Listen to Part 3:
The New Moon, David, and Jonathan: What Does 1 Samuel 20 Tell Us?
Imagine David waiting in a field outside Jerusalem, hidden from the king whose table he would ordinarily be expected to attend. Saul sits down for the New Moon meal. Jonathan is there. Abner is there. But David’s place is empty. At first, Saul says nothing. Perhaps David is ceremonially unclean. Then another day passes, David’s seat is still empty, and now Saul begins asking questions.
This scene in 1 Samuel 20 is remembered primarily for the covenant friendship between David and Jonathan and Saul’s growing hostility toward David. Yet tucked inside the narrative is something particularly valuable for our calendar study: we are watching Israelites actually live through a New Moon occasion. Exodus 16 raised the question of whether the weekly Sabbath was tied to fixed dates within the lunar month. First Samuel 20 gives us another piece of the picture by allowing us to consider what happened to the weekly count when a New Moon arrived.
This matters because the lunar-Sabbath system has to do more than identify particular dates as Sabbaths. It must also explain what happens to the seven-day count at the boundary between one lunar month and the next. Under the present heavens, a lunar month averages approximately 29½ days, while four complete seven-day weeks contain twenty-eight days. If Sabbaths are always assigned to the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th days of the lunar month, then the remaining time at the end of the month has to be handled somehow before the weekly sequence 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 model being followed, this can effectively place one or more days between the final Sabbath of one lunar month and the beginning of the next six-day work count. I do not want to dismiss that simply because it differs from the calendar most of us are accustomed to. If Scripture commands such an arrangement, then we should follow it. But if days are going to be placed outside the weekly count, interrupting the pattern we have already seen at Creation and through the manna, then I want to know where Scripture actually gives that instruction.
This is where David’s situation becomes so interesting. David is living under increasing threat from Saul, although Jonathan still struggles to believe that his father intends to kill David without telling him. David therefore proposes a test, telling Jonathan:
“See, tomorrow is the New Moon, and I ought to sit with the sovereign to eat.”
—1 Samuel 20:5, TS2009
David knows the New Moon is approaching, and he knows his presence at Saul’s table is expected. That alone tells us that the New Moon was not insignificant. Something recognizable was taking place, and David knew his absence would eventually be noticed. He hides himself in the field while Jonathan observes Saul’s response. The New Moon arrives, Saul sits down to eat, and David’s place is empty. At first Saul says nothing because he assumes David has become ceremonially unclean. Then the narrative continues:
“And it came to be the next day, the second day of the month, that Dawid’s place was empty. And Sha’ul said to Yehonathan his son, ‘Why has the son of Yishai not come to eat, either yesterday or today?’”
—1 Samuel 20:27, TS2009
That second day deserves careful attention, but I also want to be precise about what this passage actually establishes. First Samuel 20 clearly presents the New Moon occasion continuing into a second day in the narrative. What it does not do, by itself, is give us a Torah regulation declaring that every New Moon must always be observed for two days. Neither does the passage give us a technical explanation of precisely why this particular occasion involved two days. Later Jewish practice could recognize a two-day Rosh Chodesh under particular circumstances, but we do not need to import that later system into David’s time in order to make the point here. The biblical narrative itself gives us what we need: there was a New Moon occasion, David was expected at a special meal, his absence was noticed, and the narrative continued into a second day associated with that occasion.
Now consider what that means for the common lunar-Sabbath model. Suppose the 29th day of the preceding lunar month was Sabbath. The New Moon then arrives, and the narrative presents a second day associated with the New Moon occasion. If those New Moon days are outside the ordinary week, what happens to the weekly count? Depending on the particular model, we can end up with the final Sabbath, followed by the New Moon occasion and another New Moon day, followed by six working days before the next Sabbath. That creates a span longer than seven consecutive days between Sabbaths.
I realize that different lunar-Sabbath groups may explain those days differently, and I do not want to imply that everyone who holds a lunar-Sabbath position follows an identical model. My question is more basic than that. Where does Torah tell us what to do with those days? 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 when the New Moon arrives and begins again afterward? And if a New Moon occasion involves two days, where are we told how those days relate to the weekly count? I have not found those instructions.
That absence becomes more significant when we look at the way Scripture organizes other measurements of time. Numbers 28, for example, prescribes additional offerings at the beginnings of the months. The New Moon is therefore not merely an astronomical curiosity or an ancient way of numbering dates; it has a recognized place within Israel’s worship. But Numbers 28 also begins with the daily offering, then gives the additional offering for the Sabbath, then the offerings for the beginnings of the months, and from there moves into the annual appointed times. We are looking at daily, weekly, monthly, and annual observances. The cycles relate to one another, but Scripture distinguishes them. 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, something unquestionably changes: a new month has begun. What Scripture does not consequently tell us is that the week has begun again with it.
Ezekiel gives us another interesting picture. Ezekiel 46:1 speaks of the gate of the inner courtyard being shut during the six working days but opened on the Sabbath and on the day of the New Moon. Notice how naturally those categories appear: there are the six working days, there is the Sabbath, and there is the New Moon. The passage does not explain the New Moon as the mechanism by which the six working days are counted. Instead, the Sabbath and New Moon appear as distinguishable occasions.
