**3. Moon Festivals (***H. odeš ¯* **and** *Šabbat¯* /*Kese ¯ ʾ***)**

The ancient Israelites/Judahites celebrated two moon holidays monthly. The New Moon festival was called *H. odeš ¯* , which comes from the Hebrew root ש.ד.ח meaning "new." The full moon festival was called either *Šabbat¯* , a loanword from the Akkadian name for this day (*Šabattu*/*Šapattu*) <sup>6</sup> or, less commonly, *Kese ¯ ʾ*, another word for full moon that also appears in Aramaic and Syriac.7

In early biblical texts, these holidays are often paired together. Thus, in 2 Kings 4 (8th cent.),8 when the woman whose son has died wishes to see the prophet Elisha at once, her husband (who does

<sup>4</sup> It does not matter whether these are actual historical events, or mnemohistorical fictions. In either case, this is the internal or constructed logic of the calendar.

<sup>5</sup> For an overview of the biblical material, see (Soulnier 2012, pp. 71–82).

<sup>6</sup> The idea of Shabbat as *Vollmondfest* goes back to the work of Johannes Meinhold (1905, 1909). Recent arguments in favor of this theory can be found in J. L. Wright (2015), Grund (2011), and Robinson (1988). A succinct summary of the argument can be found in (Albertz [1992] 1994, pp. 408–9). The connection is rejected by a number of scholars, who see the sound similarity as coincidental and the differences between the two as extreme. See (Levine 2008, p. 77; Tigay 1998a, pp. 22–25).

<sup>7</sup> *The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon*, s.v. "*ksˀ , ksˀˀ* ," accessed 22 April 2019.

<sup>8</sup> There is never a consensus on the dating of biblical texts, and a full attempt to argue the dating of each would treble the size of this essay, so I will briefly note in discussions as to when I date a text and why. In this case, though the Deuteronomistic History is certainly no earlier than the late 7th century, and much is even post-exilic, the work was based on earlier sources, which it incorporated. In this case, the stories of the northern prophets, Elijah and Elisha, are most likely northern traditions. Following (Rofé [1982] 1988, p. 73), I see Elisha's *vita* set in the late 9th century and penned before the destruction of the north in the late 8th century.

not know their son has died) asks her (v. 23): "Why are you going to him today? It is neither *H. odeš ¯* nor *Šabbat¯* ." This implies that seeking an audience with a prophet or religious figure was something people would do on these festivals.

These were days when people would assemble, and offerings be brought to God, as implied by Isaiah's criticism (Isa 1:13): "Bringing oblations is futile, incense is offensive to Me. *H. odeš ¯* and *Šabbat¯* , proclaiming of solemnities, assemblies with iniquity, I cannot abide" (early 7th cent.). In connection with Isaiah's description of days of "proclaiming," Psalm 81:3[4] (8th cent.) describes how the horn would be blown on these holidays: "Blow the horn on *H. odeš ¯* , on *Kese ¯ <sup>ʾ</sup>* for our festival day."<sup>9</sup>

From Amos' rebuke of the northern Israelites' business practices (8th cent.), we can deduce that business was not conducted on these days (8:4–6):

<sup>4</sup> Listen to this, you who devour the needy, annihilating the poor of the land, <sup>5</sup> saying, "If only *H. odeš ¯* were over, so that we could sell grain; *Šabbat¯* , so that we could offer wheat for sale, using an ephah that is too small, and a shekel that is too big, tilting a dishonest scale, <sup>6</sup> and selling grain refuse as grain! ... "

Other passages show that these festivals were often celebrated as family meals. For instance, when the seductress in Proverbs is convincing the young man that her husband is going to be gone for a long time, she says (Prov 7:20): "He took his bag of silver with him and will return only on the day of *Kese ¯ ʾ*" (8th cent. or earlier).10 The family feast day concept is also the premise of the story about David's retreat from Saul in 1 Samuel 20:

<sup>24</sup> ... *H. odeš ¯* came, and the king sat down to partake of the meal. <sup>25</sup> ... but David's place remained vacant. ... <sup>27</sup> On the day after *H. odeš ¯* , the second day,11 David's place was vacant again. So Saul said to his son Jonathan, "Why didn't the son of Jesse come to the meal yesterday or today?" <sup>28</sup> Jonathan answered Saul, "David begged leave of me to go to Bethlehem. <sup>29</sup> He said, 'Please let me go, for we are going to have a family feast in our town and my brother has summoned me to it. ... '" <sup>34</sup> Jonathan rose from the table in a rage. He ate no food on the second day of *H. odeš ¯* ... (9th cent.)12

