SHORTEN THE SABBATH?

By Richard Burkard

Perhaps the biggest difference between “Armstrongism” Church of God groups and mainstream Christianity is their day of worship.

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy,” God commands in Exodus 20:8 (KJV unless noted). “Sanctify it,” Deuteronomy 5:12 adds.

COG's, Seventh-Day Adventists, traditional Jews and others maintain this is the seventh day of the week, or “Saturday.” Mainstream Christians claim there's plenty of evidence that the Sabbath was changed to Sunday after Christ was resurrected.

But at least one group goes even farther in being different about the weekly Sabbath. It denies the Sabbath begins Friday at sundown and lasts until Saturday at sundown – and claims the time is much shorter.

I had never heard of the International Congregation of Yahweh until I learned it was keeping the Feast of Tabernacles in 2025 on different days from other COG's. In an area where no “opening night” service was promoted, ICY had one during the prior day – what I called “day zero.”

After attending the ICY service (which had about 15 people in attendance), I discovered the Arkansas-based group is different from other Worldwide Church of God/Grace Communion International spinoffs in many ways.

The most thought-provoking difference is its timing of when Sabbaths begin and end. Founder and leader Gary Miller gave me a booklet he wrote called The Scriptural Weekly Sabbath is NOT from Sunset-to-Sunset.

If it's not, then when IS it? I studied through the booklet to see what ICY claims – and what the Bible really says.

A Brief History of Time

Miller begins by saying the idea of a 24-hour “day” beginning at sundown comes from pagan Babylonians. And because of that, it is wrong – because Christians are told as “Babylon the Great is fallen... Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Revelation 18:2, 4).

Miller cites Unger's Bible Dictionary, which indicates the ancient Israelites adapted customs of the Phoenicians and Numidians.

Yet the entry for “day” which Miller cites was moved for The New Unger's Bible Dictionary (1988 ed.), which can be reviewed online. Those readers are advised to see the word “time.” Its entry for “time, divisions of” mentions weeks, months and years – but NOT days.

Miller also cites the second edition of the 1957 book The Exact Sciences in Antiquity by Otto Neugebauer. That edition from 1969, which also can be read online, says: “...the Babylonian 'day' also begins in the evening and the 'first' of a month is the day of the first visibility” (pg. 106).

Some historians and Jewish rabbis support Neugebauer's view. Quoting one: “Many scholars are convinced that the biblical Israelite day started at daybreak. It seems possible that the Judeans who were exiled to Babylon accepted the Babylonian practice of beginning the day with the prior evening.” (Israel Drazin, from BooksNThoughts.com, 9/11/14)

Drazin adds: “We know for certain that the day began in the Temple at daybreak... the day continued to begin at daybreak until the Jews changed the practice during the Babylonian exile around 550 B.C.E. due to the influence of the surrounding culture.”

A daybreak start to Sabbath may have been one of the “distinctives” of the Sadducees at the time our Lord walked the Earth, Drazin continues.

“To counter this practice, the Pharisees instituted the lighting of candles at the onset of the Sabbath on Friday night,” Drazin adds. Based on this, could COGs who begin the Sabbath on Friday evening be labeled Pharisees?!

(Readers of The New York Times may know that even in its national editions, the bottom of Page 1 had a small ad on Fridays for years reminding young women to light “Shabbat” candles 18 minutes before sunset.)

There's also evidence that Babylonian and Jewish months are similar. Quoting Neugebauer again: “So far as we know, the Babylonian calendar was at all periods truly lunar, that is to say, the 'month' began with the evening when the new crescent was for the first time visible shortly after sunset” (pg. 106).

As one online writer puts it: “Because Abraham is thought to have lived about 1813 - 1638 BC it is likely that he used a similar calendar so the Jewish and Babylonian calendars would seem to have common roots.” (From Tom's Bible Site, 2015)

Miller cites Neugebauer on months as well. Yet for some reason, he does not condemn the Jewish monthly figuring! He can't – because God used it, too!

“This month shall be unto you the beginning of months,” the Lord told Moses and Aaron while they were in Egypt in Exodus 12:1-2. God goes on to set a schedule for events in that month, which Israel and modern Jews have adopted. Even ICY uses it!

Is This a Sin?