We find that same distinction elsewhere. When the Shunammite woman prepares to visit the man of Elohim in 2 Kings 4:23, her husband asks why she is going when it is “neither the New Moon nor the Sabbath.” In Amos 8:5, corrupt merchants impatiently wait for the New Moon and Sabbath to pass so they can resume their trade. Isaiah 66:23 looks forward prophetically to worship “from New Moon to New Moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath.” Again and again, Scripture is comfortable placing New Moon and Sabbath beside one another. Both matter, but I do not find Scripture saying that the New Moon is what resets the Sabbath.
There is a related question here concerning work on the New Moon, and this is another place where I think we need to be careful. Amos 8:5 depicts merchants waiting for the New Moon to pass before selling grain, which certainly indicates a cessation of 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. Scripture gives the New Moon special offerings and treats it as a significant occasion, while other passages indicate special gatherings or the suspension of certain ordinary activities. Even if we establish all of that, however, we still have not established that the New Moon is an uncounted day outside the seven-day week. Those are separate claims.
In fact, I appreciate the desire to take the New Moon seriously. Much of modern religious life barely notices the biblical months at all. A believer may know precisely when secular holidays occur while having little awareness of where we are within the biblical year. Recovering an awareness of Yah’s months and appointed times can be deeply valuable. My disagreement is not with recognizing the New Moon. My concern begins when the New Moon is assigned an additional function—resetting the week—because that function requires evidence of its own.
First Samuel 20 tells me the New Moon mattered. Numbers 28 tells me the New Moon mattered. Ezekiel, Amos, Isaiah, and Kings all tell me the New Moon mattered. But none of those passages tells me that when the New Moon appears, I am to stop counting the seven-day week. That is the instruction we would need to establish.
If the week simply continues through the boundary between one month and the next, this difficulty largely disappears. A lunar month can contain twenty-nine or thirty days. The New Moon can arrive on whichever day of the continuing seven-day sequence it happens to fall. The month begins because the monthly cycle has begun again, while the weekly cycle continues according to its own sequence. No additional category of “day outside the week” has to be created, and no special rule is required to explain whether the weekly count pauses for one day or two. The moon tells us something extremely important—a new month has begun—but that does not necessarily mean a new week has begun.
Those statements can sound almost interchangeable when everything is placed under the broad heading of “the biblical calendar,” but they describe two different measurements of time. Sometimes the discussion is framed as though we have only two choices: either follow the moon and therefore keep a lunar Sabbath, or ignore Yah’s heavenly signs and submit ourselves to a man-made calendar. I do not believe Scripture leaves us with that choice. The moon can 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 according to the seven-day pattern established at Creation.
Genesis 1:14 speaks of the lights in the heavens—plural—for signs, appointed times, days, and years. Scripture never tells us that the moon alone determines every measurement of sacred time. This distinction will become even more important when we reach Aviv and the thirteenth month, because twelve lunar months under the present heavens do not remain aligned with the solar and agricultural year. If the moon alone were followed without some 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. Yah created more than the moon. He created an ordered heavens in which different cycles can bear witness to different measurements of time without one cycle needing to erase another.
The more I examined these passages, the more I found myself returning to the same question raised by Exodus 16. If Yah intended the weekly count to stop, where does He tell us that? We have explicit instructions concerning the Sabbath, explicit instructions concerning New Moon offerings, explicit dates for annual appointed times, and even instructions for a second Passover when particular Israelites are unable to observe Passover at its normal time. Yah is perfectly capable of giving detailed calendar instructions. Yet the instruction upon which the lunar-Sabbath system depends—that the New Moon does not count as part of the week and that the six-day work count restarts afterward—is remarkably difficult to locate.
That is not a minor procedural detail. It is the mechanism necessary for the entire reset. And if a New Moon occasion can extend across two days, as 1 Samuel 20 shows, the absence of that instruction becomes even more significant. I do not need Scripture to contain the sentence, “Do not reset the week,” if Scripture has already established the recurring six-days-and-seventh-day pattern. If an interruption to that pattern is being proposed, then the interruption itself needs to be demonstrated. So far, I have not found that instruction.
This is where the cumulative evidence begins to matter. Exodus 16 showed us manna falling through a six-and-one sequence. First Samuel 20 allows us to watch an actual New Moon occasion without giving us instructions to suspend or restart that sequence. Other passages distinguish daily, weekly, monthly, and annual observances rather than collapsing all of them into a single lunar mechanism. The New Moon clearly mattered to Israel, but recognizing its importance does not establish that it restarted the week. If the weekly Sabbath was tied to the lunar month in that way, the mechanism should be visible somewhere in Scripture because it would have affected the rhythm of Israel’s priests, farmers, merchants, kings, prophets, and ordinary families. What I find instead is a New Moon that marks the monthly cycle alongside a Sabbath that continues to be identified by its own recurring seven-day pattern.