7th Day Sabbath Proofs

7th Day Sabbath Proofs

We are continually asked to prove Sabbath is even the seventh day, let alone the question of "What day is the Sabbath?"

It's like this: In Hebrew, there is no "Sunday", "Monday", "Tuesday", etc. The days are numbered by their distance from the last Sabbath. Sunday is Yom Echad, day one. Monday is Yom Shnayim, day two. Tuesday, Yom Shtayim, day three. Wednesday? Yom Arba'ah, day four. Thursday? Yom Chesh. Then Yom Shesh, and finally Sabbath; or for our Sephardic friends, Shabbat. Check out B’reshit chapter 1. El Shaddai (Almighty God) said so.

So...we see from the numbering in Hebrew that Saturday is called Sabbath. It has no number, it merely is. It is the only day of the week to have a name, not a number. However, for the really stubborn who demand a proof:

Sh’mot 31:12-17¹²HASHEM spoke to Moses, saying, ¹³“Now you speak to the Children of Israel, saying: ‘However, you must observe My Sabbaths, for it is a sign between Me and you for your generations, to know that I am HASHEM, Who makes you holy. ¹⁴You shall observe the Sabbath, for it is holy to you; its desecrators shall be put to death, for whoever does work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among it people. ¹⁵For six days work may be done and the seventh day is a day of complete rest, it is sacred to HASHEM; whoever does work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death.
¹⁶The Children of Israel shall observe the Sabbath, to make the Sabbath an eternal covenant for their generations. ¹⁷Between Me and the Children of Israel it is a sign forever that in a six-day period HASHEM made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested as was refreshed.

Seventh Day is the usual translation — but it reads Yom Ha'Sheviy, Day Seven. Just in case there was any question.

More proof that Sunday is day one, and not day Seven? Wouldn't you trust that a group of people dedicated to observing the Sabbath would continue to observe it on the correct day? The Jewish people have been keeping Yom Ha'Sheviy as Sabbath since at least the Babylonian captivity. Why since then? Because it was deduced that that was the reason they HAD the Babylonian captivity. That and other reasons.

More? How about Yiddish, the language we call Mama Loshen, the mother tongue? It's like this:

English	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Yidish	Zuntik	Montik	Dinstik	Mitvokh	Donershtick	Fraytik	Sabbath
Hebrew	Yom Echad	Yom Shnayim	Yom Shtayim	Yom Arba'ah	Yom Chesh	Yom Shesh	Sabbath

So we see that through more than two proofs, Sabbath is still Fraytik Nakht to....sorry, Friday evening to Saturday Evening.

But what about those who insist that the Sabbath was changed? Well, there's the time honored demand — "Show me where the Scriptures state explicitly that the Sabbath was changed to Sunday, and I'll believe." It can't be done, because there's no such reference. We see Sha'ul and the other Messianic believers being Shomer Sabbath (keeping the Sabbath), but we never see them celebrating Sunday.

Many churches claim that because Yeshua rose on the 1st day, the Sabbath was changed. There is no verse in the Scriptures claiming that. Indeed, those that try to cite verses in their doctrinal statements, often give an entirely different verse when citing Sunday as the Sabbath day: Acts 20:7. How does that verse read?

Acts 20:7
⁷Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Sha'ul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight.

Nowhere does this read the Sabbath! The Sabbath is mentioned 8 times in the Book of Acts. Were this day changed, would there not be a verse saying, "And the Sabbath became the first day of the week"? Wouldn't Acts 20:7 read, "And they met on the Sabbath..."

B’reshit 1:3-5
³God said, “ Let there be light” and there was light.⁴God saw that the light was good, and God separated between the light and the darkness.⁵God called to the light “Day,” and to the darkness He called: “Night.” And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

Evening and morning, one day. From this we learn our first doctrinal lesson: according to the Scriptures, a day is measured from Evening to Evening, or more accurately, Sundown to Sundown. Is there another place where this is taught?

Vayikra 23:32
³²It is a day of complete rest for you and you shall afflict yourselves; on the ninth of the month in the evening — from evening to evening — shall you on your rest day.

From evening to evening. The word of God has spoken it! So let's examine again that story of Sha'ul speaking on the First day of the week. If the Sabbath starts on the seventh day, then when did it start? Sundown Friday. When did it end? Sundown Saturday night.

There is a brief period when it is neither evening or night, about 18 minutes long. In English, this word is "Twilight". At the end of the Sabbath, in Hebrew, there is a special word for it: הבדלה; Havdalah, or "Separation". This period extends into the actual beginning of the first day of the week, Saturday night. In every Jewish household and synagogue, a special ceremony is held, with prayers and a ceremonial cup of wine and bread. In the synagogue, services can be long. Now, the verses before this (Acts 20:6) says "After the feast of Unleavened Bread"; Chag Ha'Matzah, which starts with Passover, and concludes 8 days later. This puts them at Abib 23. They stayed 5 days — Abib 28. In 1998, the very next day is a Sabbath. Could it have been a Sabbath the very next day for them as well?

Well, you need one of those fancy Hebrew calendar programs for that, so we'll have to wait and find out. But let's proceed on the impression that at the barest minimum, it was. If not, then the time moves up almost one minute per day, so give or take six minutes to the times below.

On that day, Havdalah in Caeseria Phillippi is at 7:02 PM. That's pretty late. Add at least a 90 minute service, we have them finishing the service at 8:30 PM Yisra'el time. In those days, they also held a communal Havdalah meal — say another hour. Then Sha'ul would have started teaching — about, say, 9:30. It says he spoke until midnight..., and left at Daybreak. By our chronology, when did he leave? Monday morning, as the Churches would have it? Or Sunday Morning? If he left Monday morning, then there's some 24 hours not explained there. Rather, using Hebraic and Biblical understanding, he then traveled...on Sunday morning. So the doctrinal positions many churches maintain for Sunday Sabbath are unscriptural, and against what God has commanded.

I've heard all the arguments; some have told me, "Well, it really doesn't matter which day I keep, as long as I rest one day in Seven." That's fine. I suppose it doesn't matter which god you serve, either, does it? God has only declared the seventh day as holy; no other day of the week! If you're going to use that argument, you should then keep Tuesday as a Sabbath, because on that day God said, "It is good" twice! If it didn't matter, God wouldn't have specified which day of the week was the Sabbath. He wouldn't have decreed the breaking of Sabbath punishable by death. It matters to God; does what matters to God matter to you?

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