The prevalence of routine, and the mystery con- nected with anything unusual, coupled with the excitable nature of the people, cause everything new to be attractive.
Throughout the Bible there are many instances of the astonishment, attractiveness, and authority connected with strange occurrences and new be- ginnings. With regard to natural and religious seasons, each day has its light and darkness, week is separated from week. The appearance of the new moon announcing the commencement of the month was also a day of religious festival, 1S 2053, The Feasts ὁ
of the year. New Year’s Day was reckoned for different purposes five times in the year. The year of Tabiles was a time of recovery and re- newal for those who had been crushed by adversity.
Passover, Pentecost, and | Tabernacles were connected with the new produce |
announced the creation of Israel as a chosen people, so the new testament in Christ’s blood (Mt 26%) created the nationality of world-wide sainthood.
The Christian is a new creature 2 Co 57, Col 3%, endued with a new spirit Ro 8%, in order to be maintained in perpetual newness of life Ro 6*. See, further, art. REGENERATION.
G. M. Mackie. NEW BIRTH.—See REGENERATION.
NEW COMMANDMENT.—See BrorHer.y Love.
NEW JERUSALEM.—See REVELATION (BooK OF).
NEW MAN.—See REGENERATION.
NEW MOON (e735, o3n0 8; νεομηνία, vovnnria).— The celebration of the New Moon belongs to the most ancient of Hebrew rites. It perhaps goes back to the time when the moon was still an object of worship (Smith, Internat. Crit. Comm. on Samuel, p. 185). Lagarde held that the generic Heb. term for ‘joyous praise’ (9s) was derived from an old name of the New Moon (see Gesenius- Buhl, s.v. ὅπ, II.). The New Moon was a feast of nomads, but it was carried over to their new agricultural conditions by the Israelite settlers in Canaan (Cobb, Origines Judaica, p. 138). In the time of the earlier prophets, the New Moon stood in the same line with another lunar observ- ance, the Sabbath (see FEAsTs). No work or business was attended to on either day (Am 85). Hosea (2") speaks of the feasts, the New Moons, the Sabbaths, and festal assemblies as passing away with the national independence ; and a similar con- nexion between the New Moon and the other solemn days is found in Is 1°,
ust as the New Moon occupies a prominent place with the prophets, so does it with Ezekiel and in the Leviti legislation (P). Ezekiel, who curi- ously enough frequent! dates his prophecies on the New Moon (26! 297 32 321, ef. Hag 1"), describes the gate of the inner court of the temple looking eastwards as kept shut for the six working days, but opened on the Sabbath and New Moon (Ἐκ 46'). The prince, besides making special arrange- ments for the great New Moons of the first and seventh months (this is the probable meaning of Ezk 458), was also to provide offerings for ordinary New Moons (Ezk 46'7). The gate was open till the evening, and while the people stood without the prince was allowed to stand by the threshold. According to Ezekiel (46°), the New Moon offerings consisted of a young bullock, six lambs, and a ram without blemish (the Sabbath burnt-otlering was less, y.*), as burnt-otferings ; an ephah for the bullock and for each ram, a handful of flour for each lamb, and a hin of oil to an ephah as a meal- offering (vv.7"*). In Nu 28" the burnt-offering con- sisted of two young bullocks, one ram, and seven he-
| lambs of the first year without blemish; fine flour,
622 oil ard wine carefully proportioned (vv."), and a he-goat as a sin-offering (v.¥). The offerings here,
NEW MOON
as in Ezekiel, are more important than for the Sabbath (Nu 28* ), An additional detail is added in Nu 10", where the law ordains that ‘in the days of your gladness, and in your set feasts, and in the beginnings of your months’ the two silver trumpets were to be sounded during the sacrificial rites as a ‘memorial before your God.’ Some authorities have held that Ps 81° [Heb.*] ‘ Blow up the trumpet in the New Moon, at the full moon, on our solemn feast day,’ refers to the ordinary New Moon. Thus Aquila and Symm. render ἐν πάσῃ veounvla ; but the , like the EV, omits ‘every.’ The Targum refers the passage solely to the New Moon of the seventh month (Ly 23™) ; and this, the traditional Jewish view, has been adopted by modern commentators (see Baethgen and Duhm, ad loc.). The subject is further treated in the article TRUMPET.
Some difficulty has been found in explaining the omission of the New Moon in Deuteronomy and in the documents named JE. It has been seen that the New Moon was very ancienc, and that it was of preat importance after the Exile (see, ¢.g., Is 667 and other references cited above and below. In Chronicles the New Moon is assumed as an established institution). Dillmann suggests that the omission in the intermediate period is due simply to the fact that the observance was a popular feast that needed no specific legal sanc- tion. It may, however, be (as Wellhausen, Prolego- mena, p. 118, holds) that there was a temporar cessation of the observance of the New Moon, both because heathen elements intruded into the fes- tivities (Isaiah speaks of the ‘monthly prognosti- eators,’ 47"), and also because the greater import- ance attached to the Sabbath must have made the observance of the New Moon (which came, unlike the Sabbath, on irregular days) irksome. After the Exile the New Moon recovered its importance because the great feasts were fixed in accordance with it. (This view is adopted by Benzinger, Heb. Arch. p. 465, and Nowack, Lehrbuch der Heb. Arch. ii. 140). See Time.