Year
VIEW:13 DATA:01-04-2020
YEAR.See Time.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
shanah, a repetition, like the Latin annus, "year." Literally, a circle, namely, of seasons, in which the same recur yearly. The 360 day year, 12 months of 30 days each, is indicated in Dan_7:25; Dan_12:7, time (i.e. one year) times and dividing of a time, or 3 1/2 years; the 42 months (Rev_11:2), 1260 days (Rev_5:3; Rev_12:6). The Egyptian vague year was the same, without the five intercalary days. So the year of Noah in Gen_7:11-24; Gen_8:3-4; Gen_8:13; the interval between the 17th day of the second month and the 17th of the seventh month being stated as 150 days, i.e. 30 days in each of the five months. Also between the tenth month, first day, and the first day of the first month, the second year, at least 54 days, namely, 40 + 7 + 7 (oxen. Gen_8:5-6; Gen_8:10; Gen_8:12-13). Hence, we infer a year of 12 months. The Hebrew month at the time of the Exodus was lunar, but their year was solar.
(See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES, on P. Smyth's view of the year marked in the great pyramid). The Egyptian vague year is thought to be as old as the 12th dynasty. (See EGYPT.) The Hebrew religious year began in spring, the natural beginning when all nature revives; the season also of the beginning of Israel's national life, when the religious year's beginning was transferred from autumn to spring, the month Abib or Nisan (the name given by later Hebrew: Exo_12:2; Exo_13:4; Exo_23:15-16; Exo_34:18; Exo_34:22). The civil year began at the close of autumn in the month Tisri, when, the fruits of the earth having been gathered in, the husbandman began his work again preparing for another year's harvest, analogous to the twofold beginning of day at sunrise and sunset. "The feast of ingathering in the end of the year" (Exo_23:16) must refer to the civil or agrarian year.
The Egyptian year began in June at the rise of the Nile. Hebrew sabbatic years and Jubilees were counted from the beginning of Tisri (Lev_25:9-17). The Hebrew year was as nearly solar as was compatible with its commencement coinciding with the new moon or first day of the month. They began it with the new moon nearest to the equinox, yet late enough to allow of the firstfruits of barley harvest being offered about the middle of the first month. So Josephus (Ant. 3:10, section 5) states that the Passover was celebrated when the sun was in Aries. They may have determined their new year's day by observing the heliacal or other star risings or settings marking the right time of the solar year (compare Jdg_5:20-21; Job_38:31). They certainly after the captivity, and probably ages before, added a 13th month whenever the 12th ended too long before the equinox for the offering of the firstfruits to be made at the time fixed. (See JUBILEE.)
In Exo_23:10; Deu_31:10; Deu_15:1, the sabbatical year appears as a rest to the land (no sowing, reaping, planting, pruning, gathering) in which its ownership was in abeyance, and its chance produce at the service of all comers. Debtors were released from obligations for the year, except when they could repay without impoverishment (Deu_15:2-4). Trade, handicrafts, the chase, and the care of cattle occupied the people during the year. Education and the reading of the law at the feast of tabernacles characterized it (Deu_31:10-13). The soil lay fallow one year out of seven at a time when rotation of crops and manuring were unknown; the habit of economizing grain was fostered by the institution (Gen_41:48-56).
Israel learned too that absolute ownership in the land was Jehovah's alone, and that the human owners held it in trust, to be made the most of for the good of every creature which dwelt upon it (Lev_25:23; Lev_25:1-7; Lev_25:11-17; Exo_23:11, "that the poor may eat, and what they leave the beasts," etc.). The weekly sabbath witnessed the equality of the people as to the covenant with Jehovah. The Jubilee year witnessed that every Israelite had an equal claim to the Lord's land, and that the hired servant, the foreigner, the cattle, and even wild beasts, had a claim. The whole thus indicates what a blessed state would have followed the Sabbath of Paradise, had not sin disturbed all. During 70 Sabbath years, i.e. 490, the period of the monarchy, the Sabbath year was mainly slighted, and so 70 years' captivity was the retributive punishment (2Ch_36:20-21; Lev_26:34-35; Lev_26:43).
Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar exempted the Jews from tribute on the sabbatical year (Josephus Ant. 11:8, section 6, 14:10, section 6; compare 16, Section 2; 15:1, section 2; compare also under Antiochus Epiphanes, 1Ma_4:49); the institution has no parallel in the world's history, and would have been submitted to by no people except under a divine revelation. The day of atonement on which the sabbatical year was proclaimed stood in the same relation to the civil year that the Passover did to the religious year. The new moon festival of Tisri is the only one distinguished by peculiar observance, which confirms the view that the civil year began then. The Hebrew divided the year into "summer and winter "(Gen_8:22; Psa_74:17; Zec_14:8), and designated the earth's produce as the fruits of summer (Jer_8:20; Jer_40:10-12; Mic_7:1).
Abib "the month of green ears" commenced summer; and the seventh month, Ethanim, "the month of flowing streams," began winter. The 'atsereth or "concluding festival" of the feast of tabernacles closed the year (Lev_23:34). Both the spring feast in Abib and the autumn feast in Ethanim began at the full moon in their respective months. (See MONTH; SABBATICAL YEAR; JUBILEE.) The observances at the beginning festival of the religious year resemble those at the beginning festival of the civil year. The Passover lamb in the first month Abib corresponds to the atonement goats on the tenth of Tisri, the seventh month. The feast of unleavened bread from the 15th to the gist of Abib answers to the feast of tabernacles from the 15th to 22nd of Tisri. As there is a Sabbath attached to the first day as well as to the seventh, so the first and the seventh month begin respectively the religious and the civil year.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
Year. The highest ordinary division of time. Two years were known to, and apparently used by, the Hebrews.
1. A year of 360 days appears to have been in use in Noah's time.
2. The year used by the Hebrews from the time of the Exodus maybe said to have been then instituted, since a current month, Abib, on the 14th day of which the first Passover was kept, was then made the first month of the year.
The essential characteristics of this year can be clearly determined, though we cannot fix those of any single year. The year was essentially solar for the offering of productions of the earth, first-fruits, harvest produce and ingathered fruits, was fixed to certain days of the year, two of which were in the periods of great feasts, the third itself a feast reckoned from one of the former days. But it is certain that the months were lunar, each commencing with a new moon. There must, therefore, have been some method of adjustment. The first point to be decided is how the commencement of each gear was fixed.
Probably, the Hebrews determined their new year's day by the observation of heliacal or other star-risings or settings known to mark the right time of the solar year. It follows, from the determination of the proper new moon of the first month, whether by observation of a stellar phenomenon or of the forwardness of the crops, that the method of intercalation can only have been that in use after the captivity, ? the addition of a thirteenth month whenever the twelfth ended too long before the equinox for the offering of the first-fruits to be made at the time fixed.
The later Jews had two commencements of the year, whence it is commonly but inaccurately said that they had two years, the sacred year and the civil year. We prefer to speak of the sacred and civil reckonings. The sacred reckoning was that instituted at the Exodus, according to which the first month was Abib; by the civil reckoning, the first month was the seventh. The interval between the two commencements was thus exactly half a year.
It has been supposed that the institution at the time of the Exodus was a change of commencement, not the introduction of a new year, and that thenceforward the year had two beginnings, respectively at about the vernal and the autumnal equinox. The year was divided into ?
i. Seasons. Two seasons are mentioned in the Bible, "summer" and "winter." The former properly means the time of cutting fruits, the latter that, of gathering fruits; they are therefore originally rather summer and autumn than summer and winter. But that they signify ordinarily, the two grand divisions of the year, the warm and cold seasons, is evident from their use for the whole year in the expression "summer and winter." Psa_74:17; Zec_14:18.
ii. Months. See Months.
iii. Weeks. See Weeks.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
The Hebrews had always years, of twelve months each. But at the beginning, and in the time of Moses, these were solar years, of twelve months; each having thirty days, except the twelfth, which had thirty-five. We see, by the reckoning that Moses gives us of the days of the deluge, Genesis vii, that the Hebrew year consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days. It is supposed that they had an intercalary month at the end of one hundred and twenty years; at which time the beginning of their year would be out of its place full thirty days. But it must be owned, that no mention is made in Scripture of the thirteenth month, or of any intercalation. It is not improbable that Moses retained the order of the Egyptian year, since he himself came out of Egypt, was born in that country, had been instructed and brought up there, and since the people of Israel, whose chief he was, had been for a long time accustomed to this kind of year. But the Egyptian year was solar, and consisted of twelve months of thirty days each, and that for a very long time before. After the time of Alexander the Great, and the reign of the Grecians in Asia, the Jews reckoned by lunar months, chiefly in what related to religion, and the order of the festivals. St. John, in his Revelation, Rev_11:2-3; Rev_12:6; Rev_12:14; Rev_13:5, assigns but twelve hundred and sixty days to three years and a half, and consequently just thirty days to every month, and just three hundred and sixty days to every year. Maimonides tells us, that the years of the Jews were solar, and their months lunar. Since the completing of the Talmud, they have made use of years that are purely lunar, having alternately a full month of thirty days, and then a defective month of twenty-nine days. And to accommodate this lunar year to the course of the sun, at the end of three years their intercalate a whole month after Adar; which intercalated month they call Ve-adar, or the second Adar.
The beginning of the year was various among different nations: the ancient Chaldeans, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Armenians, and Syrians, began their year about the vernal equinox; and the Chinese in the east, and Latins and Romans in the west, originally followed the same usage. The Egyptians, and from them the Jews, began their civil year about the autumnal equinox. The Athenians and Greeks in general began theirs about the summer solstice; and the Chinese, and the Romans after Numa's correction, about the winter solstice. At which of these the primeval year, instituted at the creation, began, has been long contested among astronomers and chronologers. Philo, Eusebius, Cyril, Augustine, Abulfaragi, Kepler, Capellus, Simpson, Lange, and Jackson, contend for the vernal equinox; and Josephus, Scaliger, Petavius, Usher, Bedford, Kennedy, &c, for the autumnal. The weight of ancient authorities, and also of argument, seems to preponderate in favour of the former opinion.
1. All the ancient nations, except the Egyptians, began their civil year about the vernal equinox: but the deviation of the Egyptians from the general usage may easily be accounted for, from a local circumstance peculiar to their country; namely, that the annual inundation of the Nile rises to its greatest height at the autumnal equinox.
2. Josephus, the only ancient authority of any weight on the other side, seems to be inconsistent with himself, in supposing that the deluge began in the second civil month, Dius, or Markeshvan, rather than in the second sacred month; because Moses, throughout the Pentateuch, uniformly adopts the sacred year; and fixes its first month by an indelible and unequivocal character, calling it Abib, as ushering in the season of green corn. And as Josephus calls the second month elsewhere Artemisius, or Iar, in conformity with Scripture, there is no reason why he should deviate from the same usage in the case of the deluge.
3. To the authority of Josephus, we may oppose that of the great Jewish antiquary, Philo, in the generation before him; who thus accounts for the institution of the sacred year by Moses: This month, Abib, being the seventh in number and order according to the sun's course, or civil year, reckoned from the autumnal equinox is virtually the first, and is therefore called the first month' in the sacred books. And the reason, I think, is this: because the vernal equinox is the image and representative of the original epoch of the creation of the world. Thereby God notified the spring, in which all things bloom and blossom, to be an annual memorial of the world's creation. Wherefore this month is properly called the first in the law, as being the image of the first original month, stamped upon it, as it were, by that archetypal seal.
