The Seven-Day Weekly Cycle

Next Part Postponements and the Day of Passover A.D. 31

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One clear fact should emerge from the study of the 7-day weekly cycle. The calendar makes no alterations on the weekly cycle in any way. Some have implied that the calendar adjustments somehow shift the weekly Sabbath. This has never happened in the past and does not happen now.

Although the calendar never altered the weekly cycle in any way, adjustments in the calendar had to take place to accommodate certain days of the week. We will shortly see how one of the rules of postponements ties into the weekly cycle. It is ironic that one of the easiest concepts to clarify is the one to which most critics object—Rule 2 of postponements. Some claim that this adjustment was only introduced after the time of Christ. But this claim is completely incorrect. This “controversial” rule on postponements exists for this simple reason: The 7-day weekly cycle does not mesh with the 29 or 30 day month.

Because certain Holy Days were not intended to fall on particular week days, adjustments had to be made in the calendar, which would have had to be in effect from the time it was first presented to Israel. Neither the days of the week nor the Holy Days have changed since that time. The calendar had to make some considerable adjustments, because it is the Sabbath and the weekly cycle that are absolutely unmovable—not the other way around! Postponements are discussed at length in a following section of this booklet. At that point, we will consider all the rules pertaining to them.

Calendar Calculations Publicized

When Israel was under the God-ordained leadership of the priesthood, it was the priests’ responsibility to follow the directions that God had provided to determine the times of the beginning of months and the Holy Days. They could make known the Holy Days in advance. After the Babylonian captivity, the Jews of the dispersion were able to look to the Jewish priesthood (who returned to Judea) as the central authority in the determination of the sacred years. The Sanhedrin assumed that responsibility from the time of Ezra until the time it was dissolved by the Romans in the fourth century A.D. Shortly after the time of Christ, the Romans destroyed the temple, and many Jews were driven from Jerusalem soon after A.D. 135. In those most trying times, the calendar was still entrusted to the Jews, and the Jewish patriarchs continued to announce the arrival of the Holy Days. During the fourth century, the Roman authorities, in league with the Roman Catholic Church, outlawed Sabbath and Holy day observance.

Due to the increased level of persecution and the expelling of Jews from Jerusalem, it became necessary to release the rather complicated data used to calculate the calendar. Except for the next largest Jewish enclave in Babylon (of Mesopotamia), the dispersed enclaves could no longer look to the patriarchs to announce the time of the Molad of Tishri and when the other Holy Days would fall, as had been announced from Jerusalem. About the year A.D. 359, it became necessary for the patriarch Hillel II to publicize this information. Of course, it was delivered to Jewish enclaves in all known areas of the world. Besides the calendar instructions, Hillel II provided the Jews with charts that projected the Holy Days for hundreds of years in advance. For those who would wish to study the calendar calculations, predetermined answers to future calculations would measure their level of proficiency.

As mentioned earlier, the Church of God since the first century looked to local Jewish enclaves for the needed information pertaining to the timing of the new year and the respective Holy Days resulting from that benchmark. Overall, the Jews of the dispersion from the time of the fourth century continued to faithfully observe the calendar as given them by Hillel II.

There existed a few exceptions, such as the Essenes of the first century who deviated from the authentic calendar, with little or no impact upon those outside those sects. Another minority sect that existed shortly after the Babylonian captivity, undertook to alter the calendar according to a 48-year cycle. Just as the Essenes who appeared centuries later, such groups made no impact on the established calendar accepted by the Jews on a worldwide scale.

What are Postponements?

Postponements are the most misunderstood and most maligned of all the aspects of the calendar. Ironically, they are relatively easy to defend. Simply stating the facts defends both their purpose and intent.

There are four distinct postponements that exist with the Hebrew calendar. The purpose of postponements is to assure a permissible length of the year while reconciling the 7-day weekly cycle with the precise time of the month that certain Holy Days are to fall. This adjustment of the calendar to accommodate the weekly cycle is achieved by Rule 2—allowing certain week days and prohibiting others upon which Tishri 1, or the Molad of Tishri, can fall. Here are the rules of postponement:

Rule 1: When the Molad of Tishri occurs at noon (12th hour in Roman time) or later, the Feast of Trumpets is postponed to the following day.

