Good Morning Siblings!
Today’s readings are Numbers 28-30
Click here to read these passages at BibleGateway.com
Rabbit Trails
Have you noticed how many times the Father has gone over His appointed times with us so far? For the remainder of our reading, He will continue to reiterate them and we will see His people keeping them right up through Revelation – which takes place in the future! When does a Father repeat Himself? When it’s important. (for that book on the Feasts that I’ve mentioned several times, click here)
I want to discuss three specific moedim (Passover, Sabbath, and Shavuot) today in order to show you something that few have noticed.
- Passover is discussed in the Bible 76 times. Note that there is one instance in some Bibles where the word Pesach, or Passover, is erroneously translated as Easter. This is in Acts 12:4. However, there are very distinct and marked differences between the two celebrations. You can read all of the verses in which Passover is mentioned here.
- Sabbath is mentioned 150 times in the Bible. You can read each of these by clicking here.
Both of these appointed times have a special relationship with the Feast of Weeks, or Shavuot.
A little knowledge of the Feast of Weeks (Leviticus 23:15-21) can really help with understanding of a key point in one of Paul’s letters. The Feast of weeks, often knowns as Shavuot or First Fruits, takes place exactly seven Sabbaths (or 50 days) after Passover.
Now you’ll recall that Passover lasts one day (The Passover is actually a single meal) and directly following that is a seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread. So there are two holy times, or moedim, back to back. As a result, these two feasts are often collectively referred to as “Passover”. After Passover, we begin counting the weeks. This is often referred to as “counting the omer”. Counting the Sabbaths is a great joy as we move from Passover to Shavuot because each week is one more Sabbath between us and the next feast.
These Sabbaths that we count in between are often referred to in Scripture as “one of the Sabbaths” because they are special Sabbaths leading from one feast into another.
We see reference to this In Acts 20:7, but we miss that because most Bibles read something like this:
On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. Acts 20:7 Click here to see how other bibles translate this
Did you catch something there? Probably not because it’s not there in our translations anymore. But if we use the interlinear feature to go to the Greek, we will see a very different choice of words, for “first day of the week” and that is “Mia ton Sabbaton”. Which translates to: One of the Sabbaths.
For even better context, knowing what we know now, let us back up a verse and read Acts 20:6-7
6 but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days. 7 On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.
Now we clearly see the reference to Unleavened Bread having just passed, which is the time in which we count the Sabbaths leading up to Shavuot. This verse just became a whole other animal. Turn that over in your mind a bit today and see what you can glean from it (there are a lot of implications here and “first day of the week” is starkly different from the original text.)
Think you’ve never heard of Shavuot before? The Greek name for it derives from the counting of the 50 days after Passover. The Greek for 50 is Pentecost. It is ironic that many Believers are acquainted with the term Pentecost but not with what the Father called this Holy day.
Most believers think of Pentecost as the time in which the Holy Spirit descended and came to indwell. If you are like me, you probably once thought that this was a first. While it was a significant moment to be certain, having read the Word now we realize that the Father has been bestowing the Holy Spirit on people of His choosing since the very beginning. There is another wonderful event which, according to Biblical timelines, strong evidence supports taking place on the first Shavuot. The giving of the “ten” commandments took place near (or on) Shavuot. Generations later, around the time the Father gave His commandments, He would give His spirit to help us keep that them.
There are no coincidences, only patterns.
When we know our Bible we can begin to recognize those patterns in history, in our daily lives, and in the future.
Test everything, hold tight to what is good.~ 1 Thess 5:21
We are saved by Grace alone: Obedience is not the root of our salvation, it is the fruit!
May YHWH bless the reading of His Word!