The following three articles help us understand how to view “times and seasons” according to ancient Hebraic thought. Often when we come to the prophetic there can be a tendency to use modern time lines and understandings. In doing so we can unwittingly undo many of the truths that lay within the original Biblical text, leading us to false prophetic assumptions.

So I present these articles to you for some deeper insight. A bit academic here and there I admit – but this shouldn’t deter us.

Blessed reading,

Peter McArthur

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JEWISH TIME
by Rabbi Maurice Lamm

Jews keep time in a unique way from the rest of the world. Discover why the calendar begins with Creation, the month with the new moon, and the day with sunset.

The major ideas of the Jewish religion, even though they are intangible, are made accessible by being embedded in time. They are celebrated on specific days in a yearly cycle of feast and fast and anchored in space – by palpable substances such as a hut or matzah or candles.

“Anything that can be done at anytime by anybody will be done at no time by nobody.” Judaism preserves the exalted principles and the cataclysmic events of its history through a structured, well-defined, and specifically timed system of practices that it requires of its adherents.

The religious calendar has therefore been referred to as “the catechism of the Jew.”

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THE YEARS

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Ancient peoples started to count their calendar years anew with the reign of each new monarch. When Christianity rose to dominance in the western world, it began to date history from the birth of its own “king,” later according to the Gregorian calendar. Hence, history was divided into BC and AD, before the advent of the king’s birth and in the “year of the lord.” Judaism could not consent to divide history along these lines; it did not divide universal history even to make a fulcrum of Abraham’s or Moses’ birth. Therefore, the Jewish religious calendar was never oriented in this manner.

For many centuries, the Jews counted the years from one event – the formative event of its existence as a people – the Exodus from Egypt. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, that cataclysmic event for a while replaced the use of the Exodus as the inaugural date.

But the sense of the Jew in this regard, which came to expression only after centuries, was that even an event of such magnitude was not critical enough to draw a line through time and to re-start counting world history.

Only one occurrence could serve as a beginning for history: the beginning of history. Judaism determined to count the years of the calendar on a universal scale – from the creation of the universe. But exactly how old is the earth?

Even scientists with their most advanced and exacting instrumentation are sure of only one answer: there can be no precision in this matter. The only method for the Sages was to count the years according to the literal account of creation in the Bible itself.

Hence, what the Hebrew date 5751 implies is 5,751 years of God’s sovereignty over the world according to the counting in Torah, and that is its timeless significance.

But this presented a problem: Jews everywhere were a minority and, while they could count time according to their view, they were living in an alien world where the overwhelming majority differed in this common legal practice. Jews, who resided over the face of the earth, could not ignore the way the world keeps time, the basis of a human being’s daily life. While Judaism is not “of” this world – in the sense that it strives ideally to transcend this world – it is very much “in” this world, and therefore, the Jewish community needed to accommodate its secular calendar to global usage.

As a result, it had to live its secular life according to “the nations” and to divide global history according to the exact dates of the Gregorian calendar. But it could not accommodate itself according to the Christo-centric terms of the historical divide – BC and AD – and referred to them instead as BCE, before the Common Era, and CE, the Common Era.

In Jewish terms then, we are living in 2000 CE; the ancient Temple was destroyed in 70 CE; the Maccabees rebelled in 165 BCE.

The Jewish religious calendar, however, makes no recognition of this secular device, retains its universal format, and continues to count its years on a universal scale – from the beginning of creation.

Jews celebrate the religious New Year, Rosh Hashanah, on the day the Torah considers the day of creation, according to its literal reckoning, the first day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, which usually falls in late September.

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THE MONTHS

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Jews count the months by the moon; western civilization patterns its calendar after the sun. That presents a dilemma. The moon travels more slowly than the sun – by approximately 48 minutes a day. At the beginning of the lunar month, she sets in the west shortly after sunset, and each day 40 to 45 minutes later. She continues to lag further and further behind the sun (each lunar month being 29-1/2 days) until, at the end of 12 months, the year of the moon is 11 days shorter than the year of the sun, every three years losing a full month of time.