4. The first sacrifice on record seems to decide the question. The time of the sacrifice of Cain and Abel appears to have been spring; when Cain, who was a tiller of the ground, brought the first fruits of his tillage, or a sheaf of new corn; and Abel, who was a feeder of sheep, the firstlings of his flock, lambs: and this was done at the end of days, or at the end of the year; which is the correct meaning of the phrase מקצ ימים , and not the indefinite expression, in process of time, Gen_4:3. It is a remarkable proof of the accuracy of Moses, and a confirmation of this expression, that he expresses the end of the civil year, or ingathering of the harvest, by different phrases, בצאת השנה , at the going out of the year, Exo_23:16; and תקופת השנה , at the revolution of the year, Exo_34:22; as those phrases may more critically be rendered.
But, in process of time, it was found that the primeval year of three hundred and sixty days was shorter than the tropical year; and the first discovery was, that it was deficient five entire days, which therefore it was necessary to intercalate, in order to keep up the correspondence of the civil year to the stated seasons of the principal festivals. How early this discovery and intercalation was made, is nowhere recorded. It might have been known and practised before the deluge. The apocryphal book of Enoch, which probably was as old as the Septuagint translation of the Pentateuch, stated that the archangel Ariel, president of the stars, discovered the nature of the month and of the year to Enoch, in the one hundred and sixty-fifth year of his age, and A.M. 1286. And it is remarkable, that Enoch's age at his translation, three hundred and sixty- five years, expressed the number of entire days in a tropical year. This knowledge might have been handed down to Noah and his descendants; and that it was early communicated indeed to the primitive Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Chinese, we learn from ancient tradition.
This article would be rendered too prolix were we to notice the various inventions of eminent men in different ages to rectify the calendar by adjusting the difference between lunar and tropical years; which at length was effected by Gregory XIII, in 1583. This Gregorian, or reformed Julian year, was not adopted in England until A.D. 1751, when, the deficiency from the time of the council of Nice then amounting to eleven days, this number was struck out of the month of September, by act of parliament; and the third day was counted the fourteenth, in that year of confusion.
The next year, A.D. 1752, was the first of the new style. Russia is the only country in Europe which retains the old style.
The civil year of the Hebrews has always begun at autumn, at the month they now call Tisri, which answers to our September, and sometimes enters into October, according as the lunations happen. But their sacred years, by which the festivals, assemblies, and all other religious acts, were regulated, begin in the spring, at the month Nisan, which answers to March, and sometimes takes up a part of April, according to the course of the moon. See MONTHS.
Nothing is more equivocal among the ancients, than the term year. It always has been, and still is, a source of disputes among the learned, whether on account of its duration, its beginning, or its end. Some people heretofore made their year consist only of one month, others of four, others of six, others of ten, and others of twelve. Some have divided one of our years into two, and have made one year of winter, another of summer. The beginning of the year was fixed sometimes at autumn, sometimes at the spring, and sometimes at midwinter. Some people have used lunar months, others solar. Even the days have been differently divided: some people beginning them at evening, others at morning, others at noon, and others at midnight. With some the hours were equal, both in winter and summer; with others, they were unequal. They counted twelve hours to the day, and as many to the night. In summer the hours of the day were longer than those of the night; but, on the contrary, in winter the hours of the night were longer than those of the day.
While the Jews continued in the land of Canaan, the beginnings of their months and years were not settled by any astronomical rules or calculations, but by the phasis, or actual appearance of the new moon. When they saw the new moon, they began the month. Persons were therefore appointed to watch on the tops of the mountain for the first appearance of the moon after the change. As soon as they saw it, they informed the sanhedrim, and public notice was given by lighting beacons throughout the land; though after they had been often deceived by the Samaritans, who kindled false fires, they used, say the Mishnical rabbins, to proclaim its appearance by sending messengers. Yet as they had no months longer than thirty days, if they did not see the new moon the night following the thirtieth day, they concluded the appearance was obstructed by the clouds, and, without watching any longer, made the next day the first of the following month. But after the Jews became dispersed through all nations, where they had no opportunity of being informed of the first appearance of the new moon, as they formerly had, they were forced to make use of astronomical calculations and cycles for fixing the beginning of their months and years. The first cycle they made use of for this purpose was of eighty-four years. But that being discovered to be faulty, they came afterward into the use of Meto's cycle of nineteen years, which was established by the authority of Rabbi Hillel Hannasi, or prince of the sanhedrim, about A.D. 360. This they still use, and say it is to be observed till the coming of the Messiah. In the compass of this cycle there are twelve common years, consisting of twelve months, and seven intercalary years, consisting of thirteen months. We find the Jews and their ancestors computing their years from different eras, in different parts of the Old Testament; as, from the birth of the patriarchs, for instance, of Noah, Gen_7:11; Gen_8:13; afterward from their exit out of Egypt, Num_33:38; 1Ki_6:1; then from the building of Solomon's temple, 2Ch_8:1; and from the reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel. In latter times the Babylonish captivity furnished them with a new epocha, from whence they computed their years, Eze_33:21; Eze_40:1. But since the times of the Talmudical rabbins, they have constantly used the era of the creation.
There is not a more prolific source of confusion and embarrassment in ancient chronology, than the substitution of the cardinal numbers, one, two, three, for the ordinals, first, second, third, &c, which frequently occurs in the sacred and profane historians. Thus Noah was six hundred years old when the deluge began, Gen_7:6; and presently after, in his six hundredth year: confounding complete and current years. And the dispute whether A.D. 1800, or A.D. 1801, was the first of the nineteenth century, should be decided in favour of the latter; the former being in reality the last of the eighteenth century; which is usually, but improperly, called the year one thousand eight hundred, complete; whereas it is really the one thousandth, eight hundredth; as in Latin we say, Anno Domini millesimo octingentesimo. There is also another and a prevailing error, arising from mistranslation of the current phrases, μεθ' ημερας οκτω, μετα τρεις ημερας, &c, usually rendered, after eight days, after three days, &c; but which ought to be rendered eight days after, three days after, as in other places, μετα τινας ημερας, μετ' ου πολλας ημερας, which are correctly rendered some days after, not many days after, in our English Bible, Act_15:36; Luk_15:13, the extreme days being included. Such phrases seem to be elliptical, and the ellipsis is supplied, Luk_9:28, speaking of our Lord's transfiguration, μετα τους λογους τουτους, ωσει ημεραι οκτω: After these sayings, about eight days, or rather about the eighth day, counted inclusively; for in the parallel passages, Mat_17:1, Mar_9:2, there are only six days, counted exclusively, or omitting the extremes. Thus, circumcision is prescribed, Gen_17:11, when the child is eight days old; but in Lev_12:3, on the eighth day. And Jesus accordingly was circumcised, οτε επλησθησαν ημεραι οκτω, when eight days were accomplished, Luk_2:21; whereas John the Baptist, τη ογδοη ημερα, on the eighth day. The last, which was the constant usage, explains the meaning of the former. This critically reconciles our Lord's resurrection, μετα τρεις ημερας, three days after, according to Mat_27:63; Mar_8:31; with his resurrection, τη τριτη ημερα, on the third day, according to Mat_16:21; Luk_9:22; and according to fact: for our Lord was crucified on Good Friday, about the third hour; and he arose before sunrise, πρωι, early, on Sunday; so that the interval, though extending through three calendar days current, did not in reality amount to two entire days, or forty-eight hours. This phraseology is frequent among the most correct classic writers. Some learned commentators, Beza, Grotius, Campbell, Newcome, render such phrases, within eight days, within three days; which certainly conveys the meaning, but not the literal translation, of the preposition μετα, after. In memory of the primeval week of creation, revived among the Jews, after their departure from Egypt, their principal festivals, the passover, pentecost, and tabernacles, lasted a week each. They had weeks of seven years a piece, at the term of which was the sabbatical year; as also weeks of seven times seven years, that were terminated by the year of jubilee; and finally weeks of seven days. And it is remarkable that, from the earliest times, sacrifices were offered by sevens. Thus, in the patriarch Job's days, seven bullocks and seven rams were offered up for a burnt offering of atonement, by the divine command, Job_42:8. The Chaldean diviner, Balaam, built seven altars, and prepared seven bullocks and seven rams, Num_23:1. And the Cumaean sibyl, who came from Chaldea, or Babylonia, gives the same directions to AEneas, that Balaam did to Balak:
Nunc grege de intacto septem mactare juvencos
Praestiterit, totidem lectas, de more, bidentes.
Seven bullocks, yet unyoked, for Phoebus choose, And for Diana seven unspotted ewes. DRYDEN.
And when the ark was brought home by David, the Levites offered seven bullocks and seven rams, 1Ch_15:26. And hence we may account for the peculiar sanctity of the seventh day, among the older Heathen writers, even after the institution of the Sabbath fell into disuse, and was lost among them.
THE FALLOW or SABBATIC YEAR. Agricultural labour among the Jews ceased every seventh year. Nothing was sown and nothing reaped; the vines and the olives were not pruned; there was no vintage and no gathering of fruits, even of what grew wild; but whatever spontaneous productions there were, were left to the poor, the traveller, and the wild beast, Lev_25:1-7; Deu_15:1-10. The object of this regulation seems to have been, among others, to let the ground recover its strength, and to teach the Hebrews to be provident of their income and to look out for the future. It is true, that extraordinary fruitfulness was promised on the sixth year, but in such a way as not to exclude care and foresight, Lev_25:20-24. We are not to suppose, however, that the Hebrews spent the seventh year in absolute idleness: they could fish, hunt, take care of their bees and flocks, repair their buildings and furniture, manufacture cloths of wool, linen, and of the hair of goats and camels, and carry on commerce. Finally, they were obliged to remain longer in the tabernacle or temple this year, during which the whole Mosaic law was read, in order to be instructed in religious and moral duties, and the history of their nation, and the wonderful works and blessings of God, Deu_31:10-13. This seventh year's rest, as Moses predicted, Lev_26:34-35, was for a long time neglected, 2Ch_36:21; after the captivity it was more scrupulously observed.
As a period of seven days was every week completed by the Sabbath, so was a period of seven years completed by the sabbatic year. It seems to have been the design of this institution, to afford a longer opportunity than would otherwise have been enjoyed for impressing on the memory the great truth, that God the Creator is alone to be worshipped. The commencement of this year was on the first day of the seventh month, Tishri, or October. During the continuance of the feast of tabernacles this year, the law was to be publicly read for eight days together, either in the tabernacle or temple, Deu_31:10-13. Debts, on account of there being no income from the soil, were not collected, Deu_15:1-2; they were not, however, cancelled, as was imagined by the Talmudists, for we find in Deu_15:9, that the Hebrews are admonished not to deny money to the poor on account of the approach of the sabbatical year; during which it could not be exacted; but nothing farther than this can be deduced from that passage, Nor were servants manumitted on this year, but on the seventh year of their service, Exo_21:2; Deu_15:12; Jer_34:14.
THE YEAR OF JUBILEE followed seven sabbatic years; it was on the fiftieth year, Lev_25:8-11. To this statement agree the Jews generally, their rabbins, and the Caraites; and say farther, that the argument of those who maintain that it was on the forty-ninth, for the reason that the omission to till the ground for two years in succession, namely, the forty- ninth and fiftieth, would produce a famine, is not to be attended to. It is not to be attended to, simply because these years of rest being known long beforehand, the people would of course lay up provision for them. It may be remarked farther in reference to this point, that certain trees produced their fruits spontaneously, particularly the fig and sycamore, which yield half the year round, and that those fruits could be preserved for some months; which explains at once how a considerable number of the people might have obtained no inconsiderable portion of their support. The return of the year of jubilee was announced on the tenth day of the seventh month, or Tishri, October, being the day of propitiation or atonement, by the sound of trumpet, Lev_25:8-13; Lev_27:24; Num_36:4; Isa_61:1-2. Beside the regulations which obtained on the sabbatic year, there were others which concerned the year of jubilee exclusively:
1. All the servants of Hebrew origin on the year of jubilee obtained their freedom, Lev_25:39-46; Jer_34:7, &c.
2. All the fields throughout the country, and the houses in the cities and villages of the Levites and priests which had been sold on the preceding years, were returned on the year of jubilee to the sellers, with the exception of those which had been consecrated to God, and had not been redeemed before the return of the said year, Lev_25:10; Lev_25:13-17; Lev_25:24-28; Lev_27:16-21.