Rule 2: When the Molad of Tishri or a postponed Feast of Trumpets occurs on a Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday, the Feast of Trumpets is postponed to the following day. (Because of this, Atonement will never occur on either the day before or after a Sabbath.)

Rule 3: When the Molad of Tishri of a common year falls on Tuesday after 3:11 AM (3 Days, 3 Hours, 204 Parts) or later, Trumpets is postponed to a Wednesday and, because of rule 2, further postponed to Thursday.

Rule 4: When, in a common year immediately following a leap year, the Molad of Tishri occurs on Monday about 9:33 AM (2 D, 9 H, 589 P) or later, the Feast of Trumpets is postponed to the next day.

Rules one and two are sometimes listed in reverse order in various publications. These two rules are not affected in the order given as long as the rules are allowed to interact.

The first rule simply states that if Tishri 1 occurred at or after noon on a particular day, then it would be postponed until the next day. This is entirely logical because the new moon observed in the afternoon would put the observance of Tishri 1 within the last quadrant of that day, with the majority occurring in the following day.

Therefore, the following day would be designated as Tishri 1. The second rule is by far the most controversial. Many challenges to this rule have surfaced, primarily in the last decade or so. Of course, the timing of this criticism comes as no surprise. Some accuse the Jews of purposely inventing postponements to cause true Christians to stumble, by observing the Holy Days at the wrong time. This is utterly false—and ridiculous.

We need to establish the reason for the second postponement rule. If Tishri 1 falls on a Wednesday, then Atonement would fall on a Friday, the day of preparation for the weekly Sabbath. Those who correctly prepare for each weekly Sabbath are appreciative to God for this rule. It prevents many undue hardships. If Tishri 1 fell on a Friday, then Atonement would fall on a Sunday, the day after the weekly Sabbath. Either possibility, allowing Atonement to be consecutive with the weekly Sabbath, would be contradictory. So Atonement was always to be separated from falling immediately before or after the Sabbath. God would simply not put mankind into a contradictory situation of breaking or compromising the meaning of an annual Sabbath in order to observe a weekly Sabbath, or vice versa. This postponement exists for practical reasons to avoid a serious conflict in the order of Holy Days—not merely for the sake of convenience.

Close examination of God’s laws reveals that the weekly Sabbath (Lev. 23:3) and the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:29, 23:28) are the only two days that “no work” can be done. The other Holy Days specify “no servile work,” but the Sabbath and Atonement specify “no work at all.” Having these two consecutive Sabbaths would have been especially contradictory for the Levites. Their preparation for the Day of Atonement involved a significant amount of work and, to a lesser extent, so did their preparation for the weekly Sabbath. Another issue would be that of burial, in which two adjacent days which prohibited burial of the dead would have led to other serious contradictions.

If Tishri 1 fell on a Sunday, then the fall Holy Days of the Feast of Tabernacles (Tishri 15) and the Last Great Day (Tishri 22) would both fall on a Sunday, as well. Since these Holy Days represent the culmination of God’s plan, He would not assign them to be represented by the first day of the week. After the day of Pentecost, the remaining Holy Days never fall on the first day of the week for this reason, as well as the fact that the weekly Sabbath would be in the preparation time for three of the four fall Holy Days. Such would be another contradictory situation, creating undue hardships. One last reason for this rule is that it would prevent the observance of the Passover on the evening beginning Nisan 14 from occurring on the evening immediately after the weekly Sabbath. This would be a clearly recognizable contradiction of schedule, since the Passover preparation would need to be made, but would be prohibited during the Sabbath.

Rules three and four adjust the setting of Tishri 1 when it falls within certain common years. These two rules have not presented a problem with anyone. Along with rule one, they are mainly for mathematical accuracy and assure that all possible situations are accommodated by the six different year lengths. Rules three and four only affect a portion of the mornings of certain common years as defined by the rules. By contrast, rule one applies only to the afternoon portions of the calculated Molad of Tishri.

Rules one and two are by far the most frequently used, whether individually or together. It should also be noted that it is quite common for none of the four rules of postponement to apply in certain years, as well.

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