This introduces a special predicament for the religious calendar: Passover needs to be celebrated at the vernal equinox – springtime and harvest are its natural hallmarks, the resuscitation of nature coinciding with the redemption of the people. But, if the lunar calendar loses a month every three years, Passover would move further each year and fall successively in every season of the year. That is exactly what happens to the Muslim festival of Ramadan.

The teachers of the Talmud made the adjustment by adding seven leap months (called “Second Adar”) in the course of each 19 year cycle, and thereby ingeniously devised a perpetual calendar that would keep the holidays in the approximate season for which they were originally conceived.

The first day of the lunar month, called Rosh Chodesh, was originally proclaimed by the central court in Jerusalem after the new moon was visually sighted. After the destruction of Jerusalem, Rosh Chodesh was calculated by the astronomical calendar and it determined on which days the holidays fell.

The Torah designates certain days of the month as beginning the holidays. As people cannot manage 29 1/2 day months, some months are 29 and some are 30 days. The 30 day months have two days of Rosh Chodesh, those of 29 days have one day.

In a replaying of the ancient tradition of the court’s proclamation of the New Moon, on the Sabbath prior to Rosh Chodesh the new month’s arrival is now proclaimed during the synagogue service, replete with an announcement of the split second that Rosh Chodesh begins. Jews celebrate Rosh Chodesh primarily by prayers added to the service.

A marvellous Jewish tradition records that Rosh Chodesh, the renewal of the monthly cycle, celebrates womanhood. It is not only a toast to women and a reminder of gratitude due them, but is actually declared a holiday on which women should not work.

This monthly tribute was initiated as a special reward because at Mt. Sinai, unlike the men, women refused to contribute their jewellery to the fashioning of a golden calf — the starkest demonstration by the recently freed slaves of their lack of faith in God and His servant, Moses.

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THE WEEKS

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Jews count the week from Sabbath to Sabbath. The Sabbath is the crown of the week; the crown of Jewish Holy Days; the crown of the Jewish spirit; the crown of the Jewish imagination.

The Sabbath is a Queen. It is a foretaste of the very world-to-come. The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, is the one day holier than the weekly Sabbath and its extraordinary sanctity gained it the appellation “Sabbath of Sabbaths.”

“More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath,” a great writer once said, “The Sabbath has kept the Jews.”

It is so rooted in the human condition that no matter how many societies have tried to uproot it, they could not. Some have simply moved the day: Christians to Sunday, Muslims to Friday. The Sabbath stamps its mark on the individual, on the nation, on the week.

All weekdays lead to the Sabbath. In fact, the days do not have names, only numbers, and these numbers all look to number seven, anticipating the arrival of the seventh day, the Sabbath, Shabbat.

The days from Sunday to Friday are viewed, psychologically as well as physically, as steps leading up to the Shabbat, the “palace in time.” New clothes are worn first on the Shabbat; special foods are prepared for it; important guests are invited to join the family for it; meaningful discussions are delayed until the Shabbat.

Friday, because it of its proximity to the Shabbat virtually loses its own identity; it is simply Erev Shabbat, the threshold of the Shabbat, on which even the most important scholars help in the kitchen.

Following the analogy of weekdays as steps leading up to the holy day, at the close of the Shabbat, Jews experience a precipitous drop of excitement – the Shabbat departs, and life on the lowest rung of the first day of the week has to begin the climb again.

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THE DAYS

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The Jewish day does not begin and end at midnight as does the secular calendar day. Midnight is not a distinguishable astronomic event. In the era before the modern clock, a specific hour of the night could not be precisely known, whereas an hour of the day was easily determined by sighting the location of the sun. Thus, the day had to begin by precise, simple and universally recognized standards. This meant that the day had to be reckoned either from the beginning of night or the beginning of day.

In Jewish time, the day begins with the onset of night (the appearance of the stars) followed by the morning (which technically begins with the appearance of the North Star). According to some Jewish teachers, night and morning begin with sunset and sunrise respectively. For that is how the Torah describes it: “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”

For this reason, the Sabbath begins on Friday night and ends with the appearance of the stars on Saturday night. The same is true for the major holidays such as Passover, Sukkot, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the fast day of Tisha B’Av, and Hanukkah and Purim.