3. Debtors, for the most part, pledged or mortgaged their lands to the creditor, and left it to his use till the time of payment, so that it was in effect sold to the creditor, and was, accordingly, restored to the debtor on the year of jubilee. In other words, the debts for which land was pledged were cancelled; the same as those of persons who had recovered their freedom after having been sold into slavery, on account of not being able to pay. Hence it usually hppened in the later periods of Jewish history, as we learn from Josephus, that, at the return of jubilee, there was a general cancelling of debts.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
yēr (שׁנה, shānāh, Aramaic שׁנה, shenah, ?a return? (of the sun), like the Greek ἐνιαυτός, eniautós; ימים, yāmı̄m, ?days,? is also used for ?year,? and the Greek ἡμέραι, hēmérai, corresponds to it (Jos_13:1; Lk 17, 18); ἔτος, étos, is also employed frequently in the New Testament; for the difference between etos and eniautos, see Grimm-Thayer, under the word): The Hebrew year was solar, although the month was lunar, the adjustment being made in intercalation. See ASTRONOMY; TIME.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
The Hebrew year consisted of twelve unequal months, which, previously to the exile, were lunar. The twelve solar months made up only 354 days, constituting a year too short by no fewer than eleven days. This deficiency would have soon inverted the year, and could not have existed even for a short period of time without occasioning derangements and serious inconvenience to the Hebrews, whose year was so full of festivals. At an early day, then, we may well believe a remedy was provided for this evil. The course which the ancients pursued is unknown, but Ideler (Chronol. i. 490) may be consulted for an ingenious conjecture on the subject. The later Jews intercalated a month every two or every three years, taking care, however, to avoid making the seventh an intercalated year. The supplementary month was added at the termination of the sacred year, the twelfth month (February and March), and as this bore the name of Adar, so the interposed month was called Veadar, or Adar the Second. The year, as appears from the ordinary reckoning of the months (Lev_23:34; Lev_25:9; Num_9:11; 2Ki_25:8; Jer_39:2; comp. 1Ma_4:52; 1Ma_10:21), began with the month Nisan (Est_3:7), agreeably to an express direction given by Moses (Exo_12:2; Num_9:1). This commencement is generally thought to be that of merely the ecclesiastical year; and most Jewish, and many Christian authorities, hold that the civil year originally began, as now, with the month Tisri. The ancient Hebrews possessed no such thing as a formal and recognized era. Their year and their months were determined and regulated, not by any systematic rules of astronomy, but by the first view or appearance of the moon. In a similar manner they dated from great national events, as the departure from Egypt (Exo_19:1; Num_33:38; 1Ki_6:1); from the ascension of monarchs, as in the books of Kings and Chronicles; or from the erection of Solomon's temple (1Ki_8:1; 1Ki_9:10); and at a later period, from the commencement of the Babylonish captivity (Eze_33:21; Eze_40:1). When they became subjects of the Graeco-Syrian Empire they adopted the Seleucid era, which began with the year B.C. 312, when Seleucus conquered Babylon.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
(שָׁנָה, shanah, lit. repetition, kindred with שֵׁנַי, second; ἔτος), the highest ordinary division of time, marked by the solar revolutions of the seasons. SEE TIME.
I. Years, properly so called. Two years were known to, and apparently used by, the Hebrews. SEE CALENDAR.
1. A year of 360 days, containing 12 months of 30 days each, is indicated by certain passages in the prophetical Scriptures. The time, times, and a half, of Daniel (Dan_7:25; Dan_12:7), where "time" (Ch. עַדָּן, Heb. מוֹעֵד) means "year," evidently represent the same period as the 42 months (Rev_11:2) and 1260 days of the Revelation (Rev_11:3; Rev_12:6), for 360 x 3.5 = 1260, and 30 x 42=1260. This year perfectly corresponds to the Egyptian Vague year, without the five intercalary days. It appears to have been in use in Noah's time, or at least in the time of the writer of the narrative of the flood, for in that narrative the interval from the 17th day of the 2d month to the 17th day of the 7th of the same year appears to be stated to be a period of 150 days (Gen_7:11; Gen_7:24; Gen_8:3-4; comp. Gen_8:13), and, as the 1James , 2 d, 7th, and 10th months of one year are mentioned (Gen_7:11; Gen_8:4-5; Gen_8:13-14), the 1st day of the 10th month of this year being separated from the 1st day of the 1st month of the next year by an interval of at least 54 days (Gen_8:5-6; Gen_8:10; Gen_8:12-13), we can only infer a year of 12 months. Ideler disputes the former inference, arguing that as the water first began to sink after 150 days (and then had been fifteen cubits above all high mountains), it must have sunk for some days ere the ark could have rested on Ararat, so that the second date must have been more than 150 days later than the first (Handbuch, 1:69, 70, 478, 479). This argument depends upon the meaning of the expression high mountains, and upon the height of "the mountains of Ararat," upon which the ark rested (Gen_8:4), and we are certainly justified by Shemitic usage, if we do not consider the usual inference of the great height attained by the flood to be a necessary one (Genesis of the Earth and of Man_1:2 d ed. pages 97, 98). The exact correspondence of the interval mentioned to 5 months of 30 days each, and the use of a year of 360 days, or 12 such months, by the prophets, the latter fact overlooked by Ideler, favor the idea that such a year is here meant, unless, indeed, one identical with the Egyptian Vague year, of 12 months of 30 days and 5 intercalary days. The settlement of this question depends upon the nature and history of these years, and our information on the latter subject is not sufficiently certain to enable us to do more than hazard a conjecture.
A year of 360 days is the rudest known. It is formed of 12 spurious lunar months, and was probably the parent of the lunar year of 354 days, and the Vague year of 365. That it should have continued any time in use would be surprising were it not for the convenient length of the months. The Hebrew year, from the time of the Exodus, as we shall see, was evidently lunar, though in some manner rendered virtually solar, and we may therefore infer that the lunar year is as old as the date of the Exodus. As the Hebrew year was not an Egyptian year, and as nothing is said of its being new, save in its time of commencement, it was perhaps earlier in use among the Israelites, and either brought into Egypt by them or borrowed from Shemite settlers.
The Vague year was certainly in use in Egypt in as remote an age as the earlier part of the 12th dynasty (cir. 2000 B.C.), and there can be no reasonable doubt that it was there used at the time of the building of the Great Pyramid (cir. 2350 B.C.). The intercalary days seem to be of Egyptian institution, for each of them was dedicated to one of the great gods, as if the innovation had been thus made permanent by the priests; and perhaps rendered popular as a series of days of feasting and rejoicing. The addition would, however, date from a very early period, that of the final settlement of the Egyptian religion.
As the lunar year and the Vague year run up parallel to so early a period as that of the Exodus, and the former seems to have been then Shemitic, the latter then, and for several centuries earlier, Egyptian; and probably of Egyptian origin, we may reasonably conjecture that the former originated from a year of 360 days in Asia, the latter from the same year in Africa, this primitive year having been used by the Noachians before their dispersion.
2. The year used by the Hebrews from the time of the Exodus may be said to have been then instituted, since a current month, Abib, on the 14th day of which the first Passover was kept, was then made the first month of the year. The essential characteristics of this year call be clearly determined, though we cannot fix those of any single year. It was essentially solar, for the offerings of productions of the earth, first-fruits, harvest-produce, and ingathered fruits were fixed to certain days of the year, two of which were in the periods of great feasts, the third itself a feast reckoned from one of the former days. It seems evident that the year was made to depend upon these times, and it may be observed that such a calendar would tend to cause thankfulness for God's good gifts, and would put in the background the great luminaries which the heathen worshipped in Egypt and in Canaan. Though the year was thus essentially solar, it is certain that the months were lunar, each commencing with a new moon. There must, therefore, have been some method of adjustment. The first point to be decided is how the commencement of each year was fixed.
On the 16th day of Abib ripe ears of corn were to be offered as first-fruits of the harvest (Lev_2:14; Lev_23:10-11): this was the day on which the sickle was begun to be put to the corn (Deu_16:9), and no doubt Josephus is right in stating that until the offering of first-fruits had been made no harvest-work was to be begun (Ant. 3:10, 5). He also states that ears of barley were offered (ibid.). That this was the case, and that the ears were the earliest ripe, is evident from the following circumstances. The reaping of barley commenced the harvest (2Sa_21:9), that of wheat following, apparently without any considerable interval (Rth_2:23).
On the day of Pentecost thanksgiving was offered for the harvest, and it was therefore called the Feast of Harvest. It was reckoned from the commencement of the harvest, on the 16th day of the 1st month. The 50 days must include the whole time of the harvest of both wheat and barley throughout Palestine. According to the observations of modern travellers, barley is ripe, in the warmest parts of Palestine, in the first days of April. The barley-harvest, therefore, begins about half a month or less after the vernal equinox. Each year, if solar, would thus begin at about that equinox, when the earliest ears of barley must be ripe. As, however, the mouths were lunar, the commencement of the year must have been fixed by a new moon near this point of time. The new moon must have been that which fell about or next afte'r the equinox, not more than a few days before, on account of the offering of first-fruits. Ideler, whose observations on this matter we have thus far followed, supposes that the new moon was chosen by observation of the forwardness of the barley-crops in the warmer parts of the country (Handbuch, 1: 490). But such a method would have caused confusion on account of the different times of the harvest in different parts of Palestine; and in the period of the Judges there would often have been two separate commencements of the year in regions divided by hostile tribes, and in each of which the Israelitish population led an existence almost independent of any other branch.
It is more likely that the Hebrews would have determined their new-year's day by the observation of heliacal or other star-risings or settings known to mark the right time of the solar year. By such a method the beginning of any year could have been fixed a year before, either to one day, or, supposing the month-commencements were fixed by actual observation, within a day or two. We need not doubt that the Israelites were well acquainted with such means of marking the periods of a solar year. In the ancient Song of Deborah we read how "They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river. the river Kishon" (Jdg_5:20-21), The stars that marked the times of rain are thus connected with the swelling of the river in which the fugitive Canaanites perished. So, too, we read how the Lord demanded of Job, "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Kimah, or loose the bands of Kesil?" (Job_38:31). "The best and most fertilizing of the rains," in Palestine and the neighboring lands, save Egypt, "fall when the Pleiades set at dawn (not exactly heliacally), at the end of autumn; rain scarcely ever falling at the opposite season, when Scorpio sets at dawn."
That Kimah signifies the Pleiades does not admit of reasonable doubt, and Kesil, as opposite to it, would be Scorpio, being identified with Cor Scorpionis by Aben-Ezra. Therefore it cannot be questioned that the Israelites, even during the troubled time of the Judges, were well acquainted with the method of determining the seasons of the solar year by observing the stars. Not alone was this the practice of the civilized Egyptians, but, at all times of which we know their history, of the Arabs, and also of the Greeks in the time of Hesiod, while yet their material civilization and science were rudimentary. It has always been the custom of pastoral and scattered peoples, rather than of the dwellers in cities; and if the Egyptians be thought to form an exception, it must be recollected that they used it at a period not remote from that at which their civilization came from the plain of Shinar.
