Don't Assume The Day Always Begins at Midnight

Most of us, in the Western world at least, assume the calendar day starts and ends at midnight, but this has not always been so -- and with some people it still is not today.


There was no set way of counting days following the Noachian Flood and the spread of civilizations throughout the Middle-East. Some began and ended their days in the evenings. Some started each new day at sunrise. Some began a new day at midnight.


Like us  the ancient Egyptians and Romans had a day that ran  from midnight to midnight. But the Babylonians started their days at sunrise. But others like the Jews. Numidians and Phoenicians set a 24 hour day which ran from one evening to the next -- from one sunset to the next.


This was a pattern established by Jehovah God in his six creative days were one day started in the evening and ended the following morning ( Genesis 1: 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31) and in his commands to observe the seventh day as a Sabbath at Leviticus 23: 28, 32 were he said: "from one evening to the next you should observe your sabbath."


This is a custom still practiced by modern day Jews.

The Ships of Tarshish

The Phoenicians were among the first builders of ocean going vessels in the Mediterranean Sea. These were ships that helped make King Solomon very rich -- and the Phoenicians, at least for a time, not only very rich but also the masters of the Mediterranean from Tyre along its eastern shores as far West as Spain.


Their seamanship grew gradually. First they built and sailed smaller vessels made from Juniper wood and propelled by the wind and linen sails and sailors manning oak oars up down the eastern end of the Mediterranean trading with their neighbours to the North and South of them such as Israel and King Solomon of Israel thousands of years before the time of Christ.


As their ship technology and building skills grew over the years they eventually built vessels over a hundred feet long and their sailors ventured farther West along the northern shores of Africa creating trading alliances and settlements as they went.


Eventually they reached what today is known as the Straits of Gibraltar at the western entrance to the Mediterranean and crossed over to Spain where they established a lucrative trading business with the inhabitants of Tarshish who had an abundance of minerals such as gold, silver, and other minerals to trade.


Because of their ability to withstand the often violent weather they encountered on these 4,000 mile voyages these ships soon became renowned as "The Ships of Tarshish" and other nations, such as Israel, seeking to building their own navies  on the  Mediterranean and Red Seas  copied both the design and name  of these early ocean going vessels