The Seven-Day Week

tim April 20, 2021

Unlike the year, month, or day, the seven-day week has no basis in astronomical movements. The only record of its origin is found in the Genesis creation account. Throughout human history, the seven-day week has been observed by most cultures in every part of the world. In the Genesis account of the worldwide flood, the seven-day week is referred to by God when He says to Noah, “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth” (Genesis 7:4).

The first known reference to the seven-day week in extra-biblical sources occurs on inscribed potsherds dating from the fifth century before Christ discovered on the island of Elephantine in 1940. One clay tablet begins with these words: “Greetings to Yislah. Now look, I shall not send the jar tomorrow. Fasten the ox tomorrow, on the Sabbath, lest he may go astray. As Jehovah liveth!” (Published by A. Dupont-Sommer in France; Review and Herald, 127:10, March 23, 1950).

Categories: Sabbath Timeline

Is Sabbath a Christian Holiday?

The Biblical Sabbath has always been the seventh day of the week, what we call Saturday. However, the “Christian Sabbath” is today almost universally recognized as Sunday, the first day of the week. This day of worship dates back to the convergence of religious and political power under the Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages.

tim March 27, 2021

Sabbath and Sunday Observed Simultaneously

A growing number of Christians observed both Sabbath and Sunday during the fourth and fifth centuries. The so-called Apostolic Constitutions from the fourth century taught…

tim April 28, 2021

What Day is the Sabbath?

The word Sabbath literally means “rest,” and the Bible says that God blessed and sanctified, or set apart as holy, this first Sabbath rest day as a memorial of His finished work of creation. This is why the fourth commandment begins with a call to remember the seventh-day Sabbath rest.

tim March 26, 2021

Sabbath Rest: A Common Experience

From its first mention in Genesis 2, the Sabbath is presented as a day of rest to be shared and experienced with others. The prophet Isaiah revealed that the Sabbath was intended not just for the Jewish community, but also for the “sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord” (Isaiah 56:6). God created the Sabbath to be a blessing for all people!

tim March 29, 2021

Sabbath Rest and the Environment

Many wars are fought over natural resources and food production, and the same technologies that have allowed for tremendous increases in crop yields also exact terrible collateral damage on the environment and on humanity. Tthe Bible’s Sabbath rest on the seventh day of each week, and the principles of wisely using and safeguarding the resources found in our environment, could make a difference for us today.

tim March 30, 2021

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