Tag Archives: Biblical Holidays

Tonight is the first day of the seventh month…

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The new moon was not spotted in the land of Israel yesterday (Monday, Sept 14), which means tonight (Tuesday, Sept 15) will mark the beginning of the seventh month on the biblical calendar. This day also marks the beginning of the fall biblical feast season. HalleluYAH! Time to celebrate. It’s all good news, which we need in these dark times!

Yom Teruah (or the Day of Shouting/Shofar Blasts) is the biblical name for the traditional the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah) is on the first day of the seventh month (Lev 23:23–25). This is a high holy sabbath day.

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On the tenth day of the seventh month will be Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement, Lev 23:26–32).This year, it will be