The Sabbath in Judean Communities during the Mid-fifth Century BCE

Abstract The importance and observance of the Sabbath within the Judean exilic communities has often been the subject of debate. Recent studies have argued that the exiles in Elephantine, Egypt, observed the Sabbath but the exilic Judean communities in Babylonia did not. New evidence – in the form of names derived from “Sabbath” among the exiles during the Achaemenid period – seems to reflect a shift in the importance of the Sabbath within Judean identity. In this article we review the occurrences of the name Shabbataya (Šabbatāya) in extrabiblical material and explore possible parallel phenomena in Elephantine and biblical texts, ultimately drawing a picture of an Achaemenid-era evolution in the attribution of significance to the Sabbath. This transformation is evident in Ezra-Nehemiah and corroborated by new evidence; extrabiblical and biblical sources demonstrate that names relating to the Sabbath began to appear at the time.