High Sabbaths


High Sabbaths, in most Christian and Messianic Jewish usage, are seven annual biblical festivals and rest days, recorded in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. This is an extension of the term "high day" found in the King James Version at.

Biblical rest days

The seven festivals do not necessarily occur on weekly Shabbat and are called by the name miqra in Hebrew. They are observed by Jews and a minority of Christians. Two of the shabbath occur in spring on the first and last day of the Feast of unleavened bread. One occurs in the summer, this is the Feast of Weeks. And four occur in the fall in the seventh month. Yom Teru'ah on the first day of the seventh month; the second is Yom Kippur ; and two during the feast of Sukkoth on the first and last day. Sometimes the word shabbaton is extended to mean all seven festivals.
The Gospel of John says of the day beginning following Christ's death, "that sabbath day was a high day". That night was Nisan 15, just after the first day of Passover week and an annual miqra and rest day, in most chronologies. The King James Version may thus be the origin of naming the annual rest days "High Sabbaths" in English.

As coincidental with weekly Sabbaths

High Sabbaths are considered by Seventh-day Adventists and other seventh-day Sabbath keepers to be a subset of the feast sabbaths. In their view, only those feast sabbaths that coincide with the weekly Sabbath are regarded as High Sabbaths.

High Holy Days

The ten-day period between the High Sabbaths of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur inclusive is commonly referred to as the High Holy Days.