The above sketch likely reflects the practice of the pre-exilic period in Israel and Judah. Each one of these festivals changes in later texts, starting in late pre-exilic Judah (7th century) and continuing into the exilic and post-exilic periods. *H. odeš ¯* mostly disappears from popular practice, though it remains "on the books" for priests, as it involves a special set of sacrifices in the Temple (Num 28:11–15) accompanied by ritual trumpet blasts as a reminder (*zîkar¯ ôn*) before YHWH (Num 10:10).

The transformation of *Šabbat¯* was much more radical. First, the original *Šabbat¯* or *Kese ¯ ʾ* disappears entirely, even from the Priestly sacrificial lists. This may have happened for the same reason that *H. odeš ¯* vanishes as a festival. At one point, these two festivals celebrated the cyclical moon cycle, which goes from full-to-new-to-full. At some point, the relationship to the moon cycle changed, and the main conceptualization of this cycle became a way to mark time. (We will return to this point in a later section.) As such, *H. odeš ¯* became important, not as a moon celebration, but as the beginning of a month.

<sup>9</sup> This is a northern psalm, so it should be dated to before the destruction of the north.

<sup>10</sup> This observation fits with the view of Carr (2011), who dates much of Proverbs, including chp. 1–9 to the early monarchic period (pp. 403–31). Other scholars date Proverbs, especially chp. 1–9 much later. See, e.g., (Schmid [2008] 2012, pp. 186–89), who dates it as late as the Ptolemaic period.

<sup>11</sup> According to this source, *H. odeš ¯* may have been celebrated for two days. Perhaps this is connected to the ancient Near Eastern practice of also marking the day of the moon's disappearance (*um bubbulim ¯* ) which would come right before the new moon (Horowitz 1998, pp. 162–63).

<sup>12</sup> Samuel is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, narrative books in the Bible. Though it shows editorial layers, as with most biblical books, the stories connecting Saul and David are early enough that they still reflect 10th century realities (Fleming 2012, p. 105).

Consequently, the full moon *Šabbat¯* lost its meaning, since there is little reason to mark the middle of a month.<sup>13</sup>

Nevertheless, the name *Šabbat¯* does not disappear. Rather, it is reinterpreted. In later texts, *Šabbat¯* is no longer the name of the full-moon day but is understood as deriving from the Hebrew root ת.ב.ש meaning "rest." It thus gets connected to an entirely different ancient rule, found in the 8th century Covenant Collection, requiring Israelites to rest every seven days (Exod 23:12):

Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall cease (בּתֹ שְׁ תִּ( , so that your ox and your donkey may have relief, and the son of your maidservant and the resident alien may be refreshed.<sup>14</sup>

This rule originally expressed the need to give rest or vacation to one's servants and animals, and may very well have been observed by different Israelites on different days, since there was, as yet, no concept of days of the week. The number seven was likely chosen for its symbolic importance.

The creation of a seventh-day *Šabbat¯* came together with a fixing of the weekly calendar, a practice that begins with the Assyrian *um¯ u-lemnut ¯ u, ¯* (always written in Sumerian logograms, UD.ᏤUL.GAL2), meaning, "evil days."15 The inclusion of such days in Mesopotamian menologies (ritual calendars) goes back at least to the 10th century B.C.E., but in its earlier phases, the exact days varied according to month (Landsberger 1915, pp. 119–26; Langdon 1935, pp. 73–90). By the time of the late Neo-Assyrian Empire, however, the *um¯ u-lemnut ¯ u¯* occur on days 7, 14, 19, 21, and 28. With the exception of the 19th, the rest of the days are clearly based on lunar quarters, with the last day or two of the month (*um¯ bubbulim*) likely not counted as part of the division but instead as a festival (Langdon 1935, p. 89).

