The Hebrew Calendar

When Are the Appointed Times?

By David M Rogers

www.BibleTruth.cc

Published: January 2010 - Updated February 2021

Table of Contents

Bereshith 1:16 - Signs For the Times

When is the Sabbath Day?

The New Moon Controversy

Psalm 81:3 - Support for the "Concealed Moon"?

When is the Beginning of the New Year?

Waving the Sheaf of the First Grain Harvested

Counting to Shavuot

The Set-Apart Days of The Seventh Month

Summary

If we wish to understand the times and the seasons as described and discussed in the Bible, our common Gregorian calendar which is used by most of the world is very little help to us.  The Gregorian calendar is based on the cycle of the earth around the sun.  One such cycle is a year.  The year is divided randomly into twelve parts we call months.  And each month is given approximately the same number of days.  Thus, most months consist of thirty or thirty one days, with February being the only exception, having 28 or 29 days, depending on the need to add another day to adjust for the completion of the cycle around the sun.

The biblical times and seasons of Scripture, however, are based on a different method of tracking time.  The biblical Hebrew calendar uses a lunar system consisting of the moon's cycles in addition to the course of the sun.  One complete cycle of the moon constitutes one month.  The reckoning of the year is from the first month in the spring to the next first month of spring (not one complete cycle of the sun).  Thus, the moon cycles add an important element in the time markers in the biblical Hebrew calendar while the sun regulates the markers of time in the Gregorian calendar.

What's wrong with the Gregorian calendar?  Nothing, as long as you have no interest in knowing when Elohim is going to accomplish his works of redemption.  The Gregorian calendar works perfectly fine for the world to keep track of time.  But if you want to know Elohim's schedule of events, you must come to an understanding of his calendar and way of tracking time.

Before moving on - a word of warning to truth seekers and Messianic believers who have already made numerous changes to their beliefs and practices:  As you continue your quest to find the forgotten truths of Scripture, you do not have to "reinvent the wheel" with every teaching, doctrine and detail of the Bible.  We who have come out of the Christian churches to walk with the Master and obey the commandments and truths of the Torah have a tendency to become obsessed with changing everything we think and do.  It can be a thrill to discover the errors we have been taught by our forefathers and find and embrace the truths of the Scriptures.  But, we can also get caught up in making more and more changes (as many have) just for the sake of change and just for the thrill of "coming into more truth."

Not everything we have been taught in the Christian churches is wrong.  Most of us came into a knowledge of our need for the Master and Savior while sitting in a Christian church.  Furthermore, not all of the changes which are being suggested and taught in the Messianic world are good nor Scriptural.  Some of those proposed changes, which are based in faulty methodology and misinterpretation, are being hoisted upon us by people who seek recognition and adulation.  Be careful about the things which you embrace as truth, and make sure that you don't embrace something just because a Messianic rabbi or teacher presents it.  But carefully and thoroughly study the Word of Elohim for yourself before you change the way you walk and worship the Creator of the universe.

Bereshith 1:16 - Signs For the Times

The way Elohim keeps tabs on time is not by the clock on the wall, or by the half life of uranium or by an "atomic clock."  The Creator of heaven and earth placed into our universe the objects which mark times, days and seasons.  These things are revealed by the words which Elohim has spoken and give the details we need to know to understand his set-apart days, times and appointed seasons.

At creation, Elohim established the method by which time would be measured.

And Elohim said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so.  Elohim made two great lights-- the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.  Elohim set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And Elohim saw that it was good.  And there was evening, and there was morning-- the fourth day. (Bereshith 1:14-19)

The two great lights are, of course, the sun in our solar system and the moon which circles the earth.  These two lights provide light upon the earth, and separate day from night.  When the sun rises in the east, bringing forth abundant light, it is "day".  Then after it sets in the west and mostly darkness advances, it is night.  It's not complicated at all.  One only needs to observe what Elohim has established.

That Scripture says, "let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years."  A quick glance at the Hebrew terminology will help us here.  The purpose of the lights is to "be for signs."  The Hebrew word tAa (pronounced ōt), has a range of meanings including sign, mark, token, ensign, standard, miracle, miraculous sign, proof, warning.  Probably the most useful of these meanings for our context is standard.  That is to say, Elohim has established the standard by which time is measured.  And that standard is the movements of the sun and the moon.

