SABBATH DAY'S JOURNEY (sab'bath da's jiir'nSr), (Gr. capfhirou 6.56s Sab-batou hod-os', a sab bath's journey, Acts i :12), the distance which the Jews were permitted to journey from and return to their places of residence upon the Sabbath day (Exod. xvi :29).
• The Israelites were forbidden to go beyond the encampment (to collect manna) upon the Sab bath day ; which circumstance seems to have given rise to the regulation—which is not distinctly en joined in the law, although it might be fairly de duced from the principle on which the legislation concerning the Jewish Sabbath was founded—that no regular journey ought to be made on the Sab bath day ( Joseph. Antig. xiii :8, 4). The intention of the lawgiver in this respect was also indicated by the direction that beasts should rest on the Sabbath day (comp. ch. xxiv :26). The later Jews. as usual, drew a large number of precise and minute regulations from these plain and sim ple indications. Thus the distance to which a Jew might travel was limited to 2.000 cubits beyond the walls of the city or the borders of his resi dence, because the innermost tents of the Israel ites' camp in the wilderness are supposed to have been that distance from the tabernacle (Josh. iii: 4), and because the same distance beyond a city for a Sabbath day's journey is supposed to be in dicated in Num. xxxv :4, 5 (Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. in Luke xxiv :50 ; Acts i :12; Targ. on Ruth, i ;
Jarchi on Josh. iii :4 ; Oecum on Acts i :r2). This also is the distance stated in the Talmud (Tract. Erubin), where the mode of measuring is deter mined, and the few cases are specified in which persons might venture to exceed the distance of 2.000 cubits. Some of the Rabbins, however, dis tinguish a great (2,Soo cubits), a middling (2,000 cubits), and a lesser (1.800 cubits) Sabbath day's journey. Epiphanius (Hacr. 66-82) estimates the Sabbath day's journey by the Greek measure of six stades, equal to 75o Roman geographical paces (i,000 of which made a Roman mile). In agree ment with this is the statement of Josephus (Bell. Jud. v, 2, 3), who makes the Mount of Olives to be about six stades from Jerusalem ; and it is the distance between these two places which in Acts i :I2 is given as a Sabbath-day's journey. It is true that Josephus elsewhere determines the same distance as five stades (Antiq. xx, 8, 6) ; hut both were probably loose statements rather than measured distances; and both are below the ordi nary estimate of 2,000 cubits. Taking all circum stances into account, it seems likely that the ordi nary Sabbath-day's journey was a somewhat loosely determined distance, seldom more than the whole and seldom less than three-quarters of a geographical mile.