Aviv Barley and the Head of the Year

Once we know how to determine the New Moon, next we need to know how YHWH wants us to determine the start (or the ‘Head’) of the Year.  In order to do this, let us look at the Exodus, for this is where YHWH tells us when He wants the Head of the Year to be.

In Exodus 9:31-32, YHWH caused a plague of hail to fall on the Land of Egypt.  The flax and the barley were damaged (‘struck’) by the hail, because they were in an advanced stage of development.

The New King James tells us that the barley was struck because it was in an advanced state of maturity where it was “in the head”.  The Hebrew word for this is ‘Aviv’ (אָבִיב). 

Soon after the Aviv barley was struck, YHWH told Moshe and Aharon that “this month is the head of months for you; it is the first month of the year to you.”  This tells us that the first month of the year comes just after the barley in the Land of Israel becomes Aviv.

Like the New Moon Day, the determination of the Head of the Year is critical.  The Head of the Year has to be determined correctly, or else all of the other months (and all of the festival days) will be off, and we will not be able to meet with our Fiance when He wants us to be there.  Therefore, let us learn more about what ‘Aviv’ barley really is, so we can be sure we declare the Head of the Year in the right month.

Before cereal grasses bud, the stalk is generally still flexible and soft.  Because it is soft, it can take a direct hit from hail without being destroyed.  However, just as with human beings, as cereal grasses get older and begin to produce fruit, they become drier, and become more brittle, and thus are more easily damaged. 

Although modern agriculture uses different terms, for our purposes, barley and other cereal grasses can be thought to pass through the following stages of growth:

1. Vegetative (growth) stage;
2. Budding and Flowering (‘cotton’) stage;
3. Seed pod formation stage;
4. Milk stage;
5. Soft Dough (‘Aviv’) stage;
6. Hard Dough (‘Carmel’) stage;
7. Ancient ripe.

After flowering, barley forms a seed pod, which soon fills with a milky fluid.  This fluid slowly becomes harder and more substantive, until finally it becomes more of a solid than a liquid.  Once the contents of the seed pod have solidified to the point that they resemble bread dough, the barley has reached the stage where its development can be thought of as being “in the ear” (אָבִיב), because the main development of the plant now takes place in the fruiting ear.

Because aviv barley has a soft dough-like consistency, it is still not as hard (or as substantial) as it will be when it is fully ripe.  Aviv barley still needs to mature on the stalk for at least two more weeks before it can be harvested for long term storage, or used as a Wave Sheaf Offering.  However, even though it is still be too moist to put into long term storage without drying it first, Aviv barley is solid enough that one can make a meal out of it if one first lightly roasts it in fire, a process known as ‘parching.’  Parching drives the moisture out of the immature grain, and makes it hard enough that it can be cracked, or ground into flour.  Parched grains are mentioned in Leviticus 23:14, Joshua 5:11, 1^st Samuel 17:17, 1^st Samuel 25:18, and Leviticus 2:14.  Leviticus 2:14 shows us that parched grains are even substantial enough to be used as a firstfruits offering. 

In later chapters we will see why the Aviv must be declared when the first complete shocks of barley in the Land of Israel are Aviv, but first we should make clear that the term ‘Aviv’ is not  correctly considered to be the name of a month, as it is used on the Orthodox Jewish calendar.

The Jews began calling the names by months when they went into the Exile to Babylon.  Now, instead of calling the months according to their ordinal numbers, the Jews call the months by names (Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, etceteras).  Most of these names have Babylonian pagan origins, and these names are often recorded in Scripture.

Hadassah (Esther) 8:9

9 So the king's scribes were called at that time in the third month (that is, the month Sivan)….

However, the fact that the Jews recorded these names in Scripture does not mean that this is what YHWH wants us to do.  The correct practice of calling the days and months by ordinal numbers is demonstrated in Ezekiel 1:1.

Yehezqel (Ezekiel) 1:1

1 Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the River Chebar, that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of Elohim.

The reason this is the correct practice is that this is how YHWH numbers the months: with numbers, not names.

Our Jewish brethren, however, are very fond of their man-made traditions, and it is a rule in Judaism that once any man-made tradition has been established for a certain length of time, it becomes law.  In effect, the Jews are saying that so long as a man-made tradition is popular, it does not matter whether or not it accords with YHWH’s word.  However, this is akin to saying that since the Church has kept Christmas and Easter for thousands of years, they have the right to substitute them in place of YHWH’s festivals: but we know that this is not correct.  If we reject the Church’s claim to the right to change YHWH’s word to suit its own tastes, then so too must we reject our Jewish brother’s claim to be able to alter YHWH’s word.

However, after the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE and then drove the Jews out of Judea, the rabbis were no longer able to observe the ripening of the barley in the Land of Israel.  Therefore, they had to develop some other means of determining when the first full shocks of barley would become Aviv in the Land of Israel.  They did this by developing the Jewish ‘Hillel II’ Calendar.

In the fourth century, after a few hundred years of intermediate modification, a man named Hillel II finally developed a mathematical algorithm that approximates the ripening of the barley in the Land of Israel fairly well.  It does this by calculating the movements of the sun, the moon and the earth with regards to the Spring Equinox.  While this calendar helped to keep the idea of a Torah-based Calendar alive for the two thousand years of the Roman Exile, it also has some serious drawbacks, chief among which is the fact that it does not use the means YHWH uses for establishing the time.  While the algorithm was brilliant, and while the Rabbinical ‘Hillel II’ calendar dates often approximate the Torah Calendar dates very well, they are also often off of YHWH’s time by a month or more.

The Hillel II Calendar reinforces the practice our Jewish brothers picked up in Babylon, of calling the months by names (rather than by ordinal numbers).  For example, the Hillel II Calendar calls the first month of the year “Nisan.”  However, in modern Hebrew, the first month of the year is also called “The Month of Aviv,” as if Aviv was a name that meant simply, “spring” (which is what the term translates to in Modern Hebrew).  However, we know that the term does not translate to “spring”, but that it refers to a stage of the ripening of the barley.

Notice that Exodus 13:4 does not say that the Exodus took place in the “the Month called Aviv”.  Rather, it tells us that the first month of the year is the month that begins in the month of ‘the’ Aviv (הָאָבִיב).  In other words, the Head of the Year is to be declared on the first New Moon Day after the first complete shocks of Aviv barley are seen in the Land of Israel.

Some correctly point out that the Aviv barley mentioned in Exodus 9:31 was not spotted in the Land of Israel, but in the Land of Egypt.  While this is true, we should also remember that the children of Israel were simply looking for the Aviv wherever YHWH’s Presence dwelt at that time.  YHWH chose Jerusalem as the place where He wanted to place His name (1 Kings 14:21, etc.), and that has never changed.  Further, Scripture tells us that YHWH’s eyes are always upon His land.

Devarim (Deuteronomy) 11:12

12 “…a land for which YHWH your Elohim cares; the eyes of YHWH your Elohim are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.”

There are other reasons it is important to base the Head of the Year on the ripening of the Aviv barley in the Land of Israel (and not in any other place).  Barley is grown in many regions of the world, and it ripens at all different times.  For example, in semi-tropical areas (such as in Arizona and in Texas), barley is considered a winter crop.  However, in temperate areas (such as Idaho, Montana and Washington State), barley is grown as a summer crop.  Add to this the fact that crops in the Southern Hemisphere usually ripen half a year out from the crops in the Northern Hemisphere, and we can see that barley ripens at all different times throughout the world.  If each Israelite were to set the Head of the Year based on the ripening of the barley in his own locality, then Israelites all over the world would be keeping His festivals at all different times.  This is contrary to what YHWH wants, which is to meet with His bride, and give her gifts on His festival days, based on Jerusalem time.

Ma’asim (Acts) 2:1-2

1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.

2 And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

In the first century, blessings were poured out upon the faithful who had come up to Jerusalem in order to keep the Feast of Pentecost.  However, in order to receive that blessing, they had to be there when YHWH said the Pentecost was to be held.  Had they been keeping their own calendar, based on the ripening of the barley and the observation of the New Moon in their own localities, they might not have known when to be there in Jerusalem.

Finally, while it is commonly held that a Hebrew year has twelve months, and often has a thirteenth or ‘leap’ year, the truth is that there is no number of months that a Hebrew year should have.  While there are usually twelve months in a year, with a leap month every two or three years, the Hebrew lasts from the first new moon after the Aviv barley is sighted one year, until the first new moon after the Aviv barley is sighted the next.  That can be any length of time, depending upon the weather YHWH brings.  If YHWH brings a cold winter with little rain and sun, the barley can be very late in maturing, and the year could hypothetically be thirteen or fourteen months long (or hypothetically even longer).  Then the next year, if the winter is warm, and wet, and the barley ripens early, the winter could hypothetically be only eleven months.  Everything depends upon the weather YHWH sends.

Since the timing of the New Year is known only after the first crescent sliver of the new moon is sighted after the barley in the Land of Israel has become Aviv, it is not very easy to project exact dates for coming years.  Further, since the start date of each month fluctuates a day forward or back, it is not really possible to project exact dates past the existing month.  The Torah Calendar is not as popular as the Roman ‘Christian’ Calendar, or the Rabbinical Calendar. 

While these things might at first seem like a problem, in reality it is a blessing in disguise for the faithful.  The western ideal is to schedule and regiment one’s life so as to do more, achieve more, and therefore somehow ‘become’ more.  While high productivity and is often described in positive terms within Scripture, the idea is less to plan and to structure one’s time intellectually than it is to listen to what YHWH wants us to be doing, moment by moment.  Only when one waits on YHWH from moment to moment can we be in tune with His timing.

Tehillim (Psalms) 130:5-6

5 I wait for YHWH, my soul waits,

And in His word I do hope.

6 My soul waits for YHWH

More than those who watch for the morning —

Yea, more than those who watch for the morning.

YHWH does not want His bride to schedule her life out in the minutest detail literally years in advance.  Rather, YHWH wants His bride to show that she understands that her future depends completely on Him.

Ya’akov (James) 4:13-17

13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit";

14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

15 Instead you ought to say,"If YHWH wills, we shall live and do this or that."

16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

While we all have to make plans, the idea that we can plan the future down to the minutest detail literally years in advance is nothing short of blasphemy.  Who among us could foresee where he would be today, ten years ago?

Our lives hang by YHWH’s will.  Really about the best and most efficient thing we as humans can do is to make a list of our projects, tasks and/or goals, and then ask YHWH to order it for us.  This allows us to remain productive, and yet remain flexible, so that we can stay focused and on task, and yet follow His leading and guiding in the moment.  And most importantly, it honors His role as the Master of our lives.

Are we willing to obey His word, and wait on Him more than those who watch for the morning?  Are we willing to acknowledge Him as the Ruler of our lives?  If so, then learning not to plan our lives out too far in advance is really a very good thing.