Does a day really begin at evening?

[mosheli]

I hope this won't seem offensive but my question is does the bible really imply that the ancient Hebrews/Israelites/Jews thought a day/sabbath/passover began and ended at evening like modern Jews observe and like Christians believe the bible implies, or does it possibly imply that a day begins at sunrise? I will post a number of verses that seem to me to agree with the latter view. I will be interested if you can show me if original language bible verses or other traditional Jewish sources imply rather that a day begins at evening though. I'll start with the Genesis verses.

Genesis/Bereshith 1:5
"there was an evening and there was a morning, a first day"

This is the common verse given for supporting a day begins at evening. The word day here is seemingly/supposedly used for a 12 hours x 2 period. But this verse may not necessarily really imply that a day begins at evening. If a day begins at evening then how long was the first evening/night (half day) and/or day (full day)? (I.e. since there was darkness forever before God said "let there be light". Unless perhaps time only began that evening?)
The words could mean there was a morning to evening & an evening to morning, instead of there was an evening to morning & morning to evening?
The word day also might even only refer to 12 hours of light?
Also the order might be due to like Chuck Missler said that the order evening & moring means reverse entropy?

Genesis/Bereshith 1:4-5
"God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night."

Which comes first here? The light/day and then the darkness/night.
Also the word day here is used only for the light period.

(The Norse/Germanic/Saxon/English word den/dawn/dag/day/dagaz means "dawn, day".)

(Ugaritic:
The Hebrew word for day in Genesis is yowm/yome/yom which is related to the Ugaritic Jom which is used for the sun. Yom "day, warmth".)

Genesis/Bereshith 1:3-5 & 1:14-19
"... the day and the night.... .... ... the greater luminary for dominating the day, and the lesser luminary for dominating the night.... ... to dominate by day and by night and to make a division between the light and the darkness."

Again the order is first day/sun/light and then night/moon/darkness.

(Hislop in The 'Two Babylons' made a case for the 2nd lesser light-refelctor the Moon symbolizing the Devil as second/lesser to God symbolized by the 1st greater light the sun.)

(Genesis/Bereshith 2:
Havilah the land of Gold comes first.
Daniel & Revelation/Apocalypse:
The gold & lion come first.)

Genesis/Bereshith 7:4
"forty days and forty nights".

Which way around (which comes first)?

Genesis/Bereshith 8:22
"seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night". Which way around are they?

Yet again the order is summer then winter, day then night. Though it does have cold then heat.

[alon]

Aug 4, 2020 0:08:49 GMT -8 mosheli said:

I hope this won't seem offensive but my question is does the bible really imply that the ancient Hebrews/Israelites/Jews thought a day/sabbath/passover began and ended at evening like modern Jews observe and like Christians believe the bible implies, or does it possibly imply that a day begins at sunrise? I will post a number of verses that seem to me to agree with the latter view. I will be interested if you can show me if original language bible verses or other traditional Jewish sources imply rather that a day begins at evening though. I'll start with the Genesis verses.

Genesis/Bereshith 1:5
"there was an evening and there was a morning, a first day"

This is the common verse given for supporting a day begins at evening. The word day here is seemingly/supposedly used for a 12 hours x 2 period. But this verse may not necessarily really imply that a day begins at evening. If a day begins at evening then how long was the first evening/night (half day) and/or day (full day)? (I.e. since there was darkness forever before God said "let there be light". Unless perhaps time only began that evening?)
The words could mean there was a morning to evening & an evening to morning, instead of there was an evening to morning & morning to evening?
The word day also might even only refer to 12 hours of light?
Also the order might be due to like Chuck Missler said that the order evening & moring means reverse entropy?

Genesis/Bereshith 1:4-5
"God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night."

Which comes first here? The light/day and then the darkness/night.
Also the word day here is used only for the light period.

(The Norse/Germanic/Saxon/English word den/dawn/dag/day/dagaz means "dawn, day".)

(Ugaritic:
The Hebrew word for day in Genesis is yowm/yome/yom which is related to the Ugaritic Jom which is used for the sun. Yom "day, warmth".)

