Sivan

Sivan is the third month of the Hebrew sacred calendar (corresponding to the post-exilic Babylonian month names adopted in the Ezra-Nehemiah period), falling approximately in May–June. It is mentioned once in the Hebrew Bible, in Esther 8:9: Mordecai's counter-decree permitting the Jews to defend themselves was written on the twenty-third day of the third month, which is Sivan, in the twelfth year of Ahasuerus. Sivan corresponds broadly to the agricultural season of the wheat harvest in Palestine (following the barley harvest of Nisan–Iyar), and the feast of Weeks (Pentecost/Shavuot) falls in this month — the feast celebrated on the fiftieth day after the first grain offering of Passover (Leviticus 23:15–16), historically associated with the giving of the Torah at Sinai.