On these days, the king was warned against certain practices, such as conducting business, eating cooked food, changing clothes, riding on his chariot, etc. For example, we are told regarding day 7 of the month in the Neo-Assyrian calendar:

[Lucky] and sinister. King as shepherd of the peoples may eat no cooked flesh and baked bread. He may not change his garments, may not make sacrifices, ride in a chariot, nor speak as a lord. Seer shall not prophesy and physicians not practice. Unsuited for doing anything desirable. (Langdon 1935, p. 75)

Similarly, a letter written to a Neo-Assyrian king states:

The 19th day (is the day) of wrath ... an auspicious day, an evil day. The shepherd of the great people does not eat anything cooked on fire; he does not change the garment of his body, put on clean ones, nor does he perform a sacrifice. The king does not ride a chariot, nor speak in an authoritative tone. (Parpola [1983] 2007, p. 206)

Parpola notes that these days have a somewhat contradictory character, both positive ("lucky or auspicious") and negative ("bad or evil"):

These days were not simply "inauspicious": every "evil day" is characterized in the series *Inbu Bel Ar ¯ ḫi* as "auspicious" (UD ŠE). The attribute "evil" probably derives from a learned association of every seventh day of the month (the principal lunar phases) and their multiple (7 × 7 = 49 = 30 = 19: the 19th day) with the seven evil demons, through number symbolism. (Parpola [1983] 2007, p. 178)

It is easy to see the connection between a system of every seven days being declared special and off-limits to certain types of activities and what becomes the Judean Sabbath day by the late first

<sup>13</sup> Grund (2011, pp. 136–42) discusses the moon festivals from this perspective in the section aptly titled "Linear and cyclical views of time in Israel and its environment" (*Lineare und zyklische Zeitau*ff*assung in Israel und seiner Umwelt*).

<sup>14</sup> See also, Exod 34:21, which seems to be working with the same model.

<sup>15</sup> See *CAD* (*Chicago Assyrian Dictionary*), Volume 9 (L), s.v. "Lemnu," C3, p. 122. (Gelb 1956–2010).

Temple or exilic period, and many scholars have made this connection. Certainly, as Jeffrey Tigay cautiously notes, one cannot argue for a simple adoption of the *um¯ u-lemnut ¯ u¯* by the Judeans, due to a number of important differences:


Despite these differences, even Tigay admits that the connection is attractive and that the *um¯ u-lemnut ¯ u¯* were likely at least a factor in the reimagining of *Šabbat¯* (Tigay 1998b, pp. 93–96). Therefore, rather than dismissing this connection, we might suggest that the Judean practice, inspired by the connection with the seventh-day vacation rule, disentangled the *Šabbat¯* from the lunar month entirely, and connected their rest day for workers with the Neo-Assyrian rest days for the king (and other officials), emphasizing the solemn importance of these days, and the importance of not profaning them with work. This process would have begun in the 7th century, when Judah was a vassal state to Assyria.

Significantly, *Šabbat¯* 's reinvention as a weekly rather than monthly holiday, not only made it much more frequent, but changed the nature of the more ancient day of rest by turning "every seventh day" (a subjective counting) into "every Day Seven" (a communal, fixed counting), thereby incorporating weeks into the communal calendrical conscience. This is a significant development, since weeks, unlike lunar months or solar years, do not reflect natural phenomena, but rather, are based on human conceptual schemes, which may explain why *Šabbat¯* continued to undergo two further, contradictory conceptual changes, both of which attempt to make sense of the law.

First, in the Deuteronomic school, the day-of-rest law was explained as existing because God took Israel out of Egypt (Deut 5:15). In other words, it is loosely connected to linear time. This is not really a radical change, since the conceptual link is clear: Israel should treat their slaves and workers well, remembering how unfairly they were treated in Egypt. Second, the Priestly revision—probably from post-exilic scribes of the Holiness school16—connects the seventh-day *Šabbat¯* to the creation of the world and claims that the reason *Šabbat¯* must be observed is because it commemorates God's resting on the seventh day (Gen 2:1–3; Exod 20:10, 31:17).

In sum, looking at the moon festivals, we can see the virtual disappearance of two festivals that originally celebrated natural, cyclical phenomenon. *H. odeš ¯* , which celebrated the new moon is discontinued in everything but name, remaining only as a Temple-based sacrificial law, while *Šabbat¯* as a celebration of the full moon disappears entirely, reemerging as the name of a seventh-day holiday, inspired by the exodus from Egypt and commemorating God's creation of the world. We will see that similar developments took place with other festivals as well.
