In this article, we will be looking at when a day begins and when it ends, according to the Holy Scriptures of the Eternal.
Genesis 1:5b [The Scriptures - TS]
...And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, one day.
Here we have the beginning of the first “day” of creation. The beginning is called evening which begins after the sun has set. This division of God’s time called “day” was divided
into two parts:
Genesis 1:5a [TS] And Elohim{the Almighty} called the light ‘day’ and the darkness He called ‘night.’
The night or darkness came before the light or day.
Genesis 1:2-3 [TS] 2 And the earth came to be{or became} formless and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Elohim was moving on the face of the waters. 3 And Elohim said, “Let light come to be,” and light came to be.
Therefore, the common expression of evening (even) as applied to the close of the day is incorrectly used according to the Eternal’s Word. The even or evening of any day is the beginning and not the ending, according to Scripture. We must first have an ending. Let us search out some scriptures to give us light on this subject.
IN SCRIPTURE A DAY BEGINS AT EVENING AND ENDS AT SUNSET
Mark 1:32 [TS]
And when evening came, when the sun had set, they brought to Him all who were sick and those who were demon-possessed.
This proves that even or evening is after sunset, the beginning of another day. In this particular instance, it was the beginning of the first day of the week, now commonly called Sunday. Why?
Mark 1:21, 32 [TS] 21 And they went into Kephar Nahum{Capernaum}, and immediately on the Sabbath He went into the congregation and taught. ... ... ... 32 And when evening came, when the sun had set, they brought to Him all who were sick and those who were demon-possessed.
These verses show that <at even, when the sun had set>, was after the Sabbath was past and another day had begun.
Luke 4:16, 40 [TS]
16 And He came to Natsareth, where He had been brought up. And according to His practice, He went into the congregation on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.
... ... ...
40 And when the sun was setting, all who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Him. And He laid His hands on each one of them and healed them.
This indicates that the Sabbath day had passed with the setting of the sun, and another day had begun because the Jews/Israelites would not carry the burden of their sick to Yeshua on the Sabbath day to be healed.
Deuteronomy 23:11 [TS] “And it shall be, at *the approach of evening, that he bathes with water. And when the sun sets let him come into the midst of the camp. *(Literally to the face of evening)
Here we have two synonymous expressions: <at the approach of evening> and <when the sun sets>, showing the beginning of another day.
Leviticus 11:24-25 [TS]
24 ‘And by these you are made unclean, anyone touching the carcass of any of them is unclean until evening,
25 and anyone picking up part of the carcass of any of them has to wash his garments, and shall be unclean until evening.
These verses show that uncleanness lasted until that day was past, and the even (beginning of another day) was come.
Judges 19:9 [TS]
See, the day is now drawing toward evening. Please spend the night. See, the day is coming to an end.
The light part or day was drawing toward evening, but had not yet come to it. The day was growing to an end. The close of a day is called the end of that day.
Matthew 28:1 [TS]
But late in the sabbath, as it was dawning into day one of the week, Miryam from Magdala and the other Miryam came to see the tomb
They came at the end (not the beginning) of the Sabbath (7th day) to see the tomb.
The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament renders it this way:
Matthew 28:1 [Interlinear Greek-English] Now late on Sabbath, as it was getting dusk* toward (the) first (day) of (the) week, came Mary the Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. (*dusk: the time just before night when the day is losing its light, but it is not yet dark - Cambridge Dictionary)
The terms <late on>, <dusk>, etc. denote the latter part of the day, never “even or evening.”
Exodus 12:6 [TS]
‘And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same new moon. Then all the assembly of the congregation of Yisra’el shall slay it between the evenings.
<between the evenings> – «ben ha arbayim» – the time period from sunset until complete darkness, at the beginning of the Scriptural day.
When was the Passover lamb to be killed? The verse just quoted says, “in the evening.” This was the beginning (not the ending) of the fourteenth day after the sun had gone down. From the beginning of this day (the 14th) to the beginning of the next day (the 15th) there were twenty-four hours. The Passover lamb was not killed at the end of any day, but in the evening (the beginning) of the 14th just after the close or end of the 13th after the sun had gone down.
Yeshua ate the Passover lamb every year at the same time, and the last supper with His disciples was absolutely no exception. Everything concerning the last Passover supper that
was observed by Yeshua with His disciples was on the dark part (beginning) of the 14th day, as it had always been since the coming of the children of Yisra’el out of Egyptian bondage.
John 13:30 [TS] So, having received the piece of bread, he then went out straightaway, and it was night.
This dark part (night) was the beginning of the 14th starting at sunset, and it is according
to all the calculations governing Eternal’s day. This rules out entirely the 15th of Nisan as having any part in the Passover, or the Lord’s Supper.
Shaul (Paul) writes,
1 Corinthians 11:23 [TS] ...that the Master יהושע{Yehoshua} in the night in which He was delivered up took bread
It was in the evening (beginning) of the 14th that He ate the last Passover and instituted
the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper; the very same night in which He was
betrayed. Sabbath evening is always recognised as the beginning of the Sabbath
just after the end of Friday. Also, the world recognises this fact, for the so-called Christmas Eve is the evening or night preceding Christmas day.
Going back to the Eternal’s creation of the day
Genesis 1:4-5 [TS]
4...And Elohim separated the light from the darkness.
5 And Elohim called the light ‘day’ and the darkness He called ‘night.’ And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, one day.
This was a complete 24 hours. The beginning of the night was “evening”, and the beginning of
the day was “morning.” Putting the parts together as a whole constituted the first full day. This was the Eternal’s first day, and this procedure was repeated until the Eternal had seven full days. This has never been changed, although man has repeatedly tried to do so.
For anyone to deviate from this timely way set forth in the Word of the Eternal may rob himself of eternal life. The Eternal’s way is the right way, and He is very particular.
SUNRISE AND SUNSET IN THE BIBLE
A “day” in the sense of a complete period of light and darkness might be reckoned as beginning with the coming of the light or with the coming of darkness, as well as of course theoretically at any other point.
In Ancient Egypt, the day probably began at dawn, in ancient Mesopotamia it began in the evening. Among the Greeks, the day was reckoned from sunset to sunset, while the Romans already began the day in the “modern” fashion at midnight.
[James Gow, A Companion to School Classics (3d ed.; London: Macmillan, 1893), 78,147; Leondard Whibley, ed., A Companion to Greek Studies (3d ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916, 389].
Summing up the different reckonings among the different peoples in his time, Pliny wrote:
The Babylonians count the period between the two sunrises, the Athenians that between the two sunsets, the Umbrians from midday to midday, the common people everywhere from dawn to dusk, the Roman priests and the authorities who fixed the official day, and also the Egyptians and Hipparchus, the period from midnight to midnight
[Natural History 2.79.188].
In the Old Testament, the earlier practice seems to have been to consider that the day began in the morning. In Genesis 19:34, for example, the “morrow” (ASV) or “next day” (RSV) clearly begins with the morning after the preceding night.
The later practice was to count the day as beginning in the evening.
Leviticus 23:27;32 [TS] 27 “On the tenth day of this seventh new moon is Yom haKippurim{Day of Atonement}. ... ... ... 32 On the ninth day of the new moon at evening, from evening to evening, you observe your Sabbath.
These last words can hardly be intended to change the actual date of the fast; rather, they appear to be additional information which simply defines what the tenth day of the month was at a time when the day had become to be reckoned as beginning in the evening; the tenth day of the month is the day which begins on the evening of the ninth and continues until the following evening. In making the shift from a morning reckoning to an evening reckoning, the “day” was therefore in fact moved back so that it began a half day earlier than had been the case previously.
Julian Morgenstern, HUCA 10 (1935); 15-28; 20 (1947): 34-38]”” (J Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, pp.7-8).
——————-
THE DAYS
The Jewish day does not begin and end at midnight, as does the secular calendar day. Midnight is not a distinguishable astronomic event. In the era before the modern clock, a specific hour of the night could not be precisely known, whereas an hour of the day was easily determined by sighting the location of the sun. Thus, the day had to begin by precise, simple and universally recognised standards. This meant that the day had to be reckoned either from the beginning of night or the beginning of day.
In Jewish time, the day begins with the onset of night (the appearance of the stars) followed by the morning (which technically begins with the appearance of the North Star). According to some Jewish teachers, night and morning begin with sunset and sunrise, respectively. For that is how the Torah describes it: “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”
For this reason, the Sabbath begins on Friday night and ends with the appearance of the stars on Saturday night. The same is true for the major holidays such as Passover, Sukkot, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the fast day of Tisha B’Av, and Hanukkah and Purim.
Beginning the day with the night is, in a sense, a metaphor of life itself. Life begins in the darkness of the womb, then bursts into the brightness of the light and eventually settles into the darkness of the grave, which, in turn, is followed by a new dawn in the world-to-come.
Life consists of light and dark: “And there was evening and there was morning.” What we make of time is what counts.
Sources:
From a tract by Andrew Nugent Dugger; Craig White; Fred Coulter; Rabbi Maurice Lamm; Rabbi Chaim Tabasky