By Bob Barney
Christ warned us to be aware of false religion, customs and laws; these warnings have basically fallen on deaf years. There is an important “sign” that we can look for as to the returning of Jesus back to this world and that is the spread of false religion and religious practices that are contrary to God. Over the years God’s Law (THE TEN COMMANDMENTS) has been replaced by man’s law. Our theologians call it having been “saved by grace” when truly nothing of the sort is biblically true.
Christmas, Easter, and Sunday worship for example, actually pre-date the earthly ministry of Jesus!
Yes, you read that correctly, these holidays have nothing to do with Christ and they were being followed long before GOD became a man and walked among us. Even in the garden of Eden, the very first religious lie promulgated was the “immortal soul” doctrine. To this day, we believe the devil in that “we shall not die but be like God” and live forever as some spirit in heaven or hell. That is Satan’s lie and almost every false religion has adopted it.
In Jesus’ time, the Jewish nation after years of captivity began to adopt Babylonian ways. They took on the Babylonian calendar and “lost” God’s true perfect one whilst at the same time began the truly pagan observance of “evening days.” This simply means that, like the Babylonians, they began to start their day at sunset rather than sunrise. Like everything else, the theologians of the day twisted a few scriptures which may imply evening days and ignored hundreds of scriptures that proved that God’s Day starts in the morning.
Most Sabbath keeping churches to this day follow this pagan start of the day and continue the practice of those lawless religious leaders that killed Christ!
These are the very same leaders that He declared at the time of His arrest were those who worshipped the DARKNESS which is when evil reigns!
Yes, the nighttime is darkness, and God IS NEVER in darkness.
We read in Revelation that when Christ returns to Jerusalem, where He is will always be in light! There will be no nighttime in the Holy City! Yes, it’s in the same Bible that we all read. Revelation 21:23 “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb [is] the light thereof.”
In the very first chapter of the Bible, we read “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
When did this ever happen in the evening time? Is there light at night? Read on…“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. So, He called the light, “DAY”! That means that when GOD said, “Let there be light”, it became day! It was dawn!
Let’s read on! “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” Do you get that? After daytime of about twelve hours, evening time came, still part of day one, then came the next day IN THE MORNING!
Let’s examine the first week: Darkness over the earth………..This may have been millions of years. There was an earth BEFORE our present-day earth that was ruled by Lucifer (under God) and then destroyed by God when Lucifer became Satan. Look at any good Bible commentary and you will see that in Genesis 1:2: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep.” That the word “was” (formless and void) can be translated BECAME! This is important. There is a big difference between was and became! Why does the bible commentators put this in? The reason is that they understand the significance of Jeremiah 45:18. Notice Isaiah 45:18. “Thus saith the Eternal that created the heavens, God himself that formed the earth and made it, He hath established it, He created it not in vain.” “In vain” is an incorrect translation. In your Bible, if you have the marginal references you will find in the margin the proper translation as “waste”. The original Hebrew word there is TOHU. This Hebrew word is the identical word used in Gen. 1:2, meaning confusion, or emptiness…or waste – a result of disorder, as a result of violation of law.
In Isaiah 45:18 we have the plain statement that God created the earth not “toho,” that is, not in confusion, not in disorder. But in Genesis 1:2, the earth was, or the earth BECAME – as it ought to be translated – chaotic and in confusion.
The next issue:
- How long did the rain fall during Noah’s flood?
- How long did Moses stay on Mt Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments?
- How long was Jonah in the belly of the fish, or Jesus in the tomb?
Answers:
- 40 days and nights
- 40 days and nights
- 3 days and 3 nights, and 3 days and 3 nights.
Question for you Sabbath Keeping Churches…
So, the question is why weren’t these time frames above rendered as 40 nights and days or 3 nights and days? Jesus was truly in the ground for 3 nights and days, but He used the term DAY and NIGHT! Think about that!
In Leviticus 22:29-30: “When you sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord … it shall be eaten on the same day, you shall leave none of it until morning.” The insistence of the eating of the sacrifice “on the same day” before the arrival of the “morning,” implies that the next morning marked the beginning of the next day. This suggests that the day began in the morning, because, as Roland de Vaux points out, “had the day begun in the evening, the wording would have ordered the meat to be eaten before the evening.”
The Law says:“But if the sacrifice of his offering is a votive offering or a freewill offering it shall be eaten on the day he offers sacrifice, and on the morrow what remains of it shall be eaten” (Lev 7:16). In this case the flesh of the sacrifice could be eaten both on the day of the sacrifice and “on the morrow.” By virtue of the parallelism with the preceding law, the “morrow” must begin in the morning.
