Moonshadow-The Truth About Lunar Sabbath

Moonshadow
The Truth About Lunar Sabbath

Andrew Gabriel Roth
The First Step
Today there is a small but vocal
community of believers in Hebrew
Roots that call themselves Lunar
Sabbatarians.
These people claim to have unearthed
a great secret: We have been keeping
the wrong Shabbat! The Rabbis have
sold us a false set of goods!
The First Step
The story goes that, originally,
Sabbath was kept by the cycles of the
moon.
This means that you would wait for a
New Moon day and THEN count 7
days for your Sabbath.
As a result, the Sabbath according to
this theory is fixed to certain days of
the monththe 8
th
, 15
th
, 22
nd
and 29
th
.
The First Step
The LS folks will also proudly claim
that when you search the Scriptures,
every Sabbath mentioned must fall on
one of these days.
There is a minority within the LS
community that also claims the 1
st
day
of the month also must be a
Sabbathand I will deal with them
separately.
The First Step
This is a doctrine that creates division
and confusion, primarily because the
real issueswhat the Scripture
saysoften gets ignored.
It also creates chaos as LS people try
to explain to their employers why their
Sabbath could be ANY day of a
given week, not just a Saturday-
Sunday weekend!
The First Step

So lets take each LS assertion, one at a
time, and see how it stands scrutiny
against what the Scripture says.
LS Claim #1:
The Moon Sets the Counting of Days
At first glance, this makes some
sense, because all of our moedim
(appointed times) like Pesach and
Sukkot are set by the timings of the
moon.
There is no doubt that Pesach is on
the 14
th
day and Sukkot on the 15
th

day of the lunar month to synchronize
to the full moon, for example.
LS Claim #1:
However, our days are actually set by
the sun and must be 24 hours long.
The lunar day is almost 25 hours long,
which means the start times of each
day will float, instead of being rooted
to sunrise and sunset to frame our
day.
and it was evening and it was
morning, day one (Genesis 1:5).
LS Claim #1:
Then God said, "Let there be lights in the
expanse of the heavens to separate the
day from the night, and let them be for
signs and for seasons and for days and
years; and let them be for lights in the
expanse of the heavens to give light on
the earth"; and it was so. God made the
two great lights, the greater light to
govern the day, and the lesser light to
LS Claim #1:
govern the day, and the lesser light to
govern the night; He made the stars
also. God placed them in the expanse
of the heavens to give light on the earth,
and to govern the day and the night, and
to separate the light from the darkness;
and God saw that it was good. There
was evening and there was morning,
a fourth day. (Gen 1:14-19 NAU)
LS Claim #1:
So notice these two key areas in
Genesis 1:14-19. First the sun is the
greater light that governs the day.
That means it OUTRANKS the moon
in both magnitude of light and
importance in setting time.
The Hebrew word gadol ( ) is used
specifically to denote leadership
status, to give just a few examples
LS Claim #1:
Joseph tells Potiphars wife: "There is
no one greater (gadol ) in this house
than I, and he has withheld nothing from
me except you, because you are
his wife." (Gen 39:9 NAU)
Pharaoh tells Joseph: You shall be over
my houseonly in the throne I will be
greater (gadol ) than you." (Gen
41:40 NAU)
LS Claim #1:
Furthermore, the High Priest in Israel
is called kohen ha-gadol to show his
status apart from other priests.
And finally, heres the ultimate case of
pulling rank with this word
Jethro said to Moshe: Now I know that
Yahweh is greater (gadol ) than all
other gods! (Exo 18:11 NJB)
LS Claim #1:
The other key point from Genesis
1:14-19 is that it was evening and
morning, day four.
YHWH created the sun and the moon
at this time, and He didnt count from
EITHER the sun OR the moon to
finish His Creation Week!
Furthermore, we are also told we must
count the same way
LS Claim #1:
'Remember the Sabbath day and keep it
holy. For six days you shall labor and do
all your work, but the seventh day is a
Sabbath for Yahweh your God. You shall
do no work that day, neither you nor your
son nor your daughter nor your servants,
men or women, nor your animals nor the
alien living with you. For in six days
Yahweh made the heavens, earth and
LS Claim #1:
sea and all that these contain, but on the
seventh day he rested; that is why
Yahweh has blessed the Sabbath day
and made it sacred. (Exo 20:8-11 NJB)
The word for rest and seven in
Hebrew is Shabbat, and here we are
told YHWH separated the seventh day
from the other days of the week. He is
telling us to REMEMBER creation.
LS Claim #1:
So since Creation ended on a
particular, fixed day, doesnt it make
sense that YHWH would simply have
us count from 1 to 7 and back?
Almost every ancient culture has a 7
day week. Egypt though did not, so
when the Israelites were freed they
had to REMEMBER what they did
before.
LS Claim #1:
It is therefore central to their faith in
YHWH as Creatorif they forget the
Seventh Day they forget Him!
And this is why the Shabbat is a fixed
hard count. It counts as YHWH did, it
remembers what YHWH did, and
therefore not only is Shabbat
independent of the moon, it is also
independent of the sun and stars!
LS Claim #2:
The Sabbath Count is Flexible
This is a variation on the first idea,
which is to say that you can have
more than seven days in a week.
However, if that is true, why is it that
Scripture always arranges six days of
work and only one day of rest, as I will
show momentarily.
Jericho is sometimes cited as proof
of this idea
LS Claim #2:
Now, Jericho had shut and barricaded its
gates (against the Israelites): no one
came out and no one went in. Yahweh
then said to Joshua, 'Look, I am putting
Jericho, its picked troops and its king, at
your mercy. All you warriors must march
round the city (go right round the city
once, doing the same on six successive
days. Seven priests must carry seven
LS Claim #2:
trumpets in front of the ark. On the
seventh day, you will go seven times
round the city and the priests will blow
their trumpets). (Jos 6:1-4 NJB)
So the argument from the LS side
goes, They fought seven straight
days without rest, marching around
the city, so that must have been 9 day
break from Sabbath to Sabbath.
LS Claim #2:
Specifically, the LS camp theorizes
that before the Jericho march began,
the Israelites had a Sabbath on day
29 of the old month, then there was
the conjunction New Moon day,
followed by 7 more days to get to this
battle moment, for a total of 9 days.
However this is clearly not the case
and Scripture proves it
LS Claim #2:
Joshua 5:10-12 puts the Israelites in
the Plain of Jericho from the 14
th
to
the 16
th
of Abib, where they are doing
Passover.
Joshua 5:13 says they saw a
Messenger when they were near
Jericho, and right after that the war
starts. But they were already near it
at Gilgal!
LS Claim #2:
In order for LS theory to be correct,
Joshua and company would have just
waited 2 weeks from the time they
were near Jericho to attack it, but the
text records it as a seamless event
happening in rapid succession.
Since Scripture gives us the year of
the Exodus in 1 Kings 6:1, it also gives
us the time of the Jericho campaign.
LS Claim #2:

In that year1405 BCEthe 16
th
day
of Abib was a Friday and the 17
th
was
therefore Shabbat.
This matches very closely what
Joshua 5 says

LS Claim #2:
The Israelites pitched their camp at
Gilgal and kept the Passover there on
the fourteenth day of the month, at
evening, in the plain of Jericho. On the
very next day after the Passover, they
ate what the land produced, unleavened
bread and roasted ears of corn. The
manna stopped the day after they had
eaten the produce of the land. The
LS Claim #2:
the land. The Israelites from that year
onwards ate the produce of Canaan and
had no more manna. (Joshua 5:10-12
NJB)
The timing language is extremely
precise. First they eat Pesach on the
14
th
at evening, which means into the
start of the 15
th
day, which began at
sunset, Wednesday, April 6
th
.
LS Claim #2:
Then you have the language the day
after the Passover, with the word
being macharath.
This is not the next morning as we
would think of it because the 15
th
runs
from sunset Wednesday to sunset
Thursday, April 7
th
which includes that
morning. Instead it means the morning
AFTER that, Friday, April 8/16 Abib.
LS Claim #2:
Then you have the language the day
after the Passover, with the word
being macharath.
This is not the next morning as we
would think of it because the 15
th
runs
from sunset Wednesday to sunset
Thursday, April 7
th
which includes that
morning. Instead it means the morning
AFTER that, Friday, April 8/16 Abib.
LS Claim #2:
So 5:11 tells us they ate the produce
of the land on the 16
th
day/April 8
th
,
which is Friday.
Then you have 5:12 talk about yet
another day passing after Friday,
April 8/16 Abibthe manna ceased
on the macharath AFTER they had
eaten the produce of the land. So if
they ate the produce on the 16
th