This all matters to ICY because it considers a Sabbath timed from Friday sunset “sinful... if it is not Yahweh's true Sabbath... Coming out of Babylon... may be far, far more difficult than we ever imagined” (booklet pgs. 3-4).

In fact, we tracked down the original Unger's Bible Dictionary at a Christian university library and discovered it claims the word “Sabbath was of Babylonian origin...” (1966 ed., p. 939) So is it wrong to even call it that?

Three dictionaries that we checked for the word “Sabbath” do not mention Babylon, only tracing the word to Hebrew. And the matter was disputed by some 20th-century scholars:

“There is no root in Babylonian, as already intimated, equivalent to the common Hebrew shabat 'to cut off, desist, put an end to,'" wrote Professor Albert Clay in 1923 (The Origin of Biblical Traditions: Hebrew Legends in Babylonia and Israel, pp. 118-119, cited by BibleOrigins.net).

But you may be asking: Where in the Bible is the timing of a “false Sabbath” condemned or called a sin?

Miller cites Daniel 7:24-25, where an end-time king will “think to change times and laws.” It's supposedly part of “Mystery, Babylon the Great” (Revelation 17:5).

Yet if God “happened” to use the Babylonian calendar and apply it for believers to use, how can Miller imply everything Babylonian should be avoided? Especially since ICY follows the traditional COG monthly pattern? Could it be God suggested it to other peoples first?

And if the “false Sabbath” goes back to 550 years before Jesus's birth, how is this an end-time change - especially if first-century Christians kept it that way? And if the “B.C.E. Jews” had it wrong, where is the evidence that our Savior corrected them or made things right?

Miller points to the first part of Mark 7 for that. “Yashua [he refuses to use the names God and Jesus] condemned the Oral Laws of the Jews of His day... even condemning many of their doctrines...” (pg. 5)

Yes – and Yashua listed a few of them: ceremonial washings and “Corban” for parents (Marl 7:8, 11-12). So why doesn't He mention the time of Sabbath, which is arguably more vital since that's something all “Jews” would mark?

“...The Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus Christ, kept the same Sabbath that the Jews of His day did,” the Church of God, a Worldwide Association contends online. Its “Life, Hope and Truth” site adds that Jesus “created the Sabbath, and He would have corrected the timing if it had been wrong.”

Miller declares Judah “has a long history of profaning Yahweh's calendar...” (booklet pg. 5), basing that on Isaiah 1.

“Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth...” (Isaiah 1:14) The weekly Sabbath is one of those feasts, based on Leviticus 23:2-4. (NLT says “annual festivals,” but it's a standalone view among major translations.)

But why did God hate them? Because the timing was wrong? Miller begs the question here – while the context of Isaiah shows God was condemning Judah forsaking Him in general (1:4-5, 19, 23).

What is a day?

For ICY, the timing of God's Sabbath boils down to a seemingly simple word.

“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.” (Genesis 1:5)

This is a “statement which is accepted as true,” according to Miller. “...The conclusion is proven true beyond any doubt” (booklet pgs. 7-8, emphasis his).

In other words, if God called it that – that's that. Forever.

“There is no need to hunt through scores of Scriptures or any other verse to see if this is true,” he continues. “The conclusion could not be more certain!”

But what if Miller's premise is faulty? What if “searching the Scriptures” actually leads to other definitions, instead of proving Miller true?

Defining the light

Let's start with the Hebrew word for “light” in verse 5 - or. Does that word mean “day” throughout the Old Testament?

NO. That's shown in the Psalms. During the exodus, “In the daytime also he led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire” (78:14).

“Daytime” is yomam in Hebrew – a form of the word yom, which God called the light in Genesis 1. But here, “or” led the Israelites overnight!

Jeremiah 31:35 adds that the Lord “giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night...” The same Hebrew word or is used to describe light, whether by day or by night!

What was the “light” in Genesis 1:5, anyway? Was it the sun?

NO - as strange as that may sound. The sun was one of the “great lights” which came later – the “greater light to rule the day” in 1:16 (see also Psalm 136:7-9).

Other verses in the Bible actually seem to define the Genesis 1:5 light differently. “The Lord is my light and my salvation,” David declares in Psalm 27:1 – the same or (see also Isaiah 2:5).

“For the Lord God is a sun and shield...” Psalm 84:11 adds. The Hebrew word for sun is semes, also used for the sun in our sky (first in Genesis 15:12; see especially Joshua 10:12-13).