The quote below is from THE RECKONING OF THE DAY IN BIBLE TIMES
Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph. D., Andrews University
“A second type of evidence supporting the sunrise reckoning seems implied also in the Passover legislation of Exodus 12. The law prescribes that the Paschal lamb must be slaughtered on the “fourteenth day of this month … in the evening” (v. 6) and must be eaten “that night” (v. 8) with “unleavened bread and bitter herbs” (v. 8), leaving none of it “until the morning” (v. 10). Later in the same chapter the night during which the Passover lamb was eaten with unleavened bread is explicitly designated as “the fourteenth day of the month” (v. 18).“What this means is that in Exodus 12 both the slaying of the Passover lamb, which took place “between the two evenings” (Ex 12:6— that is to say, as Josephus explains, between three and five o’clock in the afternoon),18 and the eating of the lamb with unleavened bread, which took place on the following night, are placed on the same fourteenth day of the month.
“This time reference cannot be harmonized with the sunset reckoning, according to which the night following the sacrifice of the Passover was not the 14th but the 15th day of Nisan. In fact, in several passages which reflect the sunset reckoning, the beginning of the feast of unleavened bread is explicitly placed “on the fifteenth day” (Lev 23:5; Num 28:16).
“According to the sunrise reckoning, however, both the slaying of the lamb and the eating of it with unleavened bread would take place on the 14th day, because the night following the slaying of the lamb would still be the 14th day until sunrise. This method, then, seems to be implied in Exodus 12, because, speaking of “the fourteenth day of the month” it explicitly says: “And you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt” (v.17; cf. vv. 18, 42, 51).
“Jacob Z. Lauterbach rightly observes that “if they came out at night, that is the night following the fourteenth day, and it is said on the very same day, that is on the fourteenth day, they were brought out, it clearly indicates that the night following the fourteenth day is still part of that day.”19
“The foregoing considerations suggest that in Exodus 12 the sunrise reckoning is used, since the events of the night following the slaying of the Passover Lamb, namely, the eating of the lamb with unleavened bread and the departure from Egypt, are both placed on the same 14th day. Elsewhere these events are explicitly placed “on the fifteenth day of the first month” (Num 33:3; cf. 28:17; Lev 23:5), thus indicating the use of the sunset reckoning.
“The sunrise reckoning of the Passover found in Exodus 12 seems reflected also in Mark 14:12 (cf. Matt 26:16) where the slaying of the Passover lamb and the feast of Unleavened Bread are both placed on the same day: “On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb” (v. 12). This statement suggests a sunrise reckoning, according to which, as Jack Finegan explains, “the day when the Passover lamb was slain and the day when the unleavened bread was eaten were indeed the same day, as Mark 14:12 states.”20”
The Bible says the day starts in the morning!
Each day, at sunrise, the world experiences the same beginning as it did on day six of creation. Dawn breaks, the birds sing, and the day progresses until evening when most work for the day has been accomplished. Then evening comes, and nighttime, followed at sunrise by a new day. Isn’t that how your biological clock works? Does your body recognize midnight as a new day, or 6 PM? NO! You wake up refreshed for a new day in the morning!
The day symbolizes YOUR LIFE!
At sunrise, the day begins, which symbolizes your birth. As morning progresses, the earth warms and gets ready for the sun to work its way across the sky. We say, “the day is young.” In the morning, we look at the day ahead as a long time, just as we look at our life when we are teenagers or even younger. As we age, the fear of death begins to creep in, as in the afternoon, the hint of nighttime fills the air. The birds start gathering for night, the day is now at its warmest and things begin to slow down, just as our bodies do. The twilight of our lives represents the twilight of the day. At sunset, the day is old, and so are we in our mortal physical life. Evening comes and the day dies. In our evening, we die, too. We sleep at night until DAWN, just as when we die, we sleep in our graves until the LIGHT OF GOD awakens us from our death. For us a new day – our first day of immortal life!
Each 24-hour day, God reenacts the same symbolic signs of our entire life to remind us not to fear the BIG SLEEP but to understand that when we awake, our immortal new life begins!
As John says, “Come Jesus…”
End
FROM JEWISH SOURCES
Greetings to All,
The main trouble with Tradition is that it detracts from the Plain Truth of the Word of IaHUeH. Which makes it hard to understand…. and then takes countless hours for Study and discussions to sort it all out…
The process can be fun and exciting.. but I think we are better using our time honing our discernment of IaHUeH’s Spirit by Studying the Plain Truth of Scripture… (what Judaism calls Peshat). Needless to say I think it also important to not set up new tradition either… but to return to The Way Provided by IaHUeH.