LS Claim #2:
and the manna stops falling the day
after that, our timeline looks like this:
Late on the 14
th
, just before sunset on Wed,
April 6
th
(5:10)
Early on the 15
th
, Wed night April 6
th
seder
continues (5:10)
Morning of 15
th
(Thurs April 7
th
) NOT the
morrow because it is attached to the same
Hebrew daythe 15
th
5:10.
LS Claim #2:
Night of Thurs, April 7
th
is start of the 16
th
,
and the next morning (Friday, April 8
th
) is
attached to that Hebrew day, when they eat
the produce of the land (5:11).
Finally, the second macharath tells us that
there is one morning to go, after sunset on
Friday, April 8
th
to daylight on April
9
th
sunset on Friday means Shabbat, the day
the manna stopped (5:12).
LS Claim #2:
So this tells us three things that go
against LS theory. First, that the
manna stopped on the 17
th
morning,
which must be a Shabbat because
thats the only day manna could stop
(Exodus 16:23-36).
Second, this matches my calculations
perfectly having picked the right year
and counted the lunar month correctly.
LS Claim #2:
Third, and this is the most important
point, it proves the Sabbath was on
the 17
th
, not the 15
th
that LS insists it
had to be!
Also, by following the text which puts
the campaign the next day, Sunday
the 18
th
is the first morning they march
around the city, but LS says if the
weekly Shabbat is right, they broke it.
LS Claim #2:
In other words, the Israelites work on
that seventh Saturday morning by
marching seven times and making the
walls fall down.
The only problem with this idea, is
these LS folks have forgotten what the
Hebrew word for work actually
means, so let me just show this
briefly
LS Claim #2:

melecha ( )
This word is from the same roots as
kingdom or domain. So YHWH says
Do not work in YOUR
occupations/expand YOUR domain.
This is because on Shabbat, you expand
HIS domain!
LS Claim #2:
In this case, YHWH commanded the
Israelites to expand HIS domain, by
having them obey His Command to
destroy Jericho.
This is proven by the fact that the
Israelites are forbidden to make any
money from the attackbecause that
would be expanding THEIR domain!
Heres where we see this clearly
LS Claim #2:
The city and everyone in it must be
devoted to Yahweh under the curse of
destruction; the life of Rahab the
prostitute alone must be spared, with all
those with her in her house, since she
hid the messengers we sent. But
beware of the curse of destruction,
yourselves, for fear that, moved by
greed, you take something lying under
LS Claim #2:
the curse; that would put the camp of
Israel under the same curse and bring
disaster on it. All the silver and all the
gold, everything made of bronze or
iron, will be consecrated to Yahweh
and put in his treasury.' (Joshua 6:17-
19 NJB)
So if thats an exception is was still
for YHWHs domain, not theirs!
LS Claim #2:
And finally, as promised, I offer the
following

For six days you shall labor and do all
your work, but the seventh day is a
Sabbath for Yahweh your God. (Exo
20:9-10 NJB)
LS Claim #2:

'For six days you will do your work, and
on the seventh you will rest, so that your
ox and your donkey may rest and the
child of your slave-girl have a breathing
space, and the alien too. (Exo 23:12
NJB)
LS Claim #2:

'For six days you will do your work, and
on the seventh you will rest, so that your
ox and your donkey may rest and the
child of your slave-girl have a breathing
space, and the alien too. (Exo 23:12
NJB)
LS Claim #2:
Work must be done for six days, but the
seventh day will be a day of complete
rest, consecrated to Yahweh. (Exo 31:15
NJB)
Labor for six days, doing all your work,
but the seventh day is a Sabbath for
Yahweh your God. (Deu 5:13-14 NJB)
And my personal favorite
LS Claim #2:
But the leader of the assembly was
angered because Yshua had healed on
the Shabbat. And he said to the
assembly, Six are the days in which it is
right to labor in them. You should come
and be healed, but not on the day of the
Shabbat. (Luke 14:13-AENT)
Does that sound flexible to you or is
6 always followed by the Shabbat?
LS Claim #2:
And I can actually check the lunar
tables for Yshuas ministry years and
prove those Sabbaths dont align with
the lunar schedule as I will do for one
shortly.
For now, the bottom line is this:
Nothingnot even the mooncan
ever get between you and the seventh
day of rest that you have earned!
Time out
So as I said at the outset, LS theory
rests on ALL BIBLICAL SABBATHS
being on the 8
th
, 15
th
, 22
nd
or 29
th

