Today we begin teachings from Genesis Chapter 2.

For the Complete Jewish Bible click here. If you’re a King James diehard, click here.

Let’s start by taking a look at the following excerpt from Genesis Chapter 2.

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, along with everything in them. On the seventh day God was finished with his work which he had made, so he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. God blessed the seventh day and separated it as holy; because on that day God rested from all his work which he had created, so that it itself could produce.”- Genesis 2:1–3

From today, I will be writing a series of articles about the 7th day of the week, otherwise known as the Sabbath.

The first issue I would like to tackle is “how do we know that the original Biblical Sabbath, the 7th day as stated in Scripture is really referring to the day we call Saturday?”

There are three compelling reasons why we can be confident that what the Bible calls the 7th day is indeed Saturday.

REASON ONE: LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE

In more than a hundred languages of the world, the word for “Sabbath” as meaning a day of rest is actually “Sabbath” and refers to Saturday. For example: Arabic=Sabot, Armenian=Shabat, Spanish=Sabado, Italian=Sabato, etcetera.

When studying the many languages of mankind, you will find two important facts:

• In the majority of the principal languages the last, or seventh, day of the week is designated as “Sabbath.”

• There is not even one language that designates another day as the “day of rest.”

In English, we say “What day is the Sabbath?” But in the other languages of the world, that would be like asking “What day is ‘Friday’”?, which would be a nonsensical question.

REASON TWO: THE WITNESS OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE

The Jews have consistently kept the Sabbath every week (every 7th day) since they became an established people group more than 3500 years ago. The weekly cycle of which day is which has NEVER changed. The Jewish people would never have allowed any change to affect their practice, even if the rest of the world all of a sudden arbitrarily decided to keep the 7th day on a Tuesday for instance.

Chew on this fact for a minute. At any point in history, you have faithful, religious-minded Jews keeping the Sabbath (Saturday) in various parts of the world. In order for us to lose track of which day is the Sabbath, all of those Jews would have to somehow simultaneously mistake the day. They keep the Sabbath today on the same day they did back in Jesus’ day, all the way back to Moses’ day.

ADDENDUM: Another powerful piece of Scriptural evidence. In Exodus 16, we are told that during the Israelite’s journey in the desert, manna (the bread from Heaven) fell every day except for one — the Sabbath. So what did the Israelites eat on the Sabbath? The Scripture makes it clear that a double portion fell every Friday so that the Israelites would have enough to eat the next day as well.

REASON THREE: FINDINGS OF THE NAVAL OBSERVATORY IN WASHINGTON D.C.

Referring to this specific issue, here is what the Naval Observatory in Washington had to say.

“We had occasion to investigate the results of the works of specialists in chronology and we have never found one of them that has ever had the slightest doubt about the continuity of the weekly cycle since long before the Christian era.”

Understand that part of the Naval Observatory’s job is keeping track of time. These people know what they’re talking about.They emphatically state “WE HAVE NO DOUBT” that the weekly cycle has never been lost track of. It would be preposterous to think otherwise.

CONCLUSION:

The 7th day mentioned in Scripture according to our calendars is Friday evening sundown to Saturday evening sundown. End of discussion.

© Richoka