It follows, from the determination of the proper new moon of the 1st month, whether by observation of a stellar phenomenon, or of the forwardness of the crops, that the method of intercalation can only have been that in use after the captivity, the addition of a 13th month whenever the 12th ended too long before the equinox for the offering of the first- fruits to be made at the time fixed. This method is in accordance with the permission granted to postpone the celebration of the Passover for one month in the case of any one who was legally unclean, or journeying at a distance (Num_9:9-13); and there is a historical instance in the case of Hezekiah, of such a postponement, for both reasons, of the national celebration (2Ch_30:1 to 2Ch_3:15). Such a practice as that of an intercalation varying in occurrence is contrary to Western usage; but the like prevails in all Moslem countries in a far more inconvenient form in the case of the commencement of every month. The day is determined by actual observation of the new moon, and thus a day is frequently unexpectedly added to or deducted from a month at one place, and months commence on different days at different towns in the same country. The Hebrew intercalation, if determined by stellar phenomena, would not be liable to a like uncertainty, though such may have been the case with the actual day of the new moon.
The later Jews had two commencements of the year, whence it is commonly but inaccurately said that they had two years, the sacred year and the civil. We prefer to speak of the sacred and civil reckonings. Ideler admits that these reckonings obtained at the time of the second temple. The sacred reckoning was that instituted at the Exodus, according to which the 1st month was Abib; by the civil reckoning the 1st month was the 7th. The interval between the two commencements was thus exactly half a year. It has been supposed that the institution at the time of the Exodus was a change of commencement, not the introduction of a new year, and that thenceforward the year had two beginnings, respectively at about the vernal and the autumnal equinoxes.
The former supposition is a hypothesis, the latter may almost be proved. The strongest point of evidence as to two beginnings of the year from the time of the Exodus, strangely unnoticed in this relation by Ideler, is the circumstance that the sabbatical and jubilee years commenced in the 7th month, and no doubt on the 10th day of the 7th month, the Day of Atonement (Lev_25:9-10), and as this year immediately followed a sabbatical year, the latter must have begun in the same manner. Both were full years, and therefore must have commenced on the 1st day. The jubilee year was proclaimed on the 1st day of the month, the Day of Atonement standing in the same relation to its beginning, and perhaps to the civil beginning of the year, as did the Passover to the sacred beginning. This would be the most convenient, if not the necessary commencement of a year of total cessation from, the labors of agriculture, as a year so commencing would comprise the whole round of such occupations in regular sequence from seed-time to harvest, and from harvest to vintage and gathering of fruit. The command as to both years, apart from the mention of the Day of Atonement, clearly shows this, unless we suppose, but this is surely unwarrantable, that the injunction in the two places in which it occurs follows the regular order of the seasons of agriculture (Exo_23:10-11; Lev_25:3-4; Lev_25:11), but that this was not intended to apply in the case of the observance. Two expressions, used with reference to the time of the Feast of Ingathering, on the 15th day of the 7th month, must be here noticed. This feast is spoken of as הִשָׁנָה בַּצֵאת, "in the going out" or "end of the year" (Exo_23:16), and as תְּקוּפִת הִשָׁנָה[at] the change of the year" (Exo_34:22), the latter a vague expression, so far as we can understand it, but quite consistent with the other, whether indicating the turning-point. of a natural year, or the half of the year by the sacred reckoning..
The rabbins use the term תְּקוּפָהto designate the commencement of each of the four seasons into which they divide the year (Handbuch, 1:550, 551). Our view is confirmed by the similarity of the 1st and 7th months as to their observances the one containing the Feast of Unleavened Bread, from the 15th to the 21st inclusive; the other, that if Tabernacles, from the 15th to the 22d. Evidence in the same direction is found in the special sanctification of the 1st day of the 7th month, which. in the blowing of trumpets resembles the proclamation of the jubilee year on the Day of Atonement. We therefore hold that from the time of the Exodus. there were two beginnings of the year, with the 1st of the 1st and the 1st of the 7th month, the former being the sacred reckoning, the latter, used for the operations of agriculture, the civil reckoning. In Egypt, in the present day, Moslems use the lunar year for their religious observances, and for ordinary affairs, except those of agriculture, which they regulate by the Coptic Julian year.
3. We must here notice here theories of the derivation of the Hebrew year from the Egyptian Vague year, as they are connected with the tropical point or points and agricultural phenomena, by which the former was regulated. The Vague year was commonly used by the Egyptians; and from it only. if from an Egyptian year, is the Hebrew likely to have been derived. Two theories have been formed connecting the two years at the Exodus.
(1) Some hold that Abib, the 1st month of the Hebrew year by the sacred reckoning, was the Egyptian Epiphi, called in Coptic, Epepi, and in Arabic, by the modern Egyptians; Abib, or Ebib, the 11th month of the Vague year. The similarity of sound is remarkable, but it must be remembered that the Egyptian name is derived from that of the goddess of the month, PEP- T or APAP-T (?) whereas the Hebrew name has the ense of an ear of corn, a green ear," and is derived from the unused root אָבִב, traceable in אֵב, "verdure," Chaldee, אֵב, "fruit," Arabic, ab, "green fodder." Moreover, the Egyptian P is rarely, if ever, represented by the Hebrew ב, and the converse is not common. Still stronger evidence is afforded by the fact that we find in Egyptian the root AB, "a nosegay," which is evidently related to Abib and its cognates. Supposing, however, that the Hebrew. calendar was formed by fixing the Egyptian Epiphi as the 1st month, what would be the chronological result?
The latest date to which the Exodus is assigned is about 1320 B.C. In the Julian year 1320 B.C., the month Epiphi of the Egyptian Vague year commenced May 16, 44 days after the day of the vernal equinox, April 2, very near which the Hebrew year must have begun. Thus, at the latest date of the Exodus, there is an interval of a month and a half between the beginning of the Hebrew year and Epiphi 1. This interval represents about 180 years, through which the Vague year would retrograde in the Julian until the commencement of Epiphi corresponded to the vernal equinox, and no method can reduce it below 100. It is possible to effect thus much by conjecturing that the month Abib began somewhat after this tropical point, though the precise details of the state of the crops at the time of the plagues, as compared with the phenomena of agriculture in Lower Egypt at the present day, make half a month an extreme extension. At the time of the plague of hail the barley was in the ear and was smitten, with the flax, but the wheat was not sufficiently forward to be destroyed (Exo_9:31-32). In Lower Egypt, at the present day, this would be the case about the end of February and beginning of March. The Exodus cannot have taken place many days after the plague of hail, so that it must have occurred about or a little after the time of the vernal equinox, and thus Abib cannot possibly have begun much after that tropical point half a month is therefore excessive. We have thus carefully examined the evidence as to the supposed derivation of Abib from Epiphi, because it has been carelessly taken for granted, and more carelessly alleged in support of the latest date of the Exodus.
(2) We have founded an argument for the date of the Exodus upon another comparison of the Hebrew year and the Vague year. We have seen that the sacred commencement of the Hebrew year was at the new moon about or next after, but not much before, the vernal equinox the civil commencement must usually have been at the new moon nearest the autumnal equinox. At the earliest date of the Exodus computed by modern chronologers, about the middle of the 17th century B.C., the Egyptian Vague year commenced at or about the latter time. The Hebrew year, reckoned from the civil commencement, and the Vague year, therefore, then nearly or exactly coincided. We have already seen that the Hebrews in Egypt, if they used a foreign year, must be supposed to have used the Vague year. It is worth while to inquire whether a Vague year of this time would further suit the characteristics of the first Hebrew year. It would be necessary that the 14th day of Abib, on which fell the full moon of the Passover of the Exodus, should correspond to the 14th of Phamenoth, in a Vague year commencing about, the autumnal equinox. A full moon fell on the 14th of Phamenoth, or Thursday, April 21, 1652 B.C., of a Vague year commencing on the day of the autumnal equinox, October 10, 1653 B.C. A full moon would not fall oil the same day of the Vague year within a shorter interval than twenty-five years, and the triple near coincidence of new moon, Vague year, and autumnal equinox would not recur in less than fifteen hundred Vague years (Encyclop. Brit. 8th. ed. "Egypt," page 458). This date of the Exodus, 1652 B.C., is only four years earlier than Hales's, 1648 B.C., and only six years later than that adopted in this Cyclopcedia, 1658 B.C. In confirmation of this early date, it must be added that in a list of confederates defeated by Thothmes III at Megiddo, in the twenty-third year of his reign, are certain names that we believe can only refer to Israelitish tribes. The date of this king's accession cannot be later than about 1460 B.C., and his twenty-third year cannot therefore be later than about 1440 B.C. Were the Israelites then settled in Palestine, no date of the Exodus but the longest would be tenable. SEE CHRONOLOGY.
I Divisions of the Year.
1. Seasons. Two seasons are mentioned in the Bible, קִיַוֹ, "summer," and חֹרֶ" winter." The former properly means the time of cutting fruits, the latter, that of gathering fruits; they are therefore, originally, rather summer and autumn than summer and winter. But that they signify ordinarily the two grand divisions of the year, the warm and cold seasons, is evident from their use for the whole year in the expression קִיַוֹ וָחֹרֶ, summer and winter" (Psa_74:17; Zec_14:8; perhaps Gen_8:22), and from the mention of "the winter house" (Jer_36:22) and "the summer house " (Amo_3:15, where both are mentioned together). Probably חֹרֶ, when used without reference to the year (as in Job_29:4), retains its original signification. In the promise to Noah, after the flood, the following remarkable passage occurs: "While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease" (Gen_8:22). Here "seed-time, זֶרִע, and "harvest," קָצַיר, are evidently the agricultural seasons. It seems unreasonable to suppose that they mean winter and summer as the beginnings of the periods of sowing and of harvest are not separated by six months, and they do not. last for six months each, or nearly so long a time. The phrase "cold and heat," קֹר וָחֹם, probably indicates the great alternations of temperature. The whole passage, indeed, speaks of the alternations of nature, whether of productions, temperature, the seasons, or light and darkness. As we have seen, the year was probably then a wandering one, and therefore the passage is not likely to refer to it, but to natural phenomena alone. SEE SEASON.
2. Months. The Hebrew months, from the time of the Exodus, were lunar. The year appears ordinarily to have contained 12, but when intercalation was necessary, a 13th. The older year contained 12 months of 30 days each. SEE MONTH.
3. Weeks. The Hebrews, from the time of the institution of the Sabbath, whether at or before the Exodus, reckoned by weeks, but, as no lunar year could have contained a number of weeks without a fractional excess, this reckoning was virtually independent of the year as with the Moslems. SEE WEEK.
4. Festivtals, Holy Days, and Fasts. The Feast of the Passover was held on the 14th day of the 1st month. The Feast of Unleavened Bread lasted 7 days; from the 15th to the 21st; inclusive, of the same month. Its first and last days were kept as Sabbaths. The Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, was celebrated on the day which ended 7 weeks, counted from the 16th of the 1st month, that day being excluded. It was called the Feast of Harvest, and Day of First-fruits. The Feast of Trumpets (lit. "of the sound of the trumpet") was kept as a Sabbath on the 1st day of the 7th month. The Day of Atonement (lit. "of Atonements") was a fast, held the 10th day of the 7th month. The Feast of Tabernacles, or Feast of Gathering, was celebrated from the 15th to the 22d day, inclusive, of the 7th month. Additions made long after the giving of the law, and not known to be of higher than priestly authority, are the Feast of Purim, commemorating the defeat of Haman's plot; the Feast of the Dedication, recording the cleansing and re-dedication of the Temple by Judas Maccabaeus; and four fasts. SEE FESTIVAL.
III. Sacred Years.
1. The Sabbatical year, הִשְׁמַטָּה שְׁנִת, "the fallow year," or, possibly, "year of remission," or שְׁמַטָּהalone, kept every seventh year, was commanded to be observed as a year of rest from the labors of agriculture and of remission of debts. Two Sabbatical years are recorded, commencing and current, 164-3 and 136-5 B.C. SEE SABBATICAL YEAR.
