It never fails - with the advent of nearly every Biblical Feast, Messianic believers become split over whether to celebrate the Feasts according to the Hebrew calendar, or to wait until the sighting of a new moon. These arguments become especially vicious during Passover when the lunar advocates become adamant that the Feast can't start until after a new moon has been sighted and "the barley has ripened"....

There are also those who insist God's calendar is not solar and we must concentrate only on the moon. If that's true, then YHWH is a liar, because these passages clearly show that the moon and the sun work together to bring in the signs, seasons, days and years - see 1 chronicles 27 and also the following:

Genesis 1: 14 God said, "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to divide the day from the night; let them be for signs, seasons, days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the dome of the sky to give light to the earth"; and that is how it was. 16 God made the two great lights - the larger light to rule the day and the smaller light to rule the night - and the stars. 17 God put them in the dome of the sky to give light to the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 So there was evening, and there was morning, a fourth day.. (CJB)

Psalm 19: 1 For the leader. A psalm of David: The heavens declare the glory of God, the dome of the sky speaks the work of his hands. 2 Every day it utters speech, every night it reveals knowledge. 3 Without speech, without a word, without their voices being heard, 4 their line goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. In them he places a tent for the sun, 5 which comes out like a bridegroom from the bridal chamber, with delight like an athlete to run his race. 6 It rises at one side of the sky, circles around to the other side, and nothing escapes its heat. (CJB)

Revelation 12: 1. And a great wonder was seen in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2. And, being with child, she cried and labored, and had the pangs of giving imminent birth. (AENT)

Man had to watch the signs in the heavens in the days before calendars were devised, but we know relying solely on the moon today isn't good - and the reasons are many...one of them being that the new moon is NOT a precise point in time. When the moon has been lost in the glare of the Sun, who is to say just when the "old" moon passed to the "new" - it can't be observed! Therefore the appearance of the New Moon means, without exception, that it has already happened.

Another reason is, Yahweh never prescribed the determination the beginning of the month by the sighting of the moon. He only decreed that certain days of the month were to be observed, and some observances are centered on the full moon, so it is equally important to determine when the month began so the proper day of the full moon can be observed! Even the ancients were smart enough to determine when the New Moon began, and the sighting of the New Moon was nothing more than a celebratory confirmation that it had happened.

The Hebrew calendar, though based on the moon, never has fewer than 29 nor more than 30 days because the day must be a full day, and the precise lunar month is 29.53 days - it doesn't fit a 29 day month or a 30 day month. So you will find a new moon always occurs sometime during the period between the last day of the month and the first day of the next month. This is not meant to be flippant! It is entirely possible for the moon to pass from old to new during the 24 hours of the last day of the month, or during the 24 hours of the first day of the next month.

If one adheres to the reasoning of the "lunar" types, beginning the month only upon the sighting of the New Moon, then their calendar will begin at least 1 day off and sometimes 2 days off from the real occurrence of the New Moon, and the remainder of their calendar for the entire month will be off. The Full Moon would occur up to two days early, and the number of days in the month would vary wildly since you are forced to keep counting days in the current month till the next New Moon is sighted!

And what do the lunar types suggest we do when another part of the world does not sight the New Moon until then next night? Are we to keep many different calendars? This is why we have to apply some rationality to this situation. Even the ancients knew this! And that's where the calendar comes in!

So, if Yahweh said that a certain feast falls on a certain day of the month, then that is when the feast should be held.

Leviticus 23: 5 "'In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, between sundown and complete darkness, comes Pesach for ADONAI.

Note Yahweh said "in the first month on the fourteenth day"; not "when you see the new moon, or a full moon, or any other kind of a moon"; yet the lunar types are all over Facebook and every other kind of blog putting down and making fun of those of us who wish to keep the day Yahweh said!

Examine the time of the Exodus. We are told the day of the month of the actual Passover. The lambs were slaughtered at dusk on the 14th day of the month. That night, i.e. the 15th of the month, Yahweh "passed over" Egypt and killed all the first born. Therefore, we know Passover was at Full Moon - it was the 15th of the month. Therefore our calendars today must synchronize Nisan 14-15 with the Full Moon and that may mean the New Moon must be recorded when it was not seen.

This is necessary now, and it was necessary to the ancients. Given the variance in the orbit of the moon, Full Moon might be early or it might be late when the day passes from Nisan 14 to Nisan 15. But Yahweh said "on the fourteenth day of the month, between sundown and complete darkness, comes Pesach". He did not say, "in this month....wait for the Full Moon."

