Part Three
The New Moon, David, and Jonathan: What Does 1 Samuel 20 Tell Us?
If Exodus 16 raises the question of whether the weekly Sabbath is tied to fixed dates in the lunar month, 1 Samuel 20 raises another important question: What actually happened when a New Moon arrived?
This matters because the lunar-Sabbath system does not merely identify certain dates as Sabbaths. It must also explain what happens to the seven-day count at the boundary between one lunar month and the next. A lunar month is approximately 29½ days long, while four complete seven-day weeks contain only twenty-eight days. If the Sabbaths are always placed on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th, then the New Moon must somehow be handled separately before the weekly count begins again.
Some lunar-Sabbath systems therefore treat the New Moon as a special day outside the ordinary six-workdays-and-seventh-day cycle. Depending upon the length of the month and the particular method being followed, there can effectively be one or more days between the final Sabbath of one lunar month and the beginning of the next six-day work count.
If Scripture commands that arrangement, then we should follow it. But if we are going to place days outside the weekly count, we need to find where Scripture actually tells us to do so.
This is where 1 Samuel 20 becomes especially interesting.
David is living under increasing threat from Saul, and he speaks privately with Jonathan about Saul's intentions toward him. David proposes a test. He says:
“Behold, to morrow is the new moon, and I should not fail to sit with the king at meat…”
David expects that his absence from Saul's table will be noticed during the New Moon gathering. Jonathan agrees to help him determine Saul's intentions, and David hides himself in the field.
The New Moon arrives, and Saul sits down to eat. David's place is empty. At first Saul says nothing because he assumes that David may have become ceremonially unclean.
Then the narrative continues into the following day.
The wording of 1 Samuel 20:27 is translated somewhat differently among English versions, but the passage clearly presents a second day associated with the New Moon occasion. On that second day David's place is still empty, and Saul finally asks Jonathan why David has not come to the meal either yesterday or today.
This is important because it gives us something more valuable than a theoretical calendar chart. It gives us a biblical narrative showing people actually living through a New Moon observance.
A Necessary Caution About the “Two-Day New Moon”
I want to be careful about how I state this because it is easy to make the passage say more than it does.
First Samuel 20 demonstrates that the New Moon occasion in this narrative extended into a second day. It does not, by itself, give us a complete Torah regulation saying that every New Moon must always be observed for two days. Nor does it explain every technical calendrical reason why the occasion extended across those two days.
Later Jewish practice could recognize a two-day Rosh Chodesh under certain circumstances, particularly in connection with the uncertainty or length of the preceding lunar month. But we should not simply take a later procedure and assume without evidence that every detail of it was already operating in David's time.
The biblical text itself is enough for the point we need to make.
There was a New Moon occasion.
David expected a special meal.
His absence was noticed.
And the narrative continued into a second day associated with that New Moon occasion.
That presents a real problem that any lunar-Sabbath model needs to explain.
What Happens to the Week During Those Days?
Suppose the 29th day of the previous lunar month was the Sabbath, as in the common lunar-Sabbath model.
The next day is associated with the New Moon.
Then there is a second day associated with the New Moon occasion.
When does the six-day work count begin again?
If neither New Moon day belongs to the week, the sequence could effectively become:
Sabbath → New Moon occasion → second New Moon day → six working days → Sabbath.
That produces a span longer than seven consecutive days between Sabbaths.
Perhaps someone following a particular lunar-Sabbath system has an explanation for this. Different lunar-Sabbath groups do not necessarily handle every detail identically.
But my question is more basic:
Where does Torah give the instruction?
Where are we told that New Moon days do not count as days of the week?
Where are we told that the six-day work count pauses?
Where are we told that after the New Moon we begin again with the first working day?
Where are we told what to do when the New Moon observance involves two days?
I cannot find those instructions.
And that absence becomes increasingly important because Torah is quite explicit when God wants Israel to interrupt ordinary work.
New Moon Is Important, but Is It a Weekly Sabbath?
Scripture unquestionably treats the New Moon as significant. Numbers 28, for example, prescribes additional offerings for the beginnings of the months. The New Moon is therefore not merely an astronomical curiosity. It has a recognized place within Israel's worship.
But Numbers 28 also makes an important distinction.
The chapter begins with the daily offering. It then gives the additional offering for the Sabbath. After that, it gives the offerings for the beginnings of the months. From there it moves into the annual appointed times.
The cycles are related, but they are distinguished:
daily,
weekly,
monthly,
annual.
That structure is very helpful.
The monthly cycle does not have to erase the weekly cycle any more than the weekly cycle erases the daily one.
When the New Moon arrives, the month has changed. But Scripture does not consequently tell us that the week has changed with it.
Ezekiel Gives Us an Especially Interesting Picture
Ezekiel 46:1 says that a particular gate is to remain shut during the six working days, but it is to be opened on the Sabbath and on the day of the New Moon.
Notice the categories:
six working days
Sabbath
New Moon
The passage does not explain the New Moon as the mechanism by which the six working days are counted. Instead, Sabbath and New Moon are mentioned as distinguishable occasions.
The same thing happens elsewhere.
In 2 Kings 4:23, when the Shunammite woman prepares to go to the man of God, her husband asks why she is going when it is “neither new moon, nor sabbath.”
