Numbers xxix. 1 seq.) falls on the first new moon of autumn, and it follows from a tradition confirmed by Leviticus xxv. 9, 10, that this day was celebrated as new year [R)# H#NH).  But it is always spoken of as the first of the seventh month.  That is to say, the civil new year has been separated from the ecclesiastical and been transferred to spring; the ecclesiastical can only be regarded as a relic surviving from an earlier period, and betrays strikingly the priority of the division of the year that prevailed in the time of the older monarchy.  It appears to have first begun to give way under the influence of the Babylonians, who observed the spring era. 1 For the designation of the

*************************************************** 1.  In Exodus xii. 2 this change of era is formally commanded by Moses:  “This month (the passover month) shall be the beginning of months unto you, it shall be to you the first of the months of the year.”  According to George Smith, the Assyrian year commenced at the vernal equinox; the Assyrian use depends on the Babylonian (Assyrian Eponym Canon, p. 19). ***************************************************

months by numbers instead of by the old Hebrew names, Abib, Zif, Bul, Ethanim and the like,—­a style which arises together with the use of the spring era,—­does not yet occur in Deuteronomy (xvi.1), but apart from the Priestly Code, and the last redactor of the Pentateuch (Deuteronomy i. 3) is found for the first time in writers of the period of the exile.  It is first found in Jeremiah, but only in those portions of his book which were not committed to writing by him, or at least have been edited by a later hand; 2

**************************************************** 2.  Kuenen, Hist.-Krit.  Onderzoek (1863), ii. pp. 197, 214. ******************************************
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then in Ezekiel and the author of the Book of Kings, who explains the names he found in his source by giving the numbers (1Kings vi. 37, 38, viii. 2); next in Haggai and Zechariah; and lastly in Chronicles, though here already the Babylonio-Syrian names of the months, which at first were not used in Hebrew, have begun to find their way in (Nehemiah i. 1, ii. 1; Zech. i. 7).  The Syrian names are always given along with the numbers in the Book of Esther, and are used to the exclusion of all others in that of Maccabees.  It would be absurd to attempt to explain this demonstrable change which took place in the calendar after the exile as a mere incidental effect of the Priestly Code, hitherto in a state of suspended animation, rather than by reference to general causes arising from the circumstances of the time, under whose influence the Priestly Code itself also stood, and which then had for their result a complete change in the greater accuracy and more general applicability of the methods by which time was reckoned.  A similar phenomenon presents itself in connection with the metric system.