THE SABBATH — a Greek spelling of Hebrew shabbat, from a root meaning to CEASE. ⚠ Mark 2:27 carries the sentence no other Gospel has: 'the sabbath came into being for the human being, and not the human being for the sabbath.' Matthew (12:8) and Luke (6:5) both retell this whole scene and both go straight to 'the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath' with that line missing — so the most radical sentence in the paragraph survives in one Gospel only. And the Greek egeneto, 'came into being', is the verb of Genesis 1: the sabbath is spoken of as something MADE, with a purpose. ⚠ The word is often plural in form (ta sabbata) with singular sense, which is why versions vary between 'sabbath' and 'sabbaths' with no difference of meaning; it also came to mean simply a WEEK, which is why 'the first of the sabbaton' at Matthew 28:1 means the first day of the week. → first discussed at Mark 2:27