The Jewish Calendar
Genesis 1:14-19Then God said, ”Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons , and for days, and years, and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so then God made two great lights; the greater one to rule the day and the lesser one to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. and God saw that it was good.
So there was evening and morning, the fourth day.
The Jewish calendar is based on the cycles of the moon, even now in Israel we have both calendars to let us know when the Holy days are to be observed. The days , weeks, months and years are all kept as in the ancient days. The biblical feasts are given to ALL the people of God, not to the Jews alone. This is how we can mark Gods timeline for future events.
Shabbat begins on Friday Night!
God created the 7th to last forever! He observed the first seventh day of rest with His creation!
As long as we followed His rule to not eat of the tree of knowledge, of what? GOOD AND EVIL!We would live in eternal peace and joy ! An eternal vacation of some fashion. But… sin did entered in. The first sin was listening to a story, that did not follow Gods rule. The second was Eves disobedience. The third sin was Adam not repenting. Instead, he blamed God for giving him the woman. Sin separated us from God. When God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandment,( in Leviticus 20:7) He included ; REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY, TO KEEP IT HOLY, SIX DAYS YOU SHALL LABOR AND DO ALL YOUR WORK, BUT THE SEVENTH DAY IS THE SABBATH OF THE LORD YOUR GOD.Why? I believe He gave us this commandment so we would remember that He is the creator every week! He has a purpose! His goal is to return us to that place of relationship with Him with abundant peace and joy! The Sabbath is not Feast day, it is a commandment! The Fourth one! To be Remembered, and live in expectation of the eternal Shabbat to come! Does it make any sense to believe that only 9 out of 10 commandments are applicable?I will be explaining the Seven Biblical Feasts of God in order of appearance according to the biblical calendar.
The first one is Passover, followed by the 7- 8 day Feast of Unleavened Bread , and followed by Sefirat Omer, or the Counting of the Omer . These three occur one after another in sucession.
Passover explained
Three Feasts in One!
Instructions on the Passover festival are first found in Exodus 12-15. Passover occurs in the First month of the Jewish calendar, The fourteenth day of the month of Nissan, Israelites were to,
1) Sacrifice a lamb and place its blood on the doorposts of their homes as a sign so the angel of judgement would “Pass Over” them when they were in Egypt sparing their lives. The next day, in preparation for this Exodus the people made bread without leavening. This is the second feast called the 2) Feast of Unleavened Bread. Bread without leavening equals Matzah! At the end of these 8 days, we celebrate 3) The Day of First Fruits, In ancient times a sheaf of Barley was waved before the Lord in a ceremony to mark the beginning of the “Counting of the Omer” a 49 day countdown to the Feast of Shavuot (Pentecost).
People are often confused by what occurred during the time of Yeshuas crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.
A Sabbath is not only Friday evenings. The first night of every Feast is called a Sabbath. My Jewish calendar understanding says that Passover Seder was on a Wednesday night (beginning of a Shabbat) all day Wednesday was a Shabbat, that night became Thursday, Yeshua was arrested that night brought to Pilat Crucified and buried on a Thursday, just before Friday Eve the beginning of Shabbat,(Erev Shabbat) The 14 of Nissan, was the Seder, Thursday was the 15, He was brought before Pilate, scourged, crucified, taken down from the cross before the Sabbath,(Friday eve) and buried on this day. He would be in the tomb half a day, then He remained in the tomb on Saturday the 16 (the Sabbath )and rose on Sunday the 17th in the morning, another half day. Not 72 hours, but it is happens over three days
Pentecost
When is Shavuot?
Even in early times, a diversity of opinions existed about the date of Shavuot. There were two major schools of thought on the interpretation of the Leviticus 23 text. The Sadducees interpreted “Sabbath” in verse 15 to mean the literal seventh day of the week, so that the barley sheaf was to be offered on the first Sunday of Passover or the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Then Shavuot would always fall on the seventh Sunday after Passover. The Pharisees, however, interpreted “Sabbath” not literally as Saturday, but figuratively, as the day of rest to be observed on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. That would be the fifteenth of the Jewish month Nisan, regardless of what day of the week it was. Based on this interpretation, the barley offering would be made on the sixteenth of Nisan, and Shavuot would come seven weeks later, on the sixth day of the month Sivan, on whatever day of the week it might fall. As long as the Temple stood and the Sadducees were in charge, their view prevailed. Today, however, the date of Shavuot is based on the generally accepted interpretation of the Pharisees.
For believers in Yeshua, Shavuot becomes an archetype of what happened seven weeks after the crucifixion and resurrection of Yeshua. Because of the great power displayed in the upper room at Pentecost, some regard this day as celebrating the advent of the Holy Spirit. Yet that was not quite the case. We read in John 20:22 that the risen Christ breathed on each of the disciples and filled them with the Holy Spirit weeks before Pentecost!
The event of Pentecost was the “birthday” of the Church—the welding together of Spirit-filled disciples into one organism—the living body of Christ. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit moved upon each of the disciples to bring about the united story of the Church. Just as the giving of the Law at Sinai formed the constitution of the spiritual commonwealth of Israel, so the visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples signaled the constitution of the spiritual community of faith in Christ. In the first case, Israel was brought together by the law (rules of constitution), in the latter, believers in Christ were bonded together not by rules, but by the Holy Spirit within them.
The entire spring religious season of Israel, from Passover to Pentecost, speaks of God’s plan to harvest a holy people for Himself. First, Yeshua died as the perfect, sinless sacrifice. Then, He arose and became the firstfruits from the dead as described by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:20. Seven weeks after the resurrection, the dynamic manifestation of the Holy Spirit among the early Jewish believers became the catalyst for many to put their faith in God’s Messiah. The Jewish pilgrims at Jerusalem who heard and received the good news of salvation joyfully brought it back to their native lands. There, it was received by Gentiles as well as by other Jews, and the Church became established abroad.
Thus, the inclusion of the Gentiles completed the symbolism of the wave offering, where the High Priest offered two loaves of fine wheat flour baked with leaven. Centuries before it came to pass, the two loaves of the wave offering symbolized the Body of Messiah made up of both Jewish and Gentile believers. Though the loaves were made of fine wheat flour, they contained leaven, a symbol of sin. That speaks of the fact that the Church, though refined (cleansed by the blood of Yeshua’s sacrifice), still retains the human sin nature until that day when She will be presented as the Bride of Christ, without spot or wrinkle.
Feast Of Trumpets
The purpose of a shofar is to signal. To make noise!
It is not a musical instrument. The first shofar we read of in the Bible, is God’s Trumpet! It was used at the inauguration of…… The Covenant with Israel. Exodus19:11
The Feast of Trumpets - Yom Truach - marks the beginning of ten days of consecration and repentance before God. It is a time of deep introspection. People check themselves to see if there is any thing in their lives that needs to change in order to obey Gods covenant laws. Its name comes from the command to blow trumpets. (Leviticus 23:24; Numbers 29:1-6). In the Leviticus passage, the words trumpet blasts are a translation of the Hebrew word Teruah, which means “a shout” or “a blowing.”
Today, people use the title of Rosh Ha Shana for the Feast of trumpets.
This change was made by Rabbis. Rosh Ha Shanna means Head of the Year, or The New year. (Biblically speaking, The first month of the Jewish calendar is Nissan 1. It is the day that Passover begins. Passover is a celebration of spring, birth and rebirth. More on this Holy Day later.)
YOM KIPPUR - The Day of Atonement falls on the tenth day after Feast of Trumpets. The Festival of Booths (Tabernacles) - SUKKOT- begins on the fifteenth day after Trumpets. The blowing of the trumpets on the first day of the month heralds a solemn time of preparation for the Day of Atonement; this preparation time was called “Ten Days of Repentance” or the “Days of Awe.” The trumpet sound was an alarm of sorts and can be understood as a call to introspection and repentance.
The Feast of Trumpets, along with the other six festivals of the LORD, foreshadowed certain aspects of the ministry of Yeshua (Jesus Christ). The prophets linked the blowing of trumpets to the future Day of Judgment: “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming. It is close at hand” (Joel 2:1; see also Zephaniah 1:14, 16).
In the New Testament, we see that the Lord’s Second Coming will be accompanied by the sound of a trumpet (1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Each of the judgments in Revelation 8-9 is also signaled by a Trumpet. Just as the shofar called the Jewish nation to turn their attention to the Lord and ready themselves for the Day of Atonement, so will the “Trump of God” call us to heaven and warn the world of coming judgment.”
Sound the Shofar!
Sukkot - Feast of Tabernacles
Since it immediately follows the Days of Awe and repentance, Sukkot represents the time of restored fellowship with the Lord. In fact, the Mishkan (and later the Temple) represents Gods presence dwelling among His people ( Exodus29;44-45)
The modern observance of Sukkot allows just a few days from the time Yom Kippur ends to begin assembling and decorating the Sukkah for the festivities If the High Holy Days focus on the Lord as our Creator, our Judge, and the One who Atones for our sins, the festival of Sukkot is the time when we celebrate all that the Lord has done for us. Prophetically understood, the seven days picture (Olam Haba) the world to come, and the 1000 Millenia Kingdom age, if Yeshua was born on Sukkot (i.e. conceived during Chanukkah, ) then another and prophetic meaning of “The Word became flesh and TABERNACLED among us! (John 1:14) foretells the coming Millenial Kingdom when King Yeshua will again Tabernacle with us during His reign from ZION!