Halakhah zu Joel 2:23

Know that the Chaldeans do not have a second Adar, because their months are not lunar months.¹⁰⁸ See Evans (p. 187) where he describes the Babylonian calendar as also a lunisolar calendar with a second Adar. Also see Otto Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, p. 102. Instead they divide the solar year into twelve parts. The meaning of the verse “In the first month, the month of Nisan” (Esther 3:7), is that in that specific year it was so, for in an intercalated year the first month would have been Iyar. Therefore, it is not correct to translate “in the first” (Joel 2:23) as “ in Nisan.” ¹⁰⁹ This is how the term is rendered in the Aramaic translation of Jonathan ben Uziel. This was done so that people at that time would understand.