DEUTERONOMY
Lesson 21 - Chapter 16 Continued
Last week we ended by discussing some fascinating details about Passover and the Feast of
Unleavened Bread, respectively called Pesach and Matza in Hebrew. We’re going to continue
that today and won’t fully finish Deuteronomy 16 until next time. There are a couple of reasons
that we are carefully going over the laws concerning these Biblical feasts; first, because the
way that some Jews and Christians celebrate those holy days today is not necessarily
Scripturally accurate and second is because this was the series of festivals during which
Yeshua HaMashiach celebrated a final meal with His disciples, was betrayed and arrested,
tried and executed, and was buried and arose from the dead. This was the climax of what
Yeshua had come for in the first place and it will remain the most important part of His earthly
ministry until He comes again for the next stage in God’s redemption process.
I told you last time that I wanted you to think about what we went over in discussing Passover,
at least partially because it might challenge what you thought you knew concerning those holy
days. Now what we area going to discuss is rather technical so stay focused.
I also want to say right up front that while I cannot (nor can anyone else) be 100% certain on
the timeline I will present to you, it does fit both the Scriptural AND the Traditional
understanding for Jesus’ era. So while I am fully prepared to defend it, understand that I am
not saying that it is impossible for another scenario to be equally plausible. However unless we
completely throw out the “3 nights in the tomb” statements what IS not possible is that Yeshua
was crucified on the 6
th
day of the week (Friday in modern terminology). No matter how you
slice it Friday nighttime plus Saturday nighttime, with the absolute Biblical assurance we have
of a 1
st
day of the week discovery of the missing body (Sunday morning) does not add up to 3
nights.
There is ONE other scenario that is a slight possibility and it is that everything I lay out to you
today simply backs up by one day; but I do not accept that because that possibility only occurs
if the protocols of Passover week were done according to the traditions espoused by the
Pharisees. If things were done in accordance with the strictest traditions of the Pharisees of
that era, then my timeline would indeed have to back up one day. But that is very unlikely (and
I say that it is as near to impossible as you can get) because the Sadducees controlled the
Priesthood in Jesus’ day and they followed the Lev. 23 injunction that Firstfruits was to take
place on the first day after the 7
th
Day Sabbath. I’ll show you later why this is important.
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Let’s briefly review before we start with some new material so that we can all start from the
same understanding.
There is a series of 3 springtime Biblical Feasts that begin on the 1
st
month of the Jewish
Religious calendar year, the month of Aviv. Aviv is the original Hebrew name for this month
that, after the Babylonian exile, also started to be called by its Babylonian name Nisan. While it
is said that the Biblical Feasts revolve around an agricultural motif, the reality is that neither
Passover nor Unleavened Bread is about farming or food production. Passover is a
commemoration of the day that the Lord smote Egypt by killing all firstborns (meaning firstborn
sons) in order to force Pharaoh to release Israel from his grip. Yehoveh ordered that all who
wish to trust in Him can avoid this death by sacrificing a yearling lamb and then brushing its
blood onto the doorposts of their homes. While I pointed out several elements of this process
that we don’t typically take into consideration, the one that I’d like you to keep in mind today is
that the ONLY people in Egypt that were ever at risk of death were the firstborns.
Unleavened Bread (Matza) is the 2
nd
of the group of 3 springtime festivals and it
commemorates the day that Israel actually began its march out of Egypt. While Passover is a
1-day event, Matza is a 7-day event that begins the day immediately following Passover.
Because in Egypt this event happened suddenly and Israel had leave immediately, and there
was no time for the Hebrews to prepare their staple food, bread, in the normal way (by adding
yeast, letting it rise, and then baking it) the Jews were required to prepare a kind of bread that
did NOT utilize yeast or leavening. This bread, Matza, was not even baked; it was prepared by
being placed on a griddle to cook in the open air similar to the way we cook pancakes.
The final festival of the group of 3 is called Bikkurim, or Firstfruits. This occurs the day
immediately following the 1
st
day of Matza. So we have each festival begin in turn over the 14
th
,
15
th
, and 16
th
of Aviv. The final day of the festival is the 21
st
of Aviv. We’ll talk more about
Firstfruits shortly.
