month, or the new-moon day that begins it: the lunar cycle Israel used to count time, named after the moon's reappearance
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
The word is built on the idea of newness, because each month began when the thin crescent of the new moon first reappeared in the sky. So a single word does two related jobs: it names the day the moon renews, and it names the whole month that day opens. One is the festival at the head of the month, the other is the stretch of time itself.
By far the most common use is the plain calendar one. The Bible dates events by it ("in the second month"), measures how long things last ("three months"), and times its festivals by the day of a given month. Because Israel's months followed the actual moon, they varied in length and were never a fixed block of thirty days.
The festival use is older and more concrete: the day of the new moon was kept as a regular holy day, announced with trumpet blasts and special offerings, and repeatedly paired with the sabbath as one of the fixed rhythms of worship. The two uses are inseparable, since the festival is simply the first day of the month the word also names.
Nuances
1aa month as a span of time: the unit used to date events and measure duration
names a stretch of time anchored to the new moon, so each month is reckoned from when the moon reappears, not from a fixed number of daysGen 8:5Exo 12:2
Both
both name the recurring unit of time used to date events and measure how long things lastNum 9:221Ki 6:1
Only month
the English word suggests a fixed slot on a printed calendar of equal-length months, losing the link to an actual moon in the sky
the very same word that means month is used for the day the new moon appears, kept as a holy day with offerings and trumpet blasts and set beside the sabbathPsa 81:3Isa 66:23Amo 8:5
Both
both point to the reappearing crescent that marks the start of a new month1Sa 20:52Ki 4:23
Only new moon
to an English reader "new moon" sounds like a bare astronomical event, missing that for Israel it was a regular festival day on the worship calendar
How ḥodesh differs from similar Hebrew words
יֶרַחthe other Hebrew word for a month, which leans on the full lunar cycle as a span of time and is mostly poetic; this word ties the month to the new moon that opens it and is the everyday calendar term
Names the day the new moon appears as a set observance, listed beside the sabbath, with its own offerings and its own trumpet blast.2Ki 4:23Isa 1:13Amo 8:5Num 28:11Psa 81:3
Fixes the date of an event by its place in the year, giving the numbered month and the day counted within that month.Gen 7:11Num 1:1Ezk 1:1
Is the word the calendar itself is built from: Israel is told which month begins its year, and the feast days are pinned to a month and a day.Exo 12:2Lev 23:5Lev 16:29
Measures a person's age at its youngest: the census and the redemption price both begin with a child "a month old" and upward.Num 3:15Num 18:16Lev 27:6
Both
Both name a month of the year, and the temple records set them side by side for the very same month: Bul "is the eighth month", Ethanim "is the seventh month", the everyday word explaining the older name.1Ki 6:381Ki 8:2
Both measure a stretch of time counted in months, and either can form the idiom "a month of days" for one full month: Jacob's month with Laban and Israel's month of quail on one side, the captive woman's month of mourning and Shallum's month-long reign on the other.Gen 29:14Num 11:20Deu 21:132Ki 15:13
Job uses both for the months of a human life being counted out, whether the tally God has already fixed or the tally the sufferer wishes had never been reached.Job 14:5Job 21:21Job 3:6Job 29:2
Carries the old month names of the temple records, Ziv and Bul and Ethanim; those names appear with this word for "month" and no other.1Ki 6:371Ki 8:2
Marks the cycles of nature running their course: the yield the moons bring forth alongside what the sun brings forth, and the term a mountain goat carries her young until it is complete.Deu 33:14Job 39:2
חֹדֶשׁHodesh is a biblical name written exactly like חֹ֫דֶשׁ, the common Hebrew word grouped here.
Names a month of the year, the unit by which the calendar counts time and dates events. This is its everyday backbone: the flood begins and recedes by it, festivals are pinned to a numbered day within it, and the years of kings and exile are tracked by it.Gen 7:11Exo 12:21Ki 6:1
Means the new moon, the day the month begins, which was kept as its own recurring sacred occasion with feasting and trumpet blasts. David is expected at the king's table on it, and a trumpet is sounded at it.1Sa 20:51Sa 20:18Psa 81:3
Serves as a plain measure of elapsed time, a span of so many months, with no calendar or worship meaning at all. A widow mourns for a stretch of months, and someone stays somewhere for a count of months.Jdg 11:381Sa 27:7Gen 29:14
Both
Both stand side by side in the set lists of appointed sacred times, the new moons and the Sabbaths, named together as the regular occasions on which Israel gathered and offered sacrifice.1Ch 23:31Ezk 46:1
Both are condemned together when the worship around them is hollow, listed as the empty observances God rejects when Israel honors the occasion but not him.Isa 1:13Hos 2:11
Both name a recurring occasion when people set ordinary business aside to seek God or honor him, so traders chafe at having to wait through them and a wife is questioned for visiting the prophet outside one.Amo 8:52Ki 4:23
Names the seventh-day rest itself, defined by ceasing from work rather than by a place on the calendar. The command is to remember it and do no work on it, with the reason rooted in creation and in the deliverance from Egypt.Exo 20:8Exo 20:10Deu 5:14
Functions as the covenant sign between God and Israel, so keeping or profaning it carries weight far beyond a date on the calendar. It is called a sign forever, and breaking it is treated as breaking faith with God.Exo 31:13Exo 31:16Ezk 20:12
