When Does the Year Begin in the Bible?
Parashat Ha’azinu & Shabbat Shuvah
The Torah appears to give us a very clear answer: the month of the Exodus is the first month of the year. Yet other biblical texts describe the autumn harvest as occurring at the “going out of the year” and the “turn of the year.”
In this week’s lesson, we follow these passages closely in Hebrew and ask whether the Bible preserves more than one way of counting the year — a month-cycle beginning in Nisan, alongside an agricultural and legal cycle centered on the seventh month.
The Question: When Does the Year Begin?
We begin with the question chosen by the community: When does the biblical year actually begin?
At first glance, the answer seems obvious. Exodus places the beginning of the calendar in the month of the Exodus. But once we begin comparing other biblical texts, a more complicated picture emerges.
This opening discussion also introduces the other topics proposed in the weekly poll and explains why the calendar question is especially appropriate during the days surrounding Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Nisan: The First Month
We begin with Exodus 12:1–2, where the month of the Exodus is called רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים — “the beginning of months” and “the first of the months of the year.”
We then connect this command with Deuteronomy 16:1, which anchors Passover in חֹדֶשׁ הָאָבִיב — the month of Aviv. Biblical time therefore connects two things: Israel’s historical birth through the Exodus and the natural cycle of spring.
Along the way, we examine several features of biblical Hebrew: וַיֹּאמֶר and לֵאמֹר, the silent א, the pronunciation of different forms of the o vowel, and the relationship between רֹאשׁ and רִאשׁוֹן.
“At the Going Out of the Year”
The picture becomes more complicated in Exodus 23:14–17. The Torah describes the three pilgrimage festivals: the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering.
Sukkot, the Festival of Ingathering, takes place בְּצֵאת הַשָּׁנָה — “at the going out of the year.” Exodus 34:22 uses another striking expression: תְּקוּפַת הַשָּׁנָה — “the turn of the year.”
We examine the Hebrew roots behind צאת and תקופה and ask what these expressions imply. If Nisan is the first month, why does the Torah place the turning or departure of the year around the autumn harvest?
The discussion also explores the expression שָׁלֹשׁ רְגָלִים, pilgrimage traditions, and an interesting comparison with the practice of Beta Israel communities.
The First Day of the Seventh Month
What does the Torah itself call the day that later Jewish tradition calls Rosh Hashanah?
In Leviticus 23:23–25, the first day of the seventh month is called a שַׁבָּתוֹן, a זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה, and a מִקְרָא־קֹדֶשׁ. Numbers 29:1 calls it יוֹם תְּרוּעָה — “a day of teruah.”
Significantly, the Torah does not call this day “Rosh Hashanah.” Nevertheless, the first day of the seventh month already possesses a distinctive sacred status within the biblical calendar.
Shemitah, Jubilee, and the Seventh Month
The seventh month is not only the setting for festivals. It also marks major turning points in the Bible’s long-term cycles of land and time.
In Leviticus 25:9–10, the Jubilee is proclaimed with the shofar on Yom Kippur — the tenth day of the seventh month. The beginning of a new legal order of liberty, land, and restoration is therefore announced in Tishrei.
We also return to Deuteronomy 31:10–11: “At the end of seven years… at the Festival of Sukkot.” The seven-year Shemitah cycle reaches a major public turning point during Sukkot.
Rain and the Beginning of the Year
Deuteronomy 11:11–12 describes the Land of Israel as a land that “drinks water from the rain of heaven.” God’s eyes are upon it “from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.”
Unlike Egypt, whose agriculture depends on the Nile, and Mesopotamia, shaped by the Tigris and Euphrates, the agricultural rhythm of the Land of Israel depends upon the return of the rains after the dry summer.
This gives the seventh month a natural significance: autumn is when the rainy season, sowing, and a new agricultural cycle begin.
From “Rosh Hashanah” in Ezekiel to the Four New Years
The expression רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה — “Rosh Hashanah” appears explicitly in Ezekiel 40:1. Remarkably, it is a unique biblical expression and there it is associated with the tenth day of the month rather than explicitly with the first of Tishrei.
We then turn to Nehemiah 8, where the first day of the seventh month becomes the setting for a major national gathering, public Torah reading, holiness, celebration, and covenantal renewal.
Finally, Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:1 gives explicit form to the complexity already visible in the biblical texts: “There are four New Years.” Nisan remains the New Year for certain purposes, while Tishrei becomes the New Year for years, Shemitah, Jubilee, planting, and other agricultural cycles.