Shabbat and the reality of traditions. Today's shabbat in Judaism is a tradition born under the Roman pressure in the 2nd century AD. Jews in Ysrael under the last Sanhedrin and his leader Hillel II, did a compromising choice due to the romman pressure. They kept the observance of the "chodesh", New Moon and adopted the saturday as the shabbat.
Contantine changed the Julian calendar and put Sun-day as the First day of the week to honor the day of the sun, been a sun worshiper. Until the 4th century, "saturn-day" was the first day of the week.
THE SHABBAT
Ps 104:19 He made the moon for appointed times; The sun knows its going down.
Appointed times:
H4150 מוֹעֵד mowed (mo-ade') n-m.
מֹעֵד moed (mo-ade')
מוֹעָדָה mow`adah (mo-aw-daw') [feminine, 2 Chronicles 8:13]
1. (properly) an appointment, i.e. a fixed time or season.
2. (specifically) a festival.
The text in Hebrew shows that "appointed times "moedim" (plural) are determined by the moon, and the seasons by the sun.
Gen 1:14 And Elohim said, “Let lights come to be in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and appointed times, and for days and years,
The Moedim are clearly listed in the book of Vayiqra (Leveticus), and the First of them is:
Lv 23:1 And יהוה spoke to Mosheh, saying,
Lv 23:2 “Speak to the children of Yisra’ĕl, and say to them, ‘The appointed times (Moedim) of יהוה, which you are to proclaim as set-apart gatherings, My appointed times (Moedim), are these:
Lv 23:3 ‘Six days work is done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a set-apart gathering. You do no work, it is a Sabbath to יהוה in all your dwellings.
The First of all moedim is the SHABBAT.
In the First century this is what Philo of Alexandria write concerning the shabbat:
“Again, the periodical changes of the moon, take place according to the number seven, that star having the greatest sympathy with the things on earth. And the changes which the moon works in the air, it perfects chiefly in accordance with its own configurations on each seventh day. At all events, all mortal things, as I have said before, drawing their more divine nature from the heaven, are moved in a manner which tends to their preservation in accordance with this number seven. … Accordingly, on the seventh day, Elohim caused to rest from all his works which he had made.” …
Notice that Philo says the moon is perfect in its shape or appearance at seven day intervals. Had a Hebrew speaking Israelite written this he would have said “it perfects chiefly in accordance with its own configurations on each Sabbath day instead of each “seventh” day
The Decalogue XXX (159),
“But to the seventh day of the week he has assigned the greatest festivals, those of the longest duration, at the periods of the equinox (Tekufah) both vernal and autumnal in each year; appointing two festivals for these two epochs, each lasting seven days; the one which takes place in the spring being for the perfection of what is being sown, and the one which falls in autumn being a feast of thanksgiving for the bringing home of all the fruits which the trees have produced”…
Equinox:
Ps 19:4 Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. In them He set up a tent for the sun,
Ps 19:5 And it is like a bridegroom coming out of his room, It rejoices like a strong man to run the path.
Ps 19:6 Its rising is from one end of the heavens, And its circuit to the other end; And naught is hidden from its heat.
Circuit:
H8622 תְּקוּפָה tquwphah (tek-oo-faw') n-f.
תְּקֻפָה tquphah (tek-oo-faw')
1. a revolution.
2. (of the sun) course.
Ex 34:22 'And a feast of weeks thou dost observe for thyself; first-fruits of wheat-harvest; and the feast of in-gathering, at the revolution of the year (Tekufah).
Another translation give the verse as follow:
Ex 34:22 “And perform the Festival of Shaḇu‘ot "c" for yourself, of the first-fruits of wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering "d" at the turn of the year (Tekufah in the Hebrew text). Footnotes: c Feast of Weeks. d Festival of Sukkot (Booths).
Ex 34:22 וְחַג שָׁבֻעֹת תַּעֲשֶׂה לְךָ בִּכּוּרֵי קְצִיר חִטִּים וְחַג הָֽאָסִיף תְּקוּפַת הַשָּׁנָֽה׃
Speaking of “lunar” intervals, in Special Laws I. (178), Philo writes…
“…there is one principle of reason by which the moon waxes and wanes in equal intervals, both as it increases and diminishes in illumination; the seven lambs because it receives the perfect shapes in periods of seven days—the half-moon in the first seven day period after its conjunction with the sun, full moon in the second; and when it makes its return again, the first is to half-moon, then it ceases at its conjunction with the sun.”
