Deuteronomy 16:1

*Abib* is the Hebrew name for the first month of the sacred year — March–April in the modern calendar, the time when barley ripens in Canaan. The word itself means green ears of grain. The month is fixed in scripture by a single anniversary: it was on the night of the fourteenth of Abib that Israel ate the Passover lamb, daubed the doorposts with its blood, and was led out of Egypt. After the Babylonian exile, Israel adopted the Persian name *Nisan* (Nehemiah 2:1; Esther 3:7), and that name has stuck in Jewish usage ever since — but the older Hebrew name appears across the Pentateuch, anchoring the festal calendar to the Exodus event itself. The first month of the sacred year is not a starting point of farming or kingship or astronomy. It is the month a people remember being free.

• Exodus 12
• Exodus 13
• Leviticus 23
• Nehemiah 2