The second Hebrew term we need to know is d[eAm (pronounced mō-ĕd).  According to the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, this word means appointed sign, appointed time, appointed season, place of assembly, set feast.  This is the word which identifies the appointments of Yahuwah which are set-apart times.  Our word moed comes from the root word d[y (pronounced ya-ad).  Ya-ad means appoint, betrothe, assemble, meet, set.  The appointed times are those days when Yahuwah wants to meet with his betrothed people.  The sun and the moon establish when those times are.

The "days and years" need little explanation.  The day is regulated by the visibility and light of the sun.  And the years are roughly one rotation of the earth around the sun.  The beginning point of a year is a point of controversy which we will discuss in detail below.  And the beginning point of a month is also debated by students of Scripture.  But the first appointed time is the seventh day Sabbath.

When is the Sabbath Day?

Traditionally, the biblical Sabbath Day is the seventh day of every week.  The calendar merely cycles continuously with six working days followed by the seventh day Sabbath of rest.  However, in some Messianic congregations, a new method of "calculating" the Sabbath day is becoming popular.  This new view maintains that the Sabbath day is the seventh day of each week in the lunar month, but that the "counting" resets following the first day of each month.

How this works out is that the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th of every month is a Sabbath day.  But each lunar month has 29 or 30 days.  So instead of counting - 29...30...1...2...3...4...5 - the 5th being the seventh day in sequence and thus the Sabbath day, this lunar Sabbath view resets the count on the first of each month.  So, after the Sabbath day of the 29th of the month, the next Sabbath day will be eight or nine days later because of the resetting of the count on the first day of the month!

Do the Scriptures teach the "lunar Sabbath" as the proper way to observe the Sabbath commandment?  Or is the traditional view the correct interpretation of the Instructions of the Bible regarding the Sabbath day?   I believe the traditional counting to seven cycle is the biblical way.  I am not going to get into a great deal of detail refuting the lunar Sabbath theory, but I will present a few Scriptures and some basic reasons why the traditional way of reckoning is preferred.

First, the seventh day Sabbath is presented very early in the Bible.  In the account of creation, Elohim is separating and forming heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in it, the land and all the vegetation and animals on it.  Then it tells us that after six days of building our environment that Elohim ceased from all the work of his hands on the seventh day:

The New Moon Controversy

In the Bible, the word translated into English as month or new moon is the Hebrew vd,xo (pronounced hōdĕsh).  The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT) tells us this word means new moon, month, mating season.  This word comes from the Hebrew root vd;x which means renew, make anew, repair.  Thus the Hebrew word for new can also mean new month, or just month.

Though the Bible speaks of the new month or new moon, it does not explicitly tell us how the new moon is determined.  It is easy to identify a full moon.  Just look in the sky and when the moon is a full circle, its "full"!  But, for some reason, there are several different opinions regarding when the new moon and the new month begins.

Astronomers regard the new moon as that time when the sun illuminates the exact opposite side of the moon that is visible from the earth.  This "astronomical new moon" is also known as the "darkened moon" or the "unilluminated moon."  It occurs at its conjunction with the sun as seen from earth.  At this time, the darkened side of the moon faces earth, so the moon cannot be seen from earth.  The astronomical new moon  is considered the "new moon" on most English calendars and the Chinese calendar.

The advantage of the astronomical new moon theory is that if we use this method, we can always know in advance, using a calculation, when the new moon will occur.  It is neat and clean, and flawless, because the Creator designed faithfulness in the skies.  But, the calculation to figure out the exact moment of conjunction is not so simple.

The crazy extremes people can go to to calculate the exact time of the astronomical new moon is illustrated by the entry for "new moon" in Wikipedia, where "an approximate formula" is given to calculate any new moon:

Well, that's pretty complex, wouldn't you say?  I'm quite sure the ancient Israelites didn't have to pull out the slide rule to figure out when the next new moon would occur!  But they weren't ignorant of the patterns in the sky either.  Through practice and observation, one can pretty accurately know within minutes when the conjunction occurs.

I once embraced this theory of reckoning the new moon.  Later, I rejected this theory when I thought the first sliver sighting is the new moon.  Then again, I changed my mind and embraced the conjunction moon, which is the view I now hold.  My reason for this belief is based in large part on Psalm 81:

Sound the ram's horn at the New Moon, and when the moon is full, on the day of our Feast; this is a decree for Yisrael, an ordinance of the Elohim of Ya'acov. (Psalm 81:3-4)

The Hebrew for the phrase "the moon is full" is the word ceseh, which comes from the word which means to cover.  One way to read this scripture is to see a parallel between New Moon and covering.  So, it seems, the New Moon is a covered or concealed moon.

