The Astronomy of the Bible Part 23

"In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even. Seven days shall there be no leaven."

And again, for the sabbath of rest in the seventh month--

"In the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath."

The ecclesiastical "day" of the Jews, therefore, began in the evening, with sunset. It does not by any means follow that their civil day began at this time. It would be more natural for such business contracts as the hiring of servants or labourers to date from morning to morning rather than from evening to evening. Naturally any allusion in the Scriptures to the civil calendar as apart from the ecclesiastical would be indirect, but that common custom was not entirely in agreement with the ecclesiastical formula we may perhaps gather from the fact that in the Old Testament there are twenty-six cases in which the phrases "day and night," "day or night" are employed, and only three where "night"

comes before "day." We have a similar divergence of usage in the case of our civil and astronomical days; the first beginning at midnight, and the second at the following noon, since the daylight is the time for work in ordinary business life, but the night for the astronomers. The Babylonians, at least at a late date in their history, had also a twofold way of determining when the day began. Epping and Stra.s.smaier have translated and elucidated a series of Babylonian lunar calendars of dates between the first and second centuries before our era. In one column of these was given the interval of time which elapsed between the true new moon and the first visible crescent.

"Curious to relate, at first all Father Epping's calculations to establish this result were out by a mean interval of six hours. The solution was found in the fact that the Babylonian astronomers were not content with such a variable instant of time as sunset for their calculations, as indeed they ought not to have been, but used as the origin of the astronomical day at Babylon the midnight which followed the setting of the sun, marking the beginning of the civil day."

It may be mentioned that the days as reckoned from sunset to sunset, sunrise to sunrise, and noon to noon, would give intervals of slightly different lengths. This would, however, be imperceptible so long as their lengths were not measured by some accurate mechanical time-measurer such as a clepsydra, sandgla.s.s, pendulum, or spring clock.

The first obvious and natural division of the whole day-interval is into the light part and the dark part. As we have seen in Genesis, the evening and the morning are the day. Since Palestine is a sub-tropical country, these would never differ very greatly in length, even at midsummer or midwinter.

The next subdivision, of the light part of the day, is into morning, noon and evening. As David says in the fifty-fifth Psalm--

"Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray."

None of these three subdivisions were marked out definitely in their beginning or their ending, but each contained a definite epoch. Morning contained the moment at which the sun rose; noon the moment at which he was at his greatest height, and was at the same time due south; evening contained the moment at which the sun set.

In the early Scriptures of the Old Testament, the further divisions of the morning and the evening are still natural ones.

For the progress of the morning we have, first, the twilight, as in Job--

"Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; Let it look for light but have none; Neither let it see the eyelids of the morning."

Then, daybreak, as in the Song of Solomon--

"Until the day break (literally, breathe) and the shadows flee away,"

where the reference is to the cool breezes of twilight. So too in Genesis, in Joshua, in the Judges and in Samuel, we find references to the "break of day" (literally, the rising of the morning, or when it became light to them) and "the dawning of the day" or "about the spring of the day."

The progress of the morning is marked by the increasing heat; thus as "the sun waxed hot," the manna melted; whilst Saul promised to let the men of Jabesh-Gilead have help "by that time the sun be hot," or, as we should put it, about the middle of the morning.

Noon is often mentioned. Ish-bosheth was murdered as he "lay on a bed at noon," and Jezebel's prophets "called on the name of Baal from morning even unto noon."

We find the "afternoon" (lit. "till the day declined") mentioned in the nineteenth chapter of the Judges, and in the same chapter this period is further described in "The day draweth toward evening (lit. is weak),"

and "The day groweth to an end" (lit. "It is the pitching time of the day," that is to say, the time for pitching tents, in preparation for the nightly halt).

As there was no dividing line between the morning and noontide, neither was there any between the afternoon and evening. The shadows of the night were spoken of as chased away by the cool breezes of the morning, so the lengthening shadows cast by the declining sun marked the progress of the evening. Job speaks of the servant who "earnestly desireth the shadow;" that is to say, the intimation, from the length of his own shadow, that his day's work was done; and Jeremiah says, "The shadows of the evening are stretched out." Then came sundown, and the remaining part of the evening is described in Proverbs: "In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night."

