Rosh Hashanah and Rosh Chodesh
Rosh Chodesh means head of the month. And Rosh Hashanah means head of the year. Rosh Hashanah is on 1 Abib (1Nissan).
First I am going to proof that 1 Abib is the first day if the year (Rosh Hashanah):
We read:
Exodus 12:1-7
Now the Lord Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household. Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb. Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight. Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.
The month that all the firstborn were killed in Egypt except the firstborn of Yahweh’s people is the first month of the year. Yahweh’s people were eating the lamb and put the blood on the 2 doorposts and on the lintel of the house. This was their first Passover.
Deuteronomy 16:1
“Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover to the Lord Yahweh, your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night.
Here you read that they celebrate Passover and were brought out of Egypt by night in the month Abib. If you combine these texts you discover that Abib is the first month. So this means that 1 Abib is the first day of the year.
This day is a joyful day. We wish everyone a happy and peaceful new year. We eat food. And we have a church gathering we thank Yahweh for what He has done last year and we ask for blessings for the new year. We bring an offering. The pastors blow a silver trumpets over the offerings.
The Jewish nation was told while they were still in Egypt that the month of Abib, the month in which they would be leaving Egypt, should be their first month. And Yahweh told them that they, as a nation, have the responsibility to count the months and create a Jewish calendar based on the lunar year.
One of the less notable statutes in the Bible is the feast of the new Moon.(Rosh Chodesh) Every new moon burnt offerings and peace offerings have to be done, accompanied by the sound of trumpets: this way the people of Yahweh could remember Yahweh on regular base.
Numbers 10:10
Also in the day of your gladness and in your appointed feasts, and on the first days of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; and they shall be as a reminder of you before your God. I am Yahweh , the Lord your God.”
Psalms 81:3-4
Blow the trumpet at the new moon, At the full moon, on our feast day. For it is a statute for Israel, An ordinance of Yahweh, the God of Jacob.
With every start of the new moon it is Rosh Chodesh. That’s also the start of the month. On this day they blow the trumpets over the offerings.
In Numbers 28 you can read that there were also cereals offerings drink offerings and a sin offerings.
Numbers 28:11-15
‘Then at the beginning of each of your months you shall present a burnt offering to Yahweh, the Lord: two bulls and one ram, seven male lambs one year old without defect; and three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering, for each bull; and two-tenths of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering, for the one ram; and a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering for each lamb, for a burnt offering of a soothing aroma, an offering by fire to Yahweh, Lord. Their drink offerings shall be half a hin of wine for a bull and a third of a hin for the ram and a fourth of a hin for a lamb; this is the burnt offering of each month throughout the months of the year. And one male goat for a sin offering to, Yahweh the Lord; it shall be offered with its drink offering in addition to the continual burnt offering.
We're having a church gathering on this day. We bring an offering and thank Yahweh for the everything He has done this last month and we ask blessings for the new month. The pastors blow on 2 silver trumpets over the offerings.
In the old times the new moon had to be determined by observation in Israel. That was one of the important functions of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.
This highest Jewish court had the responsibility to watch over the calendar and the days which Israel had to observe the feasts by God's command. By the time the first crescent of the new moon could be expected, the Sanhedrin was stand by to receive the report of two independent witnesses that had seen the new moon. As soon as they had two new moon reports, the Sanhedrin proclaimed the new moon day.
This statement was first passed on by fires on top of mountains to Jews elsewhere, as far as Babylonia. But because the Samaritans also made fires sometimes around that time were the Jews confused. That’s why messengers were sent later. However, the messengers could not deliver the news as quickly as the fires. Also they were regularly late. This is the reason why outside Israel, the use of a second holiday arose among the Jews, so that people knew for sure that the festival was celebrated on the right day.