Beginning of the Year. — 'The Hebrew year had begun in the autumn with the month of Sep- tember ; but side by side with this West-Semitic calendar there had also been in use in Palestine another calendar, that of Babylonia, according to \\hich the year began with Nisan or March. It was Mie Babylonian Calendar which was now introduced for ritual purposes. While the civil year still began in the autumn, it was ordained that the sacred year should begin in the spring. The sacred year was detennined by the annual festivals, and the first of these festivals was hence- forth to be the Passover. The beginning of the new year was henceforth fixed by the Passover moon ' (Sayce, EHH p. 178). According to Dill- mann {Monatsbericlite, Societas Regia Seientiarum, Berlin, ISSl) both the autumn and the spring new years are pre-exilic. The autumn era was, he holds, an economic rather than a calendar year ; but, as Nowack well remarks, to an agricultural people the economic year must have coincided with the calendar year. That at all events an economic year began in the autumn is clear from such phrases as n;;n nx>7, niijri n;!pn (' the end of the year,' Ex 23" 34--, cf. I S 20) used in describing the autumn harvest festival. The narrative of the Flood places the commencement on the 17th of the 2nd month, which on an autumn reckoning would correspond with the rainy season. The sabbatical year began in autumn (Lv 25°), though it was not at the beginning of a calendar year (being on the 10th of the month). The royal years also at one time began in the autumn, and the synchronism of the Jewish events with the regnal year of Nebuchadnezzar in Jeremiah (46^) seems to sup- port the same conclusion. Dillmann at all events mfers that the second half of the Jewish roval year correspondeil with the first half of the Baby- lonian royal year (the fourth year of Jehoiakim corresponds both to the first year of Nebuchad- nezzar, Jer 25', and to the twenty-first of his pre-
decessor Nabopolasar, in which the battle ol Carchemish was fought).
But besides the autumn year a spring era seems abo to have been pre-exUic. The use of the term .i:;n njsc'n for the resumption of royal campaigns (2 S 111, j K 2(F-^- =«, 2 Ch SG'") points to a spring era. So also does the order of the feasts. In the oldest form (Ex 23'-'"'), as well as in J (Ex 34'«-2-), and Dent. (16'"), the cycle begins with Passover and ends with Tabernacles. A Babylonian in- Huence, to which was, however, due the intro- duction of the new names for the months, need not therefore be sought for this fixing of the be- ginning of the year in the spring (Ex 12-, and in Priestly Code throughout), but the period of the Exile no doubt did mark the completion of the change from the autumnal to the vernal equinox. By this arrangement the order of the months began in Nisan, but the succession of years began in Tishri. Josephus is clearly accurate when he says (Ant. I. iii. 3) : ' Moses appointed that Nisan, which is the same with Xanthicus, should be the first month for their festivals, because he brought them out of Egypt in that month : so that this month began the year, as to all the solemnities they observed to the honour of God — although he preserved the original order of the months as to selling and buying and other ordinaiy afiairs.' The Mishna {Bosh Hasliana i. 1) enumerates four new years — Nisan (for kings and the cycle of feasts), Eiul (for the tithes of cattle), Tishri (for years, as at present in the Jewish Calendar, sab- batical years and juhUees, and other agricultural purpo.ses), Shebat (for trees). ' During the Exile,' says Benzinger, ' the new year seems to have bepn calculated not on the first but on the 10th of tht 7th month (Lv 25', Ezk 40), only later was the great Atonement festival fixed on this day.' But it may be doubted whether the 10th of the 7th month was ever the beginning of a calendar year. But the Ist of Tishri with its rite of blowing the s/iiphdr (see Trumpet), and its later spiritual associations as a day of penitence, acquired great importance in the Jewish Calendar. (On the history of the New Year Liturgy see Friedmann iaJQIi, vol. i. p. 62 f.).
DivisioTis of the Year. — The regular Hebrew word for 'year' is nj;- (Assyr. sanu 'to change,' whence sattu 'year'). In Daniel I~* means both an indefinite period of time (like the Heb. m;), and more definitely a year (Dn 4 and 7^). Buhl com- pares a simUar definition of meaning in the case of the word XP'^""'. w'hich in new Greek signifies 'year.' In Daniel, again (12'), we meet with a use ot nyto for ' year,' though elsewhere the word more generally denotes an appointed or recurrent period such as the feast (exclusive of the Salibath and New Moon). Another word ]=i, which occurs only in late Hebrew (Ec 3', Neh 2") as a generic term for 'time,' had already acquired in canonical Hebrew (Est 9-''-") the sense of season or festival, which it conveyed in Rabbinic Hebrew.* The ordinary seasons of the year were also distin- guished in Hebrew as f :p ' summer ' and I'll 'autumn and winter.' August is usually the warmest month, Eehruary the coldest in Juda?a. The l"in was further divided into two parts (Dt 11'*) by the .tjv 'earlier rain' (October) and snp)r) ' the later rain ' (spring equinox). Generic tenns for the dillerences of temperature were i? 'cold' (Gn 8^) and on 'heat' {ib.). The sowing period was known as jn; (ib.), the harvest-time as Tyjj (mid-April till mid-June, the barley and wheat- harvest being meant).