2. The Jubilee Year, שְׁנִת הִיּוֹבֵל, "the year of the trumpet," or יוֹבֵלalone, a like year, which immediately followed every seventh Sabbatical year. It has been disputed whether the jubilee year was every forty-ninth or fiftieth; the former is more probable. SEE JUBILEE.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
shanah, a repetition, like the Latin annus, "year." Literally, a circle, namely, of seasons, in which the same recur yearly. The 360 day year, 12 months of 30 days each, is indicated in Dan_7:25; Dan_12:7, time (i.e. one year) times and dividing of a time, or 3 1/2 years; the 42 months (Rev_11:2), 1260 days (Rev_5:3; Rev_12:6). The Egyptian vague year was the same, without the five intercalary days. So the year of Noah in Gen_7:11-24; Gen_8:3-4; Gen_8:13; the interval between the 17th day of the second month and the 17th of the seventh month being stated as 150 days, i.e. 30 days in each of the five months. Also between the tenth month, first day, and the first day of the first month, the second year, at least 54 days, namely, 40 + 7 + 7 (oxen. Gen_8:5-6; Gen_8:10; Gen_8:12-13). Hence, we infer a year of 12 months. The Hebrew month at the time of the Exodus was lunar, but their year was solar.
(See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES, on P. Smyth's view of the year marked in the great pyramid). The Egyptian vague year is thought to be as old as the 12th dynasty. (See EGYPT.) The Hebrew religious year began in spring, the natural beginning when all nature revives; the season also of the beginning of Israel's national life, when the religious year's beginning was transferred from autumn to spring, the month Abib or Nisan (the name given by later Hebrew: Exo_12:2; Exo_13:4; Exo_23:15-16; Exo_34:18; Exo_34:22). The civil year began at the close of autumn in the month Tisri, when, the fruits of the earth having been gathered in, the husbandman began his work again preparing for another year's harvest, analogous to the twofold beginning of day at sunrise and sunset. "The feast of ingathering in the end of the year" (Exo_23:16) must refer to the civil or agrarian year.
The Egyptian year began in June at the rise of the Nile. Hebrew sabbatic years and Jubilees were counted from the beginning of Tisri (Lev_25:9-17). The Hebrew year was as nearly solar as was compatible with its commencement coinciding with the new moon or first day of the month. They began it with the new moon nearest to the equinox, yet late enough to allow of the firstfruits of barley harvest being offered about the middle of the first month. So Josephus (Ant. 3:10, section 5) states that the Passover was celebrated when the sun was in Aries. They may have determined their new year's day by observing the heliacal or other star risings or settings marking the right time of the solar year (compare Jdg_5:20-21; Job_38:31). They certainly after the captivity, and probably ages before, added a 13th month whenever the 12th ended too long before the equinox for the offering of the firstfruits to be made at the time fixed. (See JUBILEE.)
In Exo_23:10; Deu_31:10; Deu_15:1, the sabbatical year appears as a rest to the land (no sowing, reaping, planting, pruning, gathering) in which its ownership was in abeyance, and its chance produce at the service of all comers. Debtors were released from obligations for the year, except when they could repay without impoverishment (Deu_15:2-4). Trade, handicrafts, the chase, and the care of cattle occupied the people during the year. Education and the reading of the law at the feast of tabernacles characterized it (Deu_31:10-13). The soil lay fallow one year out of seven at a time when rotation of crops and manuring were unknown; the habit of economizing grain was fostered by the institution (Gen_41:48-56).
Israel learned too that absolute ownership in the land was Jehovah's alone, and that the human owners held it in trust, to be made the most of for the good of every creature which dwelt upon it (Lev_25:23; Lev_25:1-7; Lev_25:11-17; Exo_23:11, "that the poor may eat, and what they leave the beasts," etc.). The weekly sabbath witnessed the equality of the people as to the covenant with Jehovah. The Jubilee year witnessed that every Israelite had an equal claim to the Lord's land, and that the hired servant, the foreigner, the cattle, and even wild beasts, had a claim. The whole thus indicates what a blessed state would have followed the Sabbath of Paradise, had not sin disturbed all. During 70 Sabbath years, i.e. 490, the period of the monarchy, the Sabbath year was mainly slighted, and so 70 years' captivity was the retributive punishment (2Ch_36:20-21; Lev_26:34-35; Lev_26:43).
Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar exempted the Jews from tribute on the sabbatical year (Josephus Ant. 11:8, section 6, 14:10, section 6; compare 16, Section 2; 15:1, section 2; compare also under Antiochus Epiphanes, 1Ma_4:49); the institution has no parallel in the world's history, and would have been submitted to by no people except under a divine revelation. The day of atonement on which the sabbatical year was proclaimed stood in the same relation to the civil year that the Passover did to the religious year. The new moon festival of Tisri is the only one distinguished by peculiar observance, which confirms the view that the civil year began then. The Hebrew divided the year into "summer and winter "(Gen_8:22; Psa_74:17; Zec_14:8), and designated the earth's produce as the fruits of summer (Jer_8:20; Jer_40:10-12; Mic_7:1).
Abib "the month of green ears" commenced summer; and the seventh month, Ethanim, "the month of flowing streams," began winter. The 'atsereth or "concluding festival" of the feast of tabernacles closed the year (Lev_23:34). Both the spring feast in Abib and the autumn feast in Ethanim began at the full moon in their respective months. (See MONTH; SABBATICAL YEAR; JUBILEE.) The observances at the beginning festival of the religious year resemble those at the beginning festival of the civil year. The Passover lamb in the first month Abib corresponds to the atonement goats on the tenth of Tisri, the seventh month. The feast of unleavened bread from the 15th to the gist of Abib answers to the feast of tabernacles from the 15th to 22nd of Tisri. As there is a Sabbath attached to the first day as well as to the seventh, so the first and the seventh month begin respectively the religious and the civil year.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
Year. The highest ordinary division of time. Two years were known to, and apparently used by, the Hebrews.
1. A year of 360 days appears to have been in use in Noah's time.
2. The year used by the Hebrews from the time of the Exodus maybe said to have been then instituted, since a current month, Abib, on the 14th day of which the first Passover was kept, was then made the first month of the year.
The essential characteristics of this year can be clearly determined, though we cannot fix those of any single year. The year was essentially solar for the offering of productions of the earth, first-fruits, harvest produce and ingathered fruits, was fixed to certain days of the year, two of which were in the periods of great feasts, the third itself a feast reckoned from one of the former days. But it is certain that the months were lunar, each commencing with a new moon. There must, therefore, have been some method of adjustment. The first point to be decided is how the commencement of each gear was fixed.
Probably, the Hebrews determined their new year's day by the observation of heliacal or other star-risings or settings known to mark the right time of the solar year. It follows, from the determination of the proper new moon of the first month, whether by observation of a stellar phenomenon or of the forwardness of the crops, that the method of intercalation can only have been that in use after the captivity, ? the addition of a thirteenth month whenever the twelfth ended too long before the equinox for the offering of the first-fruits to be made at the time fixed.
The later Jews had two commencements of the year, whence it is commonly but inaccurately said that they had two years, the sacred year and the civil year. We prefer to speak of the sacred and civil reckonings. The sacred reckoning was that instituted at the Exodus, according to which the first month was Abib; by the civil reckoning, the first month was the seventh. The interval between the two commencements was thus exactly half a year.
It has been supposed that the institution at the time of the Exodus was a change of commencement, not the introduction of a new year, and that thenceforward the year had two beginnings, respectively at about the vernal and the autumnal equinox. The year was divided into ?
i. Seasons. Two seasons are mentioned in the Bible, "summer" and "winter." The former properly means the time of cutting fruits, the latter that, of gathering fruits; they are therefore originally rather summer and autumn than summer and winter. But that they signify ordinarily, the two grand divisions of the year, the warm and cold seasons, is evident from their use for the whole year in the expression "summer and winter." Psa_74:17; Zec_14:18.
ii. Months. See Months.
iii. Weeks. See Weeks.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
The Hebrews had always years, of twelve months each. But at the beginning, and in the time of Moses, these were solar years, of twelve months; each having thirty days, except the twelfth, which had thirty-five. We see, by the reckoning that Moses gives us of the days of the deluge, Genesis vii, that the Hebrew year consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days. It is supposed that they had an intercalary month at the end of one hundred and twenty years; at which time the beginning of their year would be out of its place full thirty days. But it must be owned, that no mention is made in Scripture of the thirteenth month, or of any intercalation. It is not improbable that Moses retained the order of the Egyptian year, since he himself came out of Egypt, was born in that country, had been instructed and brought up there, and since the people of Israel, whose chief he was, had been for a long time accustomed to this kind of year. But the Egyptian year was solar, and consisted of twelve months of thirty days each, and that for a very long time before. After the time of Alexander the Great, and the reign of the Grecians in Asia, the Jews reckoned by lunar months, chiefly in what related to religion, and the order of the festivals. St. John, in his Revelation, Rev_11:2-3; Rev_12:6; Rev_12:14; Rev_13:5, assigns but twelve hundred and sixty days to three years and a half, and consequently just thirty days to every month, and just three hundred and sixty days to every year. Maimonides tells us, that the years of the Jews were solar, and their months lunar. Since the completing of the Talmud, they have made use of years that are purely lunar, having alternately a full month of thirty days, and then a defective month of twenty-nine days. And to accommodate this lunar year to the course of the sun, at the end of three years their intercalate a whole month after Adar; which intercalated month they call Ve-adar, or the second Adar.
The beginning of the year was various among different nations: the ancient Chaldeans, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Armenians, and Syrians, began their year about the vernal equinox; and the Chinese in the east, and Latins and Romans in the west, originally followed the same usage. The Egyptians, and from them the Jews, began their civil year about the autumnal equinox. The Athenians and Greeks in general began theirs about the summer solstice; and the Chinese, and the Romans after Numa's correction, about the winter solstice. At which of these the primeval year, instituted at the creation, began, has been long contested among astronomers and chronologers. Philo, Eusebius, Cyril, Augustine, Abulfaragi, Kepler, Capellus, Simpson, Lange, and Jackson, contend for the vernal equinox; and Josephus, Scaliger, Petavius, Usher, Bedford, Kennedy, &c, for the autumnal. The weight of ancient authorities, and also of argument, seems to preponderate in favour of the former opinion.
1. All the ancient nations, except the Egyptians, began their civil year about the vernal equinox: but the deviation of the Egyptians from the general usage may easily be accounted for, from a local circumstance peculiar to their country; namely, that the annual inundation of the Nile rises to its greatest height at the autumnal equinox.
2. Josephus, the only ancient authority of any weight on the other side, seems to be inconsistent with himself, in supposing that the deluge began in the second civil month, Dius, or Markeshvan, rather than in the second sacred month; because Moses, throughout the Pentateuch, uniformly adopts the sacred year; and fixes its first month by an indelible and unequivocal character, calling it Abib, as ushering in the season of green corn. And as Josephus calls the second month elsewhere Artemisius, or Iar, in conformity with Scripture, there is no reason why he should deviate from the same usage in the case of the deluge.
3. To the authority of Josephus, we may oppose that of the great Jewish antiquary, Philo, in the generation before him; who thus accounts for the institution of the sacred year by Moses: This month, Abib, being the seventh in number and order according to the sun's course, or civil year, reckoned from the autumnal equinox is virtually the first, and is therefore called the first month' in the sacred books. And the reason, I think, is this: because the vernal equinox is the image and representative of the original epoch of the creation of the world. Thereby God notified the spring, in which all things bloom and blossom, to be an annual memorial of the world's creation. Wherefore this month is properly called the first in the law, as being the image of the first original month, stamped upon it, as it were, by that archetypal seal.
4. The first sacrifice on record seems to decide the question. The time of the sacrifice of Cain and Abel appears to have been spring; when Cain, who was a tiller of the ground, brought the first fruits of his tillage, or a sheaf of new corn; and Abel, who was a feeder of sheep, the firstlings of his flock, lambs: and this was done at the end of days, or at the end of the year; which is the correct meaning of the phrase מקצ ימים , and not the indefinite expression, in process of time, Gen_4:3. It is a remarkable proof of the accuracy of Moses, and a confirmation of this expression, that he expresses the end of the civil year, or ingathering of the harvest, by different phrases, בצאת השנה , at the going out of the year, Exo_23:16; and תקופת השנה , at the revolution of the year, Exo_34:22; as those phrases may more critically be rendered.
