THE MOSAIC CALKNDAR." 



139^ 



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 the 

 Lord seven days : in the seventh day is an holy convocation : 

 ye shall do no servile work therein." (Leviticus xxiii, 4-8.) 



The other — " the feast of ingathering," or of Tabernacles, as 

 it is more commonly called — was held six months later, in the 

 autumn : — 



" Speak unto the children of Israel, saying. The fifteenth 

 day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles 

 for seven days unto the Lord." (Leviticus xxiii, 34.) 



" In the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have 

 gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto 

 the Lord seven days : on the first day shall be a sabbath, 

 and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath." {Ibid., 39.) 



" The feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, 

 when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field." 

 (Exodus xxiii, 16.) 



Thus, as the morning and evening sacrifices stood respectively 

 at the beginning and end of the bright part of the day, so the great 

 feasts of spring and autumn, Passover and Tabernacles, 

 stood at the beginning and end of the bright part of the year. 

 The sun, when he crossed the equator northward in the spring, 

 was for a sign, and for an appointed assembly, a " season " ; and 

 again when he crossed it southward in the autumn. Thus each 

 year was marked out and sanctified by an act of worship at its 

 beginning, and by another at its close. 



The month also was sanctified by a religious observance. 

 By its nature, the month does not supply so close an analogy 

 with the day as does the year, and in primitive times the first 

 appearance of the " new moon " was the only phenomenon of 

 the month suitable as a sign or signal from whence time could 

 be reckoned. 



So in jSTumbers xxviii, 11, the ordinance for the continual 

 burnt offering of the sacrifice of a lamb in the morning and of a 

 second lamb in the evening, is followed by the injunction : — 



In the beginnings of your months ye shall offer a burnt 

 offering unto the Lord ; two young bullocks, and one ram, 

 seven lambs of the first year without spot." 