In Amos 8:5, corrupt merchants impatiently ask when the New Moon will be over so they can sell grain, and when the Sabbath will be over so they can resume their dishonest trade.
Isaiah 66:23 looks forward to worship “from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another.”
Again and again we encounter:
New Moon and Sabbath.
Not:
New Moon, which resets the Sabbath.
That doesn't make the two completely unrelated. They are both part of God's ordering of sacred time. But Scripture's repeated distinction between them needs to be allowed to stand.
What About Work on the New Moon?
This is another place where we need to avoid overstating the evidence.
Amos 8:5 shows merchants waiting for the New Moon to pass before selling grain. That certainly indicates that the New Moon could involve cessation from ordinary commercial activity in the setting reflected by Amos.
But Torah does not give the ordinary monthly New Moon the same general prohibition against work that it explicitly gives the weekly Sabbath and certain annual appointed days.
That distinction matters.
I would therefore be cautious about saying simply, “Every New Moon was a Sabbath.”
Scripture gives the New Moon special offerings and treats it as a significant occasion. Other biblical passages indicate special gatherings or suspension of ordinary activities. But that still does not establish that the New Moon is an uncounted day outside the seven-day week.
Those are separate claims.
The Problem Is Not That Lunar-Sabbath Keepers Recognize New Moon
In fact, I appreciate the desire to take the New Moon seriously.
Much of modern religious life barely notices the biblical months at all. Many believers can tell us the date of a secular holiday without having any idea where we are in the biblical year. Restoring an awareness of God's months and appointed times is worthwhile.
My disagreement is not with recognizing the New Moon.
My concern begins when the New Moon is assigned another function:
resetting the week.
That additional function requires evidence.
First Samuel 20 tells me that the New Moon mattered.
Numbers 28 tells me that the New Moon mattered.
The prophets tell me that the New Moon mattered.
But none of them tells me:
When the New Moon appears, stop counting the seven-day week.
A Continuous Week Handles the Passage Without Creating Another Category of Day
If the week simply continues through the month boundary, the difficulty largely disappears.
The lunar month can contain twenty-nine or thirty days.
A New Moon can arrive on whichever weekday the continuing count produces.
It can coincide with an ordinary working day.
It can coincide with a Sabbath.
The month begins because the monthly cycle has begun again, while the weekly cycle continues according to its own count.
No additional category of “day outside the week” has to be created.
No special rule is needed to explain whether the weekly count pauses for one day or two.
No restart has to be inferred.
The moon tells us something important:
a new month has begun.
It does not necessarily tell us:
a new week has begun.
Those are different statements.
This Is Why “The Moon Determines the Calendar” Is Too Broad
Sometimes the discussion is framed as though there are only two choices. Either we follow the moon and therefore keep a lunar Sabbath, or we ignore God's heavenly signs and follow a man-made calendar.
I don't believe those are our only choices.
The moon can determine or mark the biblical month without determining the weekly Sabbath.
The sun can participate in determining the year and seasons without determining the monthly count.
The week can continue through both cycles according to the seven-day pattern established at Creation.
That gives us a calendar in which the heavenly cycles work together rather than requiring one of them to perform every function.
Genesis 1:14 speaks of the lights in the heavens—plural—for signs, appointed times, days, and years. Scripture never says, “The moon alone shall determine every measurement of sacred time.”
This will become even more important when we reach the question of Aviv and the thirteenth month. Twelve present lunar months do not remain aligned with the solar and agricultural year. If we followed the moon alone without any means of reconciling those cycles, Passover would eventually migrate through the seasons.
So even within the annual calendar, “follow the moon” is not a complete answer.
God created more than the moon.
And This Brings Us Back to the Six-and-One Pattern
The more I examined the New Moon passages, the more I came back to the same question raised by Exodus 16.
If God intended the weekly count to stop, where does He say so?
We have explicit instructions for the Sabbath.
We have explicit instructions for New Moon offerings.
We have explicit dates for annual appointed times.
We have instructions for a second Passover when particular people cannot keep Passover at its normal time.
We have instructions about what Israel may and may not do on specific appointed days.
God is capable of giving detailed calendar instructions.
Yet the instruction required by the lunar-Sabbath system remains remarkably difficult to locate:
Do not count the New Moon as part of the week. After the New Moon, restart the six-day work count.
That is not a small procedural detail. It is the mechanism upon which the entire lunar-Sabbath system depends.
And if a New Moon occasion can extend across two days, as 1 Samuel 20 shows, that missing instruction becomes even more significant.
For me, the burden of proof therefore remains with the reset.
I do not need Scripture to tell me, “Do not reset the week,” if Scripture has already established a recurring six-days-and-seventh pattern. The person proposing an interruption to that pattern needs to show where the interruption is commanded.
So far, I have not found it.
But there is another test we can apply. If the weekly Sabbath really was tied to the lunar month, we should expect that relationship to become visible throughout the rest of Scripture. Israel's priests, farmers, merchants, kings, prophets, and ordinary families all had to know when Sabbath occurred. A monthly reset would affect the entire nation.
So the next question is broader:
When we move beyond Exodus 16 and 1 Samuel 20, what pattern does the rest of Scripture actually show?
Next: Part Four — The Sabbath Throughout Scripture: A Continuous Seven-Day Cycle or a Monthly Reset?