"What Bible authority do we have for calling Sunday the first day of the week?”

The Editor’s Private Corner. Sunday the First Day of the Week

Ellet J. Waggoner

The Present Truth : January 2, 1902

“Can you kindly inform me what Bible authority we have for calling Sunday the first day of the week?”

The terms of your question should be inverted; for it is not Sunday that is called the first day of the week, but the first day of the week that is called Sunday. The number was before the name. Then when the question is inverted, and it is asked what Bible authority we have for calling the first day of the week Sunday, the reply must be that we have none; for the names of all the days of the week are of heathen origin.

It must be known to every reader of the Bible that from the beginning the days of the week were known only by number, as first, second, third, etc. Only one was named, and that was the seventh. Its name was Sabbath, and of course it is so still. (See Genesis 1, 2, and Exodus 20.8-11.) Yet, in reality “Sabbath” is not the name, but only the description of the seventh day. The word “Sabbath” simply tells what the day is—a rest; for Sabbath is the Hebrew word for rest.

As might be expected, there is in the entire Bible no change in the titles of the days from those given in the beginning. They are always, with the exception of the seventh day as already noted, known only by number; and these titles they still retain. No matter what other names men may call them, no act of man can change what God has done. Whatever God has called a thing that is the name of it.

The question, then, which is really to be settled is this: “Have the days of the week come to us with the name designation that they had from the beginning, without change?” Or, “Are the days now known as the first and the seventh the same ones that God so designated at the creation?”

It is easy to show that the answer to these questions must be, “Yes”. God Himself keeps the record, and He can make no mistake. The deliverance of Israel from Egypt took place about twenty-five hundred years after the creation; and at that time God made it very plain which day was the seventh, so that there could not possibly be any mistake, even supposing that the people had previously lost the reckoning. For forty years God was their timekeeper, marking the seventh day each week by wonderful miracles. Of course when they knew the seventh day, there was no trouble about the others.