I also reasoned that since each moon cycle is a little more than twenty nine days long, and since Chag haMatzot and Chag haSukkot begin on the full moon of their respective months which is exactly in the middle of the month on the fifteenth of the month, and since the new moon must be exactly half way between its surrounding full moons - or a little more than fourteen and one half days before the full moon, then astronomically speaking, exactly half way between full moons is the hidden moon!  That's it.

The Hebrew word for new, as we have already pointed out, is vd,xo (pronounced hōdĕsh).  And hodesh means to renew, make anew, repair.  To renew is the same as to restore to existence, to regenerate, to rebuild, to replenish.  Certainly, the hidden moon has not yet begun to rebuild or to replenish.  But from the time of conjunction, it begins to regenerate and rebuild.

The other view held by many good people is that the new moon is the moon when first visible to the naked eye following the darkened moon.  The visible new moon crescent is first seen low in the western sky chasing the sun near sunset.  This is thought by some to be the ancient understanding of "new moon" and this meaning is embraced in modern times by the Muslim calendar, some Hebrew calendars, the Hindu calendars and the Buddhist calendar.

The Scriptures do not tell us that the new moon is when you see the first sliver.  Opponents of this view point out this fact and conclude that it must be the incorrect way of determining the new moon.  And they sarcastically ridicule this method.  But the Scriptures don't actually say anything to us about how to reckon a new moon.  So, we could throw back the same argument at the adherents of the "darkened moon" theory.  Really, we are left without an instruction in the Torah about how to define a new moon.  We are left to use a little common sense.

One objection to the sighted sliver new moon theory is that sometimes there are obstructive clouds overhead prohibiting us from seeing the first sliver in the evening sky.  And what if there is heavy cloud cover for several evenings in a row while we're looking for the first sliver?  Does that mean the previous month could be 31, 32 or 33 days in length?

The solution to this dilemma is to simply use some common sense: if the sliver is not visible in the sky on any evening 30 days after the previous new moon, then the next evening is the new moon, whether seen or not, because no month can have more than 30 days.  Then, the next month, the search of the skies for the crescent sliver may begin again after 28 days.

Psalm 81:3 - Support for the "Concealed Moon"?

Very little is said in Scripture which helps us understand how the ancients reckoned the new moon.  Psalm 81:3 does perhaps provide a clue.  So, therefore, proponents of both views cite it as supporting their view.  The verse (verse 4 in the Hebrew text), is as follows:

`WnGE)x; ~Ayæl. hs,KeªB;÷ rp"+Av vd<xoåb; W[åq.Ti 4

Literally, this reads, "You (pl.) give a blow on new moon shofar; on full moon for the day of our festival."

Proponents of the hidden moon theory understand that the word  hs,Keª  (ceseh), here translated full moon, actually should be translated something like, "in its hiding."  This, say they, makes ceseh parallel in thought with chodesh (new moon) and indicates by this parallelism that the new moon occurs when the moon is in its hiding.  The basis for this interpretation comes in a study of the root word hsk which can mean to cover, to forgive, to conceal.  Thus, they would translate the verse, "You blow the shofar on the new moon, in it's hiding for the day of our feast."

 Although at first blush Psalm 81:3 seems to be a convincing argument for the concealed moon theory, there are several points the open-minded interpreter needs to consider before he rashly comes to this conclusion.  First, if to cover is really the meaning of our word in Psalm 81, the idea of covering could actually support either of the two views.  The covering could be that of darkness or the covering of the moon could be its cover of sunlight.  Either way, the moon is covered.

Secondly, there are many scholars who see in our word ceseh a connection to words in the sister languages to Hebrew.  Brown, Driver and Briggs Lexicon (BDB) notes that ceseh is likely a cognate of the Aramaic word "Kista" and the Assyrian word "Kuseu" which both mean "full moon."  Accordingly, nearly every lexicon and dictionary lists the primary meaning of the form ceseh as it is here in our text as "full moon."

