the afternoon was devoted to pleasure-seeking, merrymaking, visiting, and so forth. The Jews living prior to the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, and even during the latter's régime, were wont to spend the Sabbath in the same manner as their pagan neighbors. It was this fact that caused the sages of Nehemiah's time to fear that should the Jews, who were always in the minority as compared with other nations, continue this method of keeping the Sabbath and join in the merrymaking and pleasures of their neighbors, mingling freely with their sons and daughters, assimilation was almost inevitable, especially as the Jewish race was scattered over all the known world and was nowhere in very large numbers.
The sages then devised means to keep the Jew from mingling with the Gentile and from participating in the pleasures and carousals of his neighbors. This can be seen from Nehemiah, xiii. 1–26: "In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine-presses on the Sabbath," etc. "In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab," etc. "Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves." Thus we see that Nehemiah began by prohibiting traffic and the carrying of burdens on the Sabbath [ibid. xiii. 19] and ended by prohibiting intermarriage with foreign women. About this time also another prophet, the second Isaiah—who, though not possessing the temporal power of Nehemiah, was gifted with that persuasive eloquence that appealed to the heart—preached against indulging in pleasures on the Sabbath day. He says [Isaiah, lviii. 13–14]: "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath" (meaning if thou keep away from drinking-places, dancing-houses, etc., on the Sabbath and follow not the custom of other nations), "and call the Sabbath a delight" (meaning the rest on the Sabbath shall constitute thy pleasure), "the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words. Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." (The inference is very
