Chapter 73

 

 

1Then I saw another progress and regulation which He effected in the law of the moon.137 The progress of the moons, and everything relating to them, Uriel showed me, the holy angel who conducted them all. 2Their stations I wrote down as he showed them to me. 3 I wrote down their months, as they occur, and the appearance of their light, until it is completed in fifteen days. 4 In each of its two seven portions it completes all its light at rising and at setting. 5On stated months it changes its settings; and on stated months it makes its progress through each gate. In two gates the moon sets with the sun, viz. in those two gates which are in the midst, in the third and fourth gate. From the third gate it goes forth for seven days, and makes its circuit. 6Again it returns to the gate from which the sun goes forth, and in that completes the whole of its light. Then it declines from the sun, and enters in eight days into the sixth gate, and returns in seven days to the third gate, from which the sun goes forth. 7When the sun proceeds to the fourth gate, the moon goes forth for seven days, until it passes from the fifth gate. 8Again it returns in seven days to the fourth gate, and completing all its light, declines, and passes on by the first gate in eight days; 9And returns in seven days to the fourth gate, from which the sun goes forth. 10Thus I beheld their stations, as according to the fixed order of the months the sun rises and sets.11At those times there is an excess of thirty days belonging to the sun in five years; all the days belonging to each year of the five years, when completed, amount to three hundred and sixty-four days; and to the sun and stars belong six days; six days in each of the five years; thus thirty days belonging to them; 12So that the moon has thirty days less than the sun and stars. 13The moon brings on all the years exactly, that their stations may come neither too forwards nor too backwards a single day; but that the years may be changed with correct precision in three hundred and sixty-four days. In three years the days are one thousand and ninety-two; in five years they are one thousand eight hundred and twenty; and in eight years two thousand nine hundred and twelve days. 14To the moon alone belong in three years one thousand and sixty-two days; in five years it has fifty days less than the sun, for an addition being made to the one thousand and sixty-two days, in five years there are one thousand seven hundred and seventy days; and the days of the moon in eight years are two thousand eight hundred and thirty-two days. 15For its days in eight years are less than those of the sun by eighty days, which eighty days are its diminution in eight years. 16The year then becomes truly complete according to the station of the moon, and the station of the sun; which rise in the different gates; which rise and set in them for thirty days.