It is clear from Scripture and historic sources that the Day begins at sunrise the following is from Rabbinical Sources. I placed emphasis with bold.
from the no longer working URL: http://learn.jtsa.edu/topics/parashah/5758/bereshit.shtml
| Ismar Schorsch is the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. |
The Mishna, Judaism’s first legal compendium after the Bible, opens with a treatment of the proper times to recite the Shema in the evening and in the morning. The first line reads: “From when to when do we [liturgically] read the Shema in the evening.” The ensuing discussion in the Gemara (Mishna + Gemara = Talmud) asks why the Mishna doesn’t first take up the morning Shema. Since the day starts in the morning, wouldn’t this be the logical place to start? The answer of the Gemara is brief and far-reaching. The Mishna follows the order of creation. Six times the opening chapter of the Torah repeats the poetic refrain, “And there was evening and there was morning,” to signal the completion of a divine day’s work. The Torah seems to be going out of its way to establish the fact that the day does not begin with the crack of dawn, but rather with the setting of the sun (or halakhicly, with the appearance of three stars).
And indeed, this has been the Jewish practice ever since. Our days are reckoned from sunset to sunset. We begin to fast on Yom Kippur the night before and welcome every festival by lighting candles at dusk (on Shabbat, a bit earlier). On the occasion of a Yahrzeit, we recite the first kaddish at the evening service known as Maariv. In short, a major feature of the Jewish calendar rests on an exegetical foundation that elegantly links the first chapter of the Mishna to the first chapter of the Torah.
But is this what the oft-repeated phrase actually means? Not according to the grandson of Rashi, Rabbi Samuel ben Meir, who was in his early twenties when his renowned grandfather died in 1105. In his own biblical commentary, famous for its uncompromising commitment to the plain, or objective, sense of the text (the peshat, or author’s intent), he departed from the long-standing talmudic interpretation. In his commentary on “And there was evening and there was morning,” he noted that the Torah spoke of “evening” and not “night,” thereby avoiding any attempt to define a complete day, the first half of which would have been nighttime. Rather, it wished merely to indicate that with the onset of evening one day of creation ended and with the coming of dawn a new one began.
Modern Jewish commentators have tended to confirm and amplify this independent insight of Samuel ben Meir by pointing out that throughout the Bible the unit of a day actually starts with the morning. Poetic passages have night following day as in the Psalm for the Sabbath: “It is good to praise the Lord…to proclaim Your steadfast love at daybreak and Your faithfulness each night (Psalm 92:2-3).” The daily round of sacrifices in the Temple began each morning with a burnt offering of one yearling lamb and ended at twilight with the sacrifice of another (Numbers 28:3-5). Similarly, narrative portions repeatedly separate the day after from the night before, as in the tale of incest in Lot’s family after the flood. “That night they [his daughters] made their father drink wine… The next day the older one said to the younger… (Genesis 19:33-34).”
Finally, the festival calendar clearly alludes to a division of time that regards the evening as part of the day just ended. Thus the consumption of the paschal lamb, foreshadowing our Seder meal, was to occur at twilight on the 14th of Nisan. The obligation to eat matzot did not begin until the 15th, which evidently started the next morning (Leviticus 23:5-6). Or another striking instance, Yom Kippur, which fell on the tenth day of the seventh month, was actually to begin the night before, which was still part of the ninth day. “…on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall observe this your Sabbath (Leviticus 23:32).”
I dwell on this detail for two reasons. First, Rabbi Samuel ben Meir was never excommunicated for the assertion of his scholarly independence. Medieval Judaism allowed for a study of the plain sense of Torah that was not confined by the interpretation of a passage attributed to it by halakhic exegesis. No matter how much midrash (creative rather than critical interpretation) Scripture could bear, the pursuit of peshat (its original meaning) was a valid and unthreatening enterprise. In fact, toward the end of his life, Rashi confessed to his grandson that if he were to compose his own biblical commentary afresh, he (Rashi) would be even more attentive to the peshat than he had been.
This anticipation of modern critical scholarship, that is, the use of all tools and knowledge available to us to recover an author’s original intent, was driven not by a desire to undermine halakhic practice, but to enhance the sanctity of the Torah. The two realms rested on different premises: the study of God’s word on truth, halakhic norms on communal acceptance. Where a specific religious observance has been abandoned by the people, no amount of exegetical authoritarianism can revive it. Interestingly, it was precisely in the heartland of medieval Jewish piety in Franco-Germany that the need for peshat first expressed itself.