Flavius Josephus lived from about 37 CE to 100 CE and undoes the Gregorian calendar in a different fashion but nonetheless supports the Creation Calendar and the lunar Sabbaths. There are in Scripture several passages that prevent any child of the King from ever accidentally falling into the wrong calendar for worship. Exodus 12:2-6 and Leviticus 23:4-14 introduce us to three fixed date work days. Abib 10, Abib 14 and Abib 16.
The 10th day of Abib is the day to set aside the Passover lamb. This is a work/commerce day. A sheepherder may have a suitable lamb, but a fisherman or a tent-maker may not. Abib 10 is the day to PURCHASE a suitable lamb. Abib 10 floats on the Gregorian calendar [translation: satyrday falls on Abib 10 at times]. Commerce is prohibited on Sabbath and there is NO legislation in Torah to purchase the Passover lamb on either the 9th or 11th of Abib IF satyrday just happens to land on Abib 10.
The 14th day of Abib is always the preparation day for the first day of Unleavened Bread. Matthew 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54--24:1, John 19:14, 31, 42—John 20:1. Satyrday falls on Abib 14 from time to time. The fact is that the 10th, 14th and 16th of Abib are, without exception, commanded work days. The barley could be harvested on the 16th after the Wave Sheaf had been offered, Leviticus 23:9-14. Can we harvest our fields on Sabbath?
If there is a continuous 7 day cycle, every few years either the 10th, 14th or 16th will fall on a Satyrday. Evidence: Abib 10 fell on a “Saturday” in 2003. The 14th fell on “Saturday” in 2004. YHVH never instructed Israel to do common work on a rest day Sabbath. He is not the Author of confusion.
It is Abib 16 that Josephus writes about, his words hammering the counterfeit calendar and its proponents. Please understand that Josephus is writing to a non-Israelite audience. In The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 3, Chapter 10, section 5, he has this to say about the Passover season:
(248) “In the month of Xanthicus, which is by us called Nisan, and is the beginning of the year, on the fourteenth day of the lunar month, when the sun is in Aries (for in this month it was that we were delivered from bondage under the Egyptians, and law ordained that we should every year slay that sacrifice which I before told you we slew when we came out of Egypt, and which was called the Passover; and so we do celebrate this Passover in companies, leaving nothing of what we sacrifice till the day following. (249) The feast of unleavened bread succeeds that of the Passover, and falls on the fifteenth day of the month and continued seven days, wherein they feed on unleavened bread… (250) But on the second day of unleavened bread, which is the sixteenth day of the month, they first partake of the fruits of the earth, for before that day, they do not touch them. …. (251) They take a handful of ears, and dry them, then beat them small and purge the barley from the bran; they then bring one tenth deal to the altar, to Elohim; and, casting one handful of it upon the fire they leaven the rest for use of the priest; and after this it is that they may publicly or privately reap their harvest.”
Josephus is explaining to the Gentile nations how the barley could be harvested on the 16th, and says exactly what Leviticus 23 says about the feast of Passover, Unleavened Bread and wavesheaf.
In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is YHVH’s passover.
And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto YHVH: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto YHVH seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
And YHVH spake unto Moses, saying,
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest:
And he shall wave the sheaf before YHVH, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. Leviticus 23:5-11
Here are a few more historical accounts of Israel’s lunar Sabbath…
The first is found in the Talmud the Steinsaltz Edition”, Volume XIV Tractate Ta’anit Part II (1995 by Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications and Milta Books), pages 205-206. It says the following regarding the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar’s army:
Page 205: “Then late on the day of the ninth, close to nightfall, they set the Temple on fire, and it continued to burn the entire next day, on the tenth.” Page 206: “When the Temple was destroyed for the first time at the hands of Nebuzaradan [the captain of the guard], that day was the ninth of Av, and it was the day following Shabbat, and it was the year following the Sabbatical Year.... And similarly when the Temple was destroyed a second time at the hands of Titus, the destruction occurred on the very same day, on the ninth of Av.”
Guess what day the ninth day of Av was when Titus destroyed the temple? (The day after the weekly Sabbath, naturally.) If I’ve done the math right, the ninth day of the month follows the 8th day of the month. Correct? If the 8th day of the month is the Sabbath, so are the 15th, 22nd and 29th days of the month.
The historian Josephus records Sabbaths that can be pinpointed and they are on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th and the New moon was not counted as one of the six workdays. Josephus records an interesting type of strategy by General Pompey and the Romans. The Roman’s saw that the Hebrews did not fight on the Sabbath unless attacked. So, the Romans simply moved their engines and battering rams up to the walls on the Sabbath day, which otherwise they could not do, and on the next day, they battered the city. See page 369-370. Antiquities of the Jews Book 14, Chapter 4, section 3.
