How to read this study

Every verse is quoted in full from the Yeshua Literal Version, together with the source text. The quotations are not typed by hand — they are filled in from the source JSON, so nothing is shortened or left out.

This study is about one word: the Hebrew shabbaton (שַׁבָּתוֹן, H7677) and the Greek sabbaton (σάββατον, G4521) that carries it over letter for letter.

This study is not written to tear down the translations we have. They were made with care upon resurrection faith, and their fruit has reached us. Chapter 6 says so plainly. What this study sets out to do is to add back one connection the original languages carried.

The chart below is the whole picture. Once you count how many sabbatons fall in the Passover week, it becomes plain why mia ton sabbaton means "one of the sabbatons."

Tap to enlarge

1Mia ton Sabbaton — one of the sabbatons

The wording is identical to the letter in all three — mia ton sabbaton.

Matthew and Mark record the same morning, and they too write sabbaton in the genitive plural. Matthew writes it twice in one verse, which the next chapter takes up.

2Matthew 28:1 — sabbaton twice in one verse

Word breakdown · Matthew 28:1

The two ends of one run

The verse is fixed at a seam. Something has run late; something else is growing light.

ὀψέ (G3796) is an adverb of lateness, and what follows it stands in the genitive: *late of* something. ἐπιφωσκούσῃ (G2020) is the present participle of "to grow light" — the light coming up, not yet full. μίαν (G1520) is the accusative singular feminine of "one," and σαββάτων (G4521) behind it is again genitive plural.

So the noun on both sides of the dawn is the same noun, and on both sides it is plural. What had run late was sabbatons; what was coming up was one of sabbatons.

Read against the chart

The chart at the head of this study is what makes the plural plain. In that Passover week three sabbatons stand in a row — hap-Pesach, ham-Matzot, and Omer Reshit. They are not one day but a run of days.

Set Matthew's verse on that chart and the two halves fall into place. "Late of the sabbatons" stands at the far end of the run that had already been kept. "Dawning toward one of sabbatons" points ahead to the one still coming — Omer Reshit, the first sheaf. The resurrection is recorded at the seam between them.

The genitive plural is not a turn of phrase. It is a count, and the chart is that count.

The other Gospel that carries it

Mark records the same morning with the same noun in the same case.

Matthew writes μίαν σαββάτων and Mark τῆς μιᾶς σαββάτων, without the article τῶν that Luke, John and Acts carry. The article differs; the genitive plural σαββάτων does not.

Beside the English

The King James follows the reading long settled in English, and by it generations have kept the morning of the resurrection. What is set beside it here is only what the Greek numbers: sabbatons, in the plural, on both sides of that dawn.

3How the same construction is used elsewhere

The same family holds when the preposition ek (ἐκ) is added.

The construction used for commandments, servant girls, cities, days, synagogues, heads and seals is the very construction used for sabbatons.

4John 19:31 — "an high day," rendered exactly

> KJV — The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

"For that sabbath day was an high day" — that is the Greek exactly. Which day in the Hebrew Scriptures this high day answers to is what the next chapter takes up.

5One word, rendered several ways

One word became four English phrasings — *rest* · *sabbath of rest* · *a sabbath* · *year of rest*. Each was chosen so the sentence would read well.

Each reads well where it stands. Only, once the word is spread this way, a reader who does not look up the Hebrew has no way to see that the "high day" of John 19:31 and these eleven places are the same word. The YLV renders all eleven as Shabbaton so that the connection is visible on the page.

6What that translation bore

And that desire bore fruit.

This has to be granted before anything else is said. Upon that translation, which set the resurrection before believers week by week, countless people met the Messiah — and we who read this study stand among its fruit.

So what this study does is not to pull down but to add. Upon that same faith which keeps the resurrection every seven days, it sets one more connection the original languages carried: that the day He rose stood within the appointed feasts of the LORD.

7The New Testament records shabbat and shabbaton as one word

The New Testament holds both in one word, G4521.

That the Greek did not smooth it over is the point. Because the Hebrew sound was carried across as it stood, a reader of the New Testament met the very word of the Hebrew Scriptures.

8Shabbaton (H7677) — all eleven in the Hebrew Scriptures

The days that carry shabbaton — the seventh day, the Day of Atonement, the day of trumpets, the first and eighth days of Tabernacles, and the seventh year. The word is set not only on the weekly sabbath but on the days of holy convocation in the LORD's appointed feasts.

Word breakdown · 레 23:3

Shabbat shabbaton (שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן) — a shabbat of shabbaton, and the text at once calls it miqra qodesh (מִקְרָא קֹדֶשׁ), a holy convocation.

The first day of the seventh month is a shabbaton. Here it can be seen that the word is set on a feast day, not on the weekly sabbath.

9What remains to be recovered

All three are not a matter of changing but of setting side by side. The faith that has kept the resurrection every Lord's Day stands as it is, and the testimony of the original languages — that the resurrection fell in the midst of the LORD's appointed feasts — is set alongside it.

Appendix — Word index

This study traces one word — shabbaton (H7677) in the Hebrew and sabbaton (G4521) in the Greek. Quotations are from the Yeshua Literal Version; the source texts are OSHB v2.2 (Westminster Leningrad Codex) for the Old Testament and RP2018 for the New, filled in by machine. English comparison readings are from the King James Version (public domain). Chart ⓒ 2024 Ecclesia Corp.