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God's Sacred Calendar

The Hebrew lunar-solar calendar is the true calendar for all mankind. God Himself estab-
lished it, and gave it to the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt (Exodus 12:1).

However, its principles go back to creation, when the sun and moon were appointed by
God "for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years" (Gen. 1:14). The word for seasons here
is moadim and literally means "an appointment, a fixed time or season; a FESTIVAL, by implica-
tion, an assembly" (see Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, #4150). Thus God appointed the
heavenly bodies to determine the "appointed times" of His weekly sabbaths, annual Holy Days
and Festivals from the moment of Creation!

All authorities agree that the basis in law for God's calendar is indeed found in Genesis 1:

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from
the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.

And God made TWO great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to
rule the night; he made the stars also. -- Genesis 1:14, 16.

We can, at the very lest, realize that whatever these "lights" are, they are natural phenom-
ena which clearly dictate the rules of order for calculating time. And, notice this, it is not a singu-
lar source of light (i.e. the sun) but ALL collectively, "Let them be for..."

It would be much simpler if the Bible contained a clearly layed-out formula for a Sabbath
calendar. The Bible (in Genesis 1:14) only tells us what source we are to use for calculations. But
there seems to be no explicit instructions on their practical implementation. Notes Jonathan
Brown: "Notching off seven "solar-day" periods which never correspond at the beginning or end
with heavenly lights does not satisfy Genesis 1:14."

Those four word in genesis 1:14 -- signs, seasons, days and years -- can be defined in the
following way:

1) Signs fairly defines the underlying Hebrew word implying astronomical events such as
eclipses, and other we observe with our eyes in the sun, moon and stars -- reminding us of oaths
God has made to us (Jeremiah 32:35-36).

2) The sun generally marks days.

3) After 12 moon cycles have passed, the earth would have gone through nearly four seasons of
weather changes constituting a year, marked with the sun by four distinct earth tilts called equi-
noxes and solstices. These are determined by the angle of the sun throughout which the sunlight
hours grow longer to a threshold at which they then begin growing shorter again.

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