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the stars could be seen. Whether they watched "Arcturus and his sons,"—the circumpolar constellations moving round like a vast dial in the north—or the bringing forth of Mazzaroth, the zodiacal constellations, in the south, they would soon learn to interpret the signs of night with sufficient accuracy for their purpose.

The first watch of night is mentioned in the book of Lamentations.

"Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord."

It was "in the beginning of the middle watch; and they had but newly set the watch," that Gideon and his gallant three hundred made their onslaught on the host of the Midianites.

It was in the third, the morning watch, that "the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians" as they pursued Israel into the midst of the Red Sea. In this watch also, Saul surprised the Ammonites as they besieged Jabesh-Gilead, and scattered them, "so that two of them were not left together."

In the New Testament, the Roman method of dividing the night is adopted; viz. into four watches. When the disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee in their little boat, and they had toiled all night in rowing because the wind was contrary, it was in "the fourth watch of the night" that Jesus came unto them.

There is no mention of any mechanical time-measurer in the Old Testament, and in only one book is there mention in the English version of the word "hour." Five times it is mentioned in the Book of Daniel as the rendering of the Chaldean word sha‘ah, which literally means "the instant of time."

No mention either is made of the differing lengths of the days or nights throughout the year—at midsummer the day is 14-1/4 hours long, and the night 9-3/4. Job speaks, however, of causing "the day-spring to know its place," which may well refer to the varying places along the eastern horizon at which the sun rose during the course of the year. Thus in mid-winter the sun rose 28° south of the east point, or half a point south of E.S.E. Similarly in midsummer it rose 28° north of east, or half a point north of E.N.E.[282:1]

The Babylonians divided the whole day interval into twelve kasbu, or "double hours." Those again were divided into sixty parts, each equal to two of our minutes; this being about the time that is required for the disc of the sun to rise or set wholly. The Babylonian kasbu was not only a division of time, but a division of space, signifying the space that might be marched in a kasbu of time. Similarly we find, in the Old Testament, the expression "a day's journey," or "three days' journey," to express distance, and in the New Testament we find the same idea applied to a shorter distance in the "sabbath-day's journey," which was about two miles. But the Jews in New Testament times adopted, not the Babylonian day of twelve hours, but the Egyptian of twenty-four. So we find, in the parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, mention made of hiring early in the morning, and at the third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh hours; and since those hired latest worked for but one hour, it is evident that there were twelve hours in the daylight. Our Lord alludes to this expressly in the Gospel according to St. John, where he says—

"Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him."

FOOTNOTES:

[277:1] The Man of Lawe's Prologue, lines 4421-4434.

[279:1] Josephus, Wars, VI. ix. 3.

[282:1] See the diagram on p. 363.

CHAPTER II THE SABBATH AND THE WEEK

The present chapter has little, if anything, to do with astronomy, for the week, as such, is not an astronomical period. But the sabbath and the week of seven days are so intimately connected with the laws and customs of Israel that it is impossible to leave them out of consideration in dealing with the "times and seasons" referred to in the Bible.

The day, the month and the year are each defined by some specific revolution of one of the great cosmical bodies; there is in each case a return of the earth, or of the earth and moon together, to the same position, relative to the sun, as that held at the beginning of the period.

The week stands in a different category. It is not defined by any astronomical revolution; it is defined by the return of the sabbath, the consecrated day.

A need for the division of time into short periods, less than a month, has been generally felt amongst civilized men. Business of state, commercial arrangements, social intercourse, are all more easily carried out, when some such period is universally recognized. And so, what we may loosely term a "week," has been employed in many ancient nations. The Aztecs, using a short month of 20 days, divided it into four quarters of 5 days each. The Egyptians, using a conventional month of 30 days, divided it into 3 decades; and decades were also used by the Athenians, whose months were alternately of 29 and of 30 days.

Hesiod tells us that the days regarded as sacred in his day were the fourth, fourteenth and twenty-fourth of each month.

"The fourth and twenty-fourth, no grief should prey
Within thy breast, for holy either day.
Pierce on the fourth thy cask; the fourteenth prize
As holy; and, when morning paints the skies,
The twenty-fourth is best."