Second, the talmudic innovation of reckoning a day from the eve before suggests a larger view of life. While we may never know what prompted the Rabbis to reconfigure the day, the existential benefit is indisputable. By inaugurating the celebration of Shabbat or a festival at sunset, they have framed a stretch of time that can be ritually filled to heighten the religious experience. At the other end of the day, an eventide that does not mark a boundary between sacred and profane time would tend to be anti-climactic, an appendage of time to be endured till sunrise catches us unawares. To celebrate from sunset to sunset is to experience the passage of time each day consciously and bravely.
More deeply still, it is to imbue darkness with light, fear with faith. When envisioned as the start of a new day, night loses its dread. It becomes a time of preparation, renewal and anticipation, a period of incubation before a new birth. Life is punctuated by all too many moments of defeat and despair. Judaism urges us to face them and force meaning from them through context and perspective. To launch our days at night is to muster the courage not to take refuge in denial. Our capacity to master the nightmares that haunt us is greater at the start of a day than at the end. And so each evening we link life to darkness as we pray in the Maariv service that God enable us to retire in peace and restore us renewed to life, sheltered by the wings of the Almighty.
Shabbat shalom u-mevorach,
DAY START EXTRA COMMENTARIES
Noted Hebrew scholar, C. H. Leupold (Exposition of Genesis, Vol. 1, pp. 57-58) explains:
The verse [Gen. 1:5], however, presents not an addition of items but the conclusion of a progression. On this day there had been the creation of heaven and earth in the rough, then the creation of light, the approval of light, the separation of day and night. Now with evening the divine activities ceased: they are works of light not works of darkness. The evening (‘erebh), of course, merges into night, and the night terminates with morning. But by the time morning is reached, the first day is concluded, as the account says succinctly, ‘the first day,’ and everything is in readiness for the second day’s task. For ‘evening’ marks the conclusion of the day, and ‘morning’ marks the conclusion of the night. It is these conclusions, which terminate the preceding, that are to be made prominent.”
Leupold’s point is simply that after each day’s creative activity there followed “evening” and when “morning” arrived another day of creative activity began.
Also, a professor of the TaNaK at Westminster Theological Seminary, Edward J. Young (Studies in Genesis One, p. 89) summarizes the Hebrew text as follows:
When the light was removed by the appearance of darkness, it was evening, and the coming of light brought morning, the completion of a day. The days, therefore, are to be reckoned from morning to morning. . ..
Therefore, we may conclude that since a new day began on the morning of each of the six days of creation week, it would follow that God sanctified the Sabbath on the morning of the seventh day (not on the evening of the sixth day). Thus, the first Sabbath (Gen. 2:1-3) began in the morning rather than in the evening.
However Rabbinic tradition on this subject is in fact mixed. Harold Hoehner demonstrates from the Mishnah that there were actually two systems of reckoning a day at the time of the Messiah:
The Galileans and Pharisees used the sunrise-to-sunrise reckoning whereas the Judeans and Sadducees used the sunset-to-sunset reckoning. . . . This view not only satisfies the data of the Synoptics and the Gospel of John, it is also substantiated by the Mishnah. It was the custom of the Galileans to do no work on the day of the Passover while the Judeans worked until midday [the footnote reference is to Mishnah : Pesahim iv.5]. Since the Galileans’ day began at sunrise they would do no work on the entire day of the Passover. On the other hand the Judeans’ day began at sunset, and they would work the morning but not the afternoon” (Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, p.87,88).
Thus, if one is to lean heavily on the testimony of rabbinic tradition, he is even confronted with the question: Which rabbinic tradition should be followed?
Shmuel ben Meir (c.1085 – c.1158), also known as Rashbam learned from his grandfather Rashi. Rashbam was a biblical commentator and Talmudist with his commentary on the Torah renowned for its stress on the plain meaning (peshat) of the text.
Here is his commentary on Genesis 1:1-2:3 …
Rashbam’s Genesis
1. To remind the Jewish people of the reason for the observance of the Shabbat as described in the Ten Commandments, Moses told the story of creation: At the time when the upper heavens and the earth had already been created, a long or a short time before the acts related in Genesis,
2. the earth as we know it was completely empty, for water covered it up to the upper heavens. Darkness that was not night was over the depths, and there was no light in the heavens. A wind blew across the waters.
3. Elohim said, “Let there be light” to correct the lack of light, and there was light.
4. Elohim looked at the light and saw that it was beautiful. Elohim divided the light into a unit of twelve hours and the darkness into a unit of twelve hours.
5. Elohim named the newly-formed unit of twelve hours of light “day” and the newly-formed unit of twelve hours of darkness “night,” and they have been so called ever since, day always preceding night. Daylight turned to evening as its light faded; then, morning broke as the morning star signaled the end of night. The first of the six days of creation referred to in the Ten Commandments was, thus, completed and the second day began. [2]
6. Elohim said, “Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters which reach from the surface of the earth up to the upper heavens to divide the waters in half.”