Now the first part of chapter 16 of Deuteronomy is really meant to discuss the 3 pilgrimage
festivals; that is, those 3 special ones out of the 7 Biblical feasts in which it is required that all
Hebrew males journey to the Tabernacle (later the Temple) and make a sacrifice. So this
group of 3 springtime festivals I’ve been teaching you about are NOT the same thing as the 3
Pilgrimage festivals. However ONE of the 3 springtime festivals IS a pilgrimage festival: the
Feast of Unleavened Bread. And because of the way the 3 springtime festivals happen (in
immediate succession) the result was that the Jewish pilgrims would be present at the central
sanctuary for all 3 of the springtime feasts.
Another important feature of the festivals is that God added some special Sabbath days to
them. There are 2 kinds of Biblical Sabbaths: the regular weekly 7
th
day Sabbath that we’re all
familiar with, and the festival (or “high” or “great”) Sabbaths that were part of the Biblical
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festivals. In the series of 3 spring feasts, the 1
st
day of the 7-day festival of Matza was one of
those added special Sabbaths, as was the final day of the 7 days of Matza.
So to be clear: we have Passover on the 14
th
of Aviv, the next day is the 1
st
day of Matza
(which means it’s a special festival Sabbath), then the next day after that is Firstfruits. Let me
stop and point out something very important right here: while the modern Hebrew calendar will
indeed always show Aviv 16
th
as Firstfruits, that is NOT the Biblical practice and it was NOT
the Tradition as practiced while the Temple still stood. In reality, while the Torah DOES specify
Aviv 14 as Pesach and Aviv 15 as the 1
st
day of Matza, the Torah does NOT specify Aviv 16 as
Firstfruits. Rather it says this about the date of Firstfruits in Lev. 23:11:
RSV
Leviticus 23:10
"Say to the people of Israel, When you come into the land which I give you and reap its
harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest;
11
and
he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, that you may find acceptance; on the morrow
after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.
So according to the Torah Passover was on Aviv 14…..always: Matza was on Aviv 15…..always;
and then there was to be a lull until the 7
th
day Sabbath came around and then on the following
day Firstfruits was to be celebrated. THIS was the way the Sadducees practiced it; and since
this ceremony HAD to occur at the Temple, and be performed by the priests, what the
Pharisees or the Galileans or anyone else thought about when and how and in what order to
perform this ritual didn’t matter because the Sadducees controlled the priesthood and
everything that went on at the Temple.
Let’s examine the momentous events that surrounded Christ’s death and how it would have
played out on a timeline. Look at this chart I’ve prepared for you. At the top is an illustration of
how a Hebrew 24-hour day is defined. Notice that a Biblical day begins and ends at sunset.
Our modern day that uses mechanical clocks as our means of time measurement makes 12
midnight when one day ends and the new begins and it never varies.
I have arbitrarily chosen the time of 7 pm as the moment of darkness when the old day ends
and the new begins because in the springtime, in Israel, that is about the time of sunset. Notice
the dark bar indicating that it is nighttime, then the gray potion to indicate twilight, and then the
white portion which represents the daylight hours. Of course we’ll then encounter gray again
as evening approaches and then finally darkness. It is very difficult for us moderns to wrap our
minds around this ancient way of measuring time and days because in essence the first meal
of the new day for any Hebrew (or anyone else as far as any records discovered would
indicate) was the evening or nighttime meal, dinner. So for a Hebrew the first meal of each new
day was dinner, breakfast was the middle meal of the day and what we’d call lunch was the
last meal of the current day-cycle. Here is what I believe to be the correct timeline for
Yeshua’s last supper, arrest, crucifixion, burial and resurrection; let’s go over it.
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Aviv 13 (this not on the chart) is the day before Passover, which in the year Jesus died would
have been a Wednesday. It was on Wednesday the 13
th
that the disciples had the special meal
prepared that Christianity labels The Last Supper. As I told you last time, we find in the Mishna
tractate Pesahim that the Galileans adopted a tradition that in Hebrew is called, seudah
maphsehket that translates to “last supper”. Allow me to remind you that in Yeshua’s days
the politics were such that the Holy Lands had been divided (by Rome) into several districts.
