Did you know? The French Created a 10-day week — but it was a disaster!

Time didn’t exist before God created it. Consider the week. 7 days! How odd. Who created a 7 day week, and why? We see that God created the 7-day week in Genesis. In fact the week was established in the very beginning. The entire first chapter of Genesis and then ending at the beginning of chapter 2 describes the very first week. The 7-day week was set by God and ordained by Him from the very beginning. A “week” is, by definition, 7-days long.

During the French revolution, the New Republic of France decided to do away with Royalty (which included Royalty’s “God” and that included God’s 7-day week). The French replaced the 7-day week with what they called 10-day “décades.” Their reasoning was that the kings and queens had proclaimed laws that mandated the seventh day to be devoted to God. They reasoned that if royalty demanded it then it should be done-away with. In France the God-made 7-day week took a hiatus and the 10-day week took it’s place.

The new system was decimal-ised utilizing increments of 10. The French gave the newly created days of the week new names as well as the 30-day months. This new system, however, only allowed for 360 days! They then annexed the final 5 or 6 leftover days at the end of the year as supplementary days.

The problem with changing the week to 10 days became plain soon enough. People were expected to work all 10 days a “week.” Eventually they were exhausted. As it turns out people need a day of rest! (see Genesis 2:1–3) What’s more is that they were confused. Historians tells us that by the time the 10-day week experiment ended 13 years later, the people were relieved. Apparently they never got used to the new changes.

The Republic created the 10-day décades beginning September 22, 1792. That became “Day 1” of time on their new calendars. The re-birth had begun and the French proclaimed their own new beginning. The only problem was that God had already established a beginning (Genesis 1:1) and even a “New” beginning with the birth of Christ.

I should note here that it was Roman Emperor Constantine that is credited with altering the timeline to reflect year number 1 A.D. (Anno Domini=Year of Our Lord) to reflect the birth of Christ. Also it’s good to note that in French revolution fashion recent scholars have made a move to do away with the timeline to reflect God. They call the years before Christ — B.C.E. (Before Common Era) and the years since Christ’s birth as C.E. (Common Era).

The French revolutionaries opted to change the week from 7 to 10 days and it worked for a while. Napoleon grasped power of France in 1799 with a coup in November and eventually proclaimed himself Emperor of France in 1804. To the delight of the French people on September 9, 1805, the French and their “New” Republic returned to the time-tested and original God-created 7-day week under Napoleon’s rule. Note that this was NOT because Napoleon was somehow more sympathetic to God, he wasn’t. He simply realized that the new 10-day décades didn’t work!

Consider that God created time. We can attempt to change His format but it may be to our detriment. Time, in fact, was established by God. It’s His system and it was established by Him at the beginning of time. The seasons, the years, the day/night, and the week. We live in a physical world with its four known space-time dimensions of length, width, height/depth, and TIME. All created by God.

(Patrick Herman is an author, radio announcer for the Pilgrim Radio Network and blogger. He lives with his wife and four kids in Carson City, Nevada).