New Year


(see Morning, Sabbath, Sabbaths, High Holidays, New Moon, Lunar Cycle Change, Calendar Changes)

The day starts at sunrise, the moonth starts the sunrise after the dark conjunction, the year starts at the moonth after the spring equinox.

Genesis 1:14 And God [Elohim] said, Let there be LIGHTS [SUN and MOON] in the firmament of the heaven to DIVIDE the DAY FROM the NIGHT; and let them be for signs, and for SEASONS [MOED: appointed times/meetings], and for DAYS, and YEARS:
Genesis 1:16 And God [Elohim] made TWO GREAT LIGHTS; the GREATER LIGHT [SUN] to rule [dominate] the day, and the LESSER LIGHT [MOON] to rule [dominate] the night: He made the stars also [stars rule nothing, but they do teach the Gospel see Mazzaroth].

Genesis 1:14 tells us that we are to use the Sun and the Moon to determine the years. Not the stars or barley.

The tropical year, which starts with the spring equinox and keeps the seasons at the same time of the year, is slightly shorter than the sidereal year, which is based off keeping the stars in the same position in a year. The tropical year is 365.2417 days, where the sidereal year is 365.256363 days. The sidereal year is 20 minutes and 24.5 seconds longer than the tropical year. Which doesn’t seem like much, but when you looking at 100 or 1,000 years it adds up. When going by the sidereal year, the seasons happen at different times of the year, changing slowly. I talk about this some at the end of When Morning and Year Begin.

Another reason why I don’t believe the stars / constellations / Mazzoroth is because in Genesis 1:16 they are never called lights. And in Genesis 1:14 we are told to use lights in heaven to determine His appointed times.

Barley has problems if used to determine the start of the year, first scriptures never state for barley to be used as such. Another problem it could not have been used to determine the year during the exodus with Moses, see Exodus 9:25:31-32. In addition differently barleys ripen at different times, and even the same barley planted at different latitudes will ripen at different times.

Exodus 9:25,31-32
25 And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field.
31 And the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled. 32 But the wheat and the rie were not smitten: for they were not grown up.

Here is another interesting point about the barely at the time it is to be offered:

The wave sheaf offering mentioned in Lev 23:9-16 does not specify any condition of the sheaf. The Hebrew word for sheaf, omer, in the early translations of the Tanak, show that it refers to an armful of stalks, again not specifying any degree of ripeness. Deut 16:9 has a scarcity of Hebrew words that hinder a precise demand in timing with regard to the new crop.
Herb Solinsky, Concise Biblical Calendar, abbreviation: CBC1

Another problem that arises with using barley to determine the start of the year is when there are famines. And barley does not ripen when there is a famine. Joseph of Egypt dealt with a seven year famine, and the Book of Revelation talks of a famine in the future.

The history about Noah and the ark in Genesis 6 – 8 also presents a problem of using barley to determine the start of the year. The flood started on the 17th day of the 2nd moon, which is also when Noah and his family entered the ark. After 150 days the ark rested on the 17th day of the 7th moon, this is one reason we know the tropical year used to be 360 days see Lunar Cycle Change and Calendar Changes. Even though the ark had landed, there was still too much water for Noah and his family to leave the ark as the waters continued to decrease until the 10th day of the 10th moon. And continued to dry from 1st day of the 1st moon till the 27th day of the 2nd moon. With the land still wet it was not possible to plant barley to be used to determine when the start of the year should be.

Genesis 7:11,13,24
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
13 In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;
24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.
Genesis 8:3-5,13-14
3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. 4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.
13 And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.

I do not follow the Hillel II calendar for multiple reasons. For one it was created to handle problems that were created when divorcing the Weekly Sabbaths from the New Moon when the Catholic church forced their continuous seven day cycle upon them, such as the 10th day of the 1st moon. In doing so, postponement days were added, which are not in Torah, and takes the days away from the Moon, a light in the heavens as stated in Genesis 1:14, causes those who follow it to break Torah. Although I’m okay with a calculated calendar, it must be exact, and it’s using a 19 year lunar cycle, where actually the lunar cycle is 18.6 years as figured out by the Lehites show by Newark Earthworks in Ohio. Also the Hillel II calendar will start the year at times before the spring equinox, as long as it’s not more than two weeks after when they claim the new year starts. My problem with this is that YHWH through out the scriptures tells us to WATCH for the SIGNS, not to do something before the SIGNS happened. In doing this the Hillel II calendar will cause YHWH’s Holidays to be out of their seasons. In that the scriptures tell us of harvests that goes along with His Holidays.

Deuteronomy 16:13 Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine:

Exodus 34:22 And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.

Jeremiah 36:22 Now the king sat in the winterhouse in the ninth month: and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him.

The video The Grapes Are Not Picked Yet – Deut 16:13 is very good at pointing this out.