Note 774 — Chapter VIII · THE HEBREW SABBATH

Ibid., xx, 18-19. In verse 19 the Hebrew expression beyom hama ‘aseh, rendered in the Authorized Version (margin) “in the day of the business,” appears in the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, and the Jewish Aramaic Targum as the designation of a working day, in distinction from the festival day of the new moon. The Douai version of the Scriptures translates accordingly, “in the day when it is lawful to work.” Professor H. P. Smith holds that, owing to the corruption of the text, the particular day here intended is no longer intelligible (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Samuel, New York, 1899, pp. 190 sq.). He has, however, overlooked the fact, that, as my friend and pupil Rabbi Jacob Singer points out to me, the same expression sheset yeme hama ‘aseh is found in Ezekiel (xlvi, 1) as the designation of “the six working days” of the week; see Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Boston, 1906, p. 795.