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Smith's Bible Dictionary

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Weights And Measures

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Concordances
Scofield Reference Index
• Weeks
Thompson Chain Reference
• Weeks, Feast of
• First Day of the Week
• Feast of Weeks
Treasury of Biblical Knowledge
• Seventy Weeks
Torrey Topical Textbook
• Weeks
Dictionaries
American Church Dictionary
• Thursday in Holy Week
• Passion Week
• Holy Week
•   (only first 3 shown)
American Tract Society
• Weeks
Baker's Evangelical Dictionary
• Weeks, Feast of
Chabad Knowledge Base
• Three Weeks
Easton's Bible Dictionary
• Weeks, Feast of
• Week
• Seventy Weeks
Fausset Bible Dictionary
• Week
Spurgeon's Illustration Collection
• Absence From Week-Night Services
Holman Bible Dictionary
• Week
• Seventy Weeks
• Holy Week
Hastings' BibleDictionary
• Weeks, Feast of
• Week
Hastings' NT Dictionary
• Week (2)
• Week
• Passion Week
King James Dictionary
• Week
Morrish Bible Dictionary
• Weeks, Seventy
• Weeks, Feast of
• Seventy Weeks of Daniel
1910 New Catholic Dictionary
• Week, Passion
• Week, Holy
• Week, Cross
•   (only first 3 shown)
People's Bible Dictionary
• Weeks Feast of
• Week
Smith Bible Dictionary
• Week
Vines' Expository Dictionary
• Week
• Week
Webster Dictionary
• Cross-Week
• Week
• Week-End
Watson's Theological Dictionary
• Weeks
Encyclopedias
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
• Edwin Lord Weeks
• Holy Week
• Passion Week
•   (only first 3 shown)
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
• Seventy Weeks
• Week
• Weeks, Feast of
•   (only first 3 shown)
Kitto Biblical Cyclopedia
• Week
• Weeks Feast of
McClintock and Strong's Bible Encyclopedia
• Chaste Week
• Cross-Week
• Ember Weeks
•   (only first 3 shown)
The Nuttall Encyclopedia
• Holy Week
• Passion Week
• Week
The Catholic Encyclopedia
• Amiel Weeks Whipple
• Holy Week
• Liturgical Week
The Jewish Encyclopedia
• Week
• Weeks, Feast of
Lexicons
• σάββατον
• שָׁבוּעַ , שְׁבוּעָה

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 is a matter which has given birth to much speculation. Its antiquity is so great its observance so widespread, and it occupies so important a place in sacred things, that it must probably be thrown back as far as the creation of man. The week and the Sabbath are thus as old as man himself. A purely theological ground is thus established for the week. They who embrace this view support it by a reference to the six days' creation and the divine rest on the seventh.

First. That the week rests on a theological ground may be cheerfully acknowledged by both sides; but nothing is determined by such acknowledgment as to the original cause of adopting this division of time. Whether the week gave its sacredness to the number seven, or whether the ascendancy of that number helped to determine the dimensions of the week, it is impossible to say.

Second. The weekly division was adopted by all the Shemitic races, and, in the later period of their history at least, by the Egyptians. On the other hand, there is no reason for thinking the week known till a late period to either Greeks or Romans. So far from the week being a division of time without ground in nature, there was much to recommend its adoption. And further, the week is a most natural and nearly an exact quadri-partition of the month, so that the quarters of the moon may easily have suggested it. It is clear that if not in Paul's time, yet very soon after, the whole Roman world had adopted the hebdomadal division. See Weeks, Feast of; Pentecost.