When to celebrate the upcoming biblical feast of Passover is currently the big question on the minds of biblically astute, Hebraically-minded followers of Yeshua. We keep his commandments because we love and want to know him, right? Right!
What follows will be a simple step-by-step guide on how to determine the date of Passover. It’s as simple as one, two, three or A-B-C, if you prefer. Once you have done this, you can figure out the times of the other biblical feasts for the rest of the year.
Step one: Determine when the barley in the land of Israel is abib (or ripe).
Step two: Once there is enough barley that is ripe, sight the new moon in the land of Israel. The next new moon that falls after the barley is ripe, will be the first day of the new biblical year.
Step three: Once you know the first day of the new year, then count forward 14 days to Passover, which is on the fourteenth day of the new year.
It’s that simple.
Once you know Passover, you can calculate the rest of the biblical feasts.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread is on the fifteenth day of the first month or the next day after Passover day. The Feast of Weeks or Pentecost is on the fiftieth day after First Fruits Day (always on a Sunday). In other words, between First Fruits Day and Pentecost there are 49 days or seven full weeks with Pentecost falling on the fiftieth day—always on a Sunday.
Once you know when the first day of the first month is for the biblical year, it is also easy to calculate when the fall biblical feasts are.
The Day of Trumpets falls on the first day of the seventh month.
The Day of Atonement occurs on the tenth day of the seventh month.
The Feast of Tabernacles falls on the fifteenth day of the seventh month and lasts for seven days. The seventh day of this feast is called, by ancient Jewish tradition, the Last Great Day or Hoshana Rabbah.
The Eighth Day falls on the twenty-second day of the seventh month immediately after the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles.
Important: The biblical new month always begins when the first crescent new moon is visible to the naked eye from the land of Israel. Sometimes is it impossible to predetermine on which day Passover or Day of Trumpets will fall, since this is contingent upon seeing the new moon. A biblical month can have 29 or 30 days. So if one doesn’t see the new moon at the end of the 29th day, then that means that the new month will begin at the end of the 30th day. This marks the first day of the new month. Therefore, it is impossible to know ahead of time the exact day of Passover or Trumpets. You have to wait until you see the new moon or don’t see it, depending on the situation.
Not knowing the exact day for Passover and Trumpets ahead time frustrates and irritates many people, since they can’t plan ahead of time when to take time off from work, or plan to rent a building when planning for a large gathering. For this reason, many people choose to follow the calculated traditional or rabbinic Jewish calendar (aka the Hillel 2 calendar). The problem is that this calendar was not the original calendar used by the Jews of Yeshua’s time, but was invented by the Jews of the dispersion and approved by the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century A.D. It is no longer an accurate calendar in that it usually does not fall on the days that the Torah tells us to keep YHVH’s biblical feasts. That’s why we reject this calendar as being biblically inaccurate.
We reject other calendars as well. These include the spring equinox calendar which is another unbiblical calendar. Neither the Bible nor the ancient Jews uses/used the the spring equinox to determine the biblical feasts. In fact, the Bible never even mentions the spring equinox.
Then there are other calendars such as the Noah calendar, the Enoch calendar, several Qumran calendars from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the list goes on and on. People who, for whatever reason, do not want to follow the simple truth of the Bible keep coming up with new calendars to make themselves feel special as if they have discovered some hidden, esoteric knowledge that no one else has. The problem is that all of these calendars are all man-made and unbiblical, so we reject them as well.
Having said all of this, this year, Passover, based on the abib barley and the new moon in the land of Israel, will begin the evening of April 16 with Passover day being on Sunday April 17. The first high day the Feast of Unleavened Bread will fall on Monday, April 18.
If you are part of a Hebraic community that follows the traditional Orthodox Jewish calendar and will be celebrating Passover on a different day, we advise you not to cause division and strife over this issue. Celebrate with your community, but then follow Torah by keeping Passover quietly yourself on the exact day Scripture commands. This way, you are part of your community, but not violating the Word of Elohim.
If you want to know exactly when the biblical new month begins and when the barley is abib in the land of Israel, we cordially direct you to two of the reliable sources in the land of Israel that we use to obtain this information. They are:
https://www.facebook.com/datetree
https://www.hebrewinisrael.net/category/blog/
If you are still confused about the biblical calendar, I invite you to read my articles on the subject at: https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/teaching.html#feast or watch some of my videos on the subject at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5EzE5DQnrHfWWbczzkRo6IOnglxhbRfM.
So, I have a question. Do you eat the passover meal at the end if 13th/start if 14th, or at the end of 14th/start of 15th? This has always confused me.
As I understand it, the lambs were slain on the afternoon of the 14th, so the meal was eaten at the close of the 14th, as the date becomes the 15th, but is this right?
Please read my articles on this subject. I wrote my articles to answer people’s important questions, so that I wouldn’t have to keep re-inventing the wheel by answering the same questions, as legitimate as they are, over and over again.
In brief, we celebrate Passover at the end of the 14th going into the 15th as the ancient Israelites did and Torah commands. However, Yeshua did it at the beginning of the 14th at his last supper because at the end of the 14th he was hanging on the cross as our Passover Lamb, so he, obviously, couldn’t be doing it then. That said, Torah instructed the people to kill the Passover lamb “in the evening” or literally according to the Hebrew, “between the evenings” (Exod 12:6). This, according to the spirit of the law, could be taken to mean that one can celebrate Passover anytime as long as it is on the 14th. We prefer to do it at the end because Torah instructs us to use Passover as an instructive lesson to teach our children (we are all Yah’s children) about the exodus. This is why we do it at the exact time when the Israelites did it. Blessings.
Thank you for your reply. It does however raise another question – if Yeshua held Passover at the beginning of the 14th as you suggest, then when did they kill the lamb? According to the slaughtering rules of the day, they had to do it on the afternoon of the 14th and not the previous evening.
Also, as He was indeed our Passover Lamb, why was there no mention of lamb at the Last Supper whatsoever? It is notable by its absence and Yeshua limiting His analogies to bread and wine, without reference to the lamb.
I answer all of these questions in my articles on the subject of Passover which you can find at
.
Yes I do this calendar. But what if we lose communication with Israel? Its only because of modern conveniences that we know what is going on in Israel. Like when is their new moon or barley in Aviv. We could have a Emp and lose all communication then what? ( Or what if there was a great drought in Israel or great storms were the Barley is destroyed?)
So my next choice would be to go by the turn of the year (or end of the year), which the Bible does say in places.
March 20th is this turn when the sun turns from one hemisphere to the other hemisphere. (the sun is a sign also) Then look for the new moon here where I live, and that is what I would do if I did not know what is going on in Israel. Or if I lived out in the outback somewhere without modern technology. By the time we look for the New Moon it would be April. I believe Barley would always be in Aviv at this time in Israel.
The word turn means -coming around, circuit.
Julie, here in Israel, Passover always falls on the 1st full moon after the Almond trees bloom. They bloomed about two weeks ago.
While the almond trees blooming is not a biblical criteria for determining the first month of the year, it never themes seems to be a sure sign that spring has arrived in Israel, as you point out.
Ex. 34:22 Celebrate the Feast of Weeks with firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the TURN of the year
Ex. 23:16…celebrate the Feast of Ingathering at the END of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field.
I don’t deal in “what ifs.” I deal with the reality of “what is.” If, Yah forbid, something happens where we will not be able to sight from Israel, then we will do the best we can to obey Yah’s Torah without this info.
Blessings.
Well some of the year I do live up by the mountains with no electric or plumbing , off grid, just a radio. So I do think about these things.
Happy Passover everyone!
When that is the case, you can only do the best that you can with the knowledge, understanding and resources that you have to be faithful to YHVH and his commandments. Happy Passover.
Natan,
Thank you for your article. It is very straight forward and easy to understand.
Perhaps you authored this during an earlier year, but it is posted in 2022 so it does appear to be current. If so, the dates are wrong. You state that Sunday is April 16th, but that is an error. In 2022, Sunday is April 17th and the 15th of Nissan is Monday, April 18th.
One other question, you state that the new moon should be sighted from Israel. However, I am wondering what your basis is for this? Have you considered the perspective that a new moon sighting from anywhere in the world is a valid sighting for a King who is legally destined to rule the world? Indeed, the word of authority will proceed forth from Jerusalem, but the witnesses who serve the King bear witness from wherever they are stationed and, inasmuch as their witness is true, it stands in its own authority. It seems that it should be valid unless there is some rule to invalidate it. Just interested in your thoughts on this.
Sincerely,
Otto Gershon
The days of the week for Passover have been corrected, although the calendar dates were correct. This was a typo.
I answer your second question in my articles on the calendar if you will take the time to read them.
But I will happily answer them in brief here and now. First, in ancient biblical times the new moon was always sighted from Israel according to ancient Jewish sources and biblical context. Second, Scripture says that in the Millennium that the Torah law will go forth from Zion/Jerusalem (Isa 2:3; Mic 4:2). Third, the new moon in different lands doesn’t always correspond with the new moon in Israel. In the Millennium, everyone will be on the same page so they can come up to Jerusalem to keep the Feast as Zechariah prophesies. If they don’t, YHVH will curse their land. Moreover, in this day of instant digital telecommunications, we can know when the new moon in Israel is. If that were not possible, then perhaps we’d be forced to sight the new moon from our own local. Those are the main reasons. Blessings!
Please see my article entitled “When Do We Celebrate the Passover…At the Beginning or End of the Fourteenth” available at
. It will answer your questions. Blessings!
“Passover day being on Sunday April 16. The first high day the Feast of Unleavened Bread will fall on Monday, April 17” – Do people read what you write? April 16 is Shabbat and the 17th is Sunday.
Everyone’s so busy being “right”, they forget what is “good”.
Here in Israel, Passover eve is Friday April 15th and the 1st day of Unleavened Bread is Shabbat the 16th.
If you believe Messiah Yeshua is responsible for gathering and shepherding the Jewish people in the land of Israel, then the calendar used here must be acceptable to the King of the Jews and if that’s true, why are people creating their own calendars?
On your first point, I made a typo which has been subsequently corrected.
On your second point, you are dead wrong. I cannot be more clear on this. We’re not creating our own calendars. Surely, you must know the Scriptures better than this than to follow the traditions of men by which the word of Elohim has been made of none effect. We’re following the Torah—Word of Elohim as well as the ancient traditions of the Jews before the invention of the Hillel 2 calendar. What we are doing is called the restoration of all things before the coming of Messiah (Acts 3:21). Moreover, if we’re going to follow the Jews in their unbiblical errors, then perhaps we should go against Torah and follow a multitude to do evil and stop believing that Yeshua is the Messiah. Selah.
I will not argue this point any further, nor will I post any more comments on this issue.
Thanks P.Natan for this needed teaching.
Many are confused on this topic.
I will forward this to my friends.
So, my calendar has Sunday on the 17th and Monday the 18th
Passover, based on the abib barley and the new moon in the land of Israel, will begin the evening of April 16 with Passover day being on Sunday April 16. The first high day the Feast of Unleavened Bread will fall on Monday, April 17.?
Yes. I made a typo. Corrections have been made.
Thanks Natan,
However, you got the days mixed up; Sunday is the 17th of April and therefore we still don’t know whether to celebrate Pesach on Saturday evening or Sunday evening.
Please check what you wrote and let us know which is the correct day for Pesach.
Blessings, Sonja & John
My understanding is the new moon was not seen, so it puts the calendar one day later. So the Passover supper is the evening of April 17th (Sunday) and unleavened bread starts also.
Yes. Thank you. Finally got to my computer and fixed the typos.
Please note.
I just talked with Natan on the road in South Dakota. He realizes that there is a question about the dates in the When is Passover article? He will sort it all for us when he gets somewhere to double check a calendar and plug into the internet.
For the past one-and-a-half weeks, Sandi and I have been on a seven state road trip—our first real vacation in more than a year. We’ve been visiting family and sightseeing along the way. I’ll post some photos later. Anyway, we’ve been in and out of cell service and haven’t always been able to connect to the internet, and, in all honesty, I haven’t had my mind on this blog too much. But a couple days ago, I posted the dates for Passover, and got the calendar dates wrong, although the days of the week were correct. Someone called me today while we were in the Black Hills of South Dakota to inform me of the error. Thank you Mark! Now that I’m at our hotel and am able to connect to WiFi, I have correct the typos on my my previous blog post. Just to make sure that there’s no confusion, here are the dates again:
This year, 2022, Passover, based on the abib barley and the new moon in the land of Israel, will begin the evening of Saturday, April 16, with Passover day being on Sunday April 17. The first high day the Feast of Unleavened Bread will fall on Monday, April 18. Our family will be holding our seder at the end of the day on Sunday going into the evening of Monday.
My apologies for the confusion.
Blessings and more blessings to everyone in Yeshua the Messiah!