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