Genesis/Bereshith 1:3-5 & 1:14-19
"... the day and the night.... .... ... the greater luminary for dominating the day, and the lesser luminary for dominating the night.... ... to dominate by day and by night and to make a division between the light and the darkness."

Again the order is first day/sun/light and then night/moon/darkness.

(Hislop in The 'Two Babylons' made a case for the 2nd lesser light-refelctor the Moon symbolizing the Devil as second/lesser to God symbolized by the 1st greater light the sun.)

(Genesis/Bereshith 2:
Havilah the land of Gold comes first.
Daniel & Revelation/Apocalypse:
The gold & lion come first.)

Genesis/Bereshith 7:4
"forty days and forty nights".

Which way around (which comes first)?

Genesis/Bereshith 8:22
"seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night". Which way around are they?

Yet again the order is summer then winter, day then night. Though it does have cold then heat.

There is no doubt as to what the first Hebrews thought or did concerning the start of their day:

Exodus 12:6 (ESV) and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.[between the two evenings]

"Between the two evenings," evening to evening marked a day. And the TNK is consistent when dealing with what marks a day:

Deuteronomy 21:23 (ESV) his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

A man who was hung was not to be left at night, but was to be buried that same day. So twilight marked the next day.

You quoted:

Genesis/Bereshith 1:5 "there was an evening and there was a morning, a first day"
 
You also asked how long it was. It is given like that because of the way the Hebrews marked time. A day was divided into 2 parts, night and daylight. Each of those were divided into 12 equal hours. So in winter when nights were longer, so was each hour of darkness. Conversely an hour of daylight was shorter. That is why you do not hear time counted as we do in the Bible, i.e. "9 o'clock" (or an equivalent implying 24 even hours). It would be called "the 9th hour."

The other verses you quote deal not with a day as a 24 hr period, but with daylight. That is a totally different topic, so for determining when a day starts the order given (day and night/light and darkness) is totally irrelevant. So is the "Norse/Germanic/Saxon/English word den/dawn/dag/day/dagaz means "dawn, day," as those languages came centuries after Hebrew.

You said "Ugaritic: The Hebrew word for day in Genesis is yowm/yome/yom which is related to the Ugaritic Jom which is used for the sun. Yom "day, warmth."" The Amorites were pagans, so I have a problem with scholars who try to use their writings (in Ugarit) to fill "holes" in the "stories" or "myths" in the Bible. They will also point out that these pagan cultures had similar traditions before the Hebrews did. First off, ha'satan copies HaShem, not the other way 'round. Second, since they had common ancestors in both Adam and Noach, many of these stories would have been passed down to them as well as the Hebrews. The difference is Moshe got his from God Himself. So any discrepencies are due to the retelling in pagan cultures, which inevitably would lead to some distortions.

Ugaritic is a Semitic language, so there they also share some similarities with Hebrew. But again, yom may refer to either a 24 hr period or to daylight, just as in English:

H3117 (Strong)  יוֹם  yôm- From an unused root meaning to be hot; a day (as the warm hours), whether literally (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), ...

So Biblically, a full day starts at twilight and goes to twilight the next day. And nothing in the Bible contradicts that, nor am I aware of any extrabiblical text that does so either. 

Hope that helps.

Dan C
 
 

[jimmie]

Leviticus 23:It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.

Numbers 19:19 And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day: and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even.

Deuteronomy 16:6 But at the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to place his name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt.

[mosheli]

Thanks for the replies. I have read them but I need to study what you have said to make sure. In the meantime is it okay if I just post the rest of the verses I came across in order to check all possible evidence?

I'll skip the exodus passover verses and gospels crucifixion & resurrection verses as they are longer, and post these others first and then do the exodus passover and gospels crucifixion & resurrection ones afterwards.

Exodus 20:10; Deuteronomy 5:21
"You shall labor six days, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to YHWH your God."

Which comes first, rest or work?

Job 38:7
"when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

Stars/angels at creation week. Seems to imply moring first.

Psalms 118:24
We don't sing the song "this is the day the Lord has made" at evening do we?

Lamentations 3:23. "They are new every morning".

This seems to imply day begins at sunrise?

Joel 2:31
"sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood".

Which comes first?

Jonah 1:17
"three days and three nights".

Which comes first?