The ones we’re all most familiar with are Judea (Judah) to the south where Jerusalem was
located, Galilee up north, and Samaria that lay between the other two. Further, Judaism had
severely fractured and the Judean Jews, Galilean Jews, and Samaritan Jews had each
developed some different traditions on a number of religious matters including just how the
feasts were to be observed. The Galilean Jews (Yeshua and His disciples were Galileans) had
established an additional celebration called seudah maphsehket (last supper) that the Judean
Jews did not recognize. This last supper was about remembering that it was indeed not ALL
Hebrews who were in danger from death at God’s hand in Egypt, but ONLY the firstborn sons.
So a special nighttime meal was adopted whereby this meal would be eaten and there would
be a 24 hour fast that followed (thus the name “last supper”). Following the last supper and
then the fast, the next meal to be eaten was the Passover meal.
Now there have been a number of essays and books that explain that it was known that there
were two Passover Seders: one on Passover eve, Aviv 13
th
, (the day before Passover) and the
official Passover night meal on Aviv 14. But this is not very good scholarship and it misses the
mark rather significantly. These so-called 2 Passover Seders were in fact the combination of
the last supper (celebrated ONLY by Galilean Jews and it appears probably also by the
Samaritan Jews), and then the next night the actual Passover meal. But this same poor
scholarship also rather obscures what went on with Jesus and His disciples on those fateful
few days. And it ignores that the Judean Jews, and thus the Priesthood centered in Jerusalem
did NOT join in that additional Passover Seder.
So on Aviv 13 (Wednesday by our calendars) the seudah maphsehket was prepared;
HOWEVER, it was not eaten on Aviv 13. Rather it was after sundown (after the end of the day
of Aviv 13) that the meal was eaten. That is, it was eaten as the first meal of the day of
Thursday Aviv 14
th
(remember, the beginning of a new day is just after sundown). So this
special meal honoring the firstborn (called last supper) was actually eaten on Passover, but as
the beginning meal of Aviv 14, Passover day. Are you with me so far? OK, now follow me
closely.
The meal called “last supper” is eaten in the first hour of Passover, Aviv 14th. It is here at this
meal that Yeshua instructs His disciples to commemorate this day by drinking wine that
symbolizes His blood that establishes the New Covenant, and by eating unleavened bread that
symbolizes His body to which we become in union. NOTE: this was NOT the traditional
Passover Seder; that was yet to come because that meal is not eaten until the END of
Passover day.
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Therefore at the start of the day of Aviv 14, Thursday (which is nighttime), Passover day, the
Galilean “last supper” commemorating firstborns is eaten. The next event is that Judas
betrays Jesus and shortly after midnight Our Lord is arrested. It is still Passover day. In the
wee hours before daylight, He is tried and convicted of blasphemy. It is still Passover Day.
After his sentence is confirmed by Pontius Pilate Jesus is scourged and nailed to a Roman
cross by Roman soldiers. It is still Passover Day, Thursday, Aviv 14.
At about the moment Jesus expires (roughly 3 pm in the afternoon on Passover Day) the
slaughter of the Passover Lambs begins in the Temple grounds. Somewhere around ¼ million
sheep will be killed and their blood collected between the hours of 3 pm and 6 pm, the job
completed as the sun nears the horizon. It is still Passover Day.
While this is occurring the women are hurrying to get the Roman soldiers to remove Jesus’
corpse from the cross; it is a requirement that they MUST get Him buried immediately because
otherwise He would just lay exposed for at least 2 days. Why 2 days? I’ll show you in a
minute. Their prayers are answered and Yeshua is entombed before the sun sets. It is still
Passover Day.
The butchered lambs are placed in the thousands of collective ovens located all around
Jerusalem so that the hundreds of thousands of visiting pilgrims can roast their Passover
Lambs. It is still Passover Day. Shortly after the 3 stars that become visible only when it is dark
enough, Passover Day officially ends and the 1
st
day of Matza begins. Aviv 14
th
has ended and
it is now Aviv 15, Friday, the 1
st
day of Unleavened Bread.
