May 2-3, 2018
May 03rd - All Day
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One of these dates (May 2 or May 3) falls on the 17th day of the 2nd month on the Hebrew calendar.
Why is this date important as a watch date?
Well, that takes a bit of explanation.
In God’s original calendar, based on the start of the creation days, Rosh Hoshana was the first day of creation and the start of the year.
This calendar was the predominant one for nearly 2,500 years until God changed it in the time of Moses.
Two weeks before Israel’s first Passover in Egypt, Moses was observing the first crescent moon in late March. This was the start of the 7th month since Rosh Hoshana the previous September.
We read in Exodus 12:1, 2,
1 Now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you.
So instead of that month being the 7th month, it now became the 1st month. In other words, that same evening, when Moses and Aaron observed the first crescent moon, became the evening of the first day of the first month—New Year’s Eve.
From then on, Israel essentially had two distinct calendars. The first, which began in September at the end of the growing season, was the start of their Sabbath year every 7th year.
But insofar as their feast days were concerned, Passover always occurred in the first month in late March or early April, depending on when the crescent moon was sighted.
That is how Israel got the confusing calendar, where Rosh Hoshana, New Year’s Day, was the first day of the 7th month.
It is confusing to those who are unfamiliar with the biblical calendars. But since I did not invent these calendars myself, I have no power to change them. I can only hope to explain them clearly to you and hope that you are not confused.
Okay, having said that, we know that Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible often called the Torah. When Moses dated events that occurred in the book of Genesis, it is not clear if he was using the calendar that was in use during those early days, or if he was using the new calendar.
A good example is found in Genesis 7:11 and 12,
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. 12 And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
Our question is this: Was Moses speaking of the second month from Rosh Hoshana, which was the way of reckoning on the old calendar? If so, the flood would have begun in October.
Or did Moses tell us that the flood began in May, which was the second month on the new calendar?
Moses did not explain, so it is difficult to know for sure.
Nonetheless, that very silence makes it possible for us to use BOTH calendars for purposes of understanding prophecy.
You see, the 17th day of the 2nd month in 2018—by the new calendar—is either May 2 or 3. It happens to fall in the time of Unleavened Bread for the 2nd Passover this year. That is this week.
In Matthew 24, 37-39 we read,
37 For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. 38 For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.
The flood began on the 17th day of the 2nd month. If Moses was dating the start of Noah’s flood by the new calendar that had been revealed to him in Exodus 12:2, then we could say that May 2 or 3, 2018 correlates with the start of the flood.