Prophecy:
I am sure I saw a biblical prophecy that they will change/alter times and seasons in the end times / last days but i can't find in in searching? This could refer to changing when day starts, as well as DLS, Y2K, removing statutory/public holidays, "bce"/"ce", Haarp weather manipulation, chem trails/trials, etc.

Gospels (Matt 4:2, Mark 1:13, Luke 4:2):
"40 days (and 40 nights)".

Which comes first?

Mark 1:21
"They went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath day he entered into the synagogue and taught."

John 9:4
"... while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work."

Has day first before night.

Acts 27:33
"While the day was coming on, Paul begged them all to take some food, saying, "This day is the fourteenth day that you wait and continue fasting....""

Seems to imply sunrise start of day? Though maybe it only refers to daylight hours, and/or might be Roman reckoning?

2 Peter/Cephas 1:19
"until the day dawns, and the day/morning star arises"

Seems to imply dawn start of day?

Revelation (10:1 &) 12:1
("His face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire.")
"a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet"

Which way are they around?

Hebrew/Semitic:
kedem "east, front", akharru "west, behind".

Jewish sources:
One says "According to the strict interpretation of the Mosaic law, every day begins with sunrise and ends with sunset (Ibn Ezra, commentary on Ex. xviii. 14, Jewish Encyclopedia)."
Though another one says "Darkness is a pathway to the sunrise hiding behind it."

A Messianic/Christian source:
"in the same way that God wants our stomach empty when the Day of Atonement starts at sunrise on the 10th of the 7th month".

[alon]

Aug 4, 2020 22:40:58 GMT -8 mosheli said:

You are still reading way too much into what is said, with not enough thought to what is actually being said. Your arguments here are all inductive arguments, and that is the weakest kind of logic. But they are very weak induction even for that type argument.
Argument- in logic, any statement that can be proven true or false.

Exodus 20:10; Deuteronomy 5:21
"You shall labor six days, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to YHWH your God."

Which comes first, rest or work? Neither. It is a never ending cycle. one ends, the other begins, ad infinitum.

Job 38:7
"when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

Stars/angels at creation week. Seems to imply moring first. Actually it just paints a picture of creation singing to God in the morning as we rise to greet the day (daylight hours when we do our work).

Psalms 118:24
We don't sing the song "this is the day the Lord has made" at evening do we? You (or we) can (and we do) sing that song any time we like. When we sing a song is totally irrelevant to when God said a day starts. 

Lamentations 3:23. "They are new every morning".

This seems to imply day begins at sunrise?  Morning is when we rise up from sleep, so this is a picture of waking to a "new day" (period of light when we are awake and active) and seeing His mercies anew. They did not actually stop during the night just so God could say "Count the days from sunrise." Our God is not a pagan, and it is pagans who greet the sunrise as if their god(s) are renewed.

Joel 2:31
"sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood".

Which comes first?
Joel 2:30-32 (ESV) “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

First off, you need to understand what is being said here. Most Christians, and therefore most Messianics trained in churches read the blackened sun a blood red moon as the wonders God will show. Contextually they probably are not. The blood is not even stated as the color of the moon, rather it is indicative of war and great social unrest, like what we are seeing today but on a more massive scale. These things cause great fires, and the smoke blackens the sun and makes the moon appear as shades of orange and red (yes, including sometimes blood-red). To the Hebrew mind, history is cyclical, and this has been happening repeatedly throughout time. But in the end times it will be the worst it has ever been, that much is true.

Also understand that to Hebrew thought they are always saved from something. We tend to spiritualize it and apply it only to salvation in the Christ. But we did not write the Bible. Jews did (and this includes the so called New Testament). So we see here the Lord calls survivors who are saved out of this catastrophe.

Now, take particular note that it says "before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes." These are the events that will occur before this day, this 24 hr. period where His judgement of earth and us earthlings starts. Note too it doesn't say anything about the time of day, whether morning, noon, evening, or night. And please do not read anything into the order I gave them here- this just illustrates how you and I have been trained in Greek churches and greek modeled schools to think opposite of what God thinks. That is where your problem in understanding all this lies. You are thinking like a Greek, while God thinks like the nation He created; to wit, Hebraically. 