“God is light, and in him is no darkness at all,” I John 1:5 says.

“Thy word is... a light unto my path,” adds Psalm 119:105 – the same or. God's law is even called or in Proverbs 6:23.

If “all scripture is given by inspiration of God,” as II Timothy 3:16 states, then these definitions of “light” should be equally valid. In fact, they indicate the original “light” of Genesis 1 was the Lord God Himself!

Yom-Yom-Yom

But Miller's focus is more on yom, which means “day” in Genesis 1. “The Sabbath of Yahweh is the seventh light... It cannot, therefore, include any night hours whatsoever” (booklet pg. 8).

Most people probably know yom from Yom Kippur – the Hebrew phrase Jews use for the Day of Atonement. Yet Leviticus 23 shows that “day” has a specific length, which includes nighttime hours!

“...Ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath” (Leviticus 23:32). Yom actually is not in this verse in Hebrew; it's only mentioned in “the Day of Atonement” in verse 27, with English translators adding “day” for clarification.

Other translations refer to this time as “until the following evening” (NIV/CSB) or “until sundown on the tenth day” (NLT). Miller will come to this verse later.

But we can go farther. A Bible app led me to a time and place when a land had both light and darkness.

When God poured out plagues before the exodus, “there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days” (Exodus 10:22). The Hebrew word for darkness, hosek, matches what God called it in Genesis 1:5.

Yet at the same time, “for three days... all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings” (verse 23) – or! For three yoms!

This raises fascinating questions that the Bible really doesn't answer. How were the “three days” measured if the Egyptians never had the light of day? Did the Israelites have “light” non-stop, or were there “dark periods” at some point to measure the length of the Egyptian blackout?

Whatever the explanation, this shows Gary Miller's “unconditional definitions and postulates, which are considered true beyond doubt” (booklet pg. 8) can have exceptions.

(Job 15:23 also refers to a “day of darkness”, with the same Hebrew words as Genesis 1:5. But this phrase comes from Eliphaz, who was called a “miserable counselor” of Job in 16:2 – so we'll leave it to you to consider whether his words should count.)

The Sun Goes Up, the Sun Comes Down

Miller contends the “day” begins with the first light approaching dawn – not sunset, and not even sunrise. His prooftexts include Job 38:7, where creation occurred “while the morning stars sang together” (NIV) – or before the actual sunrise, while stars can be seen.

But is this why “morning stars” is mentioned? How do stars “sing”?

This is one of several cases where Miller seems to take the Bible too literally to prove his points. Other verses show the phrase is really a figure of speech to describe other things.

Isaiah 14:12 refers to “Lucifer, son of the morning” - or in the KJV margin, “day star.” So most Christian groups conclude Job 38 refers to angels, similar to the fallen cherubim Lucifer. (If you've wondered where the Christian TV network got its name, this is where.)

“They are symbols of the angels, bearing the same relation to our earth, as angels do to us,” the Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary explains. Much later, Jesus calls Himself “the bright and morning star” in Revelation 22:16.

Miller then turns to the great Biblical wrestling match of Genesis 32. It lasted “until the breaking of the day” (verses 24, 26) – then “the sun rose” (verse 31).

“Therefore, the day of the Bible is from dawn-to-dark... It does not start at sunset,” Miller concludes (pg. 11)

Indeed, the match began “that night” (based on verse 22). But the Hebrew word in verse 24 is NOT yom – it's sahar, which usually means “morning.” (It's used in the description of Lucifer in Isaiah 14.) Miller's booklet does not note this.

Miller also turns to 2 Samuel to show the day and night are separate. “And Joab and his men went all night,” verse 32 says, “and they came to Hebron at break of day.”

Again, there's no yom here. The Hebrew has or, noted earlier as meaning “light.” The NASB 2020 update for this verse actually has “day” in italics, as an addition: “until the day dawned...”

So Many Hours in a Day

Miller hurts his argument further when he analyzes how a 12-hour “day” works. He cites a question of Jesus in John 11:9: “Are there not 12 hours in a day?”

“The 12-hour day Yahshua defines...” Miller writes (page 12).

Now wait a minute. Where did Yahshua/Jesus get that timing?

Miller never goes back to Unger's dictionaries, but we did. They indicate the concept of “hours” first appears in the Bible at the time of the Babylonian captivity!

