Has anyone done any research on the question of how the Sabbath was honored and practiced amongst the exilic community in Assyria and Babylon?

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Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA
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That is a very interesting question. One of the professors at my denominations college - RTC (Belfast) - did his PhD on Babylon in Scripture. If I bump into him, I will ask - or I will get one of the students to do it for me - so I might get you an answer within 10 days or so.

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Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

Does the internet work so slow in Ireland that the message will take 10 days to get to North America?

How do you keep up with the threads?

Nice one. It will probably take ten days for the message to filter out of RTC before I can post it here.

I hate to bump this post again but I was hoping someone could help.

Sorry, still have not been able to find out anything as of yet.

Rev. Kok, I don't know of any works directly dealing with that; however, I think Cawdrey and Palmer's The Christian Sabbath Vindicated spends some time on the fact that captives ought to keep the Sabbath, etc. But it's only a few paragraphs and serves as a rebuttal of an Anti-Sabbatarian's assertions.

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
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The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
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Thanks Josh. I'll keep my eye open.

Daniel,

Maybe you can find something in these:


Isaiah 56:1-8 and the redefining of the restoration Judean (search on “sabbath”)

The Emergence of Judaism@Everything2.com (search on “sabbath”)

Judaism - 3 (search on “sabbath”)

JewishEncyclopedia.com - SABBATH (searches: exile, Babylon, etc)

[a lead?]: survey of the Sabbath, its history, and theology in Israel, see Niels-Erik A. Andreasen, "Recent Studies of the Old Testament Sabbath," ZA W 86 (1974): 453-69.

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Steve Rafalsky
Elder, International Evangelical Church (Reformed)
Limassol, Cyprus

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Daniel,

The topic has caught my interest. The above links I gave are weak in that they generally reflect the long-debunked JEPD theory or the “multiple Isaiah” theory, being done by those enamored of higher-critical views. Still, they come up with an interesting tidbit here and there. I have come to the conclusion that the best source for investigating this topic is the Scripture itself.

There were three prophets prophesying during the exilic period, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel; in them we will find things said that give light.

In Jeremiah 25 we find the LORD telling the people how He had spoken to them through the prophets to depart from evil and to heed His words, but they would not, and so He would bring upon them 70 years of captivity in Babylon (v. 11). Included in “My words” (v. 8) are not only the sayings of the prophets, but the law He gave through Moses.

The devout of Israel in exile, even if the remnant of them were small, would have the words of Jeremiah concerning the Sabbath in 17:21-27, and remembering the dread import of them, take them to heart. That Jeremiah was still speaking to them while they were in Babylon we know of a certainty from his prophecy in chapter 29 & etc.

In 2 Chronicles 36 we hear,

20 And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him [“the king of the Chaldees” v. 17] and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia:

21 To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.

Leviticus 26 speaks of the failure to keep the law of God – and the Sabbath particularly [v. 2, 3] – and its consequences; later in the chapter He says,

33 And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

34 Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.

35 As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

In chapter 25 of Leviticus, starting at verse 1 the LORD speaks of how to observe the Sabbath of the land. The verses mentioned in 2 Chronicles 36 speak directly to this. But Ezekiel speaks to the weekly as well as the yearly Sabbaths, most often in chapter 20. Please note that he is speaking directly to the Jews in the Babylonian captivity (referring to their fathers’ conduct in the wilderness),

10 Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness.

11 And I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them.

12 Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.

13 But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted…

In the remainder of the chapter He shows how the present generation not only walked in the footsteps of their fathers, but went so far beyond them in rebellion that they even sacrificed their children to the fire (v. 26, 30-32).

That the law – including the law of the Sabbath – was not abrogated during the exile, we see from the ending portion of the chapter where the Lord speaks of His eventual restoration of the people, where He would again “bring you into the bond of the covenant” after “purging out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against Me” (v. 37, 38)

Daniel, in Babylon, while making his prayer of repentance (chapter 9), for himself and the nation, makes specific reference to the text of the Decalogue in verse 4,

4 And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments…

The Decalogue reads in Exodus 20:6: “And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” There is no doubt he had this in mind.

In verses 10, 11, and 13 of his 9th chapter Daniel repents for the nation for its departing from “the law of Moses,” justly incurring the wrath that had befallen them.

With these godly prophets among them there can be no doubt that the believing remnant observed the law of Moses (such as could be kept apart from the temple and the land). That the Sabbath was not tied to these latter two is clear from its observance being enjoined upon Israel even in the wilderness.

Patrick Fairbairn, in his Commentary on Ezekiel (Kregel 1989), pages 224-231, has a good discussion of the Sabbath and godliness in general in the captivity.