In a country like Palestine, near the tropics, with the days not differing extravagantly in length from one part of the year to another, and the sun generally bright and s.h.i.+ning, and throwing intense shadows, it was easy, even for the uneducated, to learn to tell the time of day from the length of the shadow. Here, in our northern lat.i.tude, the problem is a more complex one, yet we learn from the _Canterbury Tales_, that Englishmen in the time of the Plantagenets could read the position of the sun with quite sufficient accuracy for ordinary purposes. Thus the host of the Tabard inn, though not a learned man--

"Saw wel, that the brighte sonne The ark of his artificial day had ronne The fourthe part, and half an houre and more; And though he was not depe experte in lore, He wiste it was the eighte and twenty day Of April, that is messager to May; And saw wel that the shadow of every tree Was as in lengthe of the same quant.i.tee That was the body erect, that caused it; And therfore by the shadow he toke his wit, That Phebus, which that shone so clere and bright, Degrees was five and fourty clombe on hight; And for that day, as in that lat.i.tude, It was ten of the clok, he gan conclude."[277:1]

In the latter part of the day there is an expression used several times in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers "between the two evenings" which has given rise to much controversy. The lamb of the Pa.s.sover was killed in this period; so also was the lamb of the first year offered daily at the evening sacrifice; and day by day Aaron was then commanded to light the seven lamps and burn incense. It is also mentioned once, in no connection with the evening sacrifice, when the Lord sent quails to the children of Israel saying, "At even (between the two evenings) ye shall eat flesh." In Deuteronomy, where a command is again given concerning the Pa.s.sover, it is explained that it is "at even, at the going down of the sun." The Samaritans, the Karaite Jews, and Aben Ezra held "the two evenings" to be the interval between the sun's setting and the entrance of total darkness; _i. e._ between about six o'clock and seven or half-past seven. A graphic description of the commencement of the sabbath is given in Disraeli's novel of _Alroy_, and may serve to ill.u.s.trate this, the original, idea of "between the two evenings."

"The dead were plundered, and thrown into the river, the encampment of the Hebrews completed. Alroy, with his princ.i.p.al officers, visited the wounded, and praised the valiant. The bustle which always succeeds a victory was increased in the present instance by the anxiety of the army to observe with grateful strictness the impending sabbath.

"When the sun set the sabbath was to commence. The undulating horizon rendered it difficult to ascertain the precise moment of his fall. The crimson orb sunk below the purple mountains, the sky was flushed with a rich and rosy glow. Then might be perceived the zealots, proud in their Talmudical lore, holding the skein of white silk in their hands, and announcing the approach of the sabbath by their observation of its s.h.i.+fting tints. While the skein was yet golden, the forge of the armourers still sounded, the fire of the cook still blazed, still the cavalry led their steeds to the river, and still the busy footmen braced up their tents, and hammered at their palisades. The skein of silk became rosy, the armourer worked with renewed energy, the cook puffed with increased zeal, the hors.e.m.e.n scampered from the river, the footmen cast an anxious glance at the fading light.

"The skein of silk became blue; a dim, dull, sepulchral, leaden tinge fell over its purity. The hum of gnats arose, the bat flew in circling whirls over the tents, horns sounded from all quarters, the sun had set, the sabbath had commenced. The forge was mute, the fire extinguished, the prance of horses and the bustle of men in a moment ceased. A deep, a sudden, an all-pervading stillness dropped over that mighty host. It was night; the sacred lamps of the sabbath sparkled in every tent of the camp, which vied in silence and in brilliancy with the mute and glowing heavens."