But, in process of time, it was found that the primeval year of three hundred and sixty days was shorter than the tropical year; and the first discovery was, that it was deficient five entire days, which therefore it was necessary to intercalate, in order to keep up the correspondence of the civil year to the stated seasons of the principal festivals. How early this discovery and intercalation was made, is nowhere recorded. It might have been known and practised before the deluge. The apocryphal book of Enoch, which probably was as old as the Septuagint translation of the Pentateuch, stated that the archangel Ariel, president of the stars, discovered the nature of the month and of the year to Enoch, in the one hundred and sixty-fifth year of his age, and A.M. 1286. And it is remarkable, that Enoch's age at his translation, three hundred and sixty- five years, expressed the number of entire days in a tropical year. This knowledge might have been handed down to Noah and his descendants; and that it was early communicated indeed to the primitive Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Chinese, we learn from ancient tradition.
This article would be rendered too prolix were we to notice the various inventions of eminent men in different ages to rectify the calendar by adjusting the difference between lunar and tropical years; which at length was effected by Gregory XIII, in 1583. This Gregorian, or reformed Julian year, was not adopted in England until A.D. 1751, when, the deficiency from the time of the council of Nice then amounting to eleven days, this number was struck out of the month of September, by act of parliament; and the third day was counted the fourteenth, in that year of confusion.
The next year, A.D. 1752, was the first of the new style. Russia is the only country in Europe which retains the old style.
The civil year of the Hebrews has always begun at autumn, at the month they now call Tisri, which answers to our September, and sometimes enters into October, according as the lunations happen. But their sacred years, by which the festivals, assemblies, and all other religious acts, were regulated, begin in the spring, at the month Nisan, which answers to March, and sometimes takes up a part of April, according to the course of the moon. See MONTHS.
Nothing is more equivocal among the ancients, than the term year. It always has been, and still is, a source of disputes among the learned, whether on account of its duration, its beginning, or its end. Some people heretofore made their year consist only of one month, others of four, others of six, others of ten, and others of twelve. Some have divided one of our years into two, and have made one year of winter, another of summer. The beginning of the year was fixed sometimes at autumn, sometimes at the spring, and sometimes at midwinter. Some people have used lunar months, others solar. Even the days have been differently divided: some people beginning them at evening, others at morning, others at noon, and others at midnight. With some the hours were equal, both in winter and summer; with others, they were unequal. They counted twelve hours to the day, and as many to the night. In summer the hours of the day were longer than those of the night; but, on the contrary, in winter the hours of the night were longer than those of the day.
While the Jews continued in the land of Canaan, the beginnings of their months and years were not settled by any astronomical rules or calculations, but by the phasis, or actual appearance of the new moon. When they saw the new moon, they began the month. Persons were therefore appointed to watch on the tops of the mountain for the first appearance of the moon after the change. As soon as they saw it, they informed the sanhedrim, and public notice was given by lighting beacons throughout the land; though after they had been often deceived by the Samaritans, who kindled false fires, they used, say the Mishnical rabbins, to proclaim its appearance by sending messengers. Yet as they had no months longer than thirty days, if they did not see the new moon the night following the thirtieth day, they concluded the appearance was obstructed by the clouds, and, without watching any longer, made the next day the first of the following month. But after the Jews became dispersed through all nations, where they had no opportunity of being informed of the first appearance of the new moon, as they formerly had, they were forced to make use of astronomical calculations and cycles for fixing the beginning of their months and years. The first cycle they made use of for this purpose was of eighty-four years. But that being discovered to be faulty, they came afterward into the use of Meto's cycle of nineteen years, which was established by the authority of Rabbi Hillel Hannasi, or prince of the sanhedrim, about A.D. 360. This they still use, and say it is to be observed till the coming of the Messiah. In the compass of this cycle there are twelve common years, consisting of twelve months, and seven intercalary years, consisting of thirteen months. We find the Jews and their ancestors computing their years from different eras, in different parts of the Old Testament; as, from the birth of the patriarchs, for instance, of Noah, Gen_7:11; Gen_8:13; afterward from their exit out of Egypt, Num_33:38; 1Ki_6:1; then from the building of Solomon's temple, 2Ch_8:1; and from the reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel. In latter times the Babylonish captivity furnished them with a new epocha, from whence they computed their years, Eze_33:21; Eze_40:1. But since the times of the Talmudical rabbins, they have constantly used the era of the creation.
There is not a more prolific source of confusion and embarrassment in ancient chronology, than the substitution of the cardinal numbers, one, two, three, for the ordinals, first, second, third, &c, which frequently occurs in the sacred and profane historians. Thus Noah was six hundred years old when the deluge began, Gen_7:6; and presently after, in his six hundredth year: confounding complete and current years. And the dispute whether A.D. 1800, or A.D. 1801, was the first of the nineteenth century, should be decided in favour of the latter; the former being in reality the last of the eighteenth century; which is usually, but improperly, called the year one thousand eight hundred, complete; whereas it is really the one thousandth, eight hundredth; as in Latin we say, Anno Domini millesimo octingentesimo. There is also another and a prevailing error, arising from mistranslation of the current phrases, μεθ' ημερας οκτω, μετα τρεις ημερας, &c, usually rendered, after eight days, after three days, &c; but which ought to be rendered eight days after, three days after, as in other places, μετα τινας ημερας, μετ' ου πολλας ημερας, which are correctly rendered some days after, not many days after, in our English Bible, Act_15:36; Luk_15:13, the extreme days being included. Such phrases seem to be elliptical, and the ellipsis is supplied, Luk_9:28, speaking of our Lord's transfiguration, μετα τους λογους τουτους, ωσει ημεραι οκτω: After these sayings, about eight days, or rather about the eighth day, counted inclusively; for in the parallel passages, Mat_17:1, Mar_9:2, there are only six days, counted exclusively, or omitting the extremes. Thus, circumcision is prescribed, Gen_17:11, when the child is eight days old; but in Lev_12:3, on the eighth day. And Jesus accordingly was circumcised, οτε επλησθησαν ημεραι οκτω, when eight days were accomplished, Luk_2:21; whereas John the Baptist, τη ογδοη ημερα, on the eighth day. The last, which was the constant usage, explains the meaning of the former. This critically reconciles our Lord's resurrection, μετα τρεις ημερας, three days after, according to Mat_27:63; Mar_8:31; with his resurrection, τη τριτη ημερα, on the third day, according to Mat_16:21; Luk_9:22; and according to fact: for our Lord was crucified on Good Friday, about the third hour; and he arose before sunrise, πρωι, early, on Sunday; so that the interval, though extending through three calendar days current, did not in reality amount to two entire days, or forty-eight hours. This phraseology is frequent among the most correct classic writers. Some learned commentators, Beza, Grotius, Campbell, Newcome, render such phrases, within eight days, within three days; which certainly conveys the meaning, but not the literal translation, of the preposition μετα, after. In memory of the primeval week of creation, revived among the Jews, after their departure from Egypt, their principal festivals, the passover, pentecost, and tabernacles, lasted a week each. They had weeks of seven years a piece, at the term of which was the sabbatical year; as also weeks of seven times seven years, that were terminated by the year of jubilee; and finally weeks of seven days. And it is remarkable that, from the earliest times, sacrifices were offered by sevens. Thus, in the patriarch Job's days, seven bullocks and seven rams were offered up for a burnt offering of atonement, by the divine command, Job_42:8. The Chaldean diviner, Balaam, built seven altars, and prepared seven bullocks and seven rams, Num_23:1. And the Cumaean sibyl, who came from Chaldea, or Babylonia, gives the same directions to AEneas, that Balaam did to Balak:
Nunc grege de intacto septem mactare juvencos
Praestiterit, totidem lectas, de more, bidentes.
Seven bullocks, yet unyoked, for Phoebus choose, And for Diana seven unspotted ewes. DRYDEN.
And when the ark was brought home by David, the Levites offered seven bullocks and seven rams, 1Ch_15:26. And hence we may account for the peculiar sanctity of the seventh day, among the older Heathen writers, even after the institution of the Sabbath fell into disuse, and was lost among them.
THE FALLOW or SABBATIC YEAR. Agricultural labour among the Jews ceased every seventh year. Nothing was sown and nothing reaped; the vines and the olives were not pruned; there was no vintage and no gathering of fruits, even of what grew wild; but whatever spontaneous productions there were, were left to the poor, the traveller, and the wild beast, Lev_25:1-7; Deu_15:1-10. The object of this regulation seems to have been, among others, to let the ground recover its strength, and to teach the Hebrews to be provident of their income and to look out for the future. It is true, that extraordinary fruitfulness was promised on the sixth year, but in such a way as not to exclude care and foresight, Lev_25:20-24. We are not to suppose, however, that the Hebrews spent the seventh year in absolute idleness: they could fish, hunt, take care of their bees and flocks, repair their buildings and furniture, manufacture cloths of wool, linen, and of the hair of goats and camels, and carry on commerce. Finally, they were obliged to remain longer in the tabernacle or temple this year, during which the whole Mosaic law was read, in order to be instructed in religious and moral duties, and the history of their nation, and the wonderful works and blessings of God, Deu_31:10-13. This seventh year's rest, as Moses predicted, Lev_26:34-35, was for a long time neglected, 2Ch_36:21; after the captivity it was more scrupulously observed.
As a period of seven days was every week completed by the Sabbath, so was a period of seven years completed by the sabbatic year. It seems to have been the design of this institution, to afford a longer opportunity than would otherwise have been enjoyed for impressing on the memory the great truth, that God the Creator is alone to be worshipped. The commencement of this year was on the first day of the seventh month, Tishri, or October. During the continuance of the feast of tabernacles this year, the law was to be publicly read for eight days together, either in the tabernacle or temple, Deu_31:10-13. Debts, on account of there being no income from the soil, were not collected, Deu_15:1-2; they were not, however, cancelled, as was imagined by the Talmudists, for we find in Deu_15:9, that the Hebrews are admonished not to deny money to the poor on account of the approach of the sabbatical year; during which it could not be exacted; but nothing farther than this can be deduced from that passage, Nor were servants manumitted on this year, but on the seventh year of their service, Exo_21:2; Deu_15:12; Jer_34:14.
THE YEAR OF JUBILEE followed seven sabbatic years; it was on the fiftieth year, Lev_25:8-11. To this statement agree the Jews generally, their rabbins, and the Caraites; and say farther, that the argument of those who maintain that it was on the forty-ninth, for the reason that the omission to till the ground for two years in succession, namely, the forty- ninth and fiftieth, would produce a famine, is not to be attended to. It is not to be attended to, simply because these years of rest being known long beforehand, the people would of course lay up provision for them. It may be remarked farther in reference to this point, that certain trees produced their fruits spontaneously, particularly the fig and sycamore, which yield half the year round, and that those fruits could be preserved for some months; which explains at once how a considerable number of the people might have obtained no inconsiderable portion of their support. The return of the year of jubilee was announced on the tenth day of the seventh month, or Tishri, October, being the day of propitiation or atonement, by the sound of trumpet, Lev_25:8-13; Lev_27:24; Num_36:4; Isa_61:1-2. Beside the regulations which obtained on the sabbatic year, there were others which concerned the year of jubilee exclusively:
1. All the servants of Hebrew origin on the year of jubilee obtained their freedom, Lev_25:39-46; Jer_34:7, &c.
2. All the fields throughout the country, and the houses in the cities and villages of the Levites and priests which had been sold on the preceding years, were returned on the year of jubilee to the sellers, with the exception of those which had been consecrated to God, and had not been redeemed before the return of the said year, Lev_25:10; Lev_25:13-17; Lev_25:24-28; Lev_27:16-21.
