This is the second of six articles that will be discussing different aspects of the Hebrew calendar. If you’ve not read part 1 yet, please do so as it will explain the importance of this topic, and it defines the terms evening and morning. In it we determined, based on the scriptures, that evening begins at sunset and that it includes the entire night, and that morning begins, not at sunrise, but at the first light of dawn.

The current Jewish calendar considers the day to begin at sunset, that is, in the evening, although scripture doesn’t directly address the question. What is certain is that the Babylonian day began at sunset so it’s possible that the Jews adopted the same custom after their return from the exile, just as they adopted Babylonian month names.

There are some Biblical passages that at first look could be seen to support a day beginning in the evening, though they don’t actually state as much. For example:

This is referring to the Day of Atonement, and it is celebrated from “evening to evening”. However, in verse 27 it is described like this: “Also the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement”. The sabbath, which is to be celebrated from evening to evening, is shown spanning both the 9th and the 10th of the month. If the day was understood to begin in the evening, Leviticus 23:32 would have said “on the tenth day of the month at evening”, yet it does not. The only sensical way to interpret this is that the sabbath was from the evening of the 9th and continued through the 10th, indicating that originally the day was understood to begin in the morning, not the evening.

Genesis 1, which mentions the day being the “evening and morning” is also used to support a day beginning in the evening. However, in Genesis 1, on each of the six days where that phrasing is used, God had already done substantial work prior to the evening. Yeshua said, “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work” (John 9:4). If the same reasoning is applied to the days of creation, we see God performing His creative acts during the day, which is then followed by the evening (which includes the night, when no-one can work) and then the following morning, which simultaneously ends the previous day as well as beginning the next. Therefore, when Genesis 1 says, “the evening and the morning were the first day”, it is referring to what remained of the first day, after God had already performed the creative work described therein. A literal translation of those passages in Genesis makes this clearer as it actually says, “and there was evening [following the creative process just described], and there was morning, the first day”. This is actually supportive of the day beginning in the morning, not in the evening. Genesis simply doesn’t detail what happened in the evening because no work was carried out then—it just skips over it by saying “and there was evening”.

One set of passages that strongly points to the day beginning in the morning is the account of the crucifixion:

Here we see that evening had already come, and the day was the day of Preparation, before the Sabbath. Luke’s gospel completes the account:

If the Sabbath began at evening, and it was not until the evening that Joseph requested the body, they would have had no time to take Yeshua’s body down from the cross, prepare it, entomb it, and return home in order to rest on the Sabbath!

The only possibility, if the day of Preparation began in the evening, is that the Sabbath began the following evening, giving them a whole 24 hours to prepare the body and return home. However, from John’s account of the crucifixion we know that is not the case:

So, we see that Yeshua was crucified on the Preparation Day. At the evening of that same day Joseph of Arimathea requested His body. His body was prepared and entombed; the woman observed where His body was laid and then prepared spices and fragrant oils, all before the Sabbath began. Therefore, the Sabbath cannot possibly have started in the evening.

In order to put the matter to rest we’ll draw on Matthew’s gospel account as well:

The first day of the week is the day after the Sabbath. When did it begin? It began at dawn, which can be confirmed by John’s account:

Now, some might say that the first day began the previous evening. But later on in that chapter John says:

It can’t be much clearer. The evening after the resurrection was still considered by John to be the same day as the morning of that day, therefore in God’s ordained calendar the day did not begin in the evening—the day began in the morning, at dawn, while it was still dark. Beginning the day in the evening is a pagan Babylonian custom that was been retained by the Jews after they returned from the captivity in Babylon and is not Biblical.

In part 3 we will continue our investigation of the Biblical texts in order to determine when a month begins.