7. Elohim made the expanse and divided the waters below the expanse from the waters above the expanse; and it has been so ever since.
8. Elohim named the expanse “heaven” and it has been so called ever since. Daylight turned to evening as its light faded; then, morning broke as the morning star signaled the end of night. The second of the six days of creation referred to in the Ten Commandments was, thus, completed and the third day began.
9. Elohim said, “Let the wind which is destined to split the Reed Sea cause the waters which are below the heaven to gather together to one place. And let the earth, which had been created together with the heavens on, or before, the first day yet before the light but had been hidden under the water, appear”; and it has been so ever since.
10. Elohim named the dry land “earth” and the gathered waters Elohim named “seas,” and they have been so called ever since. Elohim looked at the dry land and the seas and saw that they were beautiful.
11. Elohim said, “Let the earth grow plant life, each type of plant reproducing with its own seed, and fruit trees which make their own fruits and which contain seeds of their own kind from which to grow other trees”; and it has been so ever since.
12. The earth brought forth plant life, plants with seed according to their kinds, and trees which have fruit which contain their seeds according to their kinds. Elohim looked at the plant life and saw that it was beautiful.
13. Daylight turned to evening as its light faded; then, morning broke as the morning star signaled the end of night. The third of the six days of creation referred to in the Ten Commandments was, thus, completed and the fourth day began.
14. Elohim said, “Let there be bodies of light in the expanse which is below the upper heavens to signal the actual division of day from night, which is sunset and the appearance of the stars, and night from day, which is sunrise. Let them also be used to indicate miraculous signs, to calculate the holidays and the calendar, to mark the beginning and end of day and night, and to delineate the four seasons of the year.
15. Let them also be bodies of light in the expanse which is below the upper heavens to be a source of light for the earth”; and it has been so ever since. 22
16. Elohim made the two large bodies of light, the larger to rule the day and the smaller to rule the night together with the stars.
17. Elohim put them in the heaven which is below the upper heavens to give light to the earth,
18. to rule during the day and the night, and to signal the beginning of day with the rising of the sun and the beginning of night with the setting of the sun and the appearance of the stars. Elohim looked at the heavenly bodies and saw that they were beautiful.
19. Daylight turned to evening as its light faded; then, morning broke as the morning star signaled the end of night. The fourth of the six days of creation referred to in the Ten Commandments was, thus, completed and the fifth day began.
20. Elohim said, “Let the waters swarm with crawling living beings and let the birds, whose origin is in the water but whose growth takes place on land, fly above the earth, across the expanse which is below the upper heavens.”
21. Elohim created the great water animals mentioned in the prophets and Job — Leviathan, the Straight Snake, and the Crooked Snake — and all the creeping animals which the water had swarmed, each according to its kind, as well as the birds, each according to its kind. Elohim looked at the water animals and the birds and saw that they were beautiful.
22. Elohim blessed them, as Elohim blessed all animals, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the water in the seas and let the birds multiply on the land.”
23. Daylight turned to evening as its light faded; then, morning broke as the morning star signaled the end of night. The fifth of the six days of creation referred to in the Ten Commandments was, thus, completed and the sixth day began.
24. Elohim said, “Let the earth bring forth living beings according to their kinds — domestic animals, creeping things, and wild animals, each according to its kind”; and it has been so ever since.
25. Elohim made the wild animals of the land according to their kinds, the domesticated animals according to their kinds, and the creeping things of the land according to their kinds. Elohim looked at the land animals and saw that they were beautiful.
26. Elohim addressed the angels whose creation, together with that of hell and the heavenly chariot, was not described, for Moses wanted to speak only of matters of this world at the giving of the Ten Commandments. Elohim said, “Let us make humanity in our angelic image, like us in wisdom. The humans shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the heaven, the domestic animals, and all the earth, as well as the creeping things which creep over the earth.”
27. Elohim created humanity in the angelic image; in the image of the angels, Elohim created humanity; Elohim included the woman in the man and separated them later.
28. Elohim blessed them and Elohim said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and conquer it. Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the heaven, and over all creeping animals of the earth.”
29. Elohim said, “I give you all seed-bearing plants which are on the earth, and all trees that have seed-bearing fruits shall be food for you
30. and for all the wild animals of the earth, and for all the birds of the heaven, and for all the creeping things which are alive — all green plants as food”; and it was so, until the flood of Noah.
