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The seven-day cycle, the Week

~ scriptures are from the Hebraic Roots Bible, and HBR Bible Notes in italics.

Exo 20:8-11 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy†; six days you shall labor and do all your work;
and the seventh day is a Sabbath to YAHWEH your Elohim;
you shall not do any work, you, and your son, and your daughter, your male slave and your slave-girl,
and your livestock, and your stranger who is in your gates.
For in six days YAHWEH made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all which is in them,
and He rested on the seventh day; on account of this YAHWEH blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it.†

~ Exodus 20:8 The Hebrew word “kadosh' literally means “set apart”, meaning to keep the Sabbath set apart from the work of the other 6 days. Also, the fact that they are told to “remember” or bring back into memory this day clearly shows that the Sabbath day goes back to creation (Gen 2:1-3) and was not just implemented on Mount Sinai.

The seven-day cycle, the Week,
~ from an article by Sean Pitman
Consider that if the biblical version is in fact the true version of history that God may have actually provided extra-biblical evidence within life itself of the true origin of the week?

Wouldn’t it be most surprising, from the naturalistic perspective, to find seven-day rhythms within living things?
Yet, this is exactly what has been discovered. Many living things, to include humans beings, experience seven-day, or “circaseptan” biological cycles.
The relatively new science of chronobiology has uncovered some totally unexpected facts about living things, to include the most puzzling circaseptan or seven-day cycles experienced by many living things. Secular scientists find it difficult to explain how such a seven-day cyclical pattern would arise or evolve in living things by any natural means.

• “At first glance, it might seem that weekly rhythms developed in response to the seven day week imposed by human culture thousands of years ago. However, this theory doesn’t hold once you realize that plants, insects, and animals other than humans also have weekly cycles. . . . Biology, therefore, not culture, is probably at the source of our seven day week.”
  Susan Perry and Jim Dawson, The Secrets Our Body Clocks Reveal, (New York: Rawson Associates, 1988), pp. 20-21

Campbell summarizes the findings of the world’s foremost authority on rhythms and the pioneer of the science of chronobiology:

• “Franz Halberg proposes that body rhythms of about seven days, far from being passively driven by the social cycle of the calendar week, are innate, autonomous, and perhaps the reason why the calendar week arose in the first place… These circaseptan, or about weekly, rhythms are one of the major surprises turned up by modern chronobiology. Fifteen years ago, few scientists would have expected that seven day biological cycles would prove to be so widespread and so long established in the living world. They are of very ancient origin, appearing in primitive one-celled organisms, and are thought to be present even in bacteria, the simplest form of life now existing.”
  Jeremy Campbell, Winston Churchill’s Afternoon Nap, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), pp. 75-79.

Specific examples of circaseptan rhythms in humans include:
Reject of organ transplants, immune response to infections, blood and urine chemicals, blood pressure, heartbeat, the common cold, coping hormones, and even one’s mood or general state of mind. There is even evidence of a circaseptan cycle in the formation of tooth enamel.

If the seven day week is an invention of culture and religion, as most historians would have us believe, how do we explain innate circaseptan rhythms in “primitive” algae, rats, plants, bees and face flies? These forms of life have no calendar and can’t read the Torah (Link). There is even evidence that being in or out of sync with the circaseptan cycle may have an affect on longevity. Consider, for example, that the life spans of the face fly Musca autumnalis or the springtail Folsomia candida are markedly longer when oviposition shifts are allowed to be carried out at intervals that are 7 days apart.

There is, however, research suggesting a lunar influence on various circaseptan cycles. But several other experiments have shown an intrinsic or endogenous quality to circaseptan cycles that is apparently independent of any external influences – to include that of the lunar cycles. It does seem, however, that these endogenously derived rhythms are able to respond to external influences (such as circadian influences of day and night or the lunar-induced tides). What is especially interesting is that the circaseptan rhythm, among all the other circadian rhythms, appears to be the one rhythm by which all others are tuned or orchestrated.

• “In Franz Halberg’s view, a central feature of biological time structure is the harmonic relationship that exists among the various component frequencies. A striking aspect of this relationship is that the components themselves appear to be harmonics or sub harmonics, multiples or submultiples, of seven…
  Circaseptan and circasemiseptan rhythms are not arbitrary, even though they seem to lack counterpart rhythms in the external environment.”
  Jeremy Campbell, Winston Churchill’s Afternoon Nap, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), p. 30

And, from a more recent paper published in 2007 the author writes:

• The endogenous nature of the about weekly (circaseptan) rhythms is shown by their occurrence in animals kept under laboratory conditions precluding circaseptan periodic input, their appearance as circaseptan reaction pattern after noxious stimuli, or introduction of an antigen, and in human subjects by the observation of their free running (rhythms that are not synchronized to environmental time cues) with a frequency different from the calendar week. It appear that our seven-day week, which is found in many ancient and modern civilizations including the three main monotheistic religions, may be an adaptation to an endogenous biologic rhythm rather than the rhythm being a societally impressed phenomenon.
  Erhard Haus, Chronobiology in the Endocrine System, Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, 59 (2007) 985-1014

..... The Bible’s claims about history have proven true time and again, combined with the internal evidence for circaseptan rhythms within ourselves and many if not all living things, is it really such a stretch to imagine that the Bible might be right yet again regarding the Creation Week and the Sabbath rest given to us by God from the very beginning of life on this planet?

Seven Day Cycle in Languages
Jones, William Mead 1818-1895, Published London, England 1886.
The full original Chart of the days of the week in 160 languages around the world through the centuries shewing the unchanged order of the days and the true position of the Sabbath, as proved by the combined testimony of ancient and modern languages - Download here in PDF format.

Jones, William Mead 1818-1895, Published London, England 1886.
The full original Chart of the days of the week in 160 languages around the world through the centuries shewing the unchanged order of the days and the true position of the Sabbath, as proved by the combined testimony of ancient and modern languages - Download here in PDF format.

Sabbath / Shabbat 
(שַׁבָּת; related to Hebrew verb "cease, rest") is the seventh day of the week and is the day of rest and abstention from work as commanded by YAHWEH.
Shabbat involves two interrelated commandments: to remember (zachor) and to observe (shamor).

Exodus 31:17
It is a sign forever between Me and the sons of Israel;
for in six days YAHWEH made the heavens and the earth,
and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.†

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