Some people are convinced that Sunday, the first day of the week, is the Biblical Sabbath rest day. Others believe that Saturday, the seventh day of the week, is the Sabbath. Which is correct?
 

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Let’s take an in-depth look at this topic and examine the facts about what day is the Sabbath rest day of the Bible.

According to the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath is on the seventh day of the week.

Exodus 20:8-10 says the following, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.”

At creation God also rested and declared the seventh day holy long before the Ten Commandments were given to Moses at Mount Sinai (Genesis 2:1-3).

Is the Seventh Day the Sabbath?

The New Testament is in agreement that the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week. One of the most straight-forward references is found in Luke 23:53-56 & Luke 24:1. It describes Joseph of Arimathea taking the body of Jesus down from the cross and all that happened next.

“Then he took it [the body of Jesus] down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock, where no one had ever lain before. That day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near. And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment. Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.”

This Bible passage shows the chronology of the week, including how the Sabbath day and the first day of the week relate to one another. According to Luke 23:54, Jesus died on the preparation day which we now call Good Friday. The next day, Sabbath, the women rested according to the commandment. Finally, after the Sabbath, on the first day of the week, Jesus was resurrected.

Preparation day or sixth day = Friday
Sabbath day or seventh day = Saturday
Resurrection day or first day = Sunday

Therefore, according to the Bible, the Sabbath day can be pinpointed as the day before the first day of the week. Today, we call this day Saturday or the seventh day of the week. In addition, ask any Christian which day comes between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. Their answer will be Saturday.
Browse: Who Changed the Sabbath to Sunday?

Which Day Is the First day of the Week?

Many have asked the question, my calendar begins on Monday, doesn’t that make Sunday the seventh day of the week? It is true that many calendars begin on Monday, but some calendars around the world begin on Friday, Saturday or Sunday as well. The answer to this can be found by studying the linguistics or meaning of each day’s name, rather than only looking at the order of the days printed on paper. Any human can change the order of a printed calendar, but it is a lot harder to change every language in the world.
Browse: Was the Real Sabbath Day Lost Because of a Calendar Change?

Consider the Greek language in which the New Testament was written. According to the Bible, the day before the Sabbath was called the preparation day or paraskeue in the Greek language. Even today, thousands of years later, the sixth day of the week, called "Friday" in the English calendar, is still called paraskeue in the modern Greek calendar. Therefore the day that comes after Friday is the Sabbath day.

Sabbath Around the world

What does the English language say about the Sabbath? Webster’s dictionary defines the Sabbath as the following: “Seventh day, Saturday, the seventh day of the week.” (Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary, unabridged 2nd ed.)

In 1887, Dr. William Meade Jones completed a study on the word used to signify the seventh day of the week in 160 modern and ancient languages. He created a chart and found that most languages include a word closely related to the word Sabbath, meaning rest, as the word for the seventh day of the week.

Here is a short list of these words:

• Arabic—al-sabt
• Czech—sobota
• Indonesian—Sabtu
• Russian—subbota
• Greek—sávvato
• Italian—sabato
• Portuguese—sábado
• Spanish—sábado

Dr. Jones didn’t find any languages that used a derivative of the word Sabbath to signify the first day of the week or any other day of the week. Only recently, in the 1900s and 2000s, have many European, Asian and Spanish-speaking countries changed the first day of the week to Monday, thus moving Saturday to the sixth day of the week. This man-made change does not, however, annul the original weekdays set in place by God at the time of creation nor change that fact that He asked His created beings to worship Him on the Sabbath day, or seventh day of the original week. Still, even today, the words for the seventh day of the week in most languages keep similar spelling and pronunciation thus preserving the meaning of a Sabbath rest day. Amazingly, even though people who speak these languages today are unable to understand each other, the word for the seventh day of the week has remained constant among them! Not only that, but these findings also suggest that many cultures also observed the Sabbath rest day in ancient times.

This special protection of the word Sabbath and the idea of resting in God on the seventh day show how important Sabbath rest is to Him! This unique time of rest that He created out of love for us and that He desires to spend with us each week is undeniably a blessing He doesn’t want us to miss!