apocryphal works are varied, but the day can be fairly described as a day with some compelling quality th a t attracts the loyalty of certain groups of Jews.
In the books of the Maccabees, sabbath-keeping is a key distinguishing factor of the group of resistance fighters, a
distinguishing factor they have to modify in order to survive. They agree, paradoxically, to by-pass the sabbath restriction for the present in order to keep the sabbath more faithfully in the future. However, in spite of the intensity of commitment to the sabbath, as for instance in their custom of purification before the sabbath, nowhere is sabbath
worship (or prayer) described or even mentioned as an activity these fervent Jews undertook on a regular basis.
In the book of Judith the waiving of mourning rituals on the sabbath is extended to Friday as well, producing the double result of extending the benefits of the sabbath and also of bringing the sabbath to mind a full twenty-four hours before it began. But the sabbath is a day of freedom and rest for Judith; she carries out no special sabbath activities.
And in the heavily theological and pious discussions in the quite different world of the book of Tobit, the sabbath is never referred to at all, which is further evidence of how varied the attitudes to the
sabbath were. For me, it is impossible to justify the belief—held by many scholars—th a t every one of those observant Jews undertook sabbath worship every week, but never mentioned it.
Thus it is plain to me at least, th a t to some Jews and to some Jewish w riters the sabbath was im portant as an ideal th a t stirred the imagination and the blood. To other groups it was merely the day of rest, a day a t variance with the other six only in the m atter of what was not done on th a t special day. If a person is described in the texts as a faithful Jew, th a t does not apparently distinguish how they would regard the sabbath day. People with blatant devotion to the sabbath and people who never mention it are all p art of the believing community of Judaism at th a t time.
Te x t s a b o u t t h e Sa b b a t h in t h e De a d Se a Sc r o l l s
The traditional image of the weekly sabbath as a day with worship rituals especial to itself can be given more substance by a
search among the Dead Sea Scrolls.24 In the Psalms Scroll25 we find a descriptive summary of the non-extant list of the psalms and songs supposedly composed by David, namely three hundred and sixty-four daily psalms plus fifty-two for the sabbath.
...And he wrote 3600 psalms; and songs to sing before the altar over the whole-burnt tam id offering every day, for all the days of the year, 364; and for the qorban of the Sabbaths, 52 songs; and for the qorban of the New Moons and for all the Solemn Assemblies and for the Day of Atonement, 30 songs.
The arithm etic of th a t confirms both a weekly sabbath, and the practice of regularly singing an extra and particular psalm every seventh day, as well as the daily psalm. Compared with the one
psalm set aside specifically for the sabbath in the Hebrew psalter, this represents quite a development in sabbath worship.
Then, in the liturgical fragments known as ‘The Words of the Heavenly Lights’ there is a unit called ‘Hymns for the Sabbath Day* (11Q Shir Shabb).26 There is also the text known as ‘Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice’, in which songs are designated to be used on a particular Sabbath, e.g. ‘the seventh Sabbath on the sixteenth of the second m onth’.27
A more direct form of evidence of the esteem in which sabbath was held by the Qumran community can be found in the Damascus
24 Sanders, Psalms Scroll, pp. 202, 210; Baumgarten, The Counting of the Sabbath’, pp. 277-86.
25 llQ P sa 27.4-8.
26 Vermes, Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 202, 208, 210; Baillet, Qumran Grotte 4, pp. 137, ISO- 51.
on
Strugnell, ‘Angelic Liturgy’, p. 320; also Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, p. 211.
Document (cols. 11-12), where there are injunctions as to the purity and cleanliness of men offering sacrifice on the sabbath—including elaborate guidelines for proper behaviour on the sabbath (with 18 occurrences of the word sabbath), such as would preserve the believer from defiling the sabbath by so much as thoughts about the morrow's work, or by any actions th a t deal with commerce, travel or work of any sort.28 Altogether there are twenty-eight prohibitions of specific actions which might be done on the sabbath, innocently and
thoughtlessly, if they were not kept firmly in mind as infringing sabbath law, for example, the prohibition addressed to foster-fathers to prevent them carrying a child on sabbath. But there are no
particular requirements with respect to either individual or communal prayer on the sabbath.
One of the stated sabbath requirements is the wearing of clean clothes, and after ten intervening sabbath regulations the point is made th a t no one unclean and in need of washing should enter the house of worship when a holy service of worship is taking place.29 This rule is placed a t the end of the section referring to sabbath and may well complete the section, but as it is also the transition to the next, and more general, section of the document it is not explicit th a t this does refer to the sabbath. If it does, then we have a
correspondence with the purification custom described in 2 Macc. 12.38.
Earlier in the Damascus Document (3.14-15), God’s gifts to Israel through the covenant are listed as ‘His holy Sabbaths and His
28 Vermes, Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 112. 29 Vermes, Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 113.
glorious feasts, the testimonies of His righteousness and the ways of His tr u th \30 The sabbath is again seen as an entity, something given to people by God, not merely a portion of time distinguishable from other time only by its position in the week.
In the War Scroll (2.4), there is a list of holy days on which
courses of sanctuary officiants are standing by, which reads, ‘a t their appointed times, on New Moons and on Sabbaths ...,31
A small fragment (no. 4) of a scroll from Cave 4 refers to the waving of the Omer and the view of the w riter th a t it should not have the power to take precedence over sabbath rest, and another small fragment (no. 3) also refers to sabbath.32 Baillet lines up these fragments together to read:
4
... convocation [sainte ...] ... le jour du sabbath pour... ... c616brer un memorialpo[ur...] ... qu’a m[ont]r6 un augure ...
3
balancer (la) gerbe sans compter... sabbats ... l’erreur d’aveuglement de ... et non de la Loi de Moi'se ...
30 Vermes, Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 100.
31 Vermes, Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 125; or ‘on their festivals, on their new moons and the sabbaths...’ (Yadin, War Scroll, pp. 202, 264).
32 Baillet, Qumr&n Grotte 4, pp. 289-90, and Plate 72. 33 I translate this as:
... [holy] convocation ... waving the Omer ...
... on the sabbath day ... apart from the sabbaths ...
... carrying out a remembrance f[or] ... the error of the blindness o f...
Baumgarten reads fragment 3 on its own and this, though justifiable, is somewhat misleading, since he is in the process of referring to Baillet’s work, and does not take issue with Baillet’s placing of the two fragments side by side.
3
the waving of the Omer apart from the Sabbaths error of blindness
not from the Law of Moses.34