time
seven
שבע · שביעית · שבוע · שבת · שבועה · שבויה
Bottom line
Sheviis, "the seventh," is the Sabbatical year, and it is the Mishnah's word for it. Shavua is a week, but in Daniel and in several mishnayos it is a seven-year cycle, so context decides. Shabbos is the day, and by synecdoche the week it closes and the Sabbatical year itself (Ramban). Shevuah is an oath, tied to sheva by every authority here, though they part on why. Do not translate sheva as "seven" where the sources read it as "many" (Rasag to Bereishis 4:24 and Mishlei 24:16).
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| שבע | sheva | seven, many | non-numeric in places: "much," "more and more" (Rasag) |
| שביעית | sheviis | the seventh year | the ordinal of sheva; already Biblical for the Sabbatical year |
| שבוע | shavua | week, seven-year cycle | any seven-day period, not the calendar week (Mecklenburg); seven years in Daniel |
| שבת | shabbos | Shabbos, week, Sabbatical year | part standing for whole (Ramban); for Mecklenburg the sense is cessation, never "week" |
| שבועה | shevuah | oath | binds the swearer under Hashem (Ibn Ezra, Rav Hirsch); strengthened by sevenfold repetition (Sefer HaChinuch 330) |
| שבויה | shevuyah | captive | the picture behind both the cycle and the oath: no freedom to move |
Where the authorities disagree
Does shabbos mean "week"? In "you shall count seven complete shabbasos" (Vayikra 23:15-16), Ibn Ezra and Ramban hold that the word carries two senses within a few pesukim: the first two occurrences name a holy day, the first day of Pesach, and the last two mean weeks. Targum Onkelos reflects exactly this, rendering the first pair yoma tava and the second shavua. Ramban adds that shabbos for "week" is common in rabbinic speech (Taanis 4:7, Megillah 3:4, Kesubos 1:1, 5:6-7, Eduyos 4:10, Nedarim 8:1, Bava Metzia 9:11, Bava Basra 5:10, Sheviis 2:6, Niddah 4:5), and calls the word a synecdoche: a day within the week and the week entire, and likewise the Sabbatical year (Vayikra 25:2, 25:4, 25:6, 26:34-35; Divrei HaYamim II 36:21) and the seven-year cycle that contains it (Vayikra 25:8). Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg objects that nowhere else in Tanach does shabbos mean week, and reads it there in its plain sense of ceasing: between the Omer on the second day of Pesach and the Two Loaves on Shavuos no new grain is used in the Mikdash, so those weeks are themselves a cessation. The Bottom line follows Ibn Ezra, Ramban, and Onkelos, since the Targum is decisive for how the pasuk was read.
Shabbos or shavua, when both mean week. Mecklenburg: shabbos is specifically the calendar week that runs from Sunday to Shabbos, which lends the day's name to the whole; shavua, from sheva, is any seven-day stretch and need not begin on Sunday. Rabbi Alter HaLevi Hilowitz takes shavua too as the calendar week, and draws a consequence: if the shavuos counted to the festival are calendar weeks, the count would always begin on a Sunday, which is the Tzedoki position the Gemara rejects; on his account that is why Chazal preferred to call the festival Atzeres rather than Shavuos. The Bottom line follows Mecklenburg, on whose reading the difficulty does not arise.
Why an oath is a shevuah. Five accounts, none of them exclusive:
- Sevenfold strengthening. Sefer HaChinuch (mitzvah 330): repeating a thing seven times strengthens it and marks it as permanent. Oaths of treaty were made with seven animals (Bereishis 21:23-33) or a multiple of seven (Divrei HaYamim II 15:11-15). Onkelos renders the oath verb at Bereishis 24:9 with a cognate of kiyum, establishing. Compare Rava's ruling that saying "no, no" or "yes, yes" is an oath (Shevuos 36a), which Rashi explains as strengthening by repetition.
- Hashem is the Seventh. Ibn Ezra, building on Sefer Yetzirah 4:2 that the first six numbers are the six directions and the seventh is Hashem at the center: to swear is to tie one's claim to His existence, as though saying, just as Hashem is true, so is this. Ibn Ezra (to Bereishis 21:31) and Ramban (to Bamidbar 30:3) both note the link briefly without explaining it.
- Delivering oneself into His hand. Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 21:23): since the world was made in seven days, seven is the number of the Creator, and the one who swears places himself under His direct control, to be dealt with justly if he is lying.
- Captivity. Mecklenburg, Pappenheim, and Rav Hirsch all connect shevuah to shevuyah, a captive: the sworn man is bound and cannot move freely.
- Satiation. Rabbi Moshe Elyakim Briah Hopstein: shevuah is akin to seviah, being satisfied, since swearing in Hashem's name is a way of clinging to Him, and the righteous are not satisfied until they cling to Him entirely. Rabbi Yitzchok Avigdor Lubchansky adds that the mitzvah to swear in Hashem's name (Devarim 6:13, 10:20) is the seventh positive commandment in Rambam's reckoning.