The Babylonians divided the month somewhat differently; the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-first and twenty-eighth days being regarded as "sabbaths."[284:1]

The sabbath enjoined upon the Hebrews was every seventh day. The week as defined by it was a "free" week; it was tied neither to month nor year, but ran its course uninterruptedly, quite irrespective of the longer divisions of time. It was, therefore, a different conception from that underlying the usages of the Greeks or Babylonians, and, it may be added, a more reasonable and practical one.

Four origins have been assigned for the week. There are those who assert that it is simply the closest possible approximation to the quarter-month; the mean month being 29-1/2 days in length, a quarter-month would be 7-3/8 days, and since fractions of a day cannot be recognized in any practical division of time for general use, the week of seven days forms the nearest approach to the quarter-month that could be adopted. This is undeniably true, but it is far more likely that such an origin would give rise to the Babylonian system than to the Jewish one, for the Babylonian system corrected the inequality of quarter-month and week every month, and so kept the two in harmony; whilst the Hebrew disregarded the month altogether in the succession of his weeks.

Next, it is asserted that the Hebrew sabbath was derived from the Babylonian, and that "it is scarcely possible for us to doubt that we owe the blessings decreed in the sabbath or Sunday day of rest in the last resort to that ancient and civilized race on the Euphrates and Tigris."[285:1]

There are two points to be considered here. Did the Babylonians observe their "sabbaths" as days of rest; and, were they or the Hebrews the more likely to hand on their observances to another nation?

We can answer both these questions. As to the first, a large number of Babylonian documents on tablets, preserved in the British Museum, have been published by Father Strassmaier, and discussed by Prof. Schiaparelli. In all there were 2,764 dated documents available for examination, nearly all of them commercial and civil deeds, and covering practically the whole period from the accession of Nebuchadnezzar to the twenty-third year of Darius Hystaspes. This number would give an average of 94 deeds for each day of the month; the number actually found for the four "sabbaths," i. e. for the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th days, were 100, 98, 121 and 91 respectively. The Babylonians evidently did not keep these days as days of rest, or of abstinence from business, as the Jews keep their sabbath, or Christian countries their Sunday. They cannot even have regarded it as an unlucky day, since we find the average of contracts is rather higher for a "sabbath" than for a common day.

The case is a little different with the 19th day of the month. This, as the 49th day from the beginning of the previous month, was a sabbath of sabbaths, at the end of a "week of weeks." In this case only 89 contracts are found, which is slightly below the average, though twelve common days show a lower record still. But in most cases the date is written, not as 19, but as 20-1; as if there were a superstition about the number 19. On the other hand, this method of indicating the number may be nothing more than a mode of writing; just as in our Roman numerals, XIX., one less than XX., is written for 19.

The Babylonians, therefore, did not observe these days as days of rest, though they seem to have marked them in the ritual of temple and court. Nor did they make every seventh or every fifth a rest-day, for Prof. Schiaparelli has specially examined these documents to see if they gave any evidence of abstention from business either on one day in seven or on one day in five, and in both cases with a purely negative result.

When we inquire which nation has been successful in impressing their particular form of sabbath on the nations around the case is clear. We have no evidence of the Babylonians securing the adoption of their sabbatic arrangements by the Persians, Greeks and Parthians who successively overcame them. It was entirely different with the Jews. The Jewish kingdom before the Captivity was a very small one compared with its enemies on either side—Assyria, Babylon and Egypt; it was but a shadow even of its former self after the Return. And imperial Rome was a mightier power than Assyria or Babylon at their greatest. If ever one state was secure from influence by another on the score of its greater magnitude and power, Rome was safe from any Jewish impress. Yet it is perfectly well known that the impression made upon the Romans by the Jews in this very matter of sabbath-keeping was widespread and deep. Jewish influence was felt and acknowledged almost from the time that Syria, of which Judæa was but a petty division, became a Roman province, and a generation had not passed away before we find Horace making jocular allusion to the spread of the recognition of the Jewish sabbath. In his ninth satire he describes himself as being buttonholed by a bore, and, seeing a friend pass by, as begging the latter to pretend business with him and so relieve him of his trouble. His friend mischievously excuses himself from talking about business:—

"To-day's the thirtieth sabbath. Can you mean
Thus to insult the circumcised Jews?"

Persius, in his fifth satire, speaks of those who—

"Move their lips with silence, and with fear
The sabbath of the circumcised revere."

Juvenal, in his fourteenth satire, describes how many Romans reverence the sabbath; and their sons, bettering the example, turn Jews themselves:—

"Others there are,
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