 The text reads, "...in the ceseh for our Feast."  Now we know that the new moon is never called a festival (Heb. chag) in Torah.  There are only 3 annual festivals in the Hebrew calendar.  The festivals of the first and seventh month occur at the time of the full moon, and the Feast of Shavuot occurs somewhere near the beginning of the third month.  It would make no sense if the passage were translated, "Blow the shofar at the new moon; at the Hidden moon for our Feast," because there is no Feast of Yahuwah at the time of the new moon!  So the only possible rendering of Psalm 81:3 is as follows:

Blow the shofar at the new moon;

At the full moon (ceseh) for our Feast.

Therefore, the word ceseh is not describing the new moon, it is describing the full moon.  This makes better sense because we know the shofar is blown at the new moon and we know that the shofar is also blown on the first day of the Feasts of the first and seventh months on the Hebrew calendar, which occur at the full moon.  Thus, ceseh in our verse is referring to the full moon, or the covering of the moon with sunlight, because this is when "our Feast" happens.

When is the Beginning of the New Year?

Now that we know that any month begins with the hidden, conjunction of the moon, we can move on to the question of when the beginning of the new year is.  We will do this by first examining what the Scriptures have to say about this important topic, then we will proceed to answer objections and apparent "problems" the scriptural method of determining a new year presents.

Getting the beginning of the year identified correctly is of paramount importance.  Since Elohim has given us specific days on the Hebrew calendar that are designated as set-apart for his appointments with us, appointments to accomplish the redemption, and since we do not want to miss any of these appointments by even one day, then we must begin the new year precisely at the right time as identified in his Instructions.

The Torah of Elohim does present a very clear word regarding the beginning of the year and the Hebrew calendar.  For those who hold the Bible as being the sure and faithful word of Elohim to mankind, there can be no other criteria for determining the first month of the new year than those which the Scriptures themselves reveal.

In the account of the ten plagues, simple and clear revelation was given to Mosheh:

Yahuwah said to Mosheh and Aharon in Mitzrayim, "This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.  Tell the whole community of Yisrael that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household." (Shemot 12:1-3)

The month in which the Pesach was slaughtered and eaten and in which the sons of Yisrael left Mitzrayim - that month is the first month of the year.  So which month was that?

The Torah identifies precisely what month this was:

Then Mosheh said to the people, "Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Mitzrayim, out of the land of slavery, because Yahuwah brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast.  Today, in the month of the Aviv you are leaving. (Shemot 13:3-4)

The month in which Yisrael left Mitzrayim is called "the month of the Aviv."   In fact, the Torah tells us in four different places that the month of the Aviv is the same month that Yahuwah delivered Yisrael from Mitzrayim.  The second passage where Mosheh is told this is here:

Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of the Aviv, for in that month you came out of Mitzrayim.  (Shemot 23:15)

Again, for a third time, Mosheh is told which month is the month of the Aviv:

Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of the Aviv, for in the month of the Aviv you came out of Mitzrayim. (Shemot 34:18)

And finally, for the fourth time, Mosheh is told that the month of the Aviv is when Yahuwah brought the sons of Yisrael up out of Mitzrayim:

Observe the month of the Aviv and celebrate the Pesach of Yahuwah your Elohim, because in the month of the Aviv he brought you out of Mitzrayim by night. (Devarim 16:1)

It couldn't be clearer that the first month of the year is the month of the Aviv.

Next, we need to understand what the Aviv is.  The BDB identifies the Hebrew byIba' (pronounced aviv) as

1. fresh, young ears of barley; 2. month of ear-forming, or of growing green, Abib, month of Exodus & passover.

TWOT translates our word as barley, and has this to say about it:

Barley. This noun refers to barley that is already ripe, but still soft, the grains of which are eaten either rubbed or roasted... Abib was also the early name (later, Nisan) of the first month of the Jewish calendar (the month of Passover). In that month the barley came to ear.

And the HALOT says aviv is to be identified with

—1. ears (of corn) already ripe, but still soft, to be eaten either crushed or roasted (Dalman Arbeit 2:245, 305), Ex 9:31 Lv 2:14;

—2. bbaÅa'h' vd,xo month of the ears of corn, March-April;

These lexicons of ancient Hebrew are in agreement that aviv has to do with the state of ripeness of the barley ears.

Wikipedia summarizes the meaning of aviv:

While we have given the Wikipedia definition of Aviv, we must understand that Aviv as meaning spring is a modern definition.  But, the sun, moon and stars were given to us to know when the appointed times were to occur.