January 5, 2025

What is a day? One full solar cycle through the sky. A 24-hour period. Does it start at midnight? Sunrise? Sunset? How do we define a Biblical day? I believe that the Bible defines itself, so lets go to the book of Exodus to see what it defines a day as:

Exodus 12:6  ‘And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same chodesh. Then all the assembly of the congregation of Yisra’ěl shall slay it “between the evenings.”(“Between the evenings” is an idiomatic way of saying “in the afternoon”.)

Exodus 12:12  ‘And I shall pass through the land of Mitsrayim on that night, and shall strike all the first-born in the land of Mitsrayim, both man and beast. And on all the mighty ones of Mitsrayim I shall execute judgment. I am יהוה.’

Exodus 12:15  ‘Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. Indeed on the first day you cause leaven to cease from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that being shall be cut off from Yisra’ěl.’

Exodus 12:16  ‘And on the first day is a set-apart gathering, and on the seventh day you have a set-apart gathering. No work at all is done on them, only that which is eaten by every being, that alone is prepared by you.’

Exodus 12:18  ‘In the first chodesh, on the fourteenth day of the chodesh, in the evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the chodesh in the evening.’

The textual evidence in Exodus chapter 12 reveals a number of things to us. One thing is that the feast of Unleavened Bread (ULB), or Matzot, is seven days long, and the first day is a non-work day, and the seventh day is a non-work day. Also, that the seven days begins in the evening of the 14^th day of the month, and lasts until the 21^st day of the month at evening.

Leviticus chapter 23 also tells us that the Passover lamb is slain on the fourteenth day of the chodesh, “between the evenings”, just like Exodus 12:6 – they describe the same time.

Then Leviticus 23:6-8 gives us more specific information, that “on the fifteenth day of this chodesh is the Festival of Matzot to יהוה – seven days you eat unleavened bread… the first day you have a set-apart gathering, you do no servile work. And you shall bring an offering made by fire to יהוה for seven days. On the seventh day is a set-apart gathering, you do no servile work.”

The correlation being made is that ULB in Exodus chapter 12 is described as being seven days long beginning in on the 14^th day of the month in the evening and lasting until the 21^st of the month in the evening. Leviticus 23 says that the 15^th day of the month is the first of the seven days of ULB. The feast is seven days long: 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. Seven days. The days go from the 14^th “at evening” until the 21^st “at evening”. Logic dictates that a “day” (or “solar cycle” for lack of a better term) is from one evening to the next. The solar cycle ends in the evening, and another begins.

Some proponents of a relatively new doctrine that states that a Biblical day begins in the morning say that this description given in Exodus and Leviticus are anomalies, as well as the Day of Atonement (which will be covered in another post), and that these were special instructions given for these particular mo’edim. However, these instructions were given to the Israelites who were coming out of Egypt and had been saturated with Egyptian culture. Many even complained and wanted to go back to Egypt! According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Most scholars agree that the Egyptian day began at dawn, before the rising of the sun, rather than sunrise. The daily cycle was divided into twenty-four hours: twelve hours of the day and twelve hours of the night.”

You see, YHWH had to be specific with these instructions so that the Israelites, who were used to having a 24-hour day that began at dawn, would observe this important set-apart time correctly. If He just told them that the feast was seven days, after just coming out of Egypt where the “day” was reckoned at dawn, then they would have began at dawn on the 15^th and ended at dawn on the 22^nd of the first chodesh. He was specific because they were used to a dawn-to-dawn day rather than evening-to-evening.

Turning to the book of Numbers, Bemidbar (which actually means “in the wilderness”), in chapter 9 Moses is told to command the children of Israel to slay the Passover lamb on the 14^th day of the month “between the evenings”.

Numbers chapter 28 beginning in verse 16 says that in the first chodesh, on the fourteenth day, is the Pěsaḥ of יהוה, and on the fifteenth day of this chodesh is a festival. For seven days unleavened bread is eaten. On the first day is a set-apart gathering, you do no servile work. 

So again we see that Numbers agrees with Leviticus that the 15^th day of the first month is the first day of ULB, and that it is a seven day long festival. This chapter then goes on to describe the specific offerings that they were to bring during ULB. Verse 25 says that on the seventh day there is a set-apart gathering, where no servile work is to be done. 

The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a 7-day festival that goes from the 15^th of the first month and lasts until the 21^st of the first month. This festival begins on evening on the 14^th of the first month and ends on evening on the 21^st of the first month. It is a seven day festival that commences in the evening and ends in the evening, evening to evening for seven days, and defines a Biblical day.