E20-17: Throughout all history, the Sabbath has ALWAYS been the 7th Day

Believe it or not, sometimes disagreement arises concerning exactly which day the Sabbath is on!

Well, I want to head this off the path right now.

Let’s tackle this issue by starting with two points I think we can all agree on.

First, I think we can all agree that there are ONLY 7 days in a week.

Second, I think we can also all agree that there is ONLY one 7th day of the week.

So all throughout history, even before calendars, there has always been a unit of time measurement which we call a week.

And this week has always consisted of 7 sunsets and sunrises, each of which we call a day.

However, what was a relatively late development in history was the assigning of names to the days of the week, like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and so on.

Before this happened, the days were simply numbered as the 1st Day, 2nd Day and so on.

This is a practice the Hebrews keep to this day.

The only day the Hebrews have given a name is the 7th day, which as you know is called the Shabbat.

While it is true that since they were invented, calendars can and do differ, there is zero disagreement concerning the number of days in a week.

As far as the possibility of the first and/or last day of the week being moved is concerned, there are only one or two rare occasions when this happened.

Sweden in about the 13th century created what is called the Runic Calendar in accordance with their Nordic god and goddess religion.

However, even this calendar eventually incorporated the Christian Holy days.

Another example which I’m sure everybody is familiar with is the modern standard started by the International Organization for Standardization or ISO for short.

This business calendar was created to harmonize manufacturing standards across the globe.

As a result, for business purposes only, Monday was established as the 1st Day of the week.

However, what’s interesting is that even this decision wasn’t entirely free from the Bible’s influence.

The Jewish Saturday Sabbath and the Christian’s Lord day coincidentally form what we all now call the weekend.

Since due to the Bible’s influence, these days were already non-work days in the industrialized world, the ISO decided it best to not challenge the prevailing “weekend” custom and thus made Monday the 1st day of week, again only for business purposes.

Outside of these two instances, one would be very hard pressed to find a calendar that asserts one given day is the 2nd day of the week  and another one saying “no!”, based on our calculations it should be the 4th day of the week etcetera.

To be fair, it is true that based on seasonal, agricultural, lunar and solar cycles, when certain months and  years begin and end have been argued about.

However, the adjustments made in these cases were about adding a day or two to a given month.

The days themselves NEVER changed.

For example, when we add one day to February, do we then have two Sundays or two Mondays in that week?

Of course not, the numbering or designations of the days never changes. 

Or another way to put it: the number of days in a week are NOT connected to the number of days in a month or year.

To conclude, all of the arguments which have arisen over the centuries concerning the proper day to observe the Sabbath have never involved any disagreement in terms of identifying exactly which day is the 7th day of the week.

What we call “Saturday” has for thousands of years to this very day ALWAYS correlated to the 7th day of the week.

And it is this 7th Day which God has sanctified and commanded us to keep Holy.