For Signs and for Seasons

Genesis 1:14 — Illuminated

God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years.”

וּלְמוֹעֲדִים וּלְיָמִים וְשָׁנִים

ulemo’adim uleyamim veshanim

Genesis 1:14 — WEB

God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years.”

Footnote

The Hebrew phrase וּלְמוֹעֲדִים וּלְיָמִים וְשָׁנִים (ulemo’adim uleyamim veshanim) joins three ways of reckoning time. Mo’adim can mean appointed times, fixed occasions, or seasons; yamim means days; and shanim means years.

The heavens give us observable motions and recurring markers. Human beings use those motions to reckon time.

From them we construct days and years, calendars and seasons, local times and universal time. We draw time zones and an International Date Line. These conventions are not the motions of the heavens themselves. They are the systems by which people living on a spherical, rotating world describe those motions consistently.

The stories that follow explore the boundary between the two:

Nature gives us motion. We draw the lines.