it varying from it, by the corn not growing ripe for the sickle, at or about the sixteenth day of this month, the second day of unleavened bread," on which they were wont to offer their wave-sheaf,* in the following man.

ner.

When, I say, they found at the end of the year, from the experience of two or three past years, as well as the year then before them, that harvest was not so forward as to be fit to be begun in about sixteen. days; they might then add so many days to the end of their year as might be requisite, that they might not begin the month Abib until, upon the sixteenth of it, they might expect to put the sickle to the corn, and bring the wave-sheaf in their accustomed manner. This, I think, might be the method in which the ancient Israelites adjusted their year to the seasons; and I conceive, that when they added to their year in this manner, the addition they made was of whole weeks, one, two, or more, as appearing backwardness of the season required; that the first of Abib might fall upon

• Exod. xii.

*Levit. xxiii. ubi sup.

y

a sabbath, and the other sabbaths of the year follow in their order, as I have above fixed them. We may observe, concerning this method of adjusting the year, that it is easy and obvious; no depths of human science, or skill in astronomy, are requisite for proceeding according to it. The Israelites could only want once in about twenty years to lift up their eyes, and to look into their fields, and to consider before they proclaimed the beginning of their month Abib, whether, or how much they wanted of being white to harvest; and this with the observing their sabbaths as above related, would furnish them a year fully answering all the purposes of their religion or civil life. Now this method being thus capable of answering all purposes, without leading them to a necessity of fixing equinoxes, estimating the motions of the heavenly bodies, or acquainting themselves with any of those schemes of human learning, by which the heathen nations were led into their idolatries; I am the more apt to think, that this was the

▾ Joseph. ubi sup.

method which God was pleased by the hand of Moses to suggest to them.

a

I am aware of only one point which can furnish any very material objection to what I have offered. The Israelites were ordered by Moses to keep the beginning of their months as solemn feasts, on which they were to offer special sacrifices; and they were to celebrate them like their other high festivals with blowing of trumpets." And they seem to have carefully observed this appointment in their worst, as well as in their best, from their earliest to their latest times. In the days of Saul, these days were kept as highfeasts, on which a person who used to sit there, was sure to be missed, if absent from the king's table. They are mentioned as held by David and Solomon amongst the solemn festivals. As such, Hezekiah afterwards provided for the observance of them." The

b.

1 Chron. xxiii. 31.-2 Chron. ii. 4. viii. 13. d2 Chron. xxxi. 3.

f

Prophets mention them in like manner, and Ezra took care to revive them at the return from the captivity; and it appears to have been the custom of all the Israelites who feared GOD, to observe these days among the feasts of the house of Israel; as is evident from the character given to Judith, amongst other things, for her care in this matter. In their later days the Jews fixed the days of these feasts, by the appearance of the new-moon; and great pains were taken to begin the month and the moon together. This was the practice, when the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus wrote; for he tells us, that from the moon is the

i

1

• Isaiah i. 13. 14.-Ìxvi. 23.-Ezek. xlvi. 1.→ Hos. ii. 11.-Amos viii. 5.

f Ezra iii. 5.

Judith viii. 6.

h Talmud in Tract. Rosh. Hashanah. Maimonides in Keddush. Hachod. Selden de anno civili veterum Judæorum. Scaliger. Can. Isagog. Lib. 3. p. 222. Clem. Alexand. Stromat. lib. 6. p. 760.-Edit. Oxon. The English reader may see the translation of Jurieu's History of the Doctrines and Worship of the Church. vol. i. p. 2. c. 8. Prideaux Connect. Preface to vol. i.

.

sign of feasts; and the Jewish writers say, that Moses appointed this practice, and that the Israelites proceeded by it, from the beginning of the law.' The Lxx indeed seem to have been of this opinion, and accordingly, except in three or four places only," in their translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, they render the expression for the beginning of the months by the Greek word νεμηνια or," the term constantly used by the heathen writers for their festival of the new moons observed by them. And we have followed the Lxx, and do generally call the first days of the months, the new moons, in our English Bibles. But if the ancient Is raelites fixed these festivals in this manner, they could not compute their months and

* Ecclus. xliii, 7.

Heb. p. 810.

Vid. Spen. de Leg. m Vid. 2 Chron, viii. 13.

Isaiah Ixvi. 23. Amos viii. 5.

Numb. x. 10. xxviii. 11.1 Sam. xx. 5.2 Kings iv. 23. 1 Chron. xxiii. 31.-Psalm lxxxi. 3. & passim.

• Vid. Herodot. lib. de vit. Homer c. 33. Plutarch de vitand. ære alieno. p. 828. Theophrast. Character, Ethic. iv. Lucian. in Icaro Menip. p. 731.