The Babylonians were “among the first to adopt the division of 12 equal parts for the day... The Hebrews also adopted it...” (New Unger's Bible Dictionary, pg. 1286)

“The Jews divided every day into twelve hours,” Matthew Henry's Commentary adds, “and made their hours longer or shorter according as the days were, so that an hour with them was the twelfth part of the time between sun and sun...”

So Jesus's words of “definition” matched what fellow Jews kept – but they may have come from Babylon, just as a “day” beginning at sunset supposedly does! He made no corrections!

Surprisingly, modern Bible teacher David Guzik calls the 12-hour reference “figurative.” The JFB Commentary seems to agree by saying of John 11, “Our Lord's day had now reached its eleventh hour.”

Yet verse 9 has been used by COG's to prove Jesus was in the grave for three days and three nights. Miller does as well – but says nothing about Jesus citing a potentially Babylonian timing system, and not condemning it as pagan and wrong.

Wait 'Til the Midnight Hour

The word “hour” scarcely appears in the Old Testament. But the Lord told Moses when the bloody Passover night came, “About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt...” (Exodus 11:4)

God meant what He said. “And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt...” (Exodus 12:29) “Midnight” here is the same word translated as “night” in Genesis 1:5.

How did God time that hour? He couldn't have used the rising and setting of the sun, which Miller says mark the hours of a day.

NASA scientists say, “A full Moon rises around sunset and sets around sunrise.” An admittedly New Age-y source adds: “The full moon will not always rise exactly at sunset, but can be expected to rise within a 50-minute window after sunset.” (From ShunSpirit.com)

The moon was full on that historic night, which would explain God's timing. But while this is not Miller's main issue, he doubts God moved the Israelites out of Egypt during that night.

“None of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning,” Miller notes from Exodus 12:22 (page 30). Some COG's believe Israel used the daylight hours of Tishri 14 to plunder the Egyptians and prepare to leave.

(Yet during that night, Moses and Aaron were “summoned” by Pharaoh and ordered to get out of Egypt (12:30-31, ESV/NIV/RSV). One commentary suggests the two did not violate Moses's words to stay put: “it is likely that this communication occurred through messengers” (from TheBibleSays.com); note no reply by Moses is recorded.)

Other Old Testament verses speak of “watches” in the night (Psalm 63:6/Lamentations 2:19) The Gesenius Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon notes the Hebrews divided them into three, while the Romans in New Testament times had four.

It's noteworthy, and to Miller's credit, that the Bible nowhere has the phrase “Sabbath night.” It's called “Sabbath day” in KJV 55 times.

Don't Touch That Dial?

Miller goes on to claim the first hour of a 12-hour day is “dawn,” the light leading to sunrise – and it must count in figuring the start of Sabbaths. Similarly, the 12^th hour is “evening” or “twilight” lasting from sunset to full darkness.

“This 'hour' cannot be a sundial hour,” he writes on page 13. “Without direct sunlight at the start and end of a day, sundials are useless in providing the divisions of the full Biblical day.”

With current sundials – true. With ancient sundials – maybe not.

Back to Neugebauer's book: “One of the inscriptions of the cenotaph of Seti I (about 1300 B.C.) shows a simple sun-dial and gives a description of its use. From this it follows that this instrument indicated ten 'hours' between sunrise and sunset. To this, two more hours are added for morning and evening twilight respectively” (pg. 86; emphasis mine).

The scholar adds that “the Egyptian reckoning of hours was originally decimal [as in 10] for daylight, duodecimal [12] for the time of darkness because of the decimal structure of the calendar, and leaving two more 'hours' for twilight.”

The Encyclopedia Brittanica traces our modern 12-hour “hemicycle” sundial concept to ancient Greece. Yet “Decimal Hours: an hour system with ten equal hours per day [was] sometimes used by the Chinese and and ancient Egyptians, and during the French revolution,” a Canadian article on sundials notes.

Sundials appear to be mentioned in the Old Testament as a sign to King Hezekiah that God would grant him 15 extra years of life. How else do we explain, “the shadows go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees” (2 Kings 20:9-11; see also Isaiah 38:8)?

Trouble is, that sundial was “likely of Egyptian or Babylonian design,” Wikipedia says! Why would the Lord use such a Babylonian creation, if we're supposed to come out of Babylon?