3. Debtors, for the most part, pledged or mortgaged their lands to the creditor, and left it to his use till the time of payment, so that it was in effect sold to the creditor, and was, accordingly, restored to the debtor on the year of jubilee. In other words, the debts for which land was pledged were cancelled; the same as those of persons who had recovered their freedom after having been sold into slavery, on account of not being able to pay. Hence it usually hppened in the later periods of Jewish history, as we learn from Josephus, that, at the return of jubilee, there was a general cancelling of debts.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
yēr (שׁנה, shānāh, Aramaic שׁנה, shenah, ?a return? (of the sun), like the Greek ἐνιαυτός, eniautós; ימים, yāmı̄m, ?days,? is also used for ?year,? and the Greek ἡμέραι, hēmérai, corresponds to it (Jos_13:1; Lk 17, 18); ἔτος, étos, is also employed frequently in the New Testament; for the difference between etos and eniautos, see Grimm-Thayer, under the word): The Hebrew year was solar, although the month was lunar, the adjustment being made in intercalation. See ASTRONOMY; TIME.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
The Hebrew year consisted of twelve unequal months, which, previously to the exile, were lunar. The twelve solar months made up only 354 days, constituting a year too short by no fewer than eleven days. This deficiency would have soon inverted the year, and could not have existed even for a short period of time without occasioning derangements and serious inconvenience to the Hebrews, whose year was so full of festivals. At an early day, then, we may well believe a remedy was provided for this evil. The course which the ancients pursued is unknown, but Ideler (Chronol. i. 490) may be consulted for an ingenious conjecture on the subject. The later Jews intercalated a month every two or every three years, taking care, however, to avoid making the seventh an intercalated year. The supplementary month was added at the termination of the sacred year, the twelfth month (February and March), and as this bore the name of Adar, so the interposed month was called Veadar, or Adar the Second. The year, as appears from the ordinary reckoning of the months (Lev_23:34; Lev_25:9; Num_9:11; 2Ki_25:8; Jer_39:2; comp. 1Ma_4:52; 1Ma_10:21), began with the month Nisan (Est_3:7), agreeably to an express direction given by Moses (Exo_12:2; Num_9:1). This commencement is generally thought to be that of merely the ecclesiastical year; and most Jewish, and many Christian authorities, hold that the civil year originally began, as now, with the month Tisri. The ancient Hebrews possessed no such thing as a formal and recognized era. Their year and their months were determined and regulated, not by any systematic rules of astronomy, but by the first view or appearance of the moon. In a similar manner they dated from great national events, as the departure from Egypt (Exo_19:1; Num_33:38; 1Ki_6:1); from the ascension of monarchs, as in the books of Kings and Chronicles; or from the erection of Solomon's temple (1Ki_8:1; 1Ki_9:10); and at a later period, from the commencement of the Babylonish captivity (Eze_33:21; Eze_40:1). When they became subjects of the Graeco-Syrian Empire they adopted the Seleucid era, which began with the year B.C. 312, when Seleucus conquered Babylon.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
(שָׁנָה, shanah, lit. repetition, kindred with שֵׁנַי, second; ἔτος), the highest ordinary division of time, marked by the solar revolutions of the seasons. SEE TIME.
I. Years, properly so called. Two years were known to, and apparently used by, the Hebrews. SEE CALENDAR.
1. A year of 360 days, containing 12 months of 30 days each, is indicated by certain passages in the prophetical Scriptures. The time, times, and a half, of Daniel (Dan_7:25; Dan_12:7), where "time" (Ch. עַדָּן, Heb. מוֹעֵד) means "year," evidently represent the same period as the 42 months (Rev_11:2) and 1260 days of the Revelation (Rev_11:3; Rev_12:6), for 360 x 3.5 = 1260, and 30 x 42=1260. This year perfectly corresponds to the Egyptian Vague year, without the five intercalary days. It appears to have been in use in Noah's time, or at least in the time of the writer of the narrative of the flood, for in that narrative the interval from the 17th day of the 2d month to the 17th day of the 7th of the same year appears to be stated to be a period of 150 days (Gen_7:11; Gen_7:24; Gen_8:3-4; comp. Gen_8:13), and, as the 1James , 2 d, 7th, and 10th months of one year are mentioned (Gen_7:11; Gen_8:4-5; Gen_8:13-14), the 1st day of the 10th month of this year being separated from the 1st day of the 1st month of the next year by an interval of at least 54 days (Gen_8:5-6; Gen_8:10; Gen_8:12-13), we can only infer a year of 12 months. Ideler disputes the former inference, arguing that as the water first began to sink after 150 days (and then had been fifteen cubits above all high mountains), it must have sunk for some days ere the ark could have rested on Ararat, so that the second date must have been more than 150 days later than the first (Handbuch, 1:69, 70, 478, 479). This argument depends upon the meaning of the expression high mountains, and upon the height of "the mountains of Ararat," upon which the ark rested (Gen_8:4), and we are certainly justified by Shemitic usage, if we do not consider the usual inference of the great height attained by the flood to be a necessary one (Genesis of the Earth and of Man_1:2 d ed. pages 97, 98). The exact correspondence of the interval mentioned to 5 months of 30 days each, and the use of a year of 360 days, or 12 such months, by the prophets, the latter fact overlooked by Ideler, favor the idea that such a year is here meant, unless, indeed, one identical with the Egyptian Vague year, of 12 months of 30 days and 5 intercalary days. The settlement of this question depends upon the nature and history of these years, and our information on the latter subject is not sufficiently certain to enable us to do more than hazard a conjecture.
A year of 360 days is the rudest known. It is formed of 12 spurious lunar months, and was probably the parent of the lunar year of 354 days, and the Vague year of 365. That it should have continued any time in use would be surprising were it not for the convenient length of the months. The Hebrew year, from the time of the Exodus, as we shall see, was evidently lunar, though in some manner rendered virtually solar, and we may therefore infer that the lunar year is as old as the date of the Exodus. As the Hebrew year was not an Egyptian year, and as nothing is said of its being new, save in its time of commencement, it was perhaps earlier in use among the Israelites, and either brought into Egypt by them or borrowed from Shemite settlers.
The Vague year was certainly in use in Egypt in as remote an age as the earlier part of the 12th dynasty (cir. 2000 B.C.), and there can be no reasonable doubt that it was there used at the time of the building of the Great Pyramid (cir. 2350 B.C.). The intercalary days seem to be of Egyptian institution, for each of them was dedicated to one of the great gods, as if the innovation had been thus made permanent by the priests; and perhaps rendered popular as a series of days of feasting and rejoicing. The addition would, however, date from a very early period, that of the final settlement of the Egyptian religion.
As the lunar year and the Vague year run up parallel to so early a period as that of the Exodus, and the former seems to have been then Shemitic, the latter then, and for several centuries earlier, Egyptian; and probably of Egyptian origin, we may reasonably conjecture that the former originated from a year of 360 days in Asia, the latter from the same year in Africa, this primitive year having been used by the Noachians before their dispersion.
2. The year used by the Hebrews from the time of the Exodus may be said to have been then instituted, since a current month, Abib, on the 14th day of which the first Passover was kept, was then made the first month of the year. The essential characteristics of this year call be clearly determined, though we cannot fix those of any single year. It was essentially solar, for the offerings of productions of the earth, first-fruits, harvest-produce, and ingathered fruits were fixed to certain days of the year, two of which were in the periods of great feasts, the third itself a feast reckoned from one of the former days. It seems evident that the year was made to depend upon these times, and it may be observed that such a calendar would tend to cause thankfulness for God's good gifts, and would put in the background the great luminaries which the heathen worshipped in Egypt and in Canaan. Though the year was thus essentially solar, it is certain that the months were lunar, each commencing with a new moon. There must, therefore, have been some method of adjustment. The first point to be decided is how the commencement of each year was fixed.
On the 16th day of Abib ripe ears of corn were to be offered as first-fruits of the harvest (Lev_2:14; Lev_23:10-11): this was the day on which the sickle was begun to be put to the corn (Deu_16:9), and no doubt Josephus is right in stating that until the offering of first-fruits had been made no harvest-work was to be begun (Ant. 3:10, 5). He also states that ears of barley were offered (ibid.). That this was the case, and that the ears were the earliest ripe, is evident from the following circumstances. The reaping of barley commenced the harvest (2Sa_21:9), that of wheat following, apparently without any considerable interval (Rth_2:23).
On the day of Pentecost thanksgiving was offered for the harvest, and it was therefore called the Feast of Harvest. It was reckoned from the commencement of the harvest, on the 16th day of the 1st month. The 50 days must include the whole time of the harvest of both wheat and barley throughout Palestine. According to the observations of modern travellers, barley is ripe, in the warmest parts of Palestine, in the first days of April. The barley-harvest, therefore, begins about half a month or less after the vernal equinox. Each year, if solar, would thus begin at about that equinox, when the earliest ears of barley must be ripe. As, however, the mouths were lunar, the commencement of the year must have been fixed by a new moon near this point of time. The new moon must have been that which fell about or next afte'r the equinox, not more than a few days before, on account of the offering of first-fruits. Ideler, whose observations on this matter we have thus far followed, supposes that the new moon was chosen by observation of the forwardness of the barley-crops in the warmer parts of the country (Handbuch, 1: 490). But such a method would have caused confusion on account of the different times of the harvest in different parts of Palestine; and in the period of the Judges there would often have been two separate commencements of the year in regions divided by hostile tribes, and in each of which the Israelitish population led an existence almost independent of any other branch.
It is more likely that the Hebrews would have determined their new-year's day by the observation of heliacal or other star-risings or settings known to mark the right time of the solar year. By such a method the beginning of any year could have been fixed a year before, either to one day, or, supposing the month-commencements were fixed by actual observation, within a day or two. We need not doubt that the Israelites were well acquainted with such means of marking the periods of a solar year. In the ancient Song of Deborah we read how "They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river. the river Kishon" (Jdg_5:20-21), The stars that marked the times of rain are thus connected with the swelling of the river in which the fugitive Canaanites perished. So, too, we read how the Lord demanded of Job, "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Kimah, or loose the bands of Kesil?" (Job_38:31). "The best and most fertilizing of the rains," in Palestine and the neighboring lands, save Egypt, "fall when the Pleiades set at dawn (not exactly heliacally), at the end of autumn; rain scarcely ever falling at the opposite season, when Scorpio sets at dawn."
That Kimah signifies the Pleiades does not admit of reasonable doubt, and Kesil, as opposite to it, would be Scorpio, being identified with Cor Scorpionis by Aben-Ezra. Therefore it cannot be questioned that the Israelites, even during the troubled time of the Judges, were well acquainted with the method of determining the seasons of the solar year by observing the stars. Not alone was this the practice of the civilized Egyptians, but, at all times of which we know their history, of the Arabs, and also of the Greeks in the time of Hesiod, while yet their material civilization and science were rudimentary. It has always been the custom of pastoral and scattered peoples, rather than of the dwellers in cities; and if the Egyptians be thought to form an exception, it must be recollected that they used it at a period not remote from that at which their civilization came from the plain of Shinar.
It follows, from the determination of the proper new moon of the 1st month, whether by observation of a stellar phenomenon, or of the forwardness of the crops, that the method of intercalation can only have been that in use after the captivity, the addition of a 13th month whenever the 12th ended too long before the equinox for the offering of the first- fruits to be made at the time fixed. This method is in accordance with the permission granted to postpone the celebration of the Passover for one month in the case of any one who was legally unclean, or journeying at a distance (Num_9:9-13); and there is a historical instance in the case of Hezekiah, of such a postponement, for both reasons, of the national celebration (2Ch_30:1 to 2Ch_3:15). Such a practice as that of an intercalation varying in occurrence is contrary to Western usage; but the like prevails in all Moslem countries in a far more inconvenient form in the case of the commencement of every month. The day is determined by actual observation of the new moon, and thus a day is frequently unexpectedly added to or deducted from a month at one place, and months commence on different days at different towns in the same country. The Hebrew intercalation, if determined by stellar phenomena, would not be liable to a like uncertainty, though such may have been the case with the actual day of the new moon.
