year Summary and Overview

Heb. shanah, meaning "repetition" or "revolution" (Gen. 1:14; 5:3). Among the ancient Egyptians the year consisted of twelve months of thirty days each, with five days added to make it a complete revolution of the earth round the sun. The Jews reckoned the year in two ways, (1) according to a sacred calendar, in which the year began about the time of the vernal equinox, with the month Abib; and (2) according to a civil calendar, in which the year began about the time of the autumnal equinox, with the month Nisan. The month Tisri is now the beginning of the Jewish 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 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 can be clearly determined, though we cannot fix those of any single year. It 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. 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 -- 1. 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." #Ps 74:17; Zec 14:18| 2. Months. [MONTHS] 3. Weeks. [WEEKS]

YEAR . The Jewish year had two commencements. The religious year began with the month Abib (April), the civil with Tisri (October). The year was solar. There were two seasons, summer and winter, Ps 74:17; Zech 14:8; Jer 36:22; Am 3:15. The months were lunar, of thirty days each, and twelve in number, although a thirteenth was sometimes necessarily intercalated. It was called Ve-adar. The festivals, holy days, and fasts of the year were as follows: 1. The feast of the Passover, the 14th day of the first month. 2. The feast of unleavened bread, in the same month, from the 15th to 21st, inclusive. 3. The feast of Pentecost, called also feast of harvest and "day of first fruits," on the day which ended seven weeks, counted from the 16th of the first month, that day being excluded. 4. The feast of trumpets, on the first day of the seventh month. 5. The day of atonement, a fast, on the 10th day of the seventh month. 6. The feast of tabernacles, or of gathering, from the 15th to the 22d day, inclusive, of the seventh month. The post-Mosaic festivals are Purim, in the twelfth month of Adar, 13th to 15th day, and dedication, on the 25th day of the ninth month.

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 Daniel 7:25; Daniel 12:7, time (i.e. one year) times and dividing of a time, or 3 1/2 years; the 42 months (Revelation 11:2), 1260 days (Revelation 5:3; Revelation 12:6). The Egyptian vague year was the same, without the five intercalary days. So the year of Noah in Genesis 7:11-24; Genesis 8:3-4; Genesis 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. Genesis 8:5-6; Genesis 8:10; Genesis 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. frontWEIGHTS 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: Exodus 12:2; Exodus 13:4; Exodus 23:15-16; Exodus 34:18; Exodus 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" (Exodus 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 (Leviticus 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 Judges 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 Exodus 23:10; Deuteronomy 31:10; Deuteronomy 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 (Deuteronomy 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 (Deuteronomy 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 (Genesis 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 (Leviticus 25:23; Leviticus 25:1-7; Leviticus 25:11-17; Exodus 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 (2 Chronicles 36:20-21; Leviticus 26:34-35; Leviticus 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, 1 Maccabees 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 "(Genesis 8:22; Psalm 74:17; Zechariah 14:8), and designated the earth's produce as the fruits of summer (Jeremiah 8:20; Jeremiah 40:10-12; Micah 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 (Leviticus 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.