Babylon Sabbath of Marduk and Zarpanit

Babylon Sabbath Worship: God would not set aside the Sabbath for the benefit of mankind and then demand that we worship upon the Sabbath day or surely He will condemn us for not picking up sticks. Contrary to pagan thought, God wants us to have one day to just do nothing!

See what Churches of Christ say about the Sabbath

See that all important events began on the FIRST day because what the "church" does as worship is forbidden on the Sabbath.

See the SABBATH REST to see that the rest for holding a HOLY CONVOCATION to read and rehearse the word even as the Qahal, synagogue or church in the wilderness, was often on FIRST DAY and EIGHTH DAY. The outlawing of WORKS specificially outlaws what Seventh Day Adventists do on SATURDAY (which is not Sabbath) by holding "worship service" just like first day peoplel.

To see that Saturday honors Saturn, Cronos or Marduk where the "gods" rested and the people slaved in 'worship' in feeding, clothing, housing and entertaining the Gods Click Here.

Therefore, a Holy God gave Israel the Sabbath as a day of rest and never as a day of worship. After returning from Babylonian exile, the "Great Synagogue" had institutionalized the regular meetings held by the common people from the beginning of time. Therefore, a synagogue beyond a place to hear the Word of God is a Babylonian synagogue. In a true synagogue, there was no praise service.

The Babylon Sabbath -rest "was a Babylonian, as well as a Hebrew, institution. Its origin went back to pre-Semitic days, and the very name, Sabbat, by which it was known in Hebrew, was of Babylonian origin. In the cuneiform tablets of the Sabattu is described as a 'day of rest for the soul,' and in spite of the fact that the word was of genuinely Semitic origin, it was derived by the Assyrian scribes from two Sumerian or pre-Semitic words, sa and bat, which meant respectively 'heart' and 'ceasing.' The Sabbath was also known, at all events in Accadian times, as a 'dies nefastus,' a day on which certain work was forbidden to be done, and an old list of Babylonian festivals and fast-days tells us that on the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days each month the Sabbath-rest had to be observed" (A. H. Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments, p. 74, 1895).

French, literally, sabbath, from Latin sabbatum

However, this was the Sabbath rest God change. For the true Sabbath Rest for the people:

"Outside of the Bible, we know nothing about the origin of the seven-day week or of the Sabbath. A seven-day week does not fit well into either a solar or lunar calendar. The Akkadian term shapattu, suggests a Babylonian origin for the seven-day week and the Sabbath.

But shapattu refers to the day of the Full Moon and is not described as a day of rest.

It has little in common with the Jewish Sabbath except as the Israelites adopted astrological festivals. As a day of rest the sabbath was unique to Israel. It shows the contrast:

"Babylonian myths and a lot of modern religion has mankind serving the gods,

but Yehweh serves mankind.

Religious festivals

and rest defines the difference between legalism and grace. Britannica Members

Talmud and Midrash

(e.g., "if you wish to destroy the Jewish people, abolish their Sabbath first")

and in numerous legends and adages from more recent literature

(e.g., "more than Israel kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath kept Israel").

In the Babylonian accounts, the Babylon Sabbath festival "work" was for the common people but the "rest" was for the "gods." The people served the greater gods by making sacrifices to feed, clothe, house and entertain the gods. Women musicians and prostitutes were part of the team.

Consistent with the religion of the Babylon Sabbath (Egypt, Canaan) the religion of the Jews at the time of Christ was that the common people worked for God through His agents, the priests and other clergy. The "laded burden" was "spiritual anxiety created by religious ritual." However, Jesus died to restore the true Rest of God. This rest means: "Cool it. Just relax. Come with Me beside still waters and let me tell you about the Spirit world."

After the mother and father gods were murdered by the lesser gods and Marduk became the supreme god, someone got the bright idea: they would take the blood of one of the ugly monsters the mother goddess had created to defeat her children and grandchildren, mix it with mud and make mankind from mud and the blood of an evil god.

The purpose was that the gods be able to observe sabbaths and other days and mankind must perform the worship of the gods which was always defined as a work.