Beginning the day with the night is, in a sense, a metaphor of life itself. Life begins in the darkness of the womb, then bursts into the brightness of the light and eventually settles into the darkness of the grave, which, in turn, is followed by a new dawn in the world-to-come.

Life consists of light and dark: “And there was evening and there was morning.” What we make of time is what counts.

Author Biography:
Rabbi Maurice Lamm is professor at Yeshiva University’s Rabbinical Seminary, and lectures nationally to both Jewish and Christian audiences.

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HEBREW TIME

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The basis of the Hebrew measurement of time was the day and the lunar month, as with the Semites generally. The division of the day into hours was late, probably not common until after the exile, although the sun-dial of Ahaz (2 Kings 20:9; Isaiah 38:8) would scent to indicate some division of the day into periods of some sort, as we know the night was divided, The word used for “hour” is Aramaic she`a’ (sha`ta’), and does not occur in the Old Testament until the Book of Daniel (4:33; 5:5), and even there it stands for an indefinite period for which “time” would answer as well.

1. The Day

The term “day” (yom) was in use from the earliest times, as is indicated in the story of the Creation (Genesis 1). It there doubtless denotes an indefinite period, but is marked off by “evening and morning” in accordance with what we know was the method of reckoning the day of 24 hours, i.e. from sunset to sunset.

2. Night

The night was divided, during pre-exilic times, into three divisions called watches (‘ashmurah, ‘ashmoreth), making periods of varying length, as the night was longer or shorter (Judges 7:19). This division is referred to in various passages of the Old Testament, but nowhere with indication of definite limits (see Psalms 90:4; 119:148; Jeremiah 51:12; Habakkuk 2:1).

In the New Testament we find the Roman division of, etc.). But the use of the word in the indefinite sense, as in the expressions: “day of the Lord,” “in that day,” “the day of judgment,” etc., is far more frequent (see DAY). Other more or less indefinite periods of the day and night are: dawn, dawning of the day, morning, evening, noonday, midnight, cock-crowing or crowing of the cock, break of day, etc.

3. Week

The weekly division of time, or the seven-day period, was in use very early and must have been known to the Hebrews before the Mosaic Law, since it was in use in Babylonia before the days of Abraham and is indicated In the story of the Creation. The Hebrew shabhua`, used in the Old Testament for “week,” is derived from shebha`, the word for “seven.” As the seventh day was a day of rest, or Sabbath (Hebrew shabbath), this word came to be used for “week,” as appears in the New Testament sabbaton, sabbata), indicating the period from Sabbath to Sabbath (Matthew 28:1). The same usage is implied in the Old Testament (Leviticus 23:15; 25:8). The days of the week were indicated by the numerals, first, second, etc., save the seventh, which was the Sabbath. In New Testament times Friday was called the day of preparation (paraskeue) for the Sabbath (Luke 23:54).

4. Month

The monthly division of time was determined, of course, by the phases of the moon, the appearance of the new moon being the beginning of the month, chodhesh. Another term for month was yerach yerach, meaning “moon,” which was older and derived from the Phoenician usage, but which persisted to late times, since it is found in the Aramaic inscriptions of the 3rd century AD in Syria. The names of the months were Babylonian and of late origin among the Hebrews, probably coming into use during and after the Captivity. But they had other names, of earlier use, derived from the Phoenicians, four of which have survived in “Abib,” “Ziv,” “Ethanim” and “Bul.”

5. Year

The Hebrew year (shanah) was composed of 12 or 13 months, the latter being the year when an intercalary month was added to make the lunar correspond with the solar year. As the difference between the two was from ten to eleven days, this required the addition of a month once in about three years, or seven in nineteen years. This month was added at the vernal equinox and was called after the month next preceding, we-’adhar, or the “second Adar.” We do not know when this arrangement was first adopted, but it was current after the Captivity. There were two years in use, the civil and the ritual, or sacred year. The former began in the autumn, as would appear from Exodus 23:16; 34:22, where it is stated that the “feast of ingathering” should be at the end of the year, and the Sabbatic year began in the 7th month of the calendar or sacred year, which would correspond to September-October (Leviticus 25:9). Josephus says (Ant., I, iii, 3) that Moses designated Nican (March-April) as the 1st month of the festivals, i.e. of the sacred year, but preserved the original order of the months for ordinary affairs, evidently referring to the civil year. This usage corresponds to that of the Turkish Empire, where the sacred year is lunar and begins at different seasons, but the financial and political year begins in March O.S. The beginning of the year was called ro’sh ha-shanah, and was determined by the priests, as was the beginning of the month. Originally this was done by observation of the moon, but, later, calculation was employed in connection with it, until finally a system based on accurate calculation was adopted, which was not until the 4th century AD. New-Year was regarded as a festival.

