The Year · Study 1
The First Month of the Year
Why Yahuah begins His year with Aviv — and why the question of who has authority to set the year is older than Rome.
Yahuah Set the Beginning
Most of the world celebrates a new year in the dead of winter, on January 1, a date set by Roman emperors and confirmed by Pope Gregory XIII. There is nothing in the heavens that marks January 1. There is no luminary that says "the year has begun." It is a date by decree, not by witness.
Yahuah's year does not begin in winter. It does not begin by decree. It begins in the spring, when the heavens declare it through the renewed moon and the leading star Spica, in the month called Aviv.
"This month [chodesh] shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you." — Exodus 12:2
Yahuah did not leave this for the world to figure out. He spoke directly. This chodesh — the renewal happening at that very moment, in that very season — is the beginning. Not the seventh month. Not the winter solstice. Not the equinox. This one, in the spring, when the green-ear-star takes the lead and the new agricultural year is opening before His people.
The Month Has a Name
"This day came ye out in the month Aviv." — Exodus 13:4
Yahuah named this month Aviv (Strong's H24), which means "tender, green ears of grain." The name carries meaning. It points to a specific moment in creation when the heavens above and the earth below both witness to the same thing: a new year has begun.
This is unlike any other month in Yahuah's year. The other eleven months in the original Hebrew calendar were simply numbered — the second month, the third month, and so on. But the first month was named, and the name reaches into both the sky and the field. The star Spica — whose name in Latin and Greek means "ear of grain" — is the heavenly Aviv. The barley in the field is the earthly Aviv. Two witnesses, one name, one season.
The popular name "Nisan" — used in the modern Jewish calendar — is not the original biblical name. Nisan is a Babylonian name, picked up during the captivity. The biblical name Yahuah Himself used is Aviv, and it is the name a believer returning to His calendar should use.
The Pesach Anchor
Aviv is also the month containing Pesach. Yahuah delivered His people out of Egypt in Aviv. The Pesach lamb was slaughtered in Aviv. Yahushua the Messiah, our Pesach Lamb, was crucified in Aviv. The first month of the year is the month of redemption.
"Observe the month of Aviv, and keep the Pesach unto Yahuah thy Elohim: for in the month of Aviv Yahuah thy Elohim brought thee forth out of Egypt by night." — Deuteronomy 16:1
"Observe the month of Aviv" — this is a command. Yahuah is not just informing His people of a date. He is telling them to watch for it. To pay attention to it. To be ready for it when it comes. The first month of the year is to be observed by the people who belong to Yahuah, not received passively from a calendar handed to them by men.
Why a Spring New Year Makes Sense
Yahuah's choice of Aviv as the first month is not arbitrary. It fits the natural rhythm of His creation:
- The dead winter is ending. Light is increasing. Days are growing longer.
- The Spica star takes the lead in the spring sky, declaring the moment from above.
- The first crops are appearing in the land. The barley begins to ripen, confirming on the ground what the heavens have declared.
- The redemption pattern starts here. Pesach. Hag HaMatzot. Bikkurim. The first three feasts of the year are all in Aviv or just after it.
A spring new year speaks of renewal, life, and deliverance. A January new year speaks of nothing — it is just a date on a Roman ledger. The very season Yahuah chose tells us what kind of year He is opening: a year marked by His own redemption work, beginning with the lamb and the open tomb.
Why This Matters
If a believer keeps a January new year, they have already accepted a calendar that does not come from Yahuah. The very beginning of their year is wrong, and every feast that follows is calculated from the wrong starting point.
Returning to Yahuah's calendar starts here — with the simple recognition that the year begins in Aviv, not January. The Spica star takes the lead. The moon renews. The barley confirms. The trumpet sounds. A new year has begun, on the rhythm Yahuah Himself appointed in the heavens.
Who Has the Authority to Set the Year?
"And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws…" — Daniel 7:25
Daniel was given a vision of a future power that would dare to change times and laws — not Yahuah's, but the times and laws Yahuah Himself had set. Setting the start of the year is not a small administrative matter. It is one of the boundary stones of Yahuah's creation calendar. To move it is to take the Father's authority and rewrite it under another name.
Pope Gregory XIII reset the calendar in 1582. Julius Caesar had reset it in 45 BC. Long before either of them, Babylonian astronomers had assigned the year a different starting point. Each of these reformers thought they had the authority to declare when the year began. None of them did. That authority belongs to Yahuah alone, and He had already declared it in Exodus 12:2 and Exodus 13:4.