What, you say, where did the Passover meal go? Aren’t they supposed to eat it on Passover
day? NO! Much to many peoples’ surprise the Biblical injunction is that the Passover meal is
to be eaten AFTER dark. This means the day has changed. It’s only that the Passover Lamb
is to be slaughtered and prepared on Passover Day, but that’s not when it’s actually eaten.
Thus Aviv 14 has changed to Aviv 15, the 1
st
day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. That’s
right: the Passover meal is NOT eaten on Passover Day; it is the first meal of the new day on
Matza. Why? Because that’s exactly as it was in Egypt. They were still eating the Passover
meal at around midnight on Aviv 15 when Yehoveh killed all the unprotected firstborns
throughout Egypt.
Last week I explained to you that it was Jerome in the 5
th
century AD who translated the
Hebrew words Zevah Pesach and made it Pass-over; but this is incorrect and misleading.
Therefore we get this mental picture (along with millions of sermons to back it up) that on
Pesach the Lord “passed over” the Hebrew firstborns killing only the Egyptian firstborns. While
it is true that the Lord passed over the firstborns who obeyed the command to paint Lamb’s
blood on their doorpost, the problem is that Zevah Pesach does not mean “pass over” it
means “protective sacrifice”.
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Look: what occurred on Aviv 14 in Egypt was that the Pesach Lamb was slaughtered and its
blood brushed onto the doorways of homes. It was the day the “protective sacrifice” of the
lamb, as ordered by God, took place. But, it would not bet until after dark (when the day
changed to Aviv 15, the 1
st
day of Matza) that late at night (around midnight) the Lord passed
through Egypt killing all the firstborns who were NOT protected by the sacrifice of the Lamb. So
Pesach, which is ONLY the protective sacrifice of the lambs, happened on Aviv 14 but the Lord
didn’t pass over the protected Hebrew firstborns until the first hours of the next day, Aviv 15.
Then later after the meal was eaten and it turned into daytime (still the same day) the Hebrews
assembled together to be led my Moses as they left Egypt. It is the day they left Egypt (the
same day that hours earlier they had eaten the Lamb as the first meal of the day) that is
celebrated as the 1
st
day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Now what did we learn earlier that was special and different about the 1
st
day of Matza? It was
a festival Sabbath day. Friday Aviv 15
th
was a Sabbath day, a special festival Sabbath day. It
had some of the same requirements as the 7
th
Day Sabbath in that handling a human corpse
was prohibited on ANY kind of Sabbath. That is why we read in the Gospels that there was a
frenzy to get Messiah buried before dark, when the day changed from Pesach (a regular day)
to the 1
st
day of Matza, which was a festival Sabbath day.
Aviv 15
th
was an uneventful day; it was Friday, the festival Sabbath to begin Matza. The day
ends at sundown and now it is now Saturday, Aviv 16
th
; this is the regular weekly 7
th
day
Sabbath. I already mentioned that while for the past several centuries Firstfruits has been
celebrated on Aviv 16 (as a permanent tradition), in fact it was only the Rabbis (who were
Pharisees) who long ago ordered it done this way, as opposed to the way it was done in
Jesus’ day. And this change occurred AFTER the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. when the
priesthood became defunct. Remember that the Sadducees were the High Priests and in
charge of the Priesthood so with the end of the Temple it was essentially the end of the
priesthood and so the Sadducees lost much of their control over matters of ritual and tradition.
As a result the Pharisees were able to get their way and they ordered that rather than
Firstfruits moving around on the calendar it would henceforth ALWAYS be Aviv 16
th
that
Firstfruits would be celebrated on.
Let me say again: in Jesus’ day Firstfruits was the day AFTER the 7
th
day Sabbath no matter
what the calendar date. Therefore in Jesus’ era Firstfruits was always the 1
st
day of the week
(Sunday in our modern terminology).
Notice that by this timeline Yeshua has (indeed) been in the tomb for 3 days and 3 nights just
as the prophecy of Jonah in the belly of the great fish explained. I hope as you can see that
this is not at all straightforward and that if a scholar is not a student of the Torah and to a
degree of Jewish Tradition there is no way he can understand how the passion week of
Yeshua’s death played out. After all; the NT that was written by Jews who assumed that
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anyone reading these documents would be familiar with the Jewish customs and their nuances
and the political circumstances of that day. But for now I want to move on to talk about
Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks.
Open your Bibles and let’s re-read a bit of Deuteronomy 16.
RE-READ DEUTERONOMY 16:9 - 12
The festival of Shavuot comes 7 weeks (hence the name Feast of Weeks) from the day of the
ceremonial first cutting of the harvest that comes sometime during the overall springtime
festival of Passover/Matza/Firstfruits.
The original instruction does NOT give a specific day; there is some wiggle room because it is
not known year to year when the first day of the Barley harvest will actually happen. So
technically, and scripturally, the 50 day period can move around by about 1 week. Let me
reiterate from last week that even though Aviv 16
th
is called Firstfruits, and that the first sheaf
of Barley is waved, Firstfruits does NOT mark the beginning of the harvest; rather, a sheaf of
GREEN (unripened) Barley is cut and presented to be waved by the priests at the Temple.
Firstfruits (Bikkurim) is a PRE-harvest ceremony that is asking the Lord to make the harvest a
good one.
Because we have learned that Firstfruits moves around on the calendar from year to year,
therefore so does the summertime festival of Shavuot since it is dependent on when Firstfruits
comes. Technically one counts 50 days from the day after the 7
th
day Shabbat that occurs the
day before Firstfruits and that tells us when Shavuot occurs. After the Temple was destroyed
and the Rabbis took over control of Judaism, they decided that it was better for all concerned
(especially those far away in the Diaspora) to have fixed days on a calendar to celebrate
Firstfruits and then Shavuot, and that’s how it is to this day.
Another Biblical reality is this: Shavuot is another pilgrimage festival. It is the 2
nd
of the 3
annual feasts that requires all Hebrew males to journey to the central sanctuary (starting with
David the sanctuary was located in Jerusalem) to make a sacrifice. Since Hebrews soon
became scattered over thousands of square miles of the Holy Land, and later over millions of
square miles of Asia and then the Roman Empire, a moving target for the day of Shavuot was
nearly impossible to implement. And depending on where you lived growing, ripening, and
harvesting would occur at widely varying times. Therefore it was necessary (in their view) that
a firm day be decided upon as that 50
th
day from the first sheaf of Barley being waved. So the
countdown to Shavuot began each year on the day of Bikkurim, Firstfruits; this was NOT
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Scripture, but it was Rabbinical Tradition and it is a practical solution to a tough problem.
Christians know Shavuot better as Pentecost; Pentecost is but the Greek translation for
Shavuot. Pentecost is known to the Church as the day that the Holy Spirit of the Lord came to
reside within those who trusted Yeshua as Messiah. It was the day that all those Jews started
speaking in tongues (foreign languages). I’ve said this on a number of occasions but as a
teacher I guess I get a pass for repeating myself: Pentecost was NOT a day that was created
by Christians to commemorate the coming of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost was already a 1300
year old holy day by Yeshua’s time and we’re reading about it here in Deuteronomy 16:9 –
12. Pentecost (Shavuot) was a prophetic foreshadow of the coming of the Holy Spirit. And
naturally, as all prophecy is 100% accurate and flawless, that is exactly what happened; the
Holy Spirit DID come on the summertime Feast Day of Shavuot.
While the descending of the Holy Spirit is the Christian reason for the day, the Jewish people
see it as something else. In fact for the Jew it has a dual purpose; first is that from an
agricultural standpoint the nearly 2 month period from the time of Firstfruits until the time of
Shavuot covers the grain harvesting period of BOTH the Barley and the Wheat harvests. So
while Firstfruits signals that the harvesting of the Barley will begin within a few hours or days,
Shavuot signals the end of harvesting wheat. That is, the Barley harvest begins around the
time of Firstfruits and then ends around a month later. At the proper moment during the 2
nd
half
of that 7-week period the wheat harvesting begins, and then at Shavuot (the end of the 7 week
period) the wheat harvesting ends.
The second meaning of Shavuot for Hebrews is that it is celebrated as that time that Moses
received the Law on Mount Sinai. The Scriptures show us that it was around 50 days after
Israel fled Egypt that Moses received the Law from God (however, the Scriptures do NOT
actually verify that exact amount of time, rather it is Tradition).
Something tells me that this Tradition is probably accurate because note the amazing
connection between Moses receiving the Law of God written on stone tablets and the coming
of the Holy Spirit. It is prophetic from Jeremiah that a day will come that God will write His
Laws on the hearts of those who love Him. The New Testament confirms that it was on the day
that the Holy Spirit came (Pentecost, Shavuot) that God wrote His Laws on our hearts.
By the way (as long as I’m repeating myself) let me say that God told Moses when He gave
them the Law at Sinai that the PEOPLE were to write the Law on their own hearts; this to be
done by means of thinking on these laws night and day. Then in Jeremiah the Lord says
prophetically that when He renews the giving of the Law THIS TIME HE is going to write those
Laws of the hearts of His people. In BOTH cases the Law was to be written on the human
heart; it’s just that in the first case the individual was to do it himself, and in the second God
would do it supernaturally. Let me also take this occasion to mention that in the Biblical
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era…..OT or NT…..heart did NOT mean how we think of it today. The heart was the seat of
conscious THOUGHT in Bible times; it was the human intellect, our minds; later, long after the
Bible was closed, the Greek culture made the heart into the seat of human erotic desires and
emotions. So when the Bible says “heart”, just substitute the word “mind” because that is
what it meant then and should mean that to us now.
What else is revealing about Shavuot (Pentecost) is its uniquely inclusive nature; Israel is told
to include males, females, slaves, free, Levites, orphans, widows, even strangers (ger). Ger
are NON-Hebrews (gentiles) that have decided to bond themselves to Israel BUT they are not
circumcised. That is, those who may be included in the meaning of Shavuot do NOT have to
become official Hebrews by means of the b’rit milah, the circumcision ceremony.
Isn’t that an interesting parallel to the New Testament situation that those who wish to call
Yeshua their Lord can be Hebrews or non-Hebrews, but they MUST bond themselves to Israel
(as Paul says, “be grafted in”); yet that bonding does not mean that a ger need a circumcision
ceremony that makes them (us, Believers) official physical Hebrews. We can remain gentiles
and yet still be part of Israel on a spiritual level, just as the scenario is in the Torah.
Let’s move on now to Moses’ exposition on the regulations concerning the Feast of
Tabernacles, Sukkot. To that end let’s re-read a few more verses of Deuteronomy 16.
RE-READ DEUTERONOMY 16:13 – 17
Each of the festivals is known by a handful of common names; the festival of Sukkot is no
different. Sukkot (Hebrew) is also called the Feast of Booths, or The Feast of the Ingathering,
or the Feast of Tabernacles. Each of the 7 festivals also reflects a certain tone ranging from
somberness and sobriety all the way to unbounded joy. As an example: the Feast of Firstfruits
reflects a certain anxiety and anticipation; a bit of uncertainty in what the outcome of the
current year’s harvest might be. So the focus of Firstfruits is to wave a sheaf of green (not yet
ripe) grain before God asking Him to bring a good harvest. The Feast of Weeks, Shavuot,
reflects a tone of rest and relief. The Barley and Wheat harvests are over and the results
(hopefully good) are known. The feverish pace of the fieldwork to bring in the harvest before it
spoils in the field relaxes for a time.
Sukkot, though, is unmitigated joy! In fact yet another name for this festival is “the time of our
rejoicing”. Let’s see why that is.
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This Fall season festival is the 3
rd
and final of the 3 pilgrimage festivals; we’ve had the Feast
of Matza in the Spring, the Feast of Shavuot in the Summer, and now the Feast of Tabernacles
in the Fall whereby all the Hebrew males must make a journey to the central sanctuary for
praise and worship of Yehoveh that necessarily involves sacrifice. Just as the Feast of Matza
begins on a regular and steady calendar date, so does Sukkot. Just as the Feast of Matza is a
7-day feast, so is Sukkot. And just as the 1
st
and last days of the Feast of Matza are declared
as festival Sabbaths so are the 1
st
and last days of the Feast of Sukkot declared as festival
Sabbaths.
The Feast of Tabernacles begins each year on Tishri 15. Tishri is the 7
th
month of the Hebrew
religious calendar year. But Tishri is ALSO the 1
st
month of the Hebrew civil calendar year.
Therefore the 1
st
day of Tishri is Jewish New Year.
This agricultural based holy day celebrates the end of the threshing of the grains. It marks the
time when the separation of the wheat from the chaff is coming to a close. It also marks the
time when the vineyard harvest is complete and the winemaking is ending and the new wine is
ready.
And like Shavuot, those invited to participate and benefit from the Feast of Tabernacles include
Hebrews and non-Hebrews from all classes of folks who have attached themselves to Israel’s
relationship with Yehoveh.
Let me close out this section of Deuteronomy 16 on the 3 Pilgrimage festivals by quickly
showing you the parallel between the festivals mentioned and the prophetic ministries of Jesus
that they represented.
Passover represented Yeshua’s substitutionary death, and His blood that protects all who
have faith in what He has done from eternal death at the hand of the Father. He shed His
blood on Passover day.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread is that time when Christ went into the tomb, without sin
(without leavening) and His body did NOT decay. It was the day that His sacrificial death and
burial brought the release of all His followers from the power of evil and sin. Christ was put into
the tomb to begin the 1
st
day of Matza.
Firstfruits represents that day when the first of what would be harvested in the near future was
lifted up and waved before the Father. It is that day when with anxiety and anticipation Christ,
as that green sheaf of Barley who was cut from the field, was the hope and forerunner of a
bountiful harvest of Believers. Yet, He was NOT the first of the actual harvest; the harvest was
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yet to come. Christ arose on the Feast of Firstfruits.
This ought to give us all the chills. The entire sequence of His death, burial and resurrection
occurred precisely on the appropriate Biblical Feast days. But that’s not all. 50 days later on
Pentecost (the Feast of Shavuot) the Lord sent His Holy Spirit to dwell within men. The Lord
harvested His Believers. They were His, they were put away for safekeeping, where no one
and no thing could ever forcefully take them, us, away from Him. But there is more harvesting
to come.
The High Holy Days of the Feast of Trumpets and of Yom Kippur (which we have discussed in
other lessons) represent Yeshua HaMashiach coming for the 2
nd
time, and this time in great
power and glory, bringing the world to it’s knees, cutting down the evil and laying low the
rebels.
The Feast of Tabernacles (or more appropriately as it is also known, the Feast of Ingathering)
is the entry into the 1000 Reign of Christ: the Millennium. I won’t go into all the details today
but let me just point out the amazing parallels between the focal point and grand finale of the
Feast of Sukkot: the Water Libation ceremony at the Altar of Burnt Offering. The earthly
purpose for this event was to ask God to bring rain to the land to water the crops. In the final
moments of the final Biblical Feast of each year, the closing event is that seven trumpets are
blown 3 times for a total of 21 blasts of the trumpet, as a Golden Pitcher of water from the
spring of Siloam is brought by the High Priest through the WaterGate of the Temple Mount.
Then the water is poured out from that Golden Pitcher while the people of Jerusalem say in
unison, “God save us now!” These 21 trumpet blasts represent the 3 series of 7 final
judgments that will be rained down upon the world in man’s final hours. After these 21
judgments, it is finished. The history of man as we know it is over. Yeshua HaMashiach is now
in total control of a world that has not one single rebel; not one single person is alive who does
not know the Lord and bow down to Him. And so it will remain for 1000 years.
Even more, the commemoration of this day will continue forever. For we are told in Zechariah
that every year for time unmeasured the Feast of Sukkot will happen, including the culminating
event: the water libation ceremony.
RSV
Zechariah 14:16 Then every one that survives of all
the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the
King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of booths.
17
And if any of the families of
the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will
be no rain upon them.
Next week we’ll finish up chapter 16.
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