How to Find the Spring & Fall Equinox!

     How you can find the Vernal and Autumnal Equinox.  Equinox comes from two Latin words  aequus (equal), and nox (night).  In other words, the time of year when the day and night are equal in length.

     The ancients did not have watches or clocks, in other words, there was no way to measure time.  So then, how would they know when the day and night were equal? Good question!  So how can we find the equinox without the clock?

    This little study could be very valuable in the time of trouble, if your daily calendar were stripped from you!  By locating the vernal equinox you are actually following the instruction of Scripture, "Observe the month of Abib." Deut. 16:1.  The Creator set  "two great lights"... "in the firmament of heaven".  The greater light which rules the Day, also determines the seasons, spring, summer, fall, and winter.  The lesser light which rules the night determines the month.  The stars are also involved in helping to establish time, as the sun is in a different constellation each month.  It just so happens that there are twelve of these signs (Job 38:32 margin)

    The moon was created by Elohim, as a grand time piece, it just so happens that there is a new crescent every 29 or 30 days, thus it becomes obvious that this was to determine the true month.  But which month was the beginning of the year?  Are we to take a new moon that first appears while still in the season of winter?  No!  We should take the first new moon that appears in the spring, as the first day of the first Biblical month, called Abib.

    Now to determine the season of spring, and how to find the Equinox. 

    First we need to establish true north.  An easy way to find the north pole if you have no compass, is to find the North Star, or pole star.  This star is stationary.  This star is easy to locate, since the Big Dipper (Ursa Major, meaning The Great Bear - mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures as  "Ash" Job 9:9 margin) has two stars which are called  "pointers", they point across the sky to the Pole Star which is in the tip of the handle of the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor, meaning The Little Bear).  This is the North Star.

    Take a small pole or long skinny stick and plant it in the ground well, then take another pole or stick approximately 3 feet behind the first pole or rod, making sure the two are in line with the North Star.  Once you have established North and South, now you can establish true East.  Take a carpenters framing square, which has a perfect right angle (it looks like a perfect  L), point the longer end toward the North off of your south pole, then your right angle should point out for you true East, then place a third pole or rod straight in line with your south pole or rod.

    As the sun rises on the day of the Equinox, it will be in alignment with your poles lined up in the due East direction. (Example of what it should look like)

    In doing this you can find the Equinox most anywhere in the world. 

    On this day the sun rises on the equator.  At the equator that day there is equal day and equal night.  After all the children of Israel when in they're wilderness sojourning had no barley fields to go by.  What method did they use to determine the month of Abib for 40 years?  Obviously Moses new this method.

    Then after the vernal equinox (which now marks the season of spring) take the first new  "light in the firmament" of heaven (the new cresent of the moon)  which will  "give light upon the earth" to be your  "sign" to begin the month of Abib , the New Biblical Year.  The Calendar of your Creator.

    In observing these things you will be fulfilling part of the three angels messages, "Fear Elohim give glory to Him", instead of praising man for inventing a calendar. Glorify "and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and fountains of water." Revelation 14:7

********

    "When the Julian calendar was introduced (45 B.C.E.), the equinox fell on the 25th of March."  This was done  "to restore the vernal equinox to the 25th of March, the place it occupied in the time of Numa."  Encyclopedia Britanica 9th Edition Volume 4, page 591.  Numa Pompilius was the second king of Rome who reigned from 714 to 672 B.C.E.. 

    The Julian Caesar calendar stood unchanged for 1,600 years.  The Julian calendar provided a year of 365.25 mean solar days.  But the year consisted of 365.242195 days. The Julius Calendar lengthened the year by .0078046 of a day, which in 128 or 129 years amounted to a whole day.

    By the time of the Council of Nice, which was conviened in 325, the vernal equinox was found to be March 21st.  And by the time of 1582 (when the Gregorian Calendar was introduced) the vernal equinox had retrograded to the 11th of March.  So in order to return the equinox back to its former place, that is March 21st, what it was at the Council of Nicea, pope Gregory XIII directed ten days to supressed in the calendar. The calendar thus appeared in 1582

     The  Celtic church in Britian contended with the Roman church in many areas; one being Easter.  The Celtic church reckoned it according to the fourteenth of the moon.  Rome had moved away from this to avoid holding Easter on the same day as the Jewish Passover, and always kept it on a Sunday.

    "The Celts reckoned their equinox on 25 March, but Rome had adopted 21 March as the more accurate date."  The Celtic Church in Britain p. 94

    This was around 700 C.E. and neither group was correct.  The Celtic church despised the council of Nicea, and did not believe anything good could result from these various councils in which Constantine had ignited.

    If March 25 was the vernal equinox when Julius Caesar introduced his calendar, then reason and common sense suggest that December 25 was the original winter solstice of Rome, the day in which the  "Sun" was born each year.

    March 25, was considered New Years day in Scotland and Great Britain up until the time they adopted the  "New Style" or Gregorian Calendar.

    "Rome and a few other Catholic countries accepted the new calendar with only a whimper of protest.  But the Protestant countries would have none of it.  Elizabethan England, too recently freed from the tyranny of Bloody Mary, would not accept a system that smacked of popery." Stars and Men p. 221

    Slowly the outcries lessened, and in 1752 Great Britain and her colonies, including America, adopted the Gregorian Calendar, but it was not done without mobs protesting in the streets of London.  As the change appeared in 1752.

    Today men praise the pope for inventing what they think to be the perfect calendar.

    But our eyes still have not been taken from man's inventions to behold  "The Way" of YAHUWAH in His sacred Scriptures.

    Let our eyes behold the sacred Writings, and then look to the sky and behold our great Creator, in His wonderous works.  Then perhaps our understanding shall return unto us, and bless the most High, and praise and honor Him that liveth for ever Whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His Kingdom is from generation to generation.

    The subjects of this  Government shall live according to it's Laws.

    "For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith YAHUWAH, so shall your seed and your name remain.  And it shall come to pass, that from one new moom to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come worship before Me, saith YAHUWAH." Isaiah 66:22,

Back to Index

For More Information write:

 The Oil Derrick  P.O. 574 Erin TN 37061

Webmaster eMail: connections@surfbest.net