Cuneiform Studies

Week    Sabbath in Assyrian Dictionaries

 

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

19 November  2011

 

           One of the most exciting discoveries was made by archaeologists who excavated ancient Niniveh in the first quarter of the early1800s. A library with ten thousands of texts was uncovered. The texts were shipped to Museums all over the World and the task of drawing them, transliterating them and translating them started. An important discovery of the word “Sabbath” was made on a bilingual wordlist by W. H. Boscaven, as reported by A. H. Sayce in Academy (1875): viii, 555. The text was indexed for the British Museum as K 4397 and it had the word sha-pa-tu in column 2 line 16 and an explanation in column 1 line 16 reading “day of rest of the heart”. We know this sha-pa-tu is the name of a day, since the explanation read UD = day in column 1 line 16 the first sign or word. The original, was printed by H. Rawlinson, The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia II: A Selection from the Miscellaneous Inscriptions of Assyria (1861/1866): plate 32 columns 1 and 2. We present the text below and a guide as to how to find the word on the cuneiform text. The guide is known as Sabbath in Assyrian Dictionary 2 below. The word UD = day can also be found above sha-pa-tu in column 2 in lines 14 and 13, 9 and 8, and 5. The others above are broken. At least six days can be seen here with the last one in the list, sha-pa-tu. It is very possible that line 4 is also [UD = day] in our view.

           Another Assyrian Dictionary with the word Sabbath was also found. It was on K 169 and we have presented the guide below as Sabbath in Assyrian Dictionary 1. It was published in H. Rawlinson, The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia II: A Selection from the Miscellaneous Inscriptions of Assyria (1861/1866): plate 25 columns 1 and 2. The word sha-ba-tu appears in cuneiform script on this bilingual vocabulary in line 14. It is said there that sha-ba-tu means ga-ma-ru in line 14 of column 2. Sabbath is said to mean “to be full, to be complete, to be together”. A. Sayce was thinking that it means “to be complete” but that would mean that the word is not ga-ma-ru but ga-ma-lu. It is very certain that the last sign is not –lu but –ru. That is the way Theophilus Pinches also read it. But the meaning nevertheless leans over to completeness. The German would be “Gesamtheid”.

           We must remember that the Israelites were in Niniveh since 723 BCE when they were first exiled. Second and third generation exilic Israelites would also by now in 650 BCE have mastered the Assyrian and Babylonian languages and could use cuneiform fluently so that they were also scribes for the libraries and society of those days. The Mosaic concepts in Genesis 1 and 2 and Exodus 20 and elsewhere, were thus childhood education rubrics that find their way in tablets. It is noteworthy that seventh-day Sabbath, as we find it here on K 4397 in 650 BCE, cannot be easily found in any other earlier cuneiform tablet. The proximity with Israelite presence in history near the site argues for Israelite influence. The counting systems of Assyrian and Babylonian were with the sexagesimal system, 3, 6, 12, 30, 60, 600. Seven was considered special but it is really a mystery why it was considered important in a series from 1-7, considered as the top of a list or the end of the list for centuries, more than a millennium before these two texts, namely in the texts of Gudea in 2143-2124 BCE.

           The tablet of K 169 is described by C. Bezold in Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum [London: Oxford University Press, 1891] at that number. He said that it is a Semitic list in Assyrian characters with synonymous words. Scholars that worked on this text were Lenormant, Pinches, Delitzsch, specifically listed by Bezold.

           The other tablet K 4397 is said to contain a list of Assyrian words with similar meanings. It was discussed also by Haupt and Bezold. (C. Bezold, Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum [London: Oxford University Press, 1891] for a description of the tablet).

           In 1899 S. Driver concluded that it proves that the Sabbath originated with the Babylonians and that the Hebrews took it over from them (David George Hogarth & Samuel Rolles Driver, Authority and Archaeology, Sacred Texts and Profane: Essays on the Relation of Monuments to Biblical and Classical Literature [New York. Charles Scribner's & Sons. 1899], 18). He said: “It is difficult not to agree with Schrader, Sayce and other Assyriologists in regarding the week of seven days, ended by a Sabbath, as an institution of Babylonian origin. The Sabbath, it is true, assumed a new character among the Hebrews; it was divested of its heathen associations, and made subservient to ethical and religious ends: but it originated in Babylonia. If, however, this explanation of its origin be correct, then it is plain that in the Book of Genesis its sanctity is explained unhistorically, and ante-dated”.

           What is the problem here with Driver and others’ assessment? The Israelites were there and one can only postulate legitimately a Babylonian origin if (1) it can be proven to have ante-dated 723 BCE when the Israelite arrived at Niniveh; (2) if it can be proven that the Israelites had zero influence over the Babylonians. The continuation of this practice before 723 BCE is unstable in cuneiform records. The traditions of the Bible that appeared so frequently listed in Babel-Bible books, are in fact dating from this time of Israelite Babylonian and Assyrian residency. It raises eyebrows indeed.

 

Gudea lived in the days of Abraham and Hebrews had an influence over societies that early as seven is a witness of the importance of seventh-day Sabbath from Genesis

assyrian dictionary sabbath K169 niniveh.jpg assyrian dictionary sabbath K4397 niniveh.jpg cuneiform sabbat vocabulary k169.jpg seven sabbath word raw waci 2 32 line 16 col 1.jpg