Month

Scripture reckons time by the moon and by the count of months. The flood narrative already dates events by month and day (Gen 7:11; Gen 8:4), and the monarchy organizes its standing army "month by month throughout all the months of the year" (1Ch 27:1). The biblical year carries twelve named months, of which seven are named directly in the Hebrew text — Abib, Ziv, Sivan, Ethanim, Bul, Chislev, Tebeth, Sebat, Adar — and the rest are most often identified by their ordinal number. Sirach gives the moon's role at creation: "And also the moon he made for its due season, To rule over periods for an everlasting sign" (Sir 43:6); "Month by month she renews herself, How wonderful [is she] in her changing" (Sir 43:8).

The Two Lights and the Setting of Seasons

The lesser light is appointed for the count itself: "He appointed the moon for seasons" (Ps 104:19). At creation God made "the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars" (Gen 1:16), and Moses' blessing speaks of "the precious things of the growth of the moons" (Deut 33:14). Joshua's victory account suspends both luminaries: "the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies" (Jos 10:13). Sirach also describes the moon's festal role: "By her festivals and the appointed times [are fixed], A light that wanes when she has come to the full" (Sir 43:7), and "Like a morning star from between the clouds, And like the full moon on the feast-days" (Sir 50:6).

The Epistle to the Greeks rebukes Gentile observance of moon and month for fortune-telling: "And then they attend to stars and moon, observing months and days. They distribute God's dispensations and the changes of seasons according to their own impulses, allotting some days to feasts and others to mourning" (Gr 4:5).

New Moon Observance

The opening of each month is itself a cult occasion. "In the beginnings of your⁺ months you⁺ will offer a burnt-offering to Yahweh: two young bullocks, and one ram, seven he-lambs a year old without blemish" (Num 28:11), and trumpets are blown "in the beginnings of your⁺ months ... over your⁺ burnt-offerings, and over the sacrifices of your⁺ peace-offerings" (Num 10:10). David expects to be at the king's table "tomorrow" because "the new moon" is set (1Sa 20:5), and the temple roster includes burnt-offerings "on the Sabbaths, on the new moons, and on the set feasts" (1Ch 23:31; 2Ch 31:3; Ezr 3:5). The psalmist commands: "Blow the trumpet at the new moon, At the full moon, on our feast-day" (Ps 81:3). Where the heart is wrong, however, the new moon becomes a burden: "Your new moons and your⁺ appointed feasts my [Speech] has rejected; they are a trouble to me" (Isa 1:14), and judgment threatens to silence "her feasts, her new moons, and her Sabbaths" (Hos 2:11). In the eschaton "the moon will be confounded, and the sun ashamed" (Isa 24:23) and "The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and awesome day of Yahweh comes" (Joel 2:31).

The Twelve Months Reckoned to a Year

Solomon's standing army moved "in any matter of the courses which came in and went out month by month throughout all the months of the year" (1Ch 27:1). The Persian-court setting in Esther uses the same frame — Pur was cast "from day to day, and from month to month, [to] the twelfth [month], which is the month Adar" (Esth 3:7).

1. Abib — The First Month (Nisan)

The Jewish calendar begins with Abib: "This month will be to you⁺ the beginning of months: it will be the first month of the year to you⁺" (Ex 12:2). The exodus is dated to it — "This day you⁺ go forth in the month Abib" (Ex 13:4) — and Deuteronomy commands, "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" (Deut 16:1). Unleavened bread is to be eaten "at the time appointed in the month Abib (for in it you came out from Egypt)" (Ex 23:15).

Other first-month events cluster here. The tabernacle is reared up "On the first day of the first month" (Ex 40:2; Ex 40:17). Israel arrives at the wilderness of Zin "in the first month" (Num 20:1). Israel crosses the Jordan "on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal" (Jos 4:19), the river "overflowed all its banks" then (1Ch 12:15). Haman's edict against the Jews is sealed "in the first month, on the thirteenth day of it" (Esth 3:12). After the captivity the month is called Nisan: "in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king" (Neh 2:1); "In the first month, which is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus" (Esth 3:7).

2. Ziv — The Second Month

Ziv is named in Kings: Solomon "began to build the house of Yahweh ... in the month Ziv, which is the second month" (1Ki 6:1), and "the foundation of the house of Yahweh was laid, in the month Ziv" (1Ki 6:37); 2Ch 3:2 confirms "he began to build in the second month."

The wilderness census is dated here: "on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt" (Num 1:1; Num 1:18). Provision is made for a second-month Passover for those ceremonially unclean or far away — "In the second month on the fourteenth day at evening they will keep it; they will eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs" (Num 9:10-11). Israel departs Sinai "in the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth day of the month, that the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle of the testimony" (Num 10:11). Hezekiah's all-Israel Passover gathers "to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month, a very great assembly" (2Ch 30:1; 2Ch 30:13). Rebuilding of the second temple resumes in this month (Ezr 3:8).

