The tradition is that “A day and a night make an Onah, and a part of an Onah is as the whole.”  Thus Christ may have been said to be in the grave three days, (three Onah), when he was not in the grave the entire first day nor last day.  [2:210-11]

 

                “…’In the captivity, they compute the years only from the kingdom of the Greeks.’  They said before, ‘That the Romans, for a hundred and fourscore years, ruled over the Jews before the destruction of the Temple;’ and yet they do not compute the times to that destruction by the years of the Romans, but by the years of the Greeks.  Let the Jews themselves well consider this, and the Christians with them, who reckon the Roman for the fourth monarchy in Daniel.”  [2:230]

 

                “…’The sons of Betira once forgot a tradition: for when the fourteenth day [on which the Passover was to be celebrated] fell out on the sabbath, they could not tell whether the Passover should take place of the sabbath or no….”  {They then sent for Hillel.}  “‘He answered, ”Have we but one Passover that takes place of the sabbath yearly? or are there not many Passovers that put by the sabbath yearly? namely, the continual sacrifice.’…”  [2:333] This argument is relevant to the failure of the Sanhedrim to accurately foretell the Sabbath in connection with the Passover on which Christ was crucified.  The Christian Sabbath is the correct one.

 

                “…’When the calends of the month Nisan fall in with the sabbath, then doth the Passover fall in with the sabbath too: and then let them begin to number from the going out of the sabbath, and the weeks will be complete according to the days of the creation….'”  [3:9-10]

 

                “…’How comes twilight to be called … light?  From thence, because it is written, In the twilight, in the evening, of the day,’ Prov.vii.9.  Rambam thinks it so called by a rule of contraries; for so he in Pesachin: ‘The night is called … light, by the same rule that they call many other things by their contraries.’

 

                “But the Gemarists upon the place affirm that the evening is not improperly called light, and prove it from that expression, Psalm cxlviii.3: … Praise him all ye stars of light.  However unsuitably therefore it might sound in the ears of Greeks or Latins, when they hear the evening or the beginning of the night expressed by … {light}, yet with the Jews it was a way of expression very usual: and they could readily understand the evangelist speaking in their own vulgar way, when he would tell us the night of the sabbath drew on; but expresseth it by … the light of the sabbath began to shine.”  [3:217]

 

                “…’In the beginning of the year, … all that come into the world present themselves before the Lord.'”  [3:240]

 

                “…’The first day of the month Tisri was the beginning of the year, for stating the years, the intermissions of the seventh year, and the jubilees.

 

                “Upon this day was the ‘blowing of trumpets,’ Lev.xxiii.24; and persons were sent out to give notice of the beginning of the year.  On this day began the year of the world 3960, in the middle of which year Christ was crucified.

 

                “… The second day; observed also as holy by the Jews that were in Babylon, that they might be sure not to miss the beginning of the year….

 

                “… The day of Expiation, a solemn fast.  On this day began the year of jubilee, when it came about, Lev.xxv.9.  And indeed this year, which is now under our consideration, {i.e. the year of Christ‘s crucifixion}, was the twenty-eighth jubilee, reckoning from the seventh year of Joshua, wherein the land was subdued and rested from war, Josh.xi.23.”  [3:309-11]

 

                On Hab. 3:2, “…he calls the seventy years of captivity the midst of the years: for, on the one hand, it had been seven times seventy years from the birth of Samuel, the first of the prophets, to the captivity [Acts ii.24], and on the other hand, it was seven times seventy years from the end of the captivity to the death of Christ….”  [3:324]

 

                “… ‘They do not intercalate the year … either for snow or for frost.’