Is sheva always the number? Rasag's Tafsir renders Lemech's "sevenfold has Kayin been avenged, and Lemech seventy-seven" (Bereishis 4:24) as "much... more and more," and sheva yipol tzaddik vakam (Mishlei 24:16) as "many"; Ibn Ezra and Ralbag read Mishlei the same way. Mecklenburg likewise takes the sevenfold punishments of Vayikra 26:18, 26:24, 26:28 as recurring punishment rather than a count.
Distinctions
sheva (שבע) and sheviis (שביעית)
Sheviis is simply the ordinal, the seventh year of a seven-year cycle, and it is Biblical for the Sabbatical year (Shemos 23:11; Vayikra 25:4, 25:20; Devarim 15:12; Nechemiah 10:32) as well as the Mishnah's standing term and the name of the masechta.
shavua (שבוע)
In Tanach usually a week of seven days (Bereishis 29:27-28; Vayikra 12:5; Devarim 16:9), and so in the Mishnah (Bava Metzia 9:11, Erachin 2:1, and throughout Negaim). But in Daniel it is always a period of seven years (4:24, 9:25-27, 10:2-3), and so in several mishnayos (Sheviis 4:7-9, Bava Metzia 9:10, Sanhedrin 5:1, Makkos 1:10, Parah 8:9), as Rashi repeatedly points out (Pesachim 12a, 86a; Moed Katan 12a; Sotah 44a; Bava Metzia 110b; Sanhedrin 97a).
The root
Mecklenburg traces both ש-ב-ת and ש-ב-ע to the two-letter ש-ב, whose sense is returning; the ayin is not one of Pappenheim's radical letters, but the Aramaic shav, seven, is sheva without it, which leaves room for the derivation. Hence a shevuyah, a captive, caught in a closed system that keeps returning to its start, and hence shabbos and shavua as cycles of time that restart on reaching seven, whether of days, weeks, years, or, as the medieval mekubalim have it, millennia. Pappenheim arrives at the same place from the other side: one who has returned home no longer moves toward anything, so shabbos as cessation grows out of returning, and a captive is forced into that same stillness.
Mecklenburg holds that seven's cyclical importance is embedded in creation, since the week answers to no astronomical cycle as day, month, and year do; he points to the seven musical notes, and Rabbi Moshe Zuriel to the seven colors of the rainbow, to which the article adds the seven visible planets, the seven letters that take a dagesh, and the seven openings of the head (Sefer Yetzirah 4:3), while granting that notes and colors could be divided otherwise. The Shelah closes the theme: Hashem made the world in six days and rested on the seventh to teach a man to use his seventy years (Tehillim 90:10) and waste none of them, and the mitzvos built on seven, the seven days of chametz, the seven days of sheva berachos, carry the same reminder.
Rendering guidance
- Sheviis and Shemittah both name the Sabbatical year; keep whichever the source uses rather than standardizing, since the two words say different things about it (see the shemittah entry for the other half of this pair).
- Trap: English "week" absorbs shavua and shabbos both, and in Vayikra 23 the same English word would then render shabbos in two different senses within four pesukim. Follow Onkelos: "the festival day" for the first pair, "weeks" for the second.
- Second trap: shavua in Daniel and in Sanhedrin 5:1 is seven years, not seven days. Check what is being counted before writing "week."
- Shevuah is "oath," not "vow"; neder is the vow (see the neder/shevuah entry). Where a derashah turns on shevuah and sheva together, keep the Hebrew, since no English pair carries it. Where sheva or shivasayim means "many," say "many"; writing "seven" imports an arithmetic the sources deny.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "The Year of Seven (Part 2 of 2)," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 20 Iyar 5782 (2022-05-21): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/9694-the-year-of-seven-part-2-of-2.md. Part 1, "The Year of Slipping Away," treats shemittah and its neighbours. Primary loci the article cites: Bereishis 4:24, 21:23-33, 24:9, 29:27-28; Shemos 23:11; Vayikra 12:5, 23:11, 23:15-16, 25:2-8, 25:20, 26:18, 26:24, 26:28, 26:34-35; Bamidbar 30:3; Devarim 6:13, 10:20, 15:12, 16:9; Mishlei 24:16; Tehillim 90:10 (the article prints 90:19); Daniel 4:24, 9:25-27, 10:2-3; Nechemiah 10:32; Divrei HaYamim II 15:11-15, 36:21; Shevuos 36a; Pesachim 12a, 86a; Moed Katan 12a; Sotah 44a; Bava Metzia 110b; Sanhedrin 97a; Sefer Yetzirah 4:2-3; Sefer HaChinuch mitzvah 330; the mishnayos listed above for shabbos as week and shavua as a seven-year cycle. The Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon's account of the oath, which the article quotes, is omitted here under the Orthodox-sources rule.