days.
But we just saw solid proof from
Scripture, astronomy and even the
Rabbinic calendar agrees here, that
we had a Shabbat on the 17
th
day,
which disproves this idea!
Time out
And yet, this is far from the only
instance of a Biblical Shabbat
happening on the wrong days
according to the LS movement.
For example, if the 15
th
day was
always supposed to be a Sabbath,
YHWH made sure the poor prophet
Ezekiel got very little rest
Time out
In the twelfth year, on the fifteenth day of
the first month, the word of Yahweh was
addressed to me as follows, 'Son of
man, lament over the throng of Egypt, for
down she must go with the daughters of
majestic nations to the depths of the
underworld with those who sink into
oblivion. 'Whom do you surpass in
beauty? Down with you, make your bed
Time out
with the uncircumcised, with those who
have been slaughtered by the sword.
(The sword has been given, it has been
drawn.) She and all her throngs have
fallen. From the depths of Sheol, the
mightiest heroes, her allies, will say to
her, "They have come down, they have
lain down, uncircumcised, slaughtered
by the sword." (Ezekiel 32:17-21 NJB)
Time out
The rest of the prophecy gets darker
and darker for the next 11 lines,
throughout which time Ezekiel is
commanded to weep and
mournShabbat Shalom Ezekiel!
But the final nail in the LS coffin is in
the NTout of the mouth of Yshua
our Savior himself
The Healing on 19 Tishri
Yshua answered and said to them, One
work I have done and all of you marvel!
Because of this, Moshe gave
circumcision to you. It was not because it
was from him, Moshe, but from the
patriarchs; yet you
circumcise a man on the day of the
Shabbat. If a man is circumcised on the
day of the Shabbat so that the Torah of
Moshe not be loosed, why do you
argue against me because the whole
man I have made whole on the day of
the Shabbat?
(Yochanan 7:21-23- AENT)
So here we clearly have a healing on
Shabbat that happened right in front of
the Pharisees. The question is, where
do the Gospels tell us the date?
Now when the days of the feast were
divided, Yshua went up to the temple
and he was teaching. And the
Yehudeans were marveling and saying,
How does this man know the scrolls
since he has not learned them? Yshua
answered and said, My teaching is not
mine, rather it is of He who has sent me.
He who desires to do His will can
comprehend my teaching, if it is from
Elohim, or if from my own will I speak.
He who speaks from his own mind seeks
glory for himself, but he who seeks the
glory of He who sent him is true and
there is no iniquity in his heart. Did not
Moshe give you Torah, yet not a man
among you kept Torah? Why do you
want to kill me? The crowd answered
and said, You have a demon! Who
wants to kill you?
(Yochanan 7:14-20-AENT)
So these lines set the context and
precise timing for Yochanan 7:21-23.
This event happens ON THE
SHABBAT and it happens when the
days of the Feast are divided. Prior to
that, Yshua didnt go up openly.
Since Sukkot lasts 8 days, the mid-
point of the feast must be in the
morning of day 5, the only Saturday
during the feast.
That brings us to 19 Tishri, which in
the year 29 CE did hit on Saturday
AND is the mid point of Sukkot AND
Yshua healed at that time, or the
whole discussion makes no sense.
The immediacy of the healing is also
confirmed in the Aramaic grammar,
where the verb performed is in
active participial form, indicating a
past event that unfolds into the
immediate present.
And of course, all this means a
Shabbat on the 19
th
day, not the 15
th

day as LS says, disproves it again!
One Theory Remains
I said at the outset that there was
another LS school of thought that also
assigned Shabbat status to the FIRST
day of the month.
This has the advantage of shortening
the lunar maximum week from 9 days
to 8, but it is still not Scriptural.
Exodus 40 has Moshe doing heavy
construction work on the 1
st
day.
One Theory Remains
In Numbers chapter 1, Moshe takes a
census and counts up all the
Israelitesnot exactly a restful first
day Shabbat either.
And my favoriteEzra 10 the 1
st
day
of the 10
th
month Israel looks into who
must divorce foreign wives and on the
1
st
day of the 1
st
month, the mass
divorces happen! Shabbat Shalom!
Conclusions
So this is why all forms of Lunar
Sabbath theory are fraudulent.
The all or nothing aspect of their
belief in Sabbaths only on the 8
th
, 15
th
,
22
nd
or 29
th
day is also their greatest
weakness.
Find one example where those
Sabbaths are on other daysand the
whole theory is doomed! Shalom!

Moonshadow-The Truth About Lunar Sabbath

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