Jonah 1:17
"three days and three nights".

Which comes first? In the Biblical day, twilight and night. In the time frame when Jonah was swallowed by the fish, daylight then darkness.

Prophecy:
I am sure I saw a biblical prophecy that they will change/alter times and seasons in the end times / last days but i can't find in in searching? This could refer to changing when day starts, as well as DLS, Y2K, removing statutory/public holidays, "bce"/"ce", Haarp weather manipulation, chem trails/trials, etc.

Daniel 7:25 (ESV) He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.

The times he will seek to change are the seasons, or feasts (done, merry xmas); the day of worship (have a nice sunrise service, except we won't make you get up that early- only on Easter); and how the day is marked and divided itself, which now is evenly divided from midnight to midnoght (witching hour to witching hour). This not only changes what the Lord laid down at creation, but causes a lot of problems even for Messianics trying to sort out times and dates. I once went to the city (150 mi away) and did some shopping a day early as the week of Pesach was ending because I got my times/dates confused. This kind of thing happens all to often within our ranks, and all because ha'satan has got us so used to a pagan system, and Adonai's system is so foreign to us. Again, this is what I see happening to you. 

Gospels (Matt 4:2, Mark 1:13, Luke 4:2):
"40 days (and 40 nights)".

Which comes first? Matthew 3:17-4:2 (ESV) 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” 1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. Baptized during daylight hours, then led up into the wilderness during daylight hours, so the day came first. Has abslutely nothing to do with creation and the order God set out to mark a 24 hr. day. Also, His hunger would have been most acute when He awoke, so this would be the most opportune time for ha'satan to tempt Yeshua. 

Mark 1:21
"They went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath day he entered into the synagogue and taught." "Immediately on the Sabbath day" could mean immediately at sundown, though probably not. It most likely means immediately when they all gathered in synagogue, which would have been some time after daylight. And by your interpretation, He'd have had to be there at the crack of dawn, so it makes no sense. It simply means He wasted no time getting into His teachings at Shabbat shul.

John 9:4
"... while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work."

Has day first before night. Again, this is a picture of daylight hours when almost all men did their work, and night-time when their wok ceased. But it is talking of our witness to the world, which in reality does not stop with the darkness. Try to develope a sense for allegory instead of seeing everything so litterally. Otherwise you will be totally lost reading scriptures.

Acts 27:33
"While the day was coming on, Paul begged them all to take some food, saying, "This day is the fourteenth day that you wait and continue fasting....""

Seems to imply sunrise start of day? Though maybe it only refers to daylight hours, and/or might be Roman reckoning? Actually it doesn't seem to do any such thing. It just means they were somewhere in their 14th day of waiting and fasting.

2 Peter/Cephas 1:19
"until the day dawns, and the day/morning star arises"

Seems to imply dawn start of day? No, it just says the star typicaqlly visible during some of the daylight hours (early morning hours) appears as the day (daylight) dawns. Absloutely nothing about when God started the day.

Revelation (10:1 &) 12:1
("His face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire.")
"a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet"

Which way are they around? Face to feet. Not sun to moon.

Hebrew/Semitic:
kedem "east, front", akharru "west, behind". "West" in Hebrew is מַעֲרָב ma'arav. The root is erev, or evening. The sun sets in the evening and in the west, ergo ...
East is מִזְרָח mitzrach, from the root זְרָח zarach, to shine. And the sun first shines from the east. However your term קָדִים qudim means "east wind." However I am not sure exactly what any of this has to do with when God started the Biblical day.

Jewish sources:
One says "According to the strict interpretation of the Mosaic law, every day begins with sunrise and ends with sunset (Ibn Ezra, commentary on Ex. xviii. 14, Jewish Encyclopedia)." Obviously he is speaking only of the daylight hours.
Though another one says "Darkness is a pathway to the sunrise hiding behind it." True.

A Messianic/Christian source:
"in the same way that God wants our stomach empty when the Day of Atonement starts at sunrise on the 10th of the 7th month". I would imagine this is saying do not eat any midnight snacks so that your stomach will be empty during the day when you are supposed to be "afflicting" yourself. He worded it poorly, but I doubt a true Messianic source would say the Day of Atonement starts at sunrise.