Months
Page 4
Just as the six working days of each week were enclosed between set-apart-for-rest-and-instruction-and-worship Sabbaths, so the four weeks of each month were enveloped between the New Moon days which marked the transition from one month to the next. Never was a month to pass unnoticed. By setting the first day of each month apart and marking it with personal re-consecration and rest and instruction, every individual realized that a mile-marker had been passed, a chapter closed, and a new experience opened. These clearly separated portions of time allowed for everyone to identify their successes and correct their errors before they had become excessive and highly damaging.
The people of ancient Israel were accustomed to gaining individual and family spiritual instruction on their Sabbaths and New Moons, just as they gained national spiritual instruction at their annual gatherings. Like the weekly Sabbaths, the New Moons served as monthly Sabbaths--times set aside each month for rest, restoration, family bonding, and increased understanding of Yehuveh and His ways.
The passage of Ezekiel 46:1-3 assures us of special spiritual understanding if we cease our work and gather to Yehuveh on these days. “Thus saith Yehuveh Elohim; The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the Sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened. . . . Likewise the people of the land shall worship at the door of this gate before Yehuveh in the Sabbaths and in the new moons.”
The fact that for so long we have neither known about nor kept these gathering days clearly explains our ignorance and low spiritual estate. Not having gathered for instruction, “Therefore My people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.” “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee,. . . seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy Elohim, I will also forget thy children.” Isaiah 5:13; Hosea 4:6.
If we are serious about returning to Yehuveh and having our captivity end, we must be intensely serious about learning His system of time-keeping. New Moons, Sabbaths, and annual festivals are still our lifeline to instruction.
Months are Measured in Whole Days
Astronomically measured, a new-moon to new-moon month averages twenty-nine and a half days, sometimes presented in technical writings as an average of 29.53 or 29.530588853 days. However, none of us live our lives in half-days, and Yehuveh therefore presents the months as either twenty-nine or thirty days, depending on the appearance of the crescent New Moon each month. Since four seven-day weeks total twenty-eight days, the additional day or two in the month provide the New Moon days that give us monthly Sabbaths. Coupled with the final Sabbath of each four-week cycle, Yehuveh provides us with a two- or a three-day rest in the transition to the next month. These extended times for rest and study are precious days to spend with Yehuveh and provide great benefit to both our physical health and our spiritual and overall prosperity!
In a delightful section of Solomon Gandz’s book Studies in Hebrew Astronomy and Mathematics, [first published as a series of articles in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, then republished in book form in 1970 by KTVA Publishing House, Inc., New York, pp. XIII-XIV, Introduction.] we find this explanation: “We thus have three units of reckoning time, the day, the month, and the year. Unfortunately, the month does not consist of a whole number of days and the year does not consist of a whole number of months or of days. Furthermore, the number of days from one New Moon to another is not fixed, but varies from month to month. . . . We are thus faced with a . . . problem—to determine the length of a given month . . . The construction of the calendar in Jewish law . . . was always to take the month as a whole number of days, either 29 or 30. . . . ‘How do you know that you don’t reckon hours for months? Because it says (Numbers 11.20) “until a month of days,” you reckon days for months and you don’t reckon hours for months.’”
Gael Bataman
Originally Written: 28 August 2005
Latest Update: 11 November 2009
Return to Zadok Home Continue . . . Return One Page Go to Section 5: Time
Go to Historical Calendar Go to Daniel 11-12 Go to Revelation Go to Years of Returning (Darius)