Holy Days 2 - Leviticus 23:15-44

3. Feast of week, or Pentecost – The Hebrew term for this festival is Shavout. This feast was also considered a sabbath, but came on a certain calendar of the year, 50 days after Passover, not necessarily on THE Sabbath, although that would happen naturally every 5-7 years. This is a little bit more difficult to follow in the TB lecture because it’s combined with some other ones, so I’ll just talk about what I figured out. Google says that “Shavout, also known as the Feast of Weeks, has two main purposes: it commemorates the giving of the Torah to the Israelites at Mount Sinai and marks the beginning of the wheat harvest. It is celebrated with customs like all-night Torah study, eating dairy foods, and decorating homes with greenery.” It is also one of the 3 pilgrimage feasts, meaning that at least one man from each Jewish family was expected to travel to the temple in Jerusalem to represent his family during the celebration. What is interesting in the Pentecost though, isn’t what it was anciently, but what it became after Christ’s death. As we know, 50 days after Christ was crucified, He ascended up and gave the earth the Holy Ghost, and the Christian term for that event was Pentecost. If we think of the ancient Hebrew festivals as being a teaching method for what was coming in the future, then it would make sense that a celebration of God’s word to the people (Torah) would set the stage for God’s Spirit to be given to the people on the day of that celebration.

4. Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur – Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement - Rosh Hashanah is a 2-day holiday that began the 10 day period “of self-examination and repentance that concludes with Yom Kippur, the day of Atonement.” So the Hebrew people would begin with a 2 day celebration then settle in for 8 more days of reflecting on the previous year, repenting and preparing for the atonement. Yom Kippur is the day of atonement, which was the one day every year when the high priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies in the temple, as the IM says, “as it were the presence of Jehovah, and there make an atonement for the sins of the people.” Maybe it’s because it’s been a while since I discussed the ancient Jewish temple that I forgot that the Holy of Holies was the one place that was restricted to only the High Priest going in and only on one day per year, the day of atonement, Yom Kippur. Two goats were selected, as we talked about this before but it’s been a while, “lots were cast, and the name of Jehovah was placed upon one goat; the other was called Azazel, the scapegoat. The Lord’s goat was then sacrificed as the Great Jehovah would be in due course, but upon the scapegoat were placed all the sins of the people, which burden the scapegoat then carried away into the wilderness.” The high priest laid his hands on the remaining goat “and confessed ‘over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon them head of the goat.’ The goat then bore upon him ‘all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited,’ even as the Promised Messiah should bear the sins of many.” This was designed to help the people understand the concept of the atonement, that the Messiah that they were waiting for would come and take upon himself the sins of all people so that they could be reconciled with God again.

5. Feast of Tabernacles – Sukkot – This happened 5 days after the Yom Kippur, the day of atonement and was 8 days long with the last day ending in a Solemn Assembly type of event on the 8th day. This event was also called the Feast of Booths because the people erects small booths, or temporary shelters to stay in as a reminder that their ancestors were brought out of Egypt and lived in tents in the wilderness for 40 years. It was also to commemorate the end of the fall harvest, which the IM says, “symbolizes the gospel reality that it is the mission of the house of Israel to gather all nations to Jehovah, a process that is now going forward, but will not be completed until that millennial day.” The part of this event that is significant has to do with the “libation” offering which TB says just means a water offering. TB describes the water offering as being where the High Priest would go to the Pool of Siloam and fill a golden pitcher and “he would go to the Great Altar and in front of large crowds pour the water out.” This was a loud, involved spectacle. The priest was chanting words, there were trumpets sounding, the priests and people were singing Hosanna, there were palm fronds being waved, willow sticks being put down on the ground. This happened every day during Sukkot, but on the last day, the 8th day, it was exaggerated, over the top dramatic.

Back to why this is significant, during Christ’s mortal ministry, during Sukkot, on the last day, during this libation ceremony, TB describes, “the High Priest came through the Watergate with his golden vessel full of water… the crowds waited in great anticipation of this moment in which the feast was drawn to a close. The High Priest then solemnly carried that golden pitcher of water up the several steps to the Altar and waited until the crowd quieted and gave him all their attention. Then, with great drama, he lifted the water libation vessel and poured out its contents for the last time… It was in this very moment, as the water was draining from the golden pitcher, that Jesus turns to the multitude and yells out: ‘If any man is thirsty, let him come to ME and drink.’” I think this paint s very vivid picture of what exactly was going on when Jesus made this declaration and because I have never had any context to what was going on, I never thought that this was something other than Jesus saying this statement to like 3 people who already believed he was the Messiah.

TB notes that at this point in his ministry, Jesus was very well known and either loved or hated, but everyone knew who he was. Google estimates that there were possibly over a million people in Jerusalem for this festival so the attendance might have been in the tens of thousands for this particular ceremony, and there Jesus is, while it’s silent, interrupting the High Priest’s big scene by claiming that He Himself is the living water. This is significant because it’s suggested that the symbolism for the water was two fold, first on offering to ask God for rain for the crops for the next year, but secondly was meant to symbolize the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the people. So this guy (Jesus) interrupted the symbolic pouring of the Holy Spirit to say that He Himself is the water for the crops which give the people life and that He was the source of the Holy Spirit being poured out onto the people. Unlike today, there was no ambiguity about this message when Jesus said it, He was proclaiming that He Himself was God. Under the law of Moses, claiming to be God was punishable by death, unless it was true, which in Jesus’ case it was.

The last aspect of chapter 23 that I thought was interesting was what TB noted about the timing of these festivals and the second coming. This is all speculation, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. TB speculates that the trumpet will sound for Christ’s return on Rosh Hashanah. He goes into a lot of detail as to why he thinks that throughout the 3 lectures he does on this chapter, and they are interesting but complicated and it has to do with Revelations and trumpet sounding and the judgements of God being poured out, but I’ll just quote him here because it is the summation of it. He says, “Yeshua was killed on Passover day, put into the Tomb on the first day of Unleavened Bread, and arose on the Feast of Firstfruits. Then, 50 days later on Shavout, the Holy Spirit began to indwell men. This is not my speculation; the New Testament clearly states it. Therefore I look for that mighty trumpet blast from Heaven that signals the return of Our King to occur on Rosh Hashanah in the not too distant future. Now I readily admit I cannot be 100% sure that all of the final acts of Jesus will be on the Fall Feast days: but it certainly would be a drastic break in pattern if it were any different.”