 

                “The intercalation of the year respected chiefly the Paschal solemnity; namely, that by the interposing of the intercalated month all things might be ripe and fit for that feast.  If when it came to the month Nisan the barley was not yet ripe enough to offer the sheaf of the first fruits, then they put a month between, which they called the second Adar.  So if the ways were so bad that people could not travel up to Jerusalem, if the bridges were so broken that they could not pass the rivers, they intercalated or put a month between, that at the coming in of the month Nisan every thing might be ready that was requisite for the Paschal solemnity.  But if frost or snow should happen when Nisan was entering in its ordinary course, they did not put a month between upon that account.  From whence it is plain that frost and snow did sometimes happen at that time.”  [3:419-20]

 

                Acts 3:2 speaks of the gate of the Temple which is called ‘Beautiful.’  Lightfoot shows that the word ‘Beautiful’ is translated from the Greek word horaian:

 

“If in the etymology of it, it hath any relation with …{hora} time, (which any one would imagine,) then we might suppose it the gate called … Huldah; perhaps so called from … Heledh, time, or age.  There were two gates of this name on the south side of the court of the Gentiles, under that noble porch called the … royal porch; through which the way led from Jerusalem itself, or Acra, into the Temple.  But if by {horaian} be meant strictly beautiful, as it is commonly rendered, then we might suppose it the east gate of the Women’s Court: which although it was but a brazen gate, yet for splendour and glittering it exceeded the other gates of silver or gold.  ‘There were nine of the gates indeed that were overlaid with silver and gold.  But one without the temple made of Corinthian brass, which far exceeded those of gold or silver.'” 

 

                “‘The priest’s gate, and the gate Huldah, were not to be destroyed at all, till God should renew them.’  Which increaseth our suspicion that the name … huldah is derived from … Heled, which signifies time and age, from the lastingness they had fancied of this gate; and that the word … {Horaia} in this place might have some such signification, as one would say, the gate of time.  And perhaps the little priest’s gate was the other gate of Huldah, from the same duration they conceited in that gate also; for there were two gates of that name on the south side of the court, as we have noted before.”  [4:38-40]

 

                I would suggest that this gate on the south was an aperture for determining time, as, for example, when the sun or moon or certain stars rose or set through this gate as sighted over some other point in the Temple area, perhaps the two gates on the south, it would indicate the month, or the equinox or solstice points or other relevant time data.

 

                Among the things for which one could be excommunicated is: “…’Who intercalates the year or months without the land of Israel.'”  [4:186] 

 

                “… the first day of the week.] … That day was everywhere celebrated for the Christian sabbath: and, which is not to be passed over without observation, as far as appears from Scripture, there is nowhere any dispute of that matter.  There was controversy concerning circumcision, and other points of the Jewish religion, whether they were to be retained or not retained; but nowhere, as we read, concerning the changing of the sabbath.

 

                “… The ‘Lord’s day’ sufficiently commended itself by its own authority; nor could the institution of it at all be doubted by the converted Gentiles, as never knowing, or at least owning, any other sabbath: nor by the converted Jews if they acknowledged Jesus for the true Messias; because they had learned in their schools that Messias should make a new law, as Moses had made the old.  And that also which they had drunk in from their cradles, that Messias should not abolish the institutions of Moses, but raise them higher, and make them more splendid, although it might be more a scruple among them of the abolishing the Jewish sabbath, yet it could make none of superinducing the Christian sabbath.”  [4:276-7]

 

Davies, [28], quoting The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Testament of Naphtali 3.2f:

                “Sun and moon and stars change not their order; so do ye also change not the law of God in the disorderliness of your doings.  The Gentiles went astray, and forsook the Lord, and changed their order, and obeyed stocks and stones, spirits of deceit.  But ye shall not be so, my children, recognizing in the firmament, in the earth, and in the sea, and in all created things, the Lord who made all things, that ye become not as Sodom, which changeth the order of nature.”

 

                This shows that the heavenly bodies were the supreme example of order in the universe.

 

                [208] The Holy Spirit could only be experienced in a certain kind of community in a ‘fitting age’.  “But not only so.  Our quotations showed that another way of expressing the same fact was that the Holy Spirit could only be experienced in a fitting ‘age’…. for the Rabbis the ‘hero’ needed his ‘hour’ no less than the ‘hour’ its ‘hero’.”

 

                [213] “We know that Rabbinic Judaism came to frown upon those who ‘calculated the times’ and prediction would scarcely differ from such calculation.” [Note 2: “… b. Sanh.97b.”]