THE only division of the weekly cycle is the Sabbath. The "Encyclopædia Britannica," under the word "Calendar," says: "The week is a period of seven days, having no reference whatever to the celestial motions. Those who reject the Mosaic recital will be at a loss . . . to assign to it an origin having much semblance of probability."
As the week had its origin in the Sabbath alone, the Hebrew name Shabbath and the Greek Sabbaton may rationally be applied to the whole week, and the days of the week named in the consecutive order of "first day of the Sabbath," "second day of the Sabbath," "third day of the Sabbath," etc., as they are written in the Talmud. This idiom explains why the words Shabbath and Sabbaton are sometimes used to mean the week. See the literal rendering of Matt. 28: 1.
That the Sabbath marks the ending of the week, and came from God, may be shown by many indisputable facts.
An unearthed Assyrian tablet bears the words referring to the creation of God:
"On the seventh day He appointed a holy day,
And to cease from all business He commanded."
Concerning this tablet Mr. H. Fox Talbot says, "The fifth tablet is very important, because it clearly affirms, in my opinion, that the origin of the Sabbath was coeval with the creation."
The combined testimony of one hundred and sixty modern and ancient languages, as shown by an authentic chart of the week, bears witness to the Biblical order of the days of the week, proving that the ending of the week never has been changed. One hundred and eight of those languages apply the name "Sabbath," or its equivalent, to the seventh day of the cycle.
In what is known as the Chinese "Book of Diagrams" is the following statement:
"On the seventh day the passages are closed." This shows that in the early history of the Chinese they observed the true Sabbath, and that it marked the weekly cycle.
Man may undertake to make the week begin on any day he chooses; but the history of the world, as well as its astronomical records, proves that time can not thus be altered. The weeks have been rolling onward in solemn grandeur with the flight of years, and the great clock of time can not be changed or stopped by the puny hand of man.
"When time's first week had run its course complete,
To mark the cycle with its boundaries meet,
The Sabbath on its royal throne was set,
Creation's fair and lovely coronet."