The later Jews had two commencements of the year, whence it is commonly but inaccurately said that they had two years, the sacred year and the civil. We prefer to speak of the sacred and civil reckonings. Ideler admits that these reckonings obtained at the time of the second temple. The sacred reckoning was that instituted at the Exodus, according to which the 1st month was Abib; by the civil reckoning the 1st month was the 7th. The interval between the two commencements was thus exactly half a year. It has been supposed that the institution at the time of the Exodus was a change of commencement, not the introduction of a new year, and that thenceforward the year had two beginnings, respectively at about the vernal and the autumnal equinoxes.
The former supposition is a hypothesis, the latter may almost be proved. The strongest point of evidence as to two beginnings of the year from the time of the Exodus, strangely unnoticed in this relation by Ideler, is the circumstance that the sabbatical and jubilee years commenced in the 7th month, and no doubt on the 10th day of the 7th month, the Day of Atonement (Lev_25:9-10), and as this year immediately followed a sabbatical year, the latter must have begun in the same manner. Both were full years, and therefore must have commenced on the 1st day. The jubilee year was proclaimed on the 1st day of the month, the Day of Atonement standing in the same relation to its beginning, and perhaps to the civil beginning of the year, as did the Passover to the sacred beginning. This would be the most convenient, if not the necessary commencement of a year of total cessation from, the labors of agriculture, as a year so commencing would comprise the whole round of such occupations in regular sequence from seed-time to harvest, and from harvest to vintage and gathering of fruit. The command as to both years, apart from the mention of the Day of Atonement, clearly shows this, unless we suppose, but this is surely unwarrantable, that the injunction in the two places in which it occurs follows the regular order of the seasons of agriculture (Exo_23:10-11; Lev_25:3-4; Lev_25:11), but that this was not intended to apply in the case of the observance. Two expressions, used with reference to the time of the Feast of Ingathering, on the 15th day of the 7th month, must be here noticed. This feast is spoken of as הִשָׁנָה בַּצֵאת, "in the going out" or "end of the year" (Exo_23:16), and as תְּקוּפִת הִשָׁנָה[at] the change of the year" (Exo_34:22), the latter a vague expression, so far as we can understand it, but quite consistent with the other, whether indicating the turning-point. of a natural year, or the half of the year by the sacred reckoning..
The rabbins use the term תְּקוּפָהto designate the commencement of each of the four seasons into which they divide the year (Handbuch, 1:550, 551). Our view is confirmed by the similarity of the 1st and 7th months as to their observances the one containing the Feast of Unleavened Bread, from the 15th to the 21st inclusive; the other, that if Tabernacles, from the 15th to the 22d. Evidence in the same direction is found in the special sanctification of the 1st day of the 7th month, which. in the blowing of trumpets resembles the proclamation of the jubilee year on the Day of Atonement. We therefore hold that from the time of the Exodus. there were two beginnings of the year, with the 1st of the 1st and the 1st of the 7th month, the former being the sacred reckoning, the latter, used for the operations of agriculture, the civil reckoning. In Egypt, in the present day, Moslems use the lunar year for their religious observances, and for ordinary affairs, except those of agriculture, which they regulate by the Coptic Julian year.
3. We must here notice here theories of the derivation of the Hebrew year from the Egyptian Vague year, as they are connected with the tropical point or points and agricultural phenomena, by which the former was regulated. The Vague year was commonly used by the Egyptians; and from it only. if from an Egyptian year, is the Hebrew likely to have been derived. Two theories have been formed connecting the two years at the Exodus.
(1) Some hold that Abib, the 1st month of the Hebrew year by the sacred reckoning, was the Egyptian Epiphi, called in Coptic, Epepi, and in Arabic, by the modern Egyptians; Abib, or Ebib, the 11th month of the Vague year. The similarity of sound is remarkable, but it must be remembered that the Egyptian name is derived from that of the goddess of the month, PEP- T or APAP-T (?) whereas the Hebrew name has the ense of an ear of corn, a green ear," and is derived from the unused root אָבִב, traceable in אֵב, "verdure," Chaldee, אֵב, "fruit," Arabic, ab, "green fodder." Moreover, the Egyptian P is rarely, if ever, represented by the Hebrew ב, and the converse is not common. Still stronger evidence is afforded by the fact that we find in Egyptian the root AB, "a nosegay," which is evidently related to Abib and its cognates. Supposing, however, that the Hebrew. calendar was formed by fixing the Egyptian Epiphi as the 1st month, what would be the chronological result?
The latest date to which the Exodus is assigned is about 1320 B.C. In the Julian year 1320 B.C., the month Epiphi of the Egyptian Vague year commenced May 16, 44 days after the day of the vernal equinox, April 2, very near which the Hebrew year must have begun. Thus, at the latest date of the Exodus, there is an interval of a month and a half between the beginning of the Hebrew year and Epiphi 1. This interval represents about 180 years, through which the Vague year would retrograde in the Julian until the commencement of Epiphi corresponded to the vernal equinox, and no method can reduce it below 100. It is possible to effect thus much by conjecturing that the month Abib began somewhat after this tropical point, though the precise details of the state of the crops at the time of the plagues, as compared with the phenomena of agriculture in Lower Egypt at the present day, make half a month an extreme extension. At the time of the plague of hail the barley was in the ear and was smitten, with the flax, but the wheat was not sufficiently forward to be destroyed (Exo_9:31-32). In Lower Egypt, at the present day, this would be the case about the end of February and beginning of March. The Exodus cannot have taken place many days after the plague of hail, so that it must have occurred about or a little after the time of the vernal equinox, and thus Abib cannot possibly have begun much after that tropical point half a month is therefore excessive. We have thus carefully examined the evidence as to the supposed derivation of Abib from Epiphi, because it has been carelessly taken for granted, and more carelessly alleged in support of the latest date of the Exodus.
(2) We have founded an argument for the date of the Exodus upon another comparison of the Hebrew year and the Vague year. We have seen that the sacred commencement of the Hebrew year was at the new moon about or next after, but not much before, the vernal equinox the civil commencement must usually have been at the new moon nearest the autumnal equinox. At the earliest date of the Exodus computed by modern chronologers, about the middle of the 17th century B.C., the Egyptian Vague year commenced at or about the latter time. The Hebrew year, reckoned from the civil commencement, and the Vague year, therefore, then nearly or exactly coincided. We have already seen that the Hebrews in Egypt, if they used a foreign year, must be supposed to have used the Vague year. It is worth while to inquire whether a Vague year of this time would further suit the characteristics of the first Hebrew year. It would be necessary that the 14th day of Abib, on which fell the full moon of the Passover of the Exodus, should correspond to the 14th of Phamenoth, in a Vague year commencing about, the autumnal equinox. A full moon fell on the 14th of Phamenoth, or Thursday, April 21, 1652 B.C., of a Vague year commencing on the day of the autumnal equinox, October 10, 1653 B.C. A full moon would not fall oil the same day of the Vague year within a shorter interval than twenty-five years, and the triple near coincidence of new moon, Vague year, and autumnal equinox would not recur in less than fifteen hundred Vague years (Encyclop. Brit. 8th. ed. "Egypt," page 458). This date of the Exodus, 1652 B.C., is only four years earlier than Hales's, 1648 B.C., and only six years later than that adopted in this Cyclopcedia, 1658 B.C. In confirmation of this early date, it must be added that in a list of confederates defeated by Thothmes III at Megiddo, in the twenty-third year of his reign, are certain names that we believe can only refer to Israelitish tribes. The date of this king's accession cannot be later than about 1460 B.C., and his twenty-third year cannot therefore be later than about 1440 B.C. Were the Israelites then settled in Palestine, no date of the Exodus but the longest would be tenable. SEE CHRONOLOGY.
I Divisions of the Year.
1. Seasons. Two seasons are mentioned in the Bible, קִיַוֹ, "summer," and חֹרֶ" winter." The former properly means the time of cutting fruits, the latter, that of gathering fruits; they are therefore, originally, rather summer and autumn than summer and winter. But that they signify ordinarily the two grand divisions of the year, the warm and cold seasons, is evident from their use for the whole year in the expression קִיַוֹ וָחֹרֶ, summer and winter" (Psa_74:17; Zec_14:8; perhaps Gen_8:22), and from the mention of "the winter house" (Jer_36:22) and "the summer house " (Amo_3:15, where both are mentioned together). Probably חֹרֶ, when used without reference to the year (as in Job_29:4), retains its original signification. In the promise to Noah, after the flood, the following remarkable passage occurs: "While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease" (Gen_8:22). Here "seed-time, זֶרִע, and "harvest," קָצַיר, are evidently the agricultural seasons. It seems unreasonable to suppose that they mean winter and summer as the beginnings of the periods of sowing and of harvest are not separated by six months, and they do not. last for six months each, or nearly so long a time. The phrase "cold and heat," קֹר וָחֹם, probably indicates the great alternations of temperature. The whole passage, indeed, speaks of the alternations of nature, whether of productions, temperature, the seasons, or light and darkness. As we have seen, the year was probably then a wandering one, and therefore the passage is not likely to refer to it, but to natural phenomena alone. SEE SEASON.
2. Months. The Hebrew months, from the time of the Exodus, were lunar. The year appears ordinarily to have contained 12, but when intercalation was necessary, a 13th. The older year contained 12 months of 30 days each. SEE MONTH.
3. Weeks. The Hebrews, from the time of the institution of the Sabbath, whether at or before the Exodus, reckoned by weeks, but, as no lunar year could have contained a number of weeks without a fractional excess, this reckoning was virtually independent of the year as with the Moslems. SEE WEEK.
4. Festivtals, Holy Days, and Fasts. The Feast of the Passover was held on the 14th day of the 1st month. The Feast of Unleavened Bread lasted 7 days; from the 15th to the 21st; inclusive, of the same month. Its first and last days were kept as Sabbaths. The Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, was celebrated on the day which ended 7 weeks, counted from the 16th of the 1st month, that day being excluded. It was called the Feast of Harvest, and Day of First-fruits. The Feast of Trumpets (lit. "of the sound of the trumpet") was kept as a Sabbath on the 1st day of the 7th month. The Day of Atonement (lit. "of Atonements") was a fast, held the 10th day of the 7th month. The Feast of Tabernacles, or Feast of Gathering, was celebrated from the 15th to the 22d day, inclusive, of the 7th month. Additions made long after the giving of the law, and not known to be of higher than priestly authority, are the Feast of Purim, commemorating the defeat of Haman's plot; the Feast of the Dedication, recording the cleansing and re-dedication of the Temple by Judas Maccabaeus; and four fasts. SEE FESTIVAL.
III. Sacred Years.
1. The Sabbatical year, הִשְׁמַטָּה שְׁנִת, "the fallow year," or, possibly, "year of remission," or שְׁמַטָּהalone, kept every seventh year, was commanded to be observed as a year of rest from the labors of agriculture and of remission of debts. Two Sabbatical years are recorded, commencing and current, 164-3 and 136-5 B.C. SEE SABBATICAL YEAR.
2. The Jubilee Year, שְׁנִת הִיּוֹבֵל, "the year of the trumpet," or יוֹבֵלalone, a like year, which immediately followed every seventh Sabbatical year. It has been disputed whether the jubilee year was every forty-ninth or fiftieth; the former is more probable. SEE JUBILEE.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
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