page_title: Biblical Sabbath
section_title: Sabbath
hierarchical_section_title: Biblical Sabbath / Etymology / Sabbath
caption_attribution_description: en:Shabbatai Tzvi, from Thomas Coenen, Ydele Verwachtinge der Joden, Amsterdam 1669. According to en:Gershom Scholem's biograpby of Sevi, this is his only portrait known. Coenen relates that it was sketched in Smyrna in 1665 by a Christian who saw Sevi and immediately went home to do the portrait. This reproduction was published in the 1901-1906 en:Jewish Encyclopedia, now in the en:public domain. [1]
context_page_description: Biblical Sabbath is a weekly day of rest or time of worship given in the Bible as the seventh day. It is observed differently in Judaism and Christianity and informs a similar occasion in several other faiths. Though many viewpoints and definitions have arisen over the millennia, most originate in the same textual tradition of "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy".
  Observation and remembrance of Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments, sometimes referred to individually as the Sabbath Commandment. Most people who observe Biblical Sabbath regard it as having been made for man at Creation, and instituted as a perpetual covenant for the people of Israel, a rule that also applies to proselytes, and a sign respecting two events: the seventh day, during which God rested after having completed Creation in six days, and God's deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt.
context_section_description: The Biblical Hebrew Shabbat, literally meaning "to cease" or "stop", is translated by the Anglicized word Sabbath. A cognate Babylonian Sapattuᵐ or Sabattuᵐ is reconstructed from the lost fifth Enûma Eliš creation account, which is read as: "[Sa]bbatu shalt thou then encounter, mid[month]ly".
  It is regarded as a form of Sumerian sa-bat ("mid-rest"), rendered in Akkadian as um nuh libbi ("day of mid-repose").
  The dependent Greek cognate is Sabbaton, used in the New Testament 68 times. Two inflections, Hebrew Shabbathown and Greek "σαββατισμός" (Sabbatismós), also appear. The Greek form is cognate to the Septuagint verb sabbatizo (e.g., Ex. 16:30; Lev. 23:32; 26:34; 2 Chr. 36:21). In English, the concept of "Sabbatical" is cognate to these two forms.
  The King James Bible uses the English form "sabbath(s)" 172 times. In the Old Testament, "sabbath(s)" translates Shabbath all 107 times (including 35 plurals), plus shebeth three times, shabath once, and the related mishbath once (plural). In the New Testament, "sabbath" translates Sabbaton 59 times; Sabbaton is also translated as "week" nine times, by synecdoche.
  The name form is "Shabbethai" a name appearing three times in the Tanakh. 
  In over thirty languages other than English, the common name for Saturday is a cognate of "Sabbath".
caption: Sabbatai Zevi in 1665.
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