6. Seasons

The return of the seasons was designated by summer and winter, or seed-time and harvest; for they were practically the same. There is, in Palestine, a wet season, extending from October to March or April, and a dry season comprising the remainder of the year. The first is the winter (choreph), and this is the seed-time (zera`), especially the first part of it called yoreh, or the time of the early rain; the second is the summer (qayits, “fruit-harvest,” or qatsir, “harvest”).

Seed-time begins as soon as the early rains have fallen in sufficient quantity to moisten the earth for ploughing, and the harvest begins in some parts, as in the lower Jordan region, near the Dead Sea, about April, but on the high lands a month or two later. The fruit harvest comes in summer proper and continues until the rainy season. “The time when kings go out to war” (2 Samuel 11:1; 1 Kings 20:22) probably refers to the end of the rainy season in Nican.

7. No Era

We have no mention in the Old Testament of any era for time reckoning, and we do not find any such usage until the time of the Maccabees. There are occasional references to certain events which might have served for eras had they been generally adopted. Such was the Exodus in the account of the building of the temple (1 Kings 6:1) and the Captivity (Ezekiel 33:21; 40:1) and the Earthquake (Amos 1:1). Dates were usually fixed by the regnal years of the kings, and of the Persian kings after the Captivity. When Simon the Maccabee became independent of the Seleucid kings in 143-142 or 139-138 BC, he seems to have established an era of his own, if we may attribute to him a series of coins dated by the years “of the independence of Israel” (see 1 Maccabees 13:41 and 15:6 and 10). The Jews doubtless were familiar with the Seleucid era, which began in 312 BC, and with some of the local eras of the Phoenician cities, but we have no evidence that they made use of them. The era of the Creation was not adopted by them until after the time of Christ. This was fixed at 3,830 years before the destruction of the later temple, or 3760 BC.

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COMPUTING THE SACRED BIBLICAL CALENDAR

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The familiar Western calendar is the Gregorian calendar, an adjusted Julian calendar promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, and adopted in Britain and America in 1752. It is essentially a solar calendar, in which one rotation of the Earth around the Sun is one year. There are 12 months in the year, but they have little to do with the rotation of the Moon around the Earth. Gregorian years are 365 or 366 days long. Months are 30 or 31 days, except February, which is 28 days or 29 days in a leap year.

The Biblical calendar is based on both the rotation of the Moon around the Earth and of the Earth around the Sun. In principle, a month starts when a new moon is observed and lasts till the next new moon occurs. Therefore, months are 29 or 30 days long. Years are 12 or 13 months long and approximately align with the Sun.

In Bible times, when two witnesses saw the new moon, then a new month was declared to start at the next sunset. If they saw it too close to sunset for the New Moon rites to be prepared, then the new month was declared to start at sunset on the following day. The decision as to whether there were to be 12 or 13 months in the year depended on the state of the harvest and whether enough lambs had been born for the sacrifices of the Passover observance. It was this calendar that Jesus followed in the New Testament.

Christian-instigated persecution of Jews forced the Jewish authorities to switch to a computed, rather than observed calendar. This computed calendar matched as closely as possible the decision-making process that had been used previously. It is this computed calendar that is now followed by the vast majority of those who wish to observe the Biblical Holy Days.

Suggestions have been made that the computations should be changed, or that observation should again be used. It is clear that adjustments need to be made to the computed calendar in order to keep it synchronized with the sun and moon. But there is no consensus as to how this should be done, and, in the modern world, this needs to be done years in advance. Returning to observation is idyllic, but totally impractical. The modern world requires plans for religious observances to be made months, or even years, in advance. Only a computed calendar permits this. It is clear that just as “the Sabbath was made for man”, so also “the Calendar was made for man.” It is a tool to help us worship God. And an essential feature of a tool is that it must be useful and practical.

