This is a fit occasion for discussing a question which equally concerns both periods—With which of our months, namely, did the first month, the month of ears,' or Nisan, most nearly coincide We are indebted to J. D. Michaelis for discovering the true state of this case, after the rabbinical writers had so universally established an erroneous opinion that it has not even yet disappeared from our popular books. His dissertation De Mensi bus Hebrieorum' (in his Commentationes per winos 1763-1768 °blare, Bremen 1769, p. 16) proceeds on the following chief arguments :—That, if the first month began with the new moon of March, as was commonly asserted, the climate of Pales tine would not in that month permit the oblation of the sheaf of barley, which is ordered on the second day of the Paschal Feast ; nor could the harvest be finished before the Feast of Weeks. which would then fall in May ; nor could the Feast of Tabernacles, which was after the gather ing of all fruits, accord with the month of Septem ber, because all these feasts depend on certain stages in the agricultural year, which, as he shows from the observations of travellers, solely coincide with the states of vegetation which are found, in that climate, in the months of April, June, and October. Secondly, that the Syrian calendar, which has essentially the same names for the months, makes its Nisan absolutely parallel with our April. And, lastly, that Josephus, in one place, makes Nisan equivalent to the Macedonian month Xanthicus ; and, in another, mentions that, on the 14th of Nisan, the sun was in the sign of the Ram—which could not be on that day, except in April (2intiq. ii. 14. 6 ; iii. to. 5). Michaelis concludes that the later Jews fell into this departure from their ancient order, either through some mis take in the intercalation, or because they wished to imitate the Romans, whose year began in March. Ideler says, So much is certain, that, in the time of Moses, the month of ears cannot have com menced before the first days of our April, which was then the period of the vernal equinox (Hand. buck der Chronologie, i. 490). As Nisan then began with the new moon of April, we have a scale for fixing the commencement of all the other months with reference to our calendar ; and we must accordingly date their commencement one whole month later than is commonly done : allow ing, of course, for the circumstance that, as the new moon varies its place in our solar months, the Jewish months will almost invariably consist of portions of two of ours.
With regard to the third period, it is not neces sary to say more here than that, as the dispersion of the Jews rendered it impossible to communicate the intelligence of the visible appearance of the new moon, they were obliged to devise a syste matic calculation of the duration of their months ; but that they retained the above-mentioned names for the months, which are still lunar months, of the mean duration of 29 days, 12 hours, 44 seconds ; and that when they were no longer able to regulate the epochs of their festivals by the agricultural year of Palestine, they came, for some such reasons as those assigned by Michaelis, to place every month earlier by one lunation than it had been in the first two periods, so that their Nisan now most nearly coincided with March. The rabbinical writers, therefore, who maintained that the ancient Nisan likewise began with the new moon of March, were mainly led into that opinion by the practice existing in their own time.—J. N.
MOON (n -o, 1 15, eth). Of these names for the moon, the first two relate to the colour of that orb as of a pale yellow or whitish hue ; and the third—properly the new moan—to its periodic newal (from rill, to be new; in Pihel, to renew).
Among the Aryan tribes the moon is named either from its function as the measurer of time (Lassen, Indische Allerthiimer, i. 765 ; ii.1118 ; Pott, Ely molog. Forsehungen, i. 194), or from its luminous quality (comp. 2 € from criXav, brightness, and Luna=Luenta, from lucere). The Hebrew names include an allusion to both ; the whiteness of the moon being connected with its luminosity, and its periodic renewal with its office as a measurer of time. There is a recognition of both in the account of the creation in Gen. i. 4-16 ; and special reference is made to the moon as a time measurer in Ps. civ. 19. The brilliancy of the moon's light in eastern climates, and its utility to the traveller, conspired to make it an object of admiration and interest to the inhabitants of a country like Palestine. Hence the allusions to it in Hebrew poetry are frequent (Ps. viii. 3 ; lxxii. 5, 7 ; lxxxix. 37; Song vi. to ; Is. xxx. 26, etc.) The periodic renewal of the moon naturally de termines a period of time ; and hence the month was by the Hebrews regulated by the new moon, and named riv, from the moon. This caused their months to be of slightly unequal length, and led also to their adopting a lunar year. As the solar year was the proper natural year, this tended to produce confusion, especially with reference to the fixing of the yearly festivals ; and to remedy this an intercalary month was periodically intro duced [YEAR]. The persistent following of the moon in their reckoning became distinctive of the Jews : —' Gentes in computo solem sequuntur, Israelite? lunam' (Sohar, in Genes., fol. 238 ; comp. Bahr, Symbolik des Al s. Cult., ii. 526 ; Waehner, Antiqq. Ebr., ii. 34 ; Selden, .De Anna rim vett. Hebb., c. 5).
It was a common belief among the ancients, that the moon exercised a potent effect on organic nature, both vegetable and animal. As dew was observed to be most copious in clear moonlight nights, it was natural to regard the moon as the source of dew (camp. Heyne's note on Virg., Georg. iii. 337), and, in general, of fertility ; and as exposure to the atmosphere, especially sleeping in the open air, on such nights, may lead to serious diseases, an influence of a baneful kind on the animal body was ascribed to that luminary (Mac rob., Saturn. vii. 16). Such beliefs still prevail in Egypt and the East, especially as to the power of the moon to produce blindness in those exposed to its rays (Came, Letters from the East, i. 88). Whether the ancient Hebrews participated in such notions, does not appear from Scripture. The allusion in Dent. xxxiii. 14, to the precious things put forth by the moon,' probably refers to the moon merely as regulating the succession of the months, just as the sun regulates the year, and not to any direct influence supposed to be exerted by the moon on vegetation. So in Ps. cxxi. 6, the smiting of the moon by night' may relate merely to the unwholesome effect of exposure to the night air generally (De Wette and Hengstenberg, in lot.) Among the later Hebrews the belief pre vailed that epileptic diseases were influenced by the moon [LUNATICS].