NOTES for Mar 1:21-28

Very often we completely forget that in Russian one of the days of the week, the sixth in order, and a day given to God are homonyms: words with different meanings but the same pronunciation. Both concepts are called by the same word, subbota. This does not mean that these two essentially different days must merge for us into the same day of the week. It merely shows that the Russian language is very young and that many words appeared in it only after the adoption of Christianity. Languages that arose before Christianity was adopted, or even before Christianity appeared, do not have this feature: the sixth day of the week is called by one word and the day given to God by another.

The Bible tells us briefly and clearly: “...the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.” In other words, Sabbath is not the name of a day but the substance of what happens on that day: one day out of seven is given to God. Christians, like Jews, give their Sabbath to their God, and this takes place on the seventh day of the week. In Russian, that day is called voskresenie, “resurrection” or Sunday. This is again a mark of the youth of our language, since languages that arose earlier contain no reminder of Christ’s Resurrection in the name of the seventh day.