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I'm looking at a question that was posted here 7 years ago about the original name of the months.

First-Temple-Era names of the Hebrew months?

There is mention of a possible month called, "Tzach."

Are there any English resources on this topic 'today?'

And please forgive me for using a 'Christian' link (if this bothers anyone): https://www.neverthirsty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/daniel-20040822-prophecy-of-daniels-70-weeks.pdf

But, this PDF mentions, "Taskh," as the original name for the fifth month of Av or July/Aug.

Can anyone here offer insight primarily in English into whether this is possible or where it comes from?

Is Taskh Hebrew at all?

Thank you for any time you might put into this.

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  • I don't know where they get the information from. The Tanakh does give us some different, non-Babylonian names for some of the Hebrew months, yet the only ones mentioned are "Aviv" for Nissan (Exod. 13:4) , "Ziv" for Iyar (I Kings 6:1, ibid. 6:37), "Eitanim" for Tishrei (I Kings 8:2), and "Bul" for Cheshvan (I Kings 6:38). I checked the Gezer Calendar to see if perhaps they derived it from there, but I didn't see anything resembling "Taskh".
    – ezra
    Feb 14, 2020 at 0:40
  • The Hebrew months may not have had names at all before the exile, only numbers. See Jan A. Wagenaar, Origin and Transformation of the Ancient Israelite Festival Calendar, Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005.
    – Mockingbird
    Apr 23, 2021 at 2:49

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The word צח "Tzach" occurs in Isaiah 18:4 and Jeremiah 4:11, and some have proposed that it is a Canaanite month name, but Jerome does not so translate, neither does the RSV. They thought they found support for this theory in one of the Arad ostraca, but the ostracon has since been re-interpreted. (Jan A. Wagenaar, Origin and Transformation of the Ancient Israelite Festival Calendar, Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2005, p. 27 and note 158.) The Phoenician and Ugaritic calendars do not contain a month called "Tzach". (Mark E. Cohen, The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East, CDL Press, Bethesda, Maryland, 1993, pp. 377-386.)

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