3. Sivan — The Third Month

Sivan is named in Esther: "in the third month Sivan, on the three and twentieth [day] of it" (Esth 8:9). Asa's covenant renewal also falls here: "they gathered themselves together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa" (2Ch 15:10).

4. Tammuz — The Fourth Month (number only)

The fourth month is given by number rather than by Hebrew name in the passages Nave's cites. Famine and the breach of Jerusalem fall in it: "In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was intense in the city" (Jer 52:6); "Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled" (Jer 52:7); "In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city" (Jer 39:2). Zechariah lists the people's "fast of the fourth [month]" alongside the fifth, seventh, and tenth (Zec 8:19).

5. Ab — The Fifth Month (number only)

Aaron's death is dated here: "Aaron the priest went up into mount Hor ... in the fifth month, on the first day of the month" (Num 33:38). The temple's destruction is dated here: "in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, ... came Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard ... to Jerusalem" (2Ki 25:8); "in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, ... Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard ... came into Jerusalem" (Jer 52:12); "to the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month" (Jer 1:3). Ezra arrives in the same month: "And he came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king" (Ezr 7:8); "on the first [day] of the first month he began to go up from Babylon; and on the first [day] of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem" (Ezr 7:9). Zechariah names the lament-fast of the fifth month (Zec 7:3; Zec 8:19).

6. Elul — The Sixth Month

The wall of Jerusalem under Nehemiah is finished here: "the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth [day] of [the month] Elul, in fifty and two days" (Neh 6:15). The post-exilic temple work resumes the same month: Yahweh "stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel ... and they came and worked on the house of Yahweh of hosts, their God, in the four and twentieth day of the month, in the sixth [month], in the second year of Darius the king" (Hag 1:14-15).

7. Ethanim — The Seventh Month (Tishri)

The seventh month carries the autumn cycle of feasts. Trumpets first: "In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, will be a solemn rest to you⁺, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation" (Lev 23:24). Then Atonement: "on the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement: it will be a holy convocation to you⁺, and you⁺ will afflict your⁺ souls" (Lev 23:27). Jubilee is proclaimed on the same day: "on the tenth day of the seventh month; in the day of atonement you⁺ will send abroad the trumpet throughout all your⁺ land" (Lev 25:9). Solomon dedicates the first temple in this month: "all the men of Israel assembled themselves to King Solomon at the feast, in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month" (1Ki 8:2). Under Ezra and Nehemiah the seventh-month booths feast is restored: "Yahweh had commanded by Moses, that the sons of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month" (Neh 8:14; Neh 8:13; Neh 8:15). Burnt-offerings are renewed here too: "From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt-offerings to Yahweh: but the foundation of the temple of Yahweh was not yet laid" (Ezr 3:1; Ezr 3:6).

8. Bul — The Eighth Month

Solomon's temple is finished here: "in the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished throughout all its parts" (1Ki 6:38). Jeroboam's rival cult sets a feast in this month: "Jeroboam appointed a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah" (1Ki 12:32) — "the month which he had devised of his own heart" (1Ki 12:33). The royal courses keep the same eighth-month captaincy (1Ch 27:11).

9. Chislev — The Ninth Month

The post-exilic assembly is dated here: "it was the ninth month, on the twentieth [day] of the month" (Ezr 10:9). Jeremiah and Zechariah set the month's name: "in the fifth year of Jehoiakim ..., in the ninth month, that all the people in Jerusalem ... proclaimed a fast before Yahweh" (Jer 36:9); "the king was sitting in the winter-house in the ninth month" (Jer 36:22); "in the fourth year of King Darius, that the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah in the fourth [day] of the ninth month, even in Kislev" (Zec 7:1).

10. Tebeth — The Tenth Month

Esther is brought to Ahasuerus here: "Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus into his royal house in the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign" (Esth 2:16). Nebuchadnezzar's siege opens in this month: "in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem" (2Ki 25:1; Jer 52:4). Zechariah names the "fast of ... the tenth" (Zec 8:19).

11. Sebat (Shebat) — The Eleventh Month

Zechariah dates a vision here: "On the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah" (Zec 1:7). 1 Maccabees uses the same name: "in the year one hundred and seventy-seven, the eleventh month: this is the month Shebat" (1Ma 16:14). Moses' last address is dated to it: "in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke to the sons of Israel" (Deut 1:3).

12. Adar — The Twelfth Month

Adar closes the year. The second temple is finished here: "this house was finished on the twenty-third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king" (Ezr 6:15). Esther's threatened twelfth month becomes the day of deliverance: "in the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same ... it was turned to the contrary, that the Jews had rule over those who hated them" (Esth 9:1) — the basis of Purim. The defeat of Nicanor falls on the same day: "the armies joined battle on the thirteenth day of the month Adar: and the army of Nicanor was defeated" (1Ma 7:43).

Months in Prophecy

The apocalypse measures pagan ascendancy by months: "the court which is outside the temple leave out, and do not measure it; for it has been given to the nations: and they will tread the holy city under foot forty and two months" (Rev 11:2).