“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” These are the words the astronaut Neil Armstrong spoke when he first stepped on the moon. While indeed associated with the moon landing of 1969, every four years, humankind takes another leap, a leap day added to the end of February. Why do we have this day on our calendar?

Our calendar is based on the Gregorian calendar system. Pope Gregory XIII introduced it in October 1582 to replace the Julian calendar. It is a solar-based calendar and consists of 365 days in a year. This calendar keeps the seasonal events of the year at the same time on the calendar. A year is roughly 365.25 days long. If there was no allowance for a leap day every four years, over centuries, those seasonal events like the solstices and equinoxes would be out of sync with when we knew them to be. Christmas would eventually be in what we call summer, and it would be bitterly cold in August. 

What about timekeeping in the Bible? When Israel came out of Egypt, God commanded in Exodus 12:2 that the month of Abib (March-April) would mark the beginning of their year. Therefore, their new Levitical year began in the spring, while they continued to start their secular year in the fall. The Hebrews had twelve months, each running from the middle of one of our months to the middle of the following month. The Jewish day ran from sundown to sundown and was divided into eight “watches”, four of daylight and four of darkness. By New Testament times, they had begun to observe the Roman custom of twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night, but they did not count minutes or seconds. Yet, this caused further problems since the Romans counted their hours from twelve noon or twelve midnight, and the Jews counted from sunrise or sunset. This means that to understand dates and times in the Bible, we need to know if a particular writer uses secular or Levitical years and Roman or Jewish hours!

The Roman Caesars changed some months’ names, order, and length. Still, there’s no biblical evidence of the Jewish year beginning January 1. When the Bible says Methuselah lived 969 years, it means the same kind of years we know.

Have you ever wondered why we have a seven-day week? A brief history review shows that the seven-day week has prevailed as the paramount routine for humanity as far back as historical records can go. Although some societies and cultures did use weeks other than the seven-day week, it still has stubbornly maintained its preeminence. The seven-day week is universally accepted today, even though the French attempted a ten-day week during the French Revolution in 1791. The Soviet Union, as late as the early 1900s, tried a five-day week—to no avail.

Where did the seven-day week originate? The most plausible explanation comes from the book of Genesis. The first chapter of Genesis explains that God created the entire Universe in six literal twenty-four-hour days. The beginning of chapter two states, “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done” (2:2).

Exodus 20:8-11 explains why God framed His creative activity according to a seven-day week. “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. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” This passage teaches us that God worked six days and rested the seventh day in order to provide a pattern for the Jewish workweek. Because God worked six days and rested on the seventh day, the Jews were instructed to do the same. 

In truth, an all-powerful God could have created the Universe in seven seconds, seven years, seven decades, or seven million years. However, God’s week of seven days was given purposefully to man as a pattern to follow. This pattern has prevailed for several thousand years. The Sun, Moon, and stars were given “for signs and seasons, and for days and years” (Genesis 1:14), but not for the week. The week was explicitly instituted by God, based on His creative activity. The seven-day week is another testimony to the truthfulness and accuracy of the Genesis account of Creation.

The heavenly bodies were significant to the people of the ancient world and even to our time. In Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt, the sun, moon, and stars were worshiped as gods who controlled humankind’s daily lives and destinies. Is it possible the same is true today? While we may not have images of these gods, our calendar seems to define us more than we think. 

“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” (James 4:13-17)

Time is not eternal or sovereign. The calendar is not our deity. The best we can do is make the best use of the time we have left before meeting the God who created time. To live obedient and faithful to His word and will.

By: Justin Odom