LT.-COL. G. MACKINLAY ON BIBLICAL ASTRONOMY. 133 



Other traces of septiform arrangement are found among the 

 aneient nations near the Israelites. Several of the constellations 

 were considered to be composed of seven bright stars.* The 

 Egyptians are not known to have had any plan of ordinary 

 weeks of seven days ; yet they celebrated a feast every thirty 

 years, when the first day of the civil year (which was always 

 365 days) showed an increased difference of seven days from 

 the sacred year, which was a corrected one ; and we are told in 

 Gen. 1, 3, that the Egyptians mourned for Jacob seventy days. 



But it is among the Hebrews that the prominence of the 

 number seven (spiritually signifying rest or completeness) is 

 most conspicuous. 



The calendar of the three great annual feasts and also other 

 periods is arranged on this plan, for instance — 



The seventh day is the Sabbath (Ex. xx, 8, 9, 10). 



The seventh week from the morrow of the Sabbath after 



the passover was the feast of weeks (Lev. xxiii. 16). 

 The seventh month from the passover was the feast of 



tabernacles (in-gathering) (Lev. xxiii, 34). 

 The seventh year was the year of release (Ex. xxiii, 11). 

 After seven times seven years was the year of Jubilee 



(Lev. xxv, 8, 9). 

 Seventy years was the period of the captivity (Jer. xxv, 



11), and of the age of man (Ps. xc, 10). 

 Seventy weeks or seventy periods of seven years each was 



the period prophesied by Daniel (Dan. ix, 24). 

 And there may be other longer septiform periods. 



Feasts. — With regard to the three great annual feasts of 

 Jehovah mentioned above, viz., Passover, Weeks, and 

 Tabernacles, it is interesting to notice the time of the year and 

 of the month in which they were placed. The first and the 

 last were in the middle of the month at the full moons near 

 the equinoxes, and the intermediate feast was at about the 

 beginning of May, when the moon was at or near the beginning of 

 its second quarter. Thus on the first days of two of the feasts 

 there would be the light of full moon all night, and at the 

 other one, a fair amount of moonlight for the first part of the 

 shortened night of early summer. 



Thus a maximum amount of nocturnal illumination was 

 obtained in the first days of the feasts, consistent with the 



* See p. 106, vol. ii, Prim. Constellations, by A. Brown. 



