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Seasons

Seasons

A season is a period during which a specific type of agricultural work is normal or a certain kind of weather prevails; a suitable or appointed time for something.

As the earth revolves around the sun, the tilt of the earth’s axis at an angle to the plane of the ecliptic produces a cycle of weather seasons. As markers of the passing of time, the heavenly bodies serve as indicators of seasons. (Ge 1:14) Genesis 8:22 says that the earth’s seasons will “never cease.” For a correlation of the months of the Jewish and Gregorian calendars and the festival, weather, and agricultural seasons, see CALENDAR.

Closely connected with the agricultural seasons were the annual “festival seasons” when the festivals established by the Mosaic Law were celebrated. (1Ch 23:31; 2Ch 31:3) Hence, when Paul counseled some Jewish Christians who were “scrupulously observing days and months and seasons,” he meant the festival seasons that were a part of the Law, not simply weather or agricultural seasons.​—Ga 4:10.

“Season” can therefore refer to a fixed or an appointed time or a period possessed of certain characteristics. (Ac 3:19, ftn; Ro 8:18; Ga 6:9) In time what constituted healthful teaching and proper conduct were made very clear to Christians. Accordingly, it was the “season” to be awake. (Ro 13:11-14) The “times or seasons,” or periods when Jehovah’s will in certain matters would take place, were of real interest to his worshipers (Ac 1:7), who understood them as they were progressively revealed.​—1Th 5:1.

In regard to the dwelling of nations on the earth, God “decreed the appointed times” (Ac 17:26; “fixed the epochs of their history,” NE) in that he determined when certain changes should occur, such as when the divinely appointed time came to uproot the Canaanite inhabitants of the Promised Land.​—Ge 15:13-21; Jer 25:8-11; Da 2:21; 7:12; see APPOINTED TIMES OF THE NATIONS.