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I have heard reference made to the
"19-year time cycle" in the Hebrew calendar.
Would you please explain what this time cycle is?


Answer # 26


The Western world is accustomed to a solar year of approximately 365-1/4 days, since the Roman calendar in common use is solar. The months of the Roman year are not related to the phases of the moon, but are of arbitrary length.

On the other hand, the Hebrew year is a solar-lunar year, and differs significantly from the length of the Roman solar year.

Each month of the Hebrew calendar is related to the phases of the moon. Twelve such months, each 29 or 30 days long, result in a year that has about 354 days, or about 11 days less than a solar year of 365-1/4 days. A common Hebrew year is thus shorter than a Roman year. This is regularly balanced by leap years with 13 months. Leap years in the Hebrew calendar have about 384 days, which is longer than a solar or Roman year. How, then, are lunar months to be related to the natural solar year?

Every 19 solar years (of 365-1/4 days) the moon revolves around the earth 235 times, each lunation being about 29-1/2 days. This remarkable astronomical relationship makes it possible to combine 12 common years (of 12 months each) and seven leap years (of 13 months each) together every 19 years. These 235 lunar months equal about 19 solar years. That is, every 19 years the sun, moon and earth return to their approximate positions with respect to each other.

Nineteen-year patterns can also be seen in history. For example, ancient Israel spent 38 years (19 x 2) extra wandering in the wilderness. Or, as Pastor General Herbert W. Armstrong has pointed out, a "century" of time cycles or 1,900 years (19 x 100) passed from the time the Gospel had been suppressed in A.D. 53 until the Gospel began reaching Europe and other areas of the world as a whole in 1953 on Radio Luxembourg.