The Biblical Calendar of Weeks
The Septenary Calendar: An Introduction
The Septenary Calendar, a week-based system, offers an accurate means of tracking time and aligning with natural astronomical phenomena, such as the equinoxes and solstices. Traced back to biblical times, specifically the era of Enoch, this calendar offers a unique blend of simplicity and precision compared to other systems of time reckoning.
This calendar is pre-Babylonian exile. It shows that consideration of lunations was never intended by the Creator to be the method of calendar keeping. If we observe weeks and intercalate at the properly prescribed intervals a calendar that ignore sun and moon is just as accurate (and at the 7000 year mark, incredibly accurate) as one based on astronomical observations. This calendar only requires three months which repeat over and over. Simple and amazing!
The Problem of Aligning Astronomical Patterns: A Historical Review
The moon, sun, and Earth are often discordant in their respective motions, with the moon being the most problematic due to its complex and constantly changing orbit. The three main astronomical patterns that establish a day, month, and year are often considered incompatible. These metaphorical gears in our cosmic machine don’t quite align, leading to a problem referred to as “the insoluble issue” of reconciling days, months, and years.
Of the discordant three—Sun, Moon, Earth—the moon is the most troublesome. Its motion is very complicated. Its orbit is constantly changing in shape as it rotates. It has a swaying motion and its speed varies along with the distance from the Earth.
Many solutions have been proposed to solve this intricate problem. Some, like the Muslim calendar, ignore the seasons and base the year solely on lunar cycles. Lunar calendars follow the monthly cycles of the Moon, alternating between 29 and 30 days per month. However, a purely lunar calendar drifts behind the solar calendar by about a month every three years. Also, this system falls eleven days short of the solar cycle every year, losing a full year every thirty-three years.
Traditional Solutions: Varied Calendars Across Cultures
In contrast, the standard solar calendar consisting of 365 days tends to fall approximately 6 hours short each year, necessitating an additional leap day every four years. This calendar requires 19 full yearly cycles to repeat, and it doesn’t align with any observable celestial events like new moons, equinoxes, or solstices.
Similarly, the Jewish lunisolar calendar, which totals 354 days, lags about 10 days each year. This discrepancy accumulates over a three-year period to form a 13th lunar month, and the extra quarter day every four years amounts to a full day. “Intercalation” — the insertion of an extra month– is used to reconcile the discrepancy between the solar and lunar year. It takes at least five complete yearly calendars for this system to repeat itself, with the significant benefit that it syncs with the observable astronomical phenomenon of new moons and lunations.
The Jewish calendar by 380 BC, on the other hand, intercalates the discrepancy between the solar and lunar year by using the old Babylonian system of a nineteen year time cycle intercalating the third, sixth, eighth, eleventh, seventeenth, and nineteenth years adding a Leap-month every 4th (ve-Adar /Adar II) and the recurring gap between the solar and lunar year is minor. Thus the Jewish calendar is never allowed to fall more than twenty-two days behind the sun or to advance more than eight days ahead of it.It takes at least 5 whole year calendars to plot it to repeating (while having fixed the one observable astronomical phenomena of new moons and lunations)
As early as the eighth century BC there is evidence that it was recognized in Babylonia that the insertion of seven additional months within a nineteen year period would closely approximate the additional time needed to stabilize the calendar. By the fourth century BC fixed years were established for these seven intercalations and the nineteen year time cycle was firmly standardized. This achievement is regarded as remarkable. The difference between 235 lunar months and nineteen solar years is only 2 hours, 4 minutes, and 25.22 seconds. The Babylonian system came close to solving the difference between the lunar and solar year.
Egypt had a system of 36 stars to mark out the year and in the end had three different calendars working concurrently for over 2000 years: a stellar calendar for the gods, a solar year of 365 days (12 months x 30 + 5 extra) for agriculture, and a quasi-lunar calendar for marking festivals. The Egyptian calendar simplified these to the Zodiac system, which was further popularized and simplified by Greek and Roman cultures.