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Blessings as you study the Word,

Peter McArthur … www.issachar.org.au

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Zola Levitt discovered an amazing correlation between Biblical (Jewish) Holy Days and the gestation of a human baby, from conception to birth. While preparing for writing a book for new parents, Zola contacted a gynaecologist for some help in understanding gestation.

During that session, the gynaecologist showed him a series of pictures, pointed to the first one (an egg and a sperm) and said, “On the fourteenth day of the first month, the egg appears.”

The statement struck a chord in his Jewish mind because that was the date of Passover. He remembered the roasted egg on his family table every Passover. Now, for the first time, he knew what it meant! Not wanting to lead the gynaecologist off from the subject at hand, he didn’t say anything, but continued to listen.

The gynaecologist continued: “The egg must be fertilized within 24 hours, or it will pass on.” This reminded Zola of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the seed or grain that “fell into the ground and died” in order to produce a harvest, the firstfruits of which was presented to God.

Next, the gynaecologist said, “Within two to six days, the fertilized egg attaches itself to the wall of the womb and begins to grow.” And, sure enough, the Jewish evangelist thought, “The Feast of Firstfruits is observed anywhere from two to six days after Passover!”

Next, he was shown a photo of an embryo showing arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet, toes, a head, eyes, etc. The caption said, “Fifty days.” The gynaecologist continued, “Around the fiftieth day, the embryo takes on the form of a human being. Until then, we don’t know if we have a duck or a tadpole.” Zola thought, “That’s Pentecost!”

The next picture showed the embryo at seven months. The gynaecologist said, “On the first day of the seventh month, the baby’s hearing is developed. For the first time, it can hear and distinguish sounds outside the womb.” Zola knew that was the date for the Jewish Festival of Trumpets.

The gynaecologist continued, “On the tenth day of the seventh month, the haemoglobin of the blood changes from that of the mother, to a self-sustaining baby.” Zola thought, “That’s the Day of Atonement, when the blood was taken into the Holy of holies!”

Next, the gynaecologist said, “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, the lungs become fully developed. If born before then, the baby would have a hard time breathing.” And Zola thought, “That’s the festival of Tabernacles, a time of celebrating the Temple, home of the Shekinah glory or Spirit of God.” In the New Testament, the Greek term pneuma, normally translated as “breath,” is applied to the “Holy Spirit.”

Birth takes place on the tenth day of the ninth month. Eight days after birth, in Jewish families, a son is circumcised. Zola noted that the eight days of Hanukkah are celebrated right on schedule, nine months and ten days after Passover.

No human being could have understood the gestation period 3,500 years ago. The establishment of the Jewish Holy Days was given to Moses by Jehovah, Himself. Its correlation with the human gestation period is not only remarkable; it proves “Intelligent Design.” It proves the existence of an intelligence beyond this world. It proves that there is a Creator God that guides the affairs of man.

On Wednesday, April 19, 2006, Zola Levitt went home to be with the Lord after a battle with lung cancer. The announcement on his website added: “What a soldier’s testimonial — to stay at his post until called away by Yeshua! Happy is the man whose work is his play.”

In giving his testimony, Zola wrote:

“I came to the Lord on March 14, 1971, through the urgings of Campus Crusaders at Indiana University. They challenged me to read the Scriptures, particularly the Book of John. I went by night, like Nicodemus, to the campus director’s home and brought a New Testament bound by itself (what Dr. McCall, our ministry senior theologian refers to as ‘The Amputated Bible’).

“When I read John’s cosmic views of the Lord and the plan of salvation, I realized that I was reading Jewish writing about a Jewish Messiah, and a Jewish way to God. All the Campus Crusaders might have been Gentiles, but I knew Jewish thought when I read it. My prayer of 28 years ago was extremely simple. I said to God, ‘If You’re there, show me.’ An open-minded look at the life I have led since that moment would have to conclude that He has indeed shown me wonders.”

The correlation between the Jewish festivals and the birthing of a baby was just one of those “wonders.”

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…..Peter McArthur

…..The Issachar Ministry

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