31. Elohim looked at each of Elohim’s works and actions to see if there was something that needed correction but Elohim saw that they were all beautiful and proper. Daylight turned to evening as its light faded; then, morning broke as the morning star signaled the end of night. The sixth of the six days of creation referred to in the Ten Commandments was, thus, completed and the seventh day began.
1. The heavens and the earth, and all that was created with them, were finished.
2. On the seventh day, Elohim finished the work Elohim had done. Elohim rested on the seventh day from all the work which Elohim had done.
3. The Shabbat was blessed with all goodness because Elohim had provided for the needs and sustenance of all Elohim’s creatures. Elohim sanctified the seventh day because, on it, Elohim rested from all the work which Elohim had created and done.
[2] Rashbam is, thus, of the opinion that the day begins and ends in the morning
Abraham Ibn Ezra (1092 – 1167), a Rabbi who lived in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. His chief work is the commentary on the Torah, which, like that of Rashi, has called forth a host of super-commentaries, and which has done more than any other work to establish his reputation.
Here is his commentary on Genesis 1:5,31 …
Ibn Ezra’s Genesis
1:5. by naming the light “day” and the darkness “night.” The diurnal sphere revolved once, day blended into evening and night blended into dawn, day one. [9] [10]
1:31. Elohim understood that all that Elohim had created was very good. The diurnal sphere revolved once, day blended into evening and night blended into dawn, the sixth day from day one.
[9] The days of creation thus begin and end at daybreak, not at evening.
[10] At the end of the day, there was an evening and then a morning, day one.
RABBINICAL ESSAYS BY JACOB Z. LAUTERBACH HEBREW UNION COLLEGE PRESS CINCINNATI 1951 From page 446 – 451 with notes
Before we proceed to describe the ceremonies of the entrance of the Sabbath we must ascertain the exact time of her appearance, that is, at what time of the day the arrival of the Princess Sabbath was expected. This will help us to understand better certain features in the arrangements for welcoming her. As the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week and extends over one whole day, a brief discussion of the development of the Jewish system of reckoning the day is necessary to determine the time of the coming in and the going out of the Sabbath. There can be no doubt that in pre-exilic times the Israelites reckoned the day from morning to morning. The day began with the dawn and closed with the end of the night following it, i.e, with the last moment before the dawn of the next morning. The very description of the extent of the day in the biblical account of creation as given in Gen 1.5 presupposes such a system of reckoning the day, for it says: “And it was evening and it was morning, one day.” This passage was misunderstood by the Talmud, though significantly enough when the Tosefta cites in proof Esth. 4.16 where the order occurs, but does not cite the passage in Genesis or was reinterpreted to suit the later practice of a different system. But it was correctly interpreted by R. Samuel b. Meir (1100-1160) when he remarked “It does not say that it was night time and it was day time which made one day; but it says ‘it was evening,’ which means that the period of the day time came to an end and the light disappeared. And when it says ‘it was morning,’ it means that the period of the night time came to an end and the morning dawned. Then one whole day was completed.” There are many more indications in the Pentateuch pointing directly or indirectly to the mode of reckoning the day from morning to morning. To mention but a few such indications; when prescribing that a Thanksgiving offering must be consumed on the very same day on which the sacrifice is slaughtered, the Law states “on the same day it shall be eaten, ye shall leave none of it till the morning” [52] which directly indicates that the day comes to an end on the next morning.[53] And when in special case, as e, g., in regard to the Day of Atonement, where the Law wishes to make the fasting on it stricter than on any other fast day so as to include also the preceding night, the Law specifically states that it should begin with part of the preceding day and therefore expressly says: “And ye shall afflict your souls in the ninth day of the month at even, from even to even shall ye keep your Sabbath.” [54 ] This indirectly but unmistakably points to a mode of reckoning the day from morning to morning.[55] In post-exilic times, however, probably not later than the beginning of the Greek period, [56] a change in the system of reckoning the day was made, and the day was reckoned as extending from the preceding to the following evening. As might be expected, such a radical innovation was not immediately generally accepted It took some time before it entirely supplanted the older system. In certain spheres of the population the older system continued to be in use, either exclusively or side by side with the newer system. Thus in the Temple service the older system continued all through the time of the existence of the second Temple, and there the day was reckoned from morning to morning, or as the Talmud [57] puts it [Hebrew quoted] “In sacrificial matters the night follows rather than precedes the day.” [58] ” In some circles [59] or among some Jewish sects [60] the older system continued and the Sabbath was observed from Saturday morning to Sunday morning For those groups, as for the people of the time prior to the introduction of the new system, the night following the Sabbath and not the night preceding it formed part of the Sabbath, and the morning of Saturday — not Friday evening — marked the entrance of the Sabbath.· But the majority of the people, following the teachings of the Halakah. [61] reckoned the day from evening to evening and the entrance of the Sabbath for them came after the sunset of Friday or on Friday evening. All the arrangements for welcoming the Sabbath and the ceremonies connected with it were set for Friday evening.
