Abib

Abib is the first month of Israel's religious year, the month in which Yahweh brought the sons of Israel out of Egypt. At Sinai Yahweh tells Moses and Aaron, "This month will be to you⁺ the beginning of months: it will be the first month of the year to you⁺" (Ex 12:2). After the exile the same month is referred to by its Babylonian name, Nisan (Es 3:7).

The Month Named at the Exodus

The naming of Abib is bound to the departure from Egypt. Moses tells the people on the eve of the journey, "This day you⁺ go forth in the month Abib" (Ex 13:4). The reminder is then folded into the festal calendar: "The feast of unleavened bread you will keep: seven days you will eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib (for in it you came out from Egypt)" (Ex 23:15). Deuteronomy joins the month and the feast as a single command: "Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to Yahweh your God; for in the month of Abib Yahweh your God brought you forth out of Egypt by night" (De 16:1).

The Passover itself is eaten on the fourteenth day of this month, with travel-readiness built into the rite — "with your⁺ loins girded, your⁺ sandals on your⁺ feet, and your⁺ staff in your⁺ hand; and you⁺ will eat it in a hurry: it is Yahweh's Passover" (Ex 12:11). The exodus march follows on the morrow: "And they journeyed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the next day after the Passover the sons of Israel went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians" (Nu 33:3).

The Tabernacle Reared on the First of Abib

A year after the exodus, the tabernacle is erected on the opening day of this same month. Yahweh commands, "On the first day of the first month you will rear up the tabernacle of the tent of meeting" (Ex 40:2), and the narrative records the fulfillment: "And it came to pass in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was reared up" (Ex 40:17). Abib thus opens both Israel's national life and its formal place of worship.

Wilderness, Jordan, and Conquest

Abib continues to mark turning points after Sinai. At the close of the wilderness wandering the congregation reaches Kadesh in this month, and Miriam dies: "And the sons of Israel, even the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month: and the people remained in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there" (Nu 20:1).

The same month carries Israel across the Jordan into Canaan: "And the people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, on the east border of Jericho" (Jos 4:19). The crossing falls in flood season — a fact later recalled when the Chronicler describes warriors loyal to David, "These are those who went over the Jordan in the first month, when it had overflowed all its banks" (1Ch 12:15).

Position in Israel's Calendar

In the month-by-month reckoning of the Old Testament, Abib stands first; the other named months — Ziv (1Ki 6:1), Bul (1Ki 6:38), Ethanim (1Ki 8:2) — count from it. After the exile the same first month bears its Babylonian name: "In the first month, which is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, [to] the twelfth [month], which is the month Adar" (Es 3:7). The seasonal weight of Abib is fixed by what falls within it — Passover, the unleavened-bread feast, the spring barley, the swollen Jordan — rather than by month-name alone.

Passover and the Christian Reading

Mark dates the Last Supper to the same season: "And on the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the Passover, his disciples say to him, Where do you want us to go and prepare that you may eat the Passover?" (Mr 14:12). Paul reads the festival typologically: "Purge out the old leaven, that you⁺ may be a new lump, even as you⁺ are unleavened. For our Passover also has been sacrificed, [even] Christ" (1Co 5:7). Abib remains, in this reading, the month of redemption — first for Israel out of Egypt, then taken up again at the cross.