Week. There can be no doubt about the great antiquity of measuring time by a period of seven days. Genesis 8:10; Genesis 29:27. The origin of this division of time has given birth to much speculation. The week and the Sabbath are as old as man himself. They who embrace this view support it by a reference to the six days' creation and the divine rest on the seventh. Whether the week gave its sacredness to the number seven, or whether the ascendency of that number helped to determine the dimensions of the week, it is impossible to say. The weekly division was adopted by the Semitic races, and, in the later period of their history at least, by the Egyptians. So far from the week being a division of time without ground in nature, there was much to recommend its adoption. It is clear that if not in Paul's time, yet very Soon after, the Roman world had adopted the hebdomadal division.