NOTES ON THE ABOVE TEXT on pages 447 – 451
[52] Lev. 22.30; see also Lev. 7.15.
[53] For further proofs see Morgenstern, loc, cit., to which I will add one point from the Passover legislation in Ex.12 which is not pointed out there. The law in Ex. 12 prescribes that the Paschal lamb be slaughtered on the fourteenth day of the month and eaten at the following night and that nothing be left till the next morning (verses 6-I0). And we are told that on the very same day, i.e., the fourteenth of the month God brought out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt ( ibid., verse 5I )· And in verse 42 of the same chapter we read as follows: “It is a night of watching unto the Lord for bringing them out of Egypt.” Now then, if they came out at night that is, in the night following the fourteenth day, and it is said on the very same day, that is on the fourteenth day, they were brought out, it clearly indicates that the night following the fourteenth day is still part of that day.
[54] The Rabbis of the Talmud who nowhere allude to and probably no longer knew of the earlier mode of reckoning the day felt the difficulty in the phrase: “Ye shall afflict your souls on the ninth day,” and when commenting on it they say: “But are we to fast on the ninth day?” (Yoma 81b, R. H. 9a, b). A very sound objection indeed. For if the day had in Bible times been reckoned from evening to evening, as it was in Talmudic times, then the phrase: “In the ninth day of the month at evening” contains a contradiction in terms, for the evening is already part of the tenth day. Besides the special injunction “from even unto even shall ye keep your Sabbath” would be entirely superfluous, for any other day also extends from evening to evening. The Talmudic explanation that the meaning of the passage: “Ye shall afflict your souls on the ninth day” is to say who eats on the ninth day performs a Jewish religious duty and it is accounted to him as if he had fasted both on the ninth and tenth days (ibid., loc. cit.) is, of course, a homiletical subterfuge. The fact is that the Rabbis of the Talmud no longer knew or would not acknowledge that in ancient times there was another mode of reckoning the day according to which the evening preceding the tenth day still belongs to the ninth day. In the case of the Day of Atonement the Law especially prescribes that the fast be observed in a new manner, covering part of the ninth and part of the tenth days.
[55] ‘See also H. J. Bornstein in Ha Tekufah V1, 254 and 303 ff, and especially 313.
[56] See Morgenstern, op.cit,. p. 179, note. Also “Three Calendars of Ancient Israel,” in Hebrew Union College Annual X (Cincinnati, 1935; 146, note 236. The fact that the Samaritans also reckon the day from evening to evening would not be any argument against the fixing of this period for the innovation. For, in the first place we do not know the exact date the Samaritans finally and absolutely separated from the Jews. Furthermore or they may have accepted Jewish practices even after the separation, may independently of the Jews, have interpreted the passage in Lev. 23.32: “From even to even shall you keep your Sabbath” to apply to every Sabbath and Holiday and not only to the Day of Atonement. In my paper referred to above (note 47) I expressed the idea, which was accepted by Morgenstern (“The Sources of the Creation Story” op. cit., p. 179, note) that the statement in the Talmud (b. Ber. 33a) that the men of the Great Synagogue instituted the ritual of Kiddush and Habdalah, also points to the time of the beginning of the Greek period for the innovation of the system of reckoning the day from evening to evening, since the ceremonies of Kiddush and Habdalah are now observed on Friday evening and Saturday night respectively. I would, however; now qualify this idea somewhat to the extent we must understand the Talmudic statement to refer to the last generation of the men of the Great Synagogue, who lived after the beginning of the Greek period. It is however, possible that the reference is to the earlier Men of the Great Synagogue Yet this would not necessitate the fixing the date for the innovation of the system in reckoning the day before the Greek period. For the Talmudic statement only says that they instituted a ritual for consecrating the Sabbath at its entrance and for marking its distinction from the week days at its going out but does not say when the coming in and going out of the Sabbath at the time when these rituals were first introduced, took place. According to the Talmud (ibid., loc cit.) some changes as to when or where the ritual of the Habdalah should be recited were made even during the period of the Men of the Great Synagogue. It is therefore not impossible that another change in the time for reciting these rituals also took place during the period of the Men of the Great Synagogue. When the older generation of that period first instituted these rituals they may have been recited at Sabbath morning and at Sunday morning respectively. Then, when the reckoning of the day was changed the times for reciting these rituals were correspondingly shifted to Friday and Saturday night respectively. (See below note 58.) The passage in Neh. 13:19-21 does not necessarily prove that already at the time of Nehemiah, the night preceding the Sabbath was part of the Sabbath as assumed by Bornstein (op. cit., p 305). See Morgenstern, “Three Calendars of Ancient Israel,” op. cit., P 22, note 36.
