The pattern of weeks provides a useful framework for marking time in agricultural and religious life. The story of creation is described in terms of seven days and illustrates a cycle of work and rest. Feasts and other rituals last for a certain number of weeks.
The seven days of creation
Genesis 2:1–3 See also Genesis 1:5, Genesis 1:8, Genesis 1:13, Genesis 1:19, Genesis 1:23, Genesis 1:31
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. And by the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on that day He rested from all His work. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had accomplished.
The Sabbath-rest
Deuteronomy 5:12–14 parallel Exodus 20:8–11 See also Exodus 34:21, Exodus 35:2; Hebrews 4:3–4, Hebrews 4:8–10
Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God, on which you must not do any work— neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox or donkey or any of your livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest as you do.
Seven-day intervals or periods
After building the ark Noah had seven days' notice of the flood
For seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living thing I have made.”
Noah sent out the dove at seven-day intervals
See also Genesis 8:8–12
Marching round Jericho
Hebrews 11:30 See also Joshua 6:12–15
By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.
Other examples of seven-day intervals or periods
Exodus 7:25, Exodus 29:30; 1 Samuel 10:8, 1 Samuel 11:3, 1 Samuel 13:8; 1 Kings 20:29; 1 Chronicles 9:25; Acts 20:6, Acts 21:4, Acts 28:14
Rituals lasting seven days
Menstrual impurity
When a woman has a discharge consisting of blood from her body, she will be unclean due to her menstruation for seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.
Initial period of uncleanness after childbirth
Leviticus 12:1–2 This would be fourteen days if the child were a girl (Leviticus 12:5).
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be unclean for seven days, as she is during the days of her menstruation.
Mourning
Genesis 50:10 See also 1 Samuel 31:13 parallel 1 Chronicles 10:12; Job 2:13; Ezekiel 3:15
When they reached the threshing floor of Atad, which is across the Jordan, they lamented and wailed loudly, and Joseph mourned for his father seven days.
The Feast of Weeks
Deuteronomy 16:9–10 See also Exodus 34:22; Leviticus 23:15–21; Numbers 28:26–31
You are to count off seven weeks from the time you first put the sickle to the standing grain. And you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God with a freewill offering that you give in proportion to how the LORD your God has blessed you,
Feasts lasting seven days
Wedding feasts
Genesis 29:27 See also Judges 14:10–12
Finish this week’s celebration, and we will give you the younger one in return for another seven years of work.”
The Feast of Unleavened Bread
Exodus 34:18 See also Leviticus 23:5–8; 2 Chronicles 30:21–23, 2 Chronicles 35:17; Ezra 6:22
You are to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, you are to eat unleavened bread as I commanded you. For in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt.
The Feast of Tabernacles
Leviticus 23:34 See also Leviticus 23:36; Nehemiah 8:18
“Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the Feast of Tabernacles to the LORD begins, and it continues for seven days.
Dedication of the temple
1 Kings 8:65 parallel 2 Chronicles 7:8–9
Daniel's ``weeks''
Daniel 9:24 “sevens” may also be translated “weeks”. See also Daniel 9:25–27
Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.
God promises that times and seasons will always continue
Jeremiah 5:24 See also Genesis 8:22
They have not said in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rains, both autumn and spring, in season, who keeps for us the appointed weeks of harvest.’
Related themes
Dictionary of Bible Themes © 1999 Martin Manser, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, via Bible Aquifer. Formatted for this site, with Scripture from the Berean Standard Bible.