The original meaning of the word Sabbath is the seventh day of the week observed by Jews as a day of rest (Hebrew shabbath, "rest") and solemn assembly for worship. Jews (and some Christians) observe the Sabbath from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. Besides attending worship services, the principal duty of Jews on the Sabbath (also known as the Sabbath Day) is to perform no ordinary work or act of labor.
Jews regard the day as sacred to God because of biblical texts explicitly stating that sanctification. Early in Genesis, for example, is this clear passage: "And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made" (Gen. 2:3). The same idea is also stated elsewhere, as here: "But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work" (Deut. 5:14).
The word Sabbath also refers to any other Scriptural period of solemn rest or cessation from usual activity. The best-known such period is also referred to as the Sabbatical year, a year of rest for the land observed every seventh year in ancient Judea.
The Sabbatical year is explained in Leviticus: "Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard" (Lev. 25:2-4).
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