God's Holy Days & Festivals

Synchronizing Adjustments

Many who observe the Biblical holy days have been persuaded to reject the postponement rules of the Hebrew Calendar. They believe these rules were not instituted by God, but were later added by the rabbis of early Judaism. This idea has been promoted by modern rabbis who claim that their predecessors “fixed” the calendar, often attributing the postponement rules to Hillel II, a well-known rabbi of the 4th century AD.

This teaching has gained wide acceptance, even though there is no evidence to support it. In fact, historical records in both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds contain detailed discussions of the postponement rules by rabbis who lived centuries before Hillel II. The postponement rules were not added to the calendar by rabbinical authority.

The chronology of the Flood in the book of Genesis reveals that both intercalation and postponement were part of the Hebrew Calendar from the beginning of man’s history. The appointed time frame for observing God’s feasts was established at creation. On the first day, God established the weekly cycle. On the fourth day, He set the sun and moon in the heavens to govern the lunar and solar cycles. These cycles form the foundation of the Calculated Hebrew Calendar.

The rules of the Hebrew Calendar were ordained by God when the first lunar cycle began. They were later given to the children of Israel at the time of the Exodus and committed to the priesthood when the Old Covenant was established. The priests preserved these calculations and passed them down through the generations, including to the time of Jesus and the apostles, who observed the feasts of God on the days proclaimed by the priesthood.

The calendar God committed to the priesthood is known today as the Calculated Hebrew Calendar. It has accurately determined God’s holy days for thousands of years. No calendar devised by man can equal the accuracy and consistency of the Calculated Hebrew Calendar.

Relying on the visible crescent is not accurate because the crescent cannot be sighted until part of the lunar cycle has already passed and the moon is no longer truly new. Furthermore, the visible crescent of the first month is not the basis God ordained for establishing the months. Psalm 81 shows that the first day of the seventh month, Tishri—the only month that begins with a holy day—is the point from which His feast days are to be calculated.

The correct weekday for observing Tishri 1, the Feast of Trumpets, cannot be determined without applying the postponement rules in years when the calculated new moon falls outside the limits established by the weekly cycle. These postponements adjust the beginning of the months so that Tishri 1 fits properly within the sequence of weekdays at the end of the sixth month. In this way, the postponement rules preserve the continuity of the weekly cycle from month to month and from year to year.