To argue otherwise, that the month cannot begin until new moon is sighted, is to elevate the importance of the moon to an idol or a god. Yahweh said not to do this.

Deuteronomy 4: 19 For the same reason, do not look up at the sky, at the sun, moon, stars and everything in the sky, and be drawn away to worship and serve them; ADONAI your God has allotted these to all the peoples under the entire sky.

Insisting the month can't begin until the New Moon is spotted is perilously close to moon worship!

Leviticus 23: 23 ADONAI said to Moshe, 24 "Tell the people of Isra'el, 'In the seventh month, the first of the month is to be for you a day of complete rest for remembering, a holy convocation announced with blasts on the shofar. 25 Do not do any kind of ordinary work, and bring an offering made by fire to ADONAI.'"

Ancient translations of Psalm 81:3 do not have full moon mentioned in this verse. The fact remains that we are commanded to blow the shofar at the new moon but not necessarily "sight" the new moon. The Hebrew word shomer means to "guard, keep or take count of" (Genesis 26:5). It can only indirectly mean "to observe." Furthermore, if the crescent could not be sighted we still have to blow the shofar while the moon is astronomically new; that is to say, while in darkness.

Psalm 81: 3 Blow the trumpets in the new moon in the time appointed on our solemn feast day. (Lamsa Aramaic reading.)

Psalm 81: 3 Blow the trumpet at the new moon, in the glorious day of your feast. (Psalm 81:3, LXX, Lance Brenton translation)

But the fact remains nevertheless that there is not one Biblical example of sighting the crescent as a forward looking marker of "newness". Instead, when we look at one of the main meanings of "new" above, we find clear evidence that its state begins in darkness:

You have heard; look at all this. And you, will you not make it known? I proclaim to you new (chadash) things from this time, even hidden things which you have not known. They are created now and not long ago; and before today you have not heard them, So that you will not say, Behold, I knew them. (Isaiah 48:6-7 (Matara))

So here we see clearly that "new" means "hidden, unknown things". If we then see evidence of it, like a crescent sliver, then it isn't "new" anymore! Here's another example:

Behold, the previous things have come to pass. Now I declare new (chadash)) things. Before they spring forth I declare them to you. (Isaiah 42:9 (Matara))

Now we have two additional details: First, something is "new" before it springs forth. Again, wouldn't a crescent then be the precise form of "springing forth" that indicates a lack of newness? Second, it says the old things, "have come to pass" which in Hebrew really means, "gone away". This is why the lunar month actually ends with the conjunction, at the time that it has literally "gone away"! For that reason Isaiah can't help believing that the same applies to the whole cosmos:

For behold, I create new (Chadash) heavens and a new (Chadash) earth and the previous things will not be remembered or come to mind. (Isaiah 65:17 (Matara))

The reason why the former things are not remembered is again, because they are gone. Even here though Isaiah is not finished with defining "new" and linking it across the board:

For just as the new (chadash) heavens and the new (chadash) earth which I make will endure before Me, declares YHWH, So your offspring and your name will endure. And it shall be from new moon (chodesh) to new moon (chodesh) and from sabbath to sabbath that all mankind will come to bow down before Me," says YHWH. (Isaiah 66:22-23 (Matara))

The imagery could not be clearer. When dealing with a brand new month, the new heavens and earth follow the same pattern as the "new things", starting from before they spring forth into the physical world! At a minimum this "strong suggestion" demands that said definition be taken into serious consideration rather than just cast aside for some "crescent rolls"!

Finally, notice Yahweh didn't say, "The new month begins when you actually sight the new moon; He said, "The FIRST DAY of the month"....Regardless of where you're living, clocks and calendars are a huge help! We all know the 1st day of the month because we are intelligent enough to have determined it, in relation to the Moon.

Yahweh says these things are for "signs, seasons, days, and years". (Genesis 1:14). And he said the sun (larger light) and the moon (samller) light were to rule over the day and night. (Genesis 1:16-17). Notice He never said the moon determined the precise beginning of the month! It is a sign of the new month, yes, but is not and should not be elevated to a role for which it was not created.

The bottom line is: Yahweh doesn't want us bickering over these things; He simply wants us to obey the command to keep His Feasts! We'll know who was right and who was wrong about the timing of the feasts once we're out of our "earth suits." Nowhere are we told that we will not be allowed into Heaven if we failed to keep His feasts perfectly!