The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

438 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

not eat flesh cooked at the fire or in the smoke. His clothes
he must not change. White garments he must not put on. He
must not offer sacrifice. The king must not drive a chariot. He
must not issue royal decrees. In a secret place the seer must not
prophesy. Medicine for the sickness of his body he must not
apply. For making a spell it is not fitting.”^384 Here the Sabbath
recurs, as among the Hebrews, every seven days; and Professor
Jensen has pointed out that the 19th of the month, on which there
was also a Sabbath, was forty-nine days or seven weeks from
the beginning of the previous month. There was therefore not
only a week of seven days, but a week of seven-day weeks as
well. In fact, the chief difference between the Babylonian and
the Hebrew institution lay in the subordination of the Sabbath to
the festival of the“new moon”among the Babylonians. There
was no Sabbath on the first day of the month; its place was taken
by freewill offerings to the moon.
The Sabbath, it will be noticed, was not a fast-day. Fasts,
however, were not infrequent in Babylonia and Assyria, and
[478] in times of danger and distress might be specially ordained.
When Esar-haddon was hard pressed by his northern enemies,
he ordered prayers to be made and ceremonies to be performed
to the sun-god, lasting for one hundred days and nights. It was
a long period of public humiliation, and the god was asked to
grant favourable visions to the“seers”who implored his help.
In the penitential psalms, fasting is alluded to more than once.
“Instead of food,”says the penitent,“I eat bitter tears; instead
of palm-wine, I drink the waters of misery.”Or, again:“Food
I have not eaten, weeping is my nourishment; water I have not
drunk, tears are my drink.”^385
The fast and the feast alternated as they did in Israel. As we

(^384) A translation of the whole text is given in my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 70-76.
With the last prohibition, compare Isa. lviii. 13,“not speaking thine own
words”on the Sabbath-day.
(^385) Jastrow,The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 322, 323.