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June 1, 2014 |
| Shavu'ot | ||
This Tuesday at sunset begins the Jewish Feast of Shavu'ot. It is the last of the major feast days of spring that God gave Israel. Like the other feast days it was also prophetic. So these feast days were not just days of rest and a time to socialize and have fun; they were also prophecies of things to come. In the spring feasts we see the major points of Jesus' first coming. In this lesson we will learn what God is telling us from this feast day.
Shavu'ot was one of the three travel feasts for which Israel was required, if at all possible, to travel to the temple and present themselves before God.
We know Shavu'ot better as Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit was given. But Shavu'ot and Pentecost rarely if ever occur on the same day. Without going too far in that direction, it is good to understand what happened to cause this difference.
| Jewish Feast Day | When | Symbolizing | Catholic Day | When |
| Passover | Nissan 14, any day of the week | Sacrifice of the Lamb for sin | Good Friday | Friday, 2 days before Easter |
| Days of Unleavened Bread | 3 day period beginning at Passover | A sinless sacrifice in the grave | - | - |
| First Fruits | Nissan 17, 3 days after Passover | Resurrection from the grave | Easter | Sunday, complex formula |
| Shavu'ot | Sivan 6, 7 weeks plus a day (50 days) after the day after Passover | The giving of the Holy Spirit | Pentecost - Greek word meaning 50 days | Sunday, 49 days after Easter |
These notable changes occur in the Catholic Days.
Everything in the Jewish feast days is symbolic of what Jesus would accomplish. Everything in the Catholic days is a mess.
Shavu'ot has many meanings. It is related to the harvest and it is related to the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. And it has other facets. The Feast of First Fruits, which comes before Shavu'ot, was also related to the harvest; that was the Barley harvest. The observance of that day consisted of taking sheaves of Barley, stalks and all, and presenting them to the priest at the temple who would wave them in the sight of God. Shavu'ot is about the Wheat harvest but the observance is completely different.
For First Fruits each person brought their sacrifice to the priests. For Shavu'ot the priests presented the sacrifice. Wheat was ground into flour, mixed with yeast, kneaded, allowed to rise and baked into two loaves each about 22 inches by 12 inches by 3 inches high. When they were cooked the loaves were waved in the sight of God. All of this was done by the priests at the temple and they would eat the bread.
"Part of the Shavu'ot ceremony consisted of the simultaneous offering of two leavened (sinful) loaves before the Lord (Leviticus 23:17). The fulfillment of Pentecost is the formation of the church on the Day of Pentecost, at which time the Spirit was given to baptize believers of two sinful "loaves" into one body: For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles (1 Corinthians 12:13) that He might make the two into one new man (Ephesians 2:15)."1
To understand this more fully we must understand why there are two loaves. The first covenant, the one between God and Israel, setup a bunch of ordinances that separated Israel from the rest of the world. Israel was to be a holy priesthood to God2. As such they were not to intermarry with other peoples and even association between Jew and Gentile was to be limited. What God had done therefore was to separate the world into two groups, two loaves if you will.
By Jesus time the loaf of Israel had become as sinful as the loaf of the world. Jesus' death on the cross tore down the wall of separation between the two by putting an end to those ordinances that specified separation between them and by the giving of the Holy Spirit on Shavu'ot who would join both people into a single people for God.
Shavu'ot is also about the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. Most Christians don't understand the connection at first. From the first, mankind was given the law in his conscience. Mankind was to be guided by his conscience to live a righteous life. That didn't work out very well and God destroyed most of the people in a great flood. Then God provided the law in a written form and with a holy priesthood to teach and administer the law. This too failed and God sent his Holy Spirit to be an even better law.
Jeremiah 31 33 "This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people."
On Shavu'ot, to this day, the Jews read the Bible's account of the giving of the Ten Commandments to Israel3. They also read Numbers 28:26-31 where God gives Israel the Shavu'ot feast to observe or they read Deuteronomy 16:1-17 which describes the three Spring feasts mentioned at the start of this lesson, which of course includes Shavu'ot.
There are some other parallels between the Shavu'ot celebration when the Law of Moses was given and the celebration when the Holy Spirit was given. When the Holy Spirit is given, the disciples and the others with them begin speaking in other languages4 such that all of the visitors to Jerusalem could hear them in their native languages declaring the wonders of God.
There is also a parallel between the tongues of fire that descended on the disciples and on those with them and the lord descending in fire on Mt. Sinai
Exodus 19 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire.
Shavu'ot is also called the Festival of Weeks and in that sense covers the 50 day period from First Fruits to the observance of Shavu'ot. The name Shavu'ot means 'Weeks' and covers a period of 7 weeks plus a day. During this time the people of Israel counted off each day of the 50 days.
These 50 days also mark off the time it took Israel to get from Egypt after they were allowed to leave there until they got to Mt. Sinai and the law was given. Remember that they left Egypt the day after Passover.
Leviticus 23 15 "'From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. 16 Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord.
The Shavu'ot day where the Holy Spirit is given is different in this way. Jesus was crucified on Passover, was resurrected on First Fruits and after 40 days he ascended to Heaven. Before that he told his disciples to wait for a few days to be baptized by the Holy Spirit.
Acts 1 3 After [Jesus'] suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
We don't know if they understood that he was referring to Shavu'ot but we do know that Jerusalem would have been packed with people at that time, people who had come for Shavu'ot. Thousands of them would hear the Gospel message preached in power and accept it.
Shavu'ot is also related to marriage. The giving of the law at Mt. Sinai was also the start of a marriage contract or covenant between God and Israel. We too are in a marriage covenant with God, a new covenant.
Shavu'ot celebrates
The prophetic feast of Shavu'ot was given to Israel 1300 years before the messiah. There is no evidence that Israel understood that the feasts were prophetic descriptions of the major events of the messiah's life. If the Bible was written by man and not by God, as some claim, then how is it that man did not know the true meaning of what he was writing. Fulfilled prophecy shows the existence of God.
1 http://www.biblestudyproject.org/feasts-of-israel-messianic.htm
2 Exodus 19:6
3 Exodus 19:1 - 20:23
4 Acts 2:5