,
and
is
so
used
of
the
Day
of
Atonement,
which
was
observed
annually
on
the
tenth
day
of
the
seventh
month
(Lv
16"
23=2).
But
in
usage
it
is
almost
confined
to
the
day
of
rest
which
closed
each
week
of
seven
days,
the
cycle
running
continuously
through
the
calendar
without
regard
to
the
month
or
the
year.
The
origin
of
this
institution,
and
its
early
history
among
the
Israelites,
are
involved
in
much
obscurity.
That
it
has
affinities
with
certain
Babylonian
observances
is
obvious;
but
the
differences
are
vety
marked,
and
a
direct
dependence
of
the
one
on
the
other
is
difficult
to
understand.
It
is
known
that
in
two
months
(possibly
in
all)
the
7th,
14th,
21st,
and
28th
days
(those
in
which
the
moon
enters
a
new
phase),
and
also
the
IQth
(the
[7X7th=]
49th
from
the
beginning
of
the
previous
month),
were
regarded
in
Babylonia
as
unlucky
days,
on
which
certain
actions
had
to
be
avoided
by
important
personages
(king,
priest,
physician).
The
name
shabattu
has
.also
been
found
in
the
inscriptions,
where
it
is
explained
as
flm
nUl}
K66i='day
of
the
appeasement
of
the
heart'
(of
the
deity),
—
in
the
first
instance,
therefore,
a
day
of
prayer
or
atonement.
But
that
the
five
unlucky
days
mentioned
above
were
called
shabattu
has
not
been
proved,
and
is,
indeed,
rendered
improbable
by
the
more
recent
discovery
that
shabattu
was
a
name
for
the
day
of
the
full
moon
(the
16th
of
the
month).
When
we
turn
to
the
early
references
to
the
Sabbath
in
the
OT,
we
find
a
state
of
things
which
seems
at
first
sight
to
present
a
parallel
to
the
Babylonian
usage.
It
is
a
singular
fact
that
except
in
the
expansions
of
the
Fourth
Commandment
in
Ex
20»-"
and
Dt
5"-w
(which
are
evidently
no
part
of
the
original
Decalogue),
there
is
nothing
in
the
pre-exilic
literature
which
explicitly
indicates
that
the
word
'Sabbath'
denoted
a
weekly
day
of
rest.
In
the
kernel
of
the
Decalogue
(Ex
20',
Dt
6>2),
the
observance
of
the
Sabbath
is
enjoined;
but
neither
the
manner
of
its
observance
nor
the
period
of
its
recurrence
is
prescribed.
Where,
on
the
other
hand,
the
weekly
rest
is
inculcated
(Ex
2312
342'),
the
name
'Sabbath'
does
not
occur.
In
the
prophetic
and
historical
books
'Sabbath'
and
'new
moon'
are
associated
in
such
a
way
as
to
suggest
that
both
Were
lunar
festivals
(Am
8',
Ho
2",
Is
l",
2
K
i");
and
the
attempt
has
been
made
to
trace
the
transition
from
the
Babylonian
institution
to
the
Hebrew
Sabbath
by
the
hypothesis
that
originally
the
Sabbath
in
Israel
was
the
feast
of
the
full
moon,
just
as
in
Babylonia.
This
theory,
however,
is
little
but
an
ingenious
paradox.
It
is
arbitrary
to
deny
the
antiquity
of
Ex
23'^
or
34a;
and
if
the
word
'
Sabbath
'
is
not
found
in
these
passages,
yet
the
related
verb
shabath
is
used
in
both,
as
is
rarely
the
case
except
in
connexion
with
the
Sabbath.
More-over,
the
way
in
which
the
Sabbath
is
isolated
from
all
other
sacred
seasons
(Decalogue,
2
K
11»«-
IC's)
goes
far
to
show
that
even
in
the
pre-exilic
period
it
was
a
festival
sui
generis,
and
had
already
acquired
something
of
the
prominence
which
belonged
to
it
in
later
times.
How
little
force
there
is
in
the
argument
from
the
connexion
of
'new
moon'
and
'Sabbath'
may
be
seen
from
Is
66'',
Col
2'"-.
The
most
reasonable
conclusion
is
that
the
weekly
Sabbath
is
everywhere
presupposed
in
the
OT,
and
that,
if
it
be
connected
historically
with
Babylonian
institutions,
the
development
lies
behind
the
range
of
Israelite
tradition,
and
in
all
probability
was
a
feature
of
Canaanitish
civilization
when
the
Hebrews
settled
in
the
country.
It
must
be
remem-bered,
however,
that
the
hypothesis
of
a
Babylonian
origin
does
not
exhaust
the
possibilities
of
the
case.
Although
a
regularly
recurring
day
of
rest
is
neither
necessary
nor
possible
for
pastoral
nomads,
it
is
quite
conceivable
that
some
form
of
Sabbath
observance,
depending
on
the
phases
of
the
moon,
was
practised