In later times, on account of ritualistic necessities, a different interpretation was held. So Josephus says: "So these high-priests, upon the coming of their feast which is called the Pa.s.sover, . . . slay their sacrifices, from the ninth hour till the eleventh."[279:1] And the Talmud made the first evening to begin with the visible decline of the sun and the second with sunset, or "the two evenings" to last from three till about six. Schiaparelli gives the first evening from sunset until the time that the newly visible lunar crescent could be seen in the twilight sky, or about half an hour after sunset, and the second evening from that until darkness set in, basing his argument on the directions to Aaron to light the lamps "between the two evenings," since, he argues, these would not be made to burn in the daylight. Probably in the days of Moses and Aaron the period could not be defined as accurately as this would imply, as the opportunity of seeing the new moon could only come once a month, and we have no evidence of any mechanical time-measurer being then in use with them.

For shorter s.p.a.ces of time we have the word "moment" or "instant" many times mentioned. The words may mean, the opening or winking of the eye, "the twinkling of an eye," spoken of by St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, and do not describe any actual duration of time, or division of the day.

The only time-measurer mentioned in the Bible is the dial of Ahaz, which will form the subject of a later chapter. It need only be noted here that, as it depended upon the fall of the shadow, it was of use only whilst the sun was s.h.i.+ning; not during cloudy weather, or at night.

As the day had three main divisions, so had also the night. There were three "watches," each, like the watches on s.h.i.+p-board, about four hours in length. So in the Psalms, "the watches" are twice put as an equivalent for the night.

The ancient Hebrews would have no difficulty in roughly dividing the night into three equal parts, whenever the stars could be seen. Whether they watched "Arcturus and his sons,"--the circ.u.mpolar constellations moving round like a vast dial in the north--or the bringing forth of Mazzaroth, the zodiacal constellations, in the south, they would soon learn to interpret the signs of night with sufficient accuracy for their purpose.

The first watch of night is mentioned in the book of Lamentations.

"Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord."

It was "in the beginning of the middle watch; and they had but newly set the watch," that Gideon and his gallant three hundred made their onslaught on the host of the Midianites.

It was in the third, the morning watch, that "the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians" as they pursued Israel into the midst of the Red Sea. In this watch also, Saul surprised the Ammonites as they besieged Jabesh-Gilead, and scattered them, "so that two of them were not left together."

In the New Testament, the Roman method of dividing the night is adopted; viz. into four watches. When the disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee in their little boat, and they had toiled all night in rowing because the wind was contrary, it was in "the fourth watch of the night"

that Jesus came unto them.

There is no mention of any mechanical time-measurer in the Old Testament, and in only one book is there mention in the English version of the word "hour." Five times it is mentioned in the Book of Daniel as the rendering of the Chaldean word _sha'ah_, which literally means "the instant of time."

No mention either is made of the differing lengths of the days or nights throughout the year--at midsummer the day is 14-1/4 hours long, and the night 9-3/4. Job speaks, however, of causing "the day-spring to know its place," which may well refer to the varying places along the eastern horizon at which the sun rose during the course of the year. Thus in mid-winter the sun rose 28 south of the east point, or half a point south of E.S.E. Similarly in midsummer it rose 28 north of east, or half a point north of E.N.E.[282:1]

The Babylonians divided the whole day interval into twelve _kasbu_, or "double hours." Those again were divided into sixty parts, each equal to two of our minutes; this being about the time that is required for the disc of the sun to rise or set wholly. The Babylonian _kasbu_ was not only a division of time, but a division of s.p.a.ce, signifying the s.p.a.ce that might be marched in a _kasbu_ of time. Similarly we find, in the Old Testament, the expression "a day's journey," or "three days'

journey," to express distance, and in the New Testament we find the same idea applied to a shorter distance in the "sabbath-day's journey," which was about two miles. But the Jews in New Testament times adopted, not the Babylonian day of twelve hours, but the Egyptian of twenty-four. So we find, in the parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, mention made of hiring early in the morning, and at the third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh hours; and since those hired latest worked for but one hour, it is evident that there were twelve hours in the daylight. Our Lord alludes to this expressly in the Gospel according to St. John, where he says--

"Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him."

FOOTNOTES:

[277:1] _The Man of Lawe's Prologue_, lines 4421-4434.

[279:1] Josephus, _Wars_, VI. ix. 3.

[282:1] See the diagram on p. 363.

CHAPTER II

THE SABBATH AND THE WEEK