Extends to the land's rest, the sabbatical years when the ground itself lies fallow, so the word names a rhythm of rest reckoned in years, not a calendar month. The land enjoys its rests while it lies desolate.Lev 25:2Lev 26:342Ch 36:21
Names the new moon itself, the day the month begins, kept as a worship day with its own offerings and listed right beside the Sabbath.1Sa 20:52Ki 4:23Isa 1:13Isa 66:23Amo 8:5Psa 81:3Ezk 46:1
Is the unit the festival calendar hangs on: a feast is fixed by a numbered day within a numbered month, so this is the word that says when to keep it.Exo 12:18Lev 16:29Lev 23:5Lev 23:24Lev 23:34Deu 16:1
Measures the short middle-sized stretches of life, the spans of a few weeks to a few months that are too long for days and too brief for years.Gen 38:24Num 11:20Jdg 11:37Jdg 19:21Sa 6:11Sa 27:72Sa 6:11
Counts the age of the very young, the infants registered "from a month old and upward" who are not yet old enough to be counted any other way.Num 3:15Num 3:22Num 3:39Num 18:16Num 26:62
Both
Both are the slots of the standard dating formula, which pins an event in time by naming the year first and then the month within it.Gen 7:111Ki 6:1Ezk 1:1Ezk 1:2Hag 1:1
Both are steps in one nested count, the smaller unit inside the larger, so a precise date or total needs the two of them together.Exo 40:17Num 10:11Num 28:14
Both measure how long a reign or a stay lasted, the larger unit carrying the bulk of the total and the smaller one the remainder.2Sa 2:112Sa 5:52Ki 24:82Ch 36:9
Both set the rhythm of worship: some offerings come due at the start of each month and others once in the yearly round, and the same passages appoint them side by side.Num 28:112Ch 8:13Lev 23:41Est 9:21
Both organize duty rosters and quotas, with an officer's turn falling in one named month of the yearly cycle.1Ki 4:71Ch 27:1
Both serve as the unit for a person's age, the smaller one for infants and the larger one from there on, sometimes in a single sentence.Lev 27:6
Is the unit of a whole life and a whole reign: genealogies and royal records total up how long a person lived or ruled.Gen 5:5Gen 23:1Gen 47:9Deu 34:71Ki 2:112Ki 18:2
Marks the full farming round, from planting to harvest, which is why the laws of rest for the land and the release of debts are counted only in years.Exo 23:10Lev 19:23Lev 25:3Lev 25:4Lev 25:10Deu 15:1Psa 65:11
Can be spoken of as a complete circuit with a beginning and an end, a span God's care covers from one end of it to the other.Deu 11:12Exo 23:16Exo 34:22
Is the scale for long stretches of history and prophecy: the forty in the wilderness, the seventy of exile, the thousand that are as one day to God.Deu 8:2Deu 29:5Jer 25:11Jer 29:10Dan 9:2Psa 90:4
Names a season of God's action as a whole, so a coming deliverance or judgment can be called simply a "year".Isa 34:8Isa 61:2Isa 63:4Jer 11:23Jol 2:25
ḥodesh in the other biblical languages
μήνGreek“month”the Greek word for month, which also carries the sense of new moon as a festival day and is the usual counterpart in Greek
Doubles as the "new moon", the day the lunar month begins, kept as a festival often paired with the Sabbath.1Sa 20:52Ki 4:23Amo 8:5Isa 1:13
Forms the backbone of Israel's worship calendar, fixing each festival to a numbered month and day.Exo 12:2Lev 23:5Lev 23:24
Both
Both are the ordinary word for a calendar "month", the basic unit of the lunar year, so New Testament Greek uses the one where the Old Testament uses the other.Luk 1:26Gen 7:11
Both measure a stretch of time by counting off months, marking how long something lasts.Luk 1:24Num 11:20
Marks the fixed, symbolic time-spans of apocalyptic vision, where a set number of months measures out an appointed season of judgment.Rev 11:2Rev 13:5Rev 9:5Rev 9:10
Names the calendar observance of months that the New Testament warns believers not to bind on themselves as a religious requirement.Gal 4:10
Ordinarily names the month as a length of time, which is how it counts out durations and stretches of waiting.Gen 38:24Jdg 11:37Job 14:5
Supplies Israel's official dating formula, fixing floods, temple building, sieges, and prophetic visions to a numbered month and day.Gen 7:111Ki 6:1Ezk 1:1
Marks the new moon as a fixture of ordinary public life, a day when families gathered, a king expected his men at table, and a visit to a prophet was thought fitting.1Sa 20:52Ki 4:23
Becomes a target of prophetic complaint, where the day is kept faithfully yet God refuses it because the worshippers are unjust or impatient for the market to reopen.Isa 1:13Amo 8:5
Both
Both name the monthly new moon as a God-appointed day of worship, the Greek word standing for exactly the day the law of Israel had prescribed with its own offerings and trumpet blasts.Num 10:10Col 2:16
Both sit inside the same set of three sacred times, the yearly festival, the monthly new moon, and the weekly sabbath, listed together as the shape of Israel's calendar.Ezk 45:17Col 2:16
Names only the day of the new moon, never a stretch of time. The Greek word is the name of an observance, so it can never be swapped for "month" the way the Hebrew word regularly is.Col 2:16
Its one appearance is inside an argument about whether believers are obliged to keep the day at all, so the word carries a question about obligation rather than a place on a calendar.Col 2:16
What scholars say about ḥodesh
The standard lexica treat חֹדֶשׁ as one noun built on the root for newness, with two connected uses: the month as a time-span reckoned from new moon to new moon, and the new moon day itself as a recurring festival. HALOT and BDB list both under one entry; DCH likewise keeps them together. The festival use is well documented in the worship texts, where the new moon stands beside the sabbath as a fixed observance, a pairing studied in the literature on Israel's calendar and feasts.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. חֹדֶשׁlexicon
BDB, s.v. חֹדֶשׁlexicon
DCH, s.v. חֹדֶשׁlexicon
Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, vol. 2, on the calendar and the new moonmonograph