From his blood mankind we will make,

Let the bonds of the gods be bound upon them;

For future days the limit Be established;

The yoke and lifting cord on their hands Be placed,

Marduk: in Mesopotamian religion, the chief god of the city of Babylon and the national god of Babylonia; as such he was eventually called simply Bel, or Lord. Originally he seems to have been a god of thunderstorms. A poem, known as Enuma elish and dating from the reign of Nebuchadrezzar I (1124-03 BC), relates Marduk's rise to such preeminence that he was the god of 50 names, each one that of a deity or of a divine attribute. After conquering the monster of primeval chaos, Tiamat, he became "lord of the gods of heaven and earth." All nature, including man, owed its existence to him; the destiny of kingdoms and subjects was in his hands.

"According to the system which Nimrod was the grand instrument in introducing, men were led to believe

that a real spiritual change of heart was unnecessary, and that so far as change was needful,

they could be regenerated by mere external means.

"Looking at the subject in the light of the Bacchanalian orgies (Read Ephesus and Corinth), which, as the reader has seen, commemorated the history of Nimrod, it is evident that

he led mankind to seek their chief good in sensual enjoyment,

and showed them how they might enjoy the pleasures of sin, without any fear of the wrath of a holy God. (Voodoo, Rock, Boogie Woogie becomes Contemporary Christian Music)

"In his various expeditions he was always accompanied by troops of women; and by music and song, and games (ritual drama) and revelries, and everything that could please the natural hearts,

he commended himself to the good graces of mankind." (Hislop, Alexander, The Two Babylons, p. 55, Loizeaux Brothers)

"there may have been large numbers of eunuchs, as well as temple slaves. Merlin Stone believes that "sacred women" celebrated their sexuality and fertility by making love in Eanna in Inanna's name. This seems to be supported as that H.R. Hays says that there were temple prostitutes associated with Inanna, which is not too out of line as that she is supposed to be the goddess of prostitutes." (Interpreter's Dict of the Bible, Music, p. 461).

Consistent with this, the urge to restore Babylon Sabbath worship and honoring Christ through the Lord's Supper on "marduk's" day (Saturn, Saturday) usually includes sacred women singers fully clothed. As in the literal unclothing of Isis, the "audience" in today's rituals have the privilege of "undressing in the spirit" but not in truth. This is less honest than paganism: a kind of 'bait and switch."

George Barton records the ANE document about the Babylon Sabbath:

Now, the Shabatum was reserved for rest but not for the people:

The seventh day is the feast of Marduk and Zarpanit.

It is an evil day.

The Shepherd of the great people shall not eat

flesh cooked on the coals which is smoked.

The garment of his body he shall not change;

A clean one he shall not put on.
A sacrifice he shall not offer.
The king in a chariot shall not ride.
In triumph he shall not speak.
In the secret place a seer shall not give an oracle.
The physician shall not lay his hand on the sick.
It is not fitting to utter a malediction.

At night before Marduk and Ishtar
the king shall bring his offering;
A libation he shall pour out.

The lifting up of his hands
shall then be pleasing to the gods.

"This law also applies for the 14th, 15th, 21st, 28th days. It does not apply to all people and business may be conducted as usual.

However, mankind in the Babylonian system performed the "worship."

"Only royalty enjoyed the seventh-day rest.
"The Babylonians were forced to serve their gods in worship on the Sabbath.

This included making animal sacrifices. The Shabatum means "rest the heart or mind."

"Therefore, God demanded that the Sabbath be for the benefit of the people - not Him:

"The Sabbath serves the people and
the people do not serve the Sabbath."
Source: George Barton, Archaeology and the Bible, 7th Edition, p. 309.

When Israel sinned at Mount Sinai, the Law of Moses was imposed "because of transgression." Thereafter, the Levites stood between mankind and the Tabernacle as symbol of God's presence. The "people's congregation" in the later Monarchy did not participate in the sacrificial system at the temple.

Keep (hedge about with thorns) the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Deuteronomy 5:12

Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work: Deuteronomy 5:13

But the seventh day is the sabbath (rest) of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. Deuteronomy 5:14

This would absolutely prohibit getting on one's donkey (200 horsepower or more) and riding to "temple" in order to worship God Who just gave you a day of rest. Playing music was absolutely prohibited upon the Sabbath. Preaching is work. Listening is harder work.

Martha was busy and hurried,
Serving the friend divine,
Cleansing the cups and platters,
Bringing the bread and wine;
But Martha was careful and anxious
Fretted in thought and in word,
She had no time to be sitting
While she was serving the Lord,
For Martha was "cumbered with serving,
Martha was "troubled" with "things"---
Those that would pass with the using---
She was forgetting her wings.

Mary was quiet and peaceful,
Learning to love and to live.
Mary was hearing His precepts,
Mary was letting Him give---
Give of the riches eternal,
Treasures of mind and of heart;
Learning the mind of the Master,
Choosing the better part.

Do we ever labor at serving
Till voices grow fretful and shrill,
Forgetting how to be loving,
Forgetting how to be still?
Do we strive for "things" in possession,
And toil for the perishing meat,
Neglecting the one thing needful---
Sitting at Jesus' feet?

Service is good when he asks it,
Labor is right in it's place,
But there is one thing better,
Looking up in his face;
There is so much he can tell us,
Truths that are precious and deep;
This is the place where he wants us,
Things are the things we can keep.
Annie Johnson Flint

David Roper notes:

The Pharisees once asked Jesus what they could do to "do God's work." "This is work of God," he said, "that you keep on believing in me." How audacious to think that any human being can do the works of God. Only God can do his works. Our work is not to do his work, but to believe that he has done everything that has to be done and can ever be done to bring salvation to us. The Lord focused his anger on the Pharisees who burdened his people with effort-ridden activity, but he was never angry with those who were so burdened. He called them to come to him for rest. He has said:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart,and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30).

God would not set aside the Sabbath for the benefit of mankind and then demand that we worship upon the Sabbath day or surely He will get us for not "picking up sticks." Only when one has moved away from serving God with their own works does it become easy to obey His commandments so that He can free and cleanse us of the sin for which the Sabbath keepers had to work. Perhaps too many do too much work trying to explain away Christ's demand that we follow where He leads if we want to enjoy the work He has already done.

Sunday never replaced Saturday as a "day of worship" but was added in the Roman empire to allow rest. Jews could continue to get ready Friday night and then early Saturday morning carry out any rituals or, if not enslaved, spend the day in rest but not in "anxiety creating" worship rituals.

The Christians, in keeping with the traditions, observed the Sabbath as a day of rest if they desired. However, they met Saturday night which was not the Sabbath but the First Day of the Week. Early in the morning, Paul could then travel because it would be fully Sunday plus being light enough to travel. Most Christians did not "rest" on Sunday. They met on the First day of the week on our Saturday night or early Sunday morning and guess what: they got on their work clothes and went to work, just like the Jews.

If either Jew or Christian saw their "sabbaths" as a day of worship they would fall back into the Babylonian Shabatum and would throw away the work of Christ in giving mankind a day of rest which only the kings and gods had under the Babylonian world system.

Except perhaps for the roughly 10 to 12 thousand temple group, the common Jews at the time of Christ were forced to make sacrifices but they did not really participate in the civil-temple rituals. The common Jews met in the synagogue which was school and not worship center: it had no praise service.

Except for the Lord's Supper the early church was quite identical. Paul's command was to teach one another with inspired sources: there was no praise services in the early church. The only person who might have theoretically worshiped would be the unbeliever utterly astounded that a religious group could meet together and "speak one to another" without ritual. Then, he would fall on his face as "worship."

Christians may "remember the Sabbath and keep it holy" by spending it in quiet and listening to God's words. Then they may attend the assembly on Sunday to honor Christ and "attend school."

To restore the Christian assembly to the Sabbath makes it a Babylon Sabbath. This is why Saturday is named after Saturn another name for Marduk.

Kenneth Sublett

Babylonian Documents

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Babylon Sabbath of Marduk and Zarpanit - Shabbat, Shabatum