The Eighth Month

by Fr. Mark Wojdelski, FSSP

(This is part of a series of articles, and will make little sense without the introductory articles: (1) , (2), (3), and (4).  There are more than four articles in the series, but the first four are very important to understanding the conceptual framework.)

Previously I mentioned that the month of Heshevan, the eighth month of the Hebrew religious year, has no feasts or special observances of any kind, and so its other common name Marheshevan (the original name, from the Akkadian wrḥ-šmn, lit. “moon eight”) was taken by speakers of Hebrew to mean “Bitter Heshevan” (“mar” means “bitter” in Hebrew, cf. Ruth 1:20).

While looking at our lunar calendar, some other dates begin to be of interest, and here is where the relationship between the vernal and autumnal calendars becomes more fascinating. A short review of the calendar, slightly reformatted, might make certain things clearer:

Month	Spring	Autumn
1 | 7	Nisan	Tishri
2 | 8	Iyar	Heshevan
3 | 9	Sivan	Kislev
	Summer	Winter
4 | 10	Tammuz	Tevet
5 | 11	Av	Shevat
6 | 12	Elul	Adar

 

Note that the “Spring” and “Autumn” columns can be swapped and then the spring (vernal) calendar becomes the fall (autumnal) calendar.

The more prevalent Jewish tradition has always maintained (with a few notable exceptions) that all the dates given in the account of the flood (Gen 7-8) follow the autumnal, or civil calendar, meaning the first month of the year was Tishri. If we follow this assumption, the key dates given for the flood in Genesis are as follows:

Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.

. . .

And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark, to escape the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.

 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. (Gen 7:1, 7-11)

So we have two dates given here, the first at least implicitly: the first, when God commanded Noah to go into the ark, giving him a week to do so (10 Heshevan, T-minus seven days), and then the second, when He opened the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven, and water came from every direction (17 Heshevan). We are told how the rains and waters rose and stopped and receded at various intervals spoken of in the scriptures, and commentators and rabbis have struggled with those dates for ages. When precisely Noah sent out the doves has been a subject of dispute, as have been other calculable points of reference in this sequence of events.

However, a few other dates seem to be clearly and unambiguously stated in the sacred text: “At the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters had abated; and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat.” (Gen 8:3-4) In the autumnal calendar, this would correspond to the 17th day of Nisan, which we have seen corresponds to Easter Sunday on our idealized calendar. The ark comes to rest on the very day that our crucified Lord gloriously enters into His eternal rest. “Arise, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.” (Ps 132:8) Note that there are two words used for “ark” in the Scriptures: “tebah,” which refers to the ark of Noah (as well as the basket in which the infant Moses was placed before being set in the river) and “aron,” which specifically refers to the ark of the covenant. The psalm just quoted speaks of the “aron,” the ark of the covenant, which might also be a reference to our Blessed Mother being subsequently taken up to her resting place. The Latin is delightfully ambiguous, also using the word “arca” for both concepts.

“And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.” (Gen 8:5) This would seem to be 1 Tammuz on the lunar calendar, but commentators do not agree on this.

In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry.  In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. (Gen 8:13-14)

The first month here would be 1 Tishri, the traditional day on which man was created. We are told the face of the ground was “cleared off” on this day.¹ On the twenty-seventh day of the following month, the earth was completely dried.² The common attempted explanation for this strange gap is that God wanted the flood to last an entire solar year, which is ten days (actually eleven) longer than the lunar year.³

In our little arrangement of the calendar, the last two Sundays of the liturgical year fall on the last two Sundays of Heshevan. The 27th day of Heshevan corresponds to the Saturday before the Last Sunday after Pentecost, the Sunday on which our Lord describes the end times in the gospel reading. (Mt 24:15-35) The matins reading assigned to this day is from the prophet Jonah:

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,  “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.”  But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god; and they threw the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down, and was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call upon your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we do not perish.”

And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And from where do you come? What is your country? And of what people are you?” And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.

Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, “Take me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” (Jon 1:1-12)

Certainly, this must be a coincidence, but it is a useful one from the standpoint of liturgical devotion, since it allows us to connect a biblical event with a particular day of the liturgical year, helping us to anchor the flood story in our minds during the course of the year. Perhaps the next time we read the story of Jonah, we might think of the flood narrative, and remember that just as Jonah spent 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the great fish, so also Noah and his family spent an entire year in the darkness of the ark. There was, after all, only the one window or hatch.  The important point to remember is that the liturgy is something that must be lived, and this is one more way to incorporate it into our life, if we find it spiritually beneficial.

It is also interesting to note that the flood narrative (Gen ch. 6-8) is utilized as the second lesson of twelve in the traditional liturgy of Holy Saturday. However, we see something interesting in the missal: while spaces of time, e.g. “forty days” or “seven days” remain, any mention of specific dates was removed by the Church, a prerogative which she exercises from time to time in adapting the scriptures to liturgical use. In fact, the only specific dates given in the Holy Saturday readings are those in the ninth reading, from Exodus ch. 12, which describes the institution of Passover, the same dates that were recited the previous afternoon, on Good Friday.

* * *

There is another legitimate way to look at this entire sequence of events, and that is from the point of view of the vernal calendar, which, as we know, begins in the month of Nisan (or Abib).⁴

Event	Date	Religious (Vernal)	Civil (Autumnal)
Rain Begins	17th day of 2nd month	17 Iyar	17 Heshevan
Ark Comes to Rest	17th day of 7th month	17 Tishri	17 Nisan
Mountaintops Visible	1st day of 10th month	1 Tevet?	1 Tammuz?
Waters Dry	1st day of 1st month	1 Nisan	1 Tishri
Earth Completely Dry	27th day of 2nd month	27 Iyar	27 Heshevan

In this sequence of events, the rains still begin to fall on the 17th day of the second month (but now that month is Iyar) and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month (Tishri) the ark comes to rest, in the middle of the Feast of Booths. There might be a connection here with our Lord’s activities in Jerusalem during the same feast (Jn 7:10-13), since it would be on or after 17 Tishri (about the middle of the feast) that our Lord would likely have arrived to begin his teaching in the temple. (Jn 7:14-36)

We can see a certain symmetry, but what is more noteworthy is the day the earth is completely dry on the 27th day of Iyar in this arrangement of the calendar. This day happens to be a Thursday, and corresponds with Ascension Thursday in our idealized calendar, forty days after Easter. We can find just as satisfying a meaning here if we imagine that the water in this case represents our Blessed Lord:

Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the skies rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation may sprout forth (Is 45:8)

“In the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.” (Gen 7:11)

From start to finish, the flood lasted a full solar year. Perhaps there is a connection here with what our Lord read in the synagogue in Nazareth:

He opened the book and found the place where it was written,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovering of sight to the blind,

to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

 to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk 4:17-20)

After He leaves us (according to the ordinary manner of perception), we can speak of the ground once again being dry, awaiting the flood of grace that would come with the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit upon the entirety of creation.