Navigating Luni-Solar Calendar Challenges
People who use a luni-solar calendar system were faced with the problem of determining the seasons, and the time of the lunar festivals. The lunar calendar can be regulated to agree with the tropic year (the length of time the earth completes its circuit around the sun) by observing the Solar Equinoxes and Solstices, while accounting the movements of the fixed stars, and measuring comparatively Lunations –ultimately noting correspondences as Eclipses. These methods were employed by the Hebrews.
Characteristics of the Septenary Calendar
The Septenary Calendar’s arrangement of 52 weeks totaling 364 days falls short by 1.25 days each year. This small discrepancy accumulates to an extra week after every six years. During the seventh year (a SheMiYThaH ‘quit-defiant, spite /to shed, release’), this additional week is incorporated, resulting in a mere half-day surplus. This slight deviation compounds over 14 cycles of seven years, coinciding with the beginning of every other Jubilee (YuBeL ‘conduction,a conduit’). Due to its remarkable accuracy, this calendar is rarely more than a week off in relation to the solar year, which is critical for agricultural purposes.
The “self-truing” septenary calendar operates by maintaining 13-week seasons that divide the year into quarters. Thus, it needs only one three-month calendar to repeat, adding one week in a week of years, and skipping that additional week once in a lifetime (every 98 years). It serves as a perfect marriage between monthly and day-to-day living, as it utilizes weeks as a unit of measure.
This biblical calendar system also prompts us to consider the number of Sabbaths we experience in our lifetime. It allows for a thoughtful exchange of the days of our week for a thousand-year day of His week. However, it’s worth noting that the use of weeks as a primary time unit has generally been avoided in secular contexts due to the lack of a clear astronomical basis.
“Weeks” and Biblical Chronology
These “weeks” or seven-year periods, known as “times,” provide the foundation for biblical chronology, framing additional counts of days and occasionally months. The Bible confirms the significance of one Jubilee or the first year of these counts, with a verifiable anchor point in 701 BC. This was when Sennacherib, the king of Assyria (Ashur), besieged Jerusalem, trapping King Hezekiah like a bird in a cage.
In the late 8th century BC, the Assyrian Empire was the dominant power in the ancient Near East. Sennacherib ascended to the throne in 705 BC and embarked on a series of military campaigns to consolidate and expand his empire.
In 701 BC, Hezekiah, the king of Judah, refused to pay tribute to Sennacherib, effectively rebelling against Assyrian dominance. In response, Sennacherib launched a military campaign against Judah.
According to Isaiah, Sennacherib laid siege to Jerusalem, and his Rabshakeh delivered a blasphemous speech, urging the city to surrender. However, King Hezekiah prayed, and the prophet Isaiah foretold that Jerusalem would not fall into the hands of Sennacherib. The Bible suggests that an angel of the Lord struck down a significant portion of the Assyrian army, forcing them to withdraw.
Sennacherib recorded his triumphs in his annals, which survive on three nearly identical clay prisms: the Taylor Prism, the Oriental Institute Prism, and the Jerusalem Prism. These artifacts record Sennacherib’s campaign into Judah in 701 BC. The text of Sennacherib’s annals records his conquest of 46 fortified cities and the capture of 200,150 people, as well as the siege of Jerusalem.
The Annals of Sennacherib on the Oriental Institute Prism. Photo: daderot / Wikimedia Commons / CC0 1.0
The Calendar of weeks
Navigating Time through the Septenary Calendar
The Biblical or “Mosaic” solution to the problem for the Israelites of Lunar (354 days) and Solar (365 days) was to mediate these with the fixed constant of Weeks, 52 per year (364 days) -intercalating a week at the end of each 6th year, making the average year in each 7-year period 365. It allowed only confirmation of the systems ‘mean-accuracy’ by the Moon and Sun. After the 7th of these 7-year cycles was the intercalation of another week, so the end of the 49th year saw Equinox near-aligning it with the Sun and Moon. This calendar is so simple it requires only 3 Months be mapped to the Weekdays for all time, each of these repeating the same formula of 30-30-31 (91 days)! The 7-day weeks being the continual observance so all festivals consistently occur on the same weekday.
The Dead Sea Scrolls refer in many places to the 364 day year with the focus to remain on the 7 day Week. For example: “and he (King David) wrote: psalms, 3,600; songs to sing before the altar accompanying the daily perpetual burnt-offering, for all the days of the year, 364” (Psalms Scroll 11Q5 XXVII 4–7).
Biblical Timekeeping: Shemitahs and Jubilees
There is no such thing as a ‘decade’ in the Bible. It is a ‘weeks of years,’ in other words, “a seven” called Shemitah. Likewise, there is no such thing as a ‘century.’ It is a ‘Jubilee,’ which is forty-nine years long. Two Jubilees cycles were ninety-eight years – not one hundred. This is made obvious in the calendar writings of the Dead Sea scrolls. For example, in Jubilees 23:8 (cf. Genesis 25:7) we find the age of Abraham described as follows: “He lived three jubilees and four weeks of years, one hundred and seventy five years.”
(3*49) + (4*7) = 175 years.
By repeatedly adding or subtracting 49-year periods (Jubilee years), you can navigate forward or backward through the timeline. Moving forward five times, we reach 456 BC, the start of Artaxerxes’ (Ahasuerus in Esther) seventh year, marking the decree to rebuild Jerusalem. Subtracting 70×7 (490) from that year, we arrive at 34 AD. This year, corresponding to the 16th Jubilee from the anchor point, saw the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus.
This cycle is demonstrated in the prophecy of Daniel 9:24. The ‘Seventy Weeks Prophecy’ as it is so famously known, is equivalent to ten jubilees. The math: 70*7 = 10*49 = 490 years. Notice that if the Jubilee cycle had been fifty, the length of term would have been five-hundred years.
A misunderstanding exists concerning this matter because Leviticus 25:8-11 speaks of a fiftieth year and the Jubilee cycle is thought by some to step in multiples of fifty. Not so; it steps in forty-nines. What then, it might be fairly asked, is the fiftieth year? It is the year following the last ‘seven’ and is simultaneous to the first year of the new Jubilee cycle. Another way to think of it is like calling Sunday the ‘eighth day’ when it is in fact the first day of the new week. The point being made here is that the time cycles are strictly sabbatical and always divisible by seven.
The book of Jubilees and the book of Enoch calendars were 364 days, but Jubilees adds another dimension – a relationship between the weekly Sabbath and the longer term sabbatic year. ‘Jubilees’, referring to the former book, says:
“Enoch was the first among men that are born on earth who learnt writing and knowledge and wisdom and who wrote down the signs of heaven according to the order of their months in a book, that men might know the seasons of the years according to the order of their separate months …and he was the first to write a testimony and he testified to the sons of men among the generations of the earth, and recounted the weeks of the jubilees, and made known to them the days of the years, and set in order the months and recounted the Sabbaths of the years.” (Book of Jubilees 4:17-18)
Ancient Hebrew astronomy extended beyond an annual count of days to the ‘Sabbath of years’ suggesting that further intercalations were made at special sabbatic intervals. Each seventh year was preceded by an additional seven days added, thus the total number of days per ‘week of years’ (seven years) was:
2520…….(360*7=2520)
plus 28….(4*7=28 added over 7 yrs)
plus 7……(added on 7th year)
= 2555…(total number of days)
Divide 2555 days by seven years for 365 days per year! That is very close and the question begs to be asked, “Can further sabbath adjustments complete the solar cycle without losing the divine pattern and without exceeding (transgressing) time?” If so, then Enoch’s calendar would be the most advanced system known.
2555…….(1st week years 1-7)
2555…….(2nd week yrs 8-14)
2555…….(3rd week yrs 15-21)
2555…….(4th week yrs 22-28)
2555…….(5th week yrs 29-35)
2555…….(6th week yrs 36-42)
2555…….(7th week yrs 43-49)
plus 7……(added on 49th year)
= 17892..(total number of days)
Now divide 17892 days by forty-nine years for 365.14 days per year! There is only one small adjustment to go.
The would be Biblical calendar is: a 364 day /52 week year except with the added week on the eve of every 7th year making it 371 days /53 weeks.
Every year begins on the 1st ‘Firstday’ (a given day of the week Sunday) following the Spring equinox. Shabbat is always day seven, no matter what day of the week equinox falls on. The point is not to generate a calendar that forces equinox onto a particular day of the week every year. The issue is knowing when to start “day one, month one” and that should not happen before equinox.
Every quarter also begins on that same (“Firstday”) weekday, making quarters exactly the same number of days (91) or 13 weeks.
Every 7 years that added week makes 2555 days in each 7 -year period.
An additional week is added following the 7th Shabat year or 49th year completing the Jubilee (nearly aligning Equinox). Yet the remainder is almost 6 days behind then at 50 years (if another week were intercalated then it would be 1.11 days in excess of accurate and 2.22 days per century thereafter),
Proceeding, at a century it is almost 11 days behind and a second week added then (every other Jubilee) would be just over 3 ½ days behind, and then yet again three weeks added after the fourth Jubilee would bring us to .007 (thousandths) in excess of the average of 365.2422 days per solar year. This is a very good result for defining our “days and years” by 7’s…even so that seven thousandths of a day would only become One Day at the end of 7,000 years.
This proposed calendar system represents an astonishingly precise alignment with the solar year through the use of cycles based on the number seven.
The Septenary Calendar and Biblical Events
The 70-week period from 26 to 33 AD marks the confirmation of “the covenant with many” by the Messiah, who caused sacrifices and offerings to cease with his crucifixion in the spring of 30 AD. This event, along with the resurrection and Pentecost, brought about “everlasting righteousness.” The first assembly of The Way congregated at the Garden tomb until the autumn of 33 AD when Stephen was stoned and became the first martyr. This event sparked the persecution that spread the gospel to the nations, as Stephen witnessed Christ standing (not seated) at the right hand of God.
Biblical calendaring is a two-tiered system. One tier follows the basic agricultural seasons of the year, with the moon serving as a monthly marker. The other tier is sacred, rooted in the week-based structure that dictates the scheduling of Festivals and larger time periods.
However, following the Babylonian exile, Judea adopted the LuniSolar calendar and has used it ever since. Unfortunately, this shift resulted in the loss of the more extensive ‘Sevens’ view, though the concept of Shabat has endured in Judaic tradition.
The ancient names of the months can be restored, adding a layer of significant connection to the land. However, until these names are officially reinstated, they merely serve as reminders that nothing is truly lost in time.
The ancient Israelite agricultural calendar, evidenced in findings from Gezer, simplified timekeeping for local communities by linking months to specific crop cycles. It was organized around 13-week seasons, each spanning 49 days, and delineated into stages such as Preparation, Planting, Irrigating, and Tending, culminating in the Harvest Festivals. These festivals celebrated the bounty of Fruits, Grains, and Vines. Additionally, the calendar incorporated three week-long celebrations – the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Wood Offering, and the Festival of Tabernacles. Collectively, these accounted for a 364-day year, closely aligned with the solar cycle.
The names of the months written in Paleo-Hebrew above are as follows: ABiB, ZiYU, GiNu, iYThBu, UGaR, ShA’aH, ETHaNiM, BUL, MaGaMaRu, PaGaRuM, PA’aLaT, and HkiYaR.
The biblical month of Abib is first mentioned in Exodus 12:2, where God says to Israel, “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.” The name of this first month is also mentioned in the next chapter of Exodus, where God gives further instructions on the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Jewish calendar calls Abib by the Babylonian name Nisan.
#2 and #8 are in 1 Kings 6: 37-38: 1Ki6:37 In the fourth year the house of YHWH was founded, in the moon of Ziw. 1Ki6:38 In the eleventh year, in the moon of Bul, in which it is the eighth month, the house was finished throughout all its parts and according to all its plans.
#7 (Ethanim) is in 1 Kings 8:2. Others were found searching JSTOR translation works of cuneiform tablets from Ugarit, Ebla, Mari and Nuzi. They are frequently cited in the thousands of tablets found in those locations.
It is describing an agricultural calendar. The names mean: 1) germination 2) flowering 3) gardening 4) well-fitting 5) fielding fertilizer 6) attending 7) binding 8) rain showering 9) irrigation 10) exhaustion 11) “make-do” 12) insulation.
The Ebla Tablets