[57] Hul. 83a.
[58] This simply means that in the sanctuary the conservative priests persistently held on to the older practice though in all other spheres of life it had been abolished or changed The fact that in the Temple service the night followed the day is another support for the theory that the innovation was introduced in the period of the Men of the Great Synagogue (see note 56). For had it been introduced earlier in that period in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, before the, Temple was rebuilt and the sacrificial cult restored it would have been introduced into the Temple service also. The Temple may have been slow in admitting changes in practices that were continuously observed but when the service was instituted anew and everything reorganized there would have been no reason to go back to a practice which had been observed in pre-exilic times, but discontinued for a time and changed 59 According to the Talmud (p. Ned. 8.1 [40d]) even among the common people the older system continued and in the popular language [~Hebrew quoted ~~ ~~] the day included the following and not the preceding night. See commentary [ Hebrew] ad loc. and cf.. also Bornstein,, op. cit P 311. Likewise the author of the Gospel according to Matthew has preserved the older system, for we read there 28.1: “In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week.” So according to him the Sabbath extended towards the dawn of Sunday morning.
[60]. Benjamin of Tudela (second half of the twelfth century) reports about a certain Jewish sect on the island of Cyprus whose members observed the Sabbath from Saturday morning to Sunday morning, or as he puts it, who desecrated the night preceding but kept holy the night following the Sabbath day. See [ Hebrew Quoted ] L. Griinhut, I (Frankfurt a. M., 1904) p. 23. According to S. A, Poznanski in his introduction to Eliezer of Beaugency’s commentary to Ezekiel and the twelve minor prophet” (Waraw, 1913), P 43, Ibn Ezra’s attack in his [Hebrew] (Kerem Hemed V [Prague 1839], 115 ff.) was directed not against R. Samuel b. Meir and his interpretation of Gen.1.5, but against those heretical sects who drew practical conclusions from this interpretation and observed the Sabbath from morning to morning. Cf, also Bornstein, op cit., 304.
[61]But even among those who followed the Halakah allusion to the continuance of the older system and traces of an extension of the Sabbath rest to the night following Saturday are to be found. Thus in commenting on the different expressions [Hebrew] used respectively in connection with the commandment about the Sabhath in the two versions of the Decalogue (Ex.20.8 and Deut. 5.12) the Mekilta says: ” ‘Remember’ and ‘Observe.’ Remember it before it comes and observe it after it has gone” (Mekilta deR. Ishmael Bahodesh VII [ed. Lauterbach, II, 252]). How to remember the Sabbath before it comes is well illustrated there (ibid., P 253), but no illustration is given as to how the Sabbath is to be observed after it is gone. Instead of such an illustration there is added the remark about the conclusions which the teachers drew from the interpretation of the word “observe” as meaning “observe it after it has gone” This remark reads: [Hebrew quoted] Hence the teachers said: “We should always increase what is holy by adding to it some of the non-holy.” But no illustration of the observance of the Sabbath after it has gone is given in the Mekilta.
Genesis 1:5
Ancient Hebrew is … ויקרא אלהים לאור יום ולחשׁך קרא לילה ויהי־ערב ויהי־בקר יום אחד
calls Elohim light day and dark He calls night and becomes evening and becomes morning day one
Modern Hebrew is …wayyiqərā’ ’ĕlōhîm| lā’ wōr ywōm wəlaḥōšeḵə qārā’ lāyəlâ wayəhî-‘ereḇ wayəhî-bōqer ywōm ’eḥāḏ: f
called Elohim to light day and darkness He calls night and He is becoming evening He is becoming morning day one
English Version is … And Elohim called the light ‘day’ and the darkness He called ‘night.’ And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, day one.
This ISA version is transliterated similar to the ancient Hebrew is …
u ‘ iqra aleim l ‘ aur ium u ‘ l ‘ chshk qra lile u ‘ iei orb u ‘ iei bqr ium achd
“And, he-is-calling” “Elohim” “to the light” “day” “and to the darkness” “he calls” “night” “and he is becoming” “evening” “and he is becoming” “morning” “day” “one”
“And Elohim called the light ‘day’ and the darkness He called ‘night.’ And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, the first day.” (The Scriptures 98+)
“And calling is the Elohim the light “day,” and the darkness He calls “night.” And coming is it to be evening and coming to be morning, day one.” (CLV – Concordant Literal Version)