From Scripture. This answer is plainly backed by the text of Scripture.
“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day” (Genesis 1:5).
This verse says it all. Here is the answer right away: the day starts at “even,” or evening, when the sun is setting.
From evening to evening: Deuteronomy 16:6 shows for sure that “even,” or evening, means sunset. Scripture also treats evening as a starting and ending point. Sometimes it marks a time of renewal, and other times it is a deadline. In Leviticus 23, Passover starts on the evening of the 14th day of Abib. Many people who keep Passover today keep the whole day. But Passover is really meant to be kept at the very end of the day, at sunset. So Passover is actually the beginning of the 15th day of Abib, also called the first day of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:4-7). That is why Mark 14:12 says the Passover lamb was prepared on the first day of Unleavened Bread. This shows that the evening of the 14th day of Abib (Passover) is also the start of the 15th day (the first day of Unleavened Bread). Otherwise, Mark 14:12 would be saying our ancestors prepared the Passover a day late. This also helps explain why Leviticus 23:32 tells us to keep our sabbaths “from even unto even”, and why a person who was unclean could not come back to camp until evening (Leviticus 11, Leviticus 15). Sunset marked the line between one day and the next.
Good morning! Still, some places in Scripture and in the apostles’ letters may seem to say something different at first. Sometimes it seems like the morning starts the day. Lamentations 3:22-23 says Yah’s mercies are new every morning. Exodus 16:23 calls the Sabbath “to morrow” and says the manna should be kept until morning. At first, it seems like the day starts with daylight. But think about it. Does our day start in daylight? No. It starts in the middle of the night. Yet we call morning the start of our “day” because that is when we wake up. The Hebrews in the Bible did the same. The apostle Paul tells us people sleep at night (1 Thessalonians 5:6-7). So there will always be verses about starting things in the morning. But that does not mean the full 24-hour day starts at dawn. It does not cancel what was said in the beginning (Genesis 1:5).
This is part of everyday life, but some Bible readers whom people call scholars are still confused about it. When we look at a calendar date, we do not think the “day” means only the hours of sunlight. But we might say, especially in a hot city, “Wait until the sun goes down. It is too hot to go outside during the day.” In the same way, when the Most High created the heavens and the earth, He called the light “Day.” Then He told us the “first day” was complete only after the light (Day) and the darkness (Night) had both passed (Genesis 1:5). So the word “day,” in Hebrew “yowm” (Strong’s H3117), has two meanings. It can mean the 12 hours of light. It can also mean the full 24-hour cycle of light and darkness. The Bible’s 24-hour day runs from sunset to sunset.
Answered by Taught of Yah
