Heshvan 17: Noah's Pivotal Day and Calendar

So, Heshvan 17 is not a commanded feast day, but it is important to understand that it is one of the most consequential and pivotal days in biblical history. Why do I say that? When we look at the story of Noah, we all know how important Noah was to God. I mean, he lived on this earth for 950 years, almost a sixth of the existence of the world. So, again, we know we're only going to be here for 6,000 years. Well, Noah lived almost a sixth of it. So, I think we can all agree how important Noah was to the world. He repopulated the world. God chose Noah and no one else because he was a man of righteousness. So, again, I think we can all agree how important this date is just because of Noah, of how beautiful Noah is and how righteous he was, a preacher of righteousness. He was only one of eight that was saved. The rest of the world died. So, I think we can all agree how important Heshvan 17 is.

You can even go back to Heshvan 10. Heshvan 10 days ago, you can read and get that knowledge out of the Bible. It doesn't say Heshvan 10, but seven days before that, they were going to enter into the ark. Methuselah died on Heshvan 10. They did the seven-day memorial for him, and then boom, they entered into the ark on Heshvan 17, and the flood started then. So, again, it's not a commanded feast day, but again, if we look at the importance of Noah and the importance that God put on this man's life, then we can understand that this day, and Heshvan 27, and all the other dates that go along on the timeline of Noah that we'll go through, are very important to acknowledge and also to get any kind of personal application we can from that. So, now let's talk about the second month and the eighth month. This is where some people do get confused. In Exodus 12:1-2, Moses was told by God that "this will be the beginning of your months.

It shall be the first month of the year to you." And the calendar that He had set was this. So, when Noah, excuse me, when Moses was on the earth, God told him, "This is your calendar that you go by. Nisan is what they call it today, will be the first month." Well, Noah was not on this calendar because Noah lived before Moses. So, again, how could he be on the calendar? He lived before Moses, a long, long time before, a couple thousand years before Moses did. So, again, Noah was on, just like the whole world was on, excuse me, Noah was on, just like the whole world was on one calendar. They were on the same months, if you will, but they were just reordered differently. So, instead of the first month being Nisan, the first month is Tishrei, down at the bottom of the calendar. So, I'm just calling them by today's names. But the first month of Moses was Nisan. The first month of Adam and Noah was Tishrei.

Adam was born on Tishrei 1, the Feast of Trumpets. Noah was born on the Feast of Trumpets. When you read the story of Noah in Genesis 6-9, Noah was even born on the Feast of Trumpets. So, again, Noah, Adam, Enoch, they were all on one calendar, and it was not the calendar the way that they work today with the months. Because He reordered the months. So, again, same months, if you will, but Tishrei, the first month of Adam and Noah. Moses, the first month is Nisan. He just reordered the months for the believers, for the religious calendar, because the world, the civil calendar is this, the world calendar, and then the biblical calendar is this. So, it's just a reordering of the months. And that's how people get confused, because whenever they read the story of Noah when it says "the second month, the 17th day," they think it's Iyar, because they don't have the knowledge of separating when Moses was born and when Noah was born and what calendar each one would have been on at that time.

So, again, we've got to understand it. So, when it says "the second month, the 17th day of the month," it's talking about Heshvan 17, because again, Moses was not born yet to get the revelation of Exodus 12:1-2. So, I hope that makes sense as we go through this next section we're about to go through. So, again, following the Exodus calendar, Nisan is the first month when God told Moses to reorder the calendar. However, in the traditional Hebrew Jewish civil calendar, the year begins with the Feast of Trumpets with Tishrei 1, which is when Adam was born and also when Noah was born as well. So, here's another understanding of it from a different point of view. So, the Exodus numbering that God told Moses: Nisan's the first month, Iyar's the second month, Tishrei's the seventh, and Heshvan's the eighth. Now, Adam and Noah's calendar would have been: Nisan would have been the seventh month, Iyar the eighth month, Tishrei the first month, and Heshvan the second month.

So, that's just how it historically would have been understood. This distinction matters because Genesis 7:11 identifies the flood's beginning as the 17th day of the second month. That's why we have to understand which calendar to go by, depending on the story, because of the way the calendars worked with history. Genesis itself does not explicitly identify that month as Heshvan. We just have to understand it from a historical point of view of when each individual was born in, and the calendar, and Moses. In Genesis 6:9, Noah did walk with God, as we all know. He was a just man, a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God. So, there's a very important understanding: Noah walked with God. And we're going to see what He does with Noah during Heshvan 17. Before Noah entered the ark, he was already walking with God, just like we are all right now as well. That means intimacy preceded the flood.