“IF YE WILL INQUIRE, INQUIRE YE.”
By Editor
This Inquirer's Department is conducted for the purpose of helping those who are studying the Bible. The answers are oftentimes only suggestive. They are never to be considered infallible, only as they agree with the infallible Word. The writer who may answer them does not consider that his opinion is infallible. He will simply give the best that he has, and plead with the inquirer to search the Word. Such questions only will be answered as, to the editors, seem to minister to the good of the readers and to the mission of the paper. We can not answer repeatedly in the same volume questions upon the same scripture. The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable. No letters are answered which do not contain the name of the writer. It is well always to enclose stamp for reply. How do we know that Saturday is the seventh day of the week? E. E. M. Our correspondent, we would gather, has no question at all about the seventh day's being the Sabbath. His only question is, How do we know that Saturday is the seventh day? Certainly it was known at creation; certainly it was known when God marked it by a great threefold weekly miracle for forty years, at the time of the failing of the manna. See Exodus 16. Certainly it was known at the time of the resurrection of Christ, when our Lord slept in the tomb on that Sabbath day, and the next day—the first day of the week—He arose from the dead. Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1, 2. Now there has been no question over the days of the week from that time to the present. All authorities agree with us that our present Saturday, beginning at sunset Friday night and closing at sunset Saturday night, is the Bible seventh day. Before us is a “chart of the week, showing the unchanged order of the days and the true position of the Sabbath as proved by the combined testimony of ancient and modern languages.” This chart gives 107 oriental languages and dialects—that is, Asiatic languages and dialects—and 53 European languages and dialects, or 160 in all. Of the 107 oriental languages and dialects, 71 call the seventh day of the week “Sabbath,” or a term equivalent to that; and of the 53 European languages and dialects, 37 call the seventh day the Sabbath, or a term equivalent to that. Some of these nations are of idolatrous origin, and consequently do not know the Sabbath of the Lord at all. But every one of the 160 languages gives the order of the days of the week the same. Some of these nations have had no connection with each other at all; they have simply held their week from times immemorial; but in all these nations the week is identical; and with so many of them that there can be no question about it, the seventh day is known as the Sabbath. Then, too, the Jews scattered throughout the entire world, among all nations, have held the tradition of the Sabbath. Some of them have not kept it, but they have known of it and known the numbering of the days, and there has been no questioning among them as to the seventh-day Sabbath. We are as much assured that the seventh day now is the Sabbath of the Lord as we are that the Bible is itself true.