WEEKS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 23, 1879

[From an article on Divisions of Time compiled by F. H. Burbank and published in the Herald of Life of Sept. 18, 1878.]

Seven days and nights constituted a week. Six of them were appointed to labor and the ordinary purposes of life, and the seventh day, or Sabbath, was appointed by God to be observed as a day of rest, because that on it he had rested from all his work which he had created and made. A period of seven days under the usual name of a week is mentioned as far back as the time of the deluge. Gen. 7:4, 10; 8:10, 12; 29:27, 28. It must therefore be considered a very ancient division of time, especially as the various nations among whom it has been noticed, for instance the Nigri, in Africa, appear to have received it from the sons of Noah. The enumeration of the days of the week commenced at Sunday; Saturday was the last or seventh, and was the Hebrew Sabbath, or day of rest. In the Syriac, Arabian, Christian, Persian, and Ethiopian calendars the word sabbat denoted a week. Sunday was one of the sabbath or week, Monday was two of the sabbath or week, etc. They used the cardinals, one, two, three, etc., instead of the ordinals, first, second, third, etc. The evangelists follow the Syriac calendar. As the Sabbath was called the principal day of the week, the whole week was called in the New Testament sabbaton and sabbata.

There were several kinds of weeks in the calendar of the Hebrews.

1. There was the week of days, consisting of seven days, which has already been described.

2. The week of weeks. This was a period of seven weeks, or forty-nine days, which was succeeded on the fiftieth day by the feast of

Pentecost, Greek, pentekostee, fifty. Deut. 16:9, 10: “Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee; begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn. And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God with a tribute of a free-will offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee.”

3. The week of years. This was a period of seven years, during the last of which the land remained untilled, and the people enjoyed a sabbath, or season of rest. They were reckoned from one sabbatical year to another. Jacob served a week of years for Rachel. It was seventy weeks of years, or 490 years, that were “determined” (“ga-zar, (1.) cut off, sacrificed, put to death, as the Messiah; (2.) hewed or cut down, as trees; (3.) divided, separated, as the Red Sea; (4.) cut in two, as a victim; (5.) decreed, ordained, determined; (6.) seized, snatched, tore off, devoured, as a hungry lion.”—Roy’s Dictionary) upon Daniel’s people.

4. The week of seven sabbatical years. This was a period of forty-nine years, and was succeeded by the year of jubilee. (Lev. 25: 1–22; 26: 34.)