TIME, DIVISIONS OF. The following are mentioned in (1) Year. (Heb. shaw-naw', as a revo lution of time), so called from the change of the seasons.
The year of the Hebrews consisted of twelve months (1 Kings iv :7; I Chron.xxvii :1-15). These appear to have been lunar (see MONTH), and the year would accordingly contain 354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, 32.4 seconds. There were two seasons, summer and winter (Ps. lxxiv :17 ; Zech. xiv :8; Jer. XXXVi :22 ' • Amos iii :15).
The annual festivals were inseparably con nected with the agricultural seasons. A strictly lunar year would cause these festivals, as fixed by the calendar, to constantly recede from their ap propriate season. It was necessary to bring the lunar year into correspondence with the solar year of 365 days. This was doubtless accom plished by the intercalation of an additional month every three or four years, although the custom is not mentioned in the Bible.
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 loth 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 dedi cation, on the 25th day of the ninth month. (See YEAR.) (2) Month ( Heb. kho'desh, the new moon).
The ancient Hebrews called the months by their numbers—first month, second month, third month, etc.—though at the same time they also applied a special name to each month. This double nomen clature had nothing to do, however, with the double course of months which the Jews em ployed after leaving Egypt, one making the civil and the other the sacred year. The former com
menced from the first new moon in October—and this was used in civil and agricultural concerns only—and the latter from the first new moon in April, because they left Egypt on the fifteenth of that month, and it was used in regulating the time of their feasts, etc. The prophets use this reckoning. "From the time of the institution of the Mosaic Law downward, the month appears to have been a lunar one. The cycle of religious feasts, commencing with the Passover, depended not simply on the month, but on the moon; and the new moons themselves were the occasions of regular festivals" (Num. x :to; xxviii:11-14)• The length of the month was regulated by the changes of the moon, but, twelve lunar months making only 354 days and 6 hours, the Jewish year was short of the true solar year by twelve days. To compensate for this difference, the Jews every three years intercalated a thirteenth month, which they called Ve-adar, the second Adar, and thus their lunar year became equal to the solar. The changes of the moon were carefully watched, and a formal announcement made of the appear ance of the new moon by sound of trumpets and beacon fires (Num. x :to; Ps. lxxxi :3). These observations were continued throughout Jewish history, though it is evident that the Jews were in possession of calculations by which the course of the moon could be predicted (i Sam. xx :5, 24, 27). (See MONTH; FESTIVALS; FIRST FRUITS.) (3) We(ik (Heb. shaw-boo'ah, sevencd; Gr. cdt9t9arov, sab'bal-on, rest).
The division of time into portions of seven days found among many different nations which cannot have adopted it from one another—such as the Chinese, Peruvians, etc.—is by some referred back to the order of the creation. and by others to the "seven planets," the principal fact in ancient astronomy.