Nisan
Ni'san (Heb. Nisan', נַיסָן, from netz, נֵוֹ, a flowery or as Gesenius and Furst think, after Benfey, from the Persian nep, new), the first month of the Hebrew sacred year, called ABIB in the Pentateuch, for which it is substituted only in the time of the Captivity (Ne 2:1; Es 3:7: Sept. Νεισάν, but most copies omit in Esther). On the first day of the month the Jews fasted for the death of the children of Aaron (Le 10:1-3). On the tenth day was observed a fast for the death of Miriam, the sister of Moses, and every one provided himself with a lamb for the Passover. On this day the Israelites passed over the Jordan, under the conduct of Joshua. On the fourteenth day, in the evening, they sacrificed the Paschal lamb; and the day following, being the fifteenth, the Passover was celebrated (Ex 13:18). The Asiatic Church, when appointing the Paschal observance, therefore selected the fourteenth of Nisan. She could associate no other date with τὸ πάσχα. The observance of this fourteenth day of the month by the Christians of Asia gave rise furthermore to the term Quatrodecinans (q.v.); but the observance, it should be borne in mind, was in commemoration of the death, not of the last supper, of Jesus. On the sixteenth day of Nisan the Hebrews offered the sheaf of the ears of barley, as the first-fruits of the harvest of that year (Le 23:9). The twenty-first day was the octave of the Passover. On the twenty- sixth day they fasted in memory of the death . of Joshua, and on this day they began their prayers to obtain the rains of the spring. Lastly, on the twenty-ninth they called to mind the fall of the walls of Jericho. SEE MONTH.
