Note 768 — Chapter VIII · THE HEBREW SABBATH

Jeremiah, viii, 2; Zephaniah, i, 5; Deuteronomy, xvii, 3; 2 Kings, xxiii, 5; G. W. Gilmore, “Moon,” New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopædia of Religious Knowledge, vii, 493. That no trace of the cult of Sin, the Babylonian moon-god, is discoverable in the Old Testament, even in the name Sinai, is the opinion of the latest investigator of this subject. See E. Combe, Histoire du culte de Sin, Paris, 1908, pp. 157 sqq. The custom of kissing the hand to the moon (Job, xxxi, 26 sq.) may have meant to the Hebrews little more than it does to us. Orthodox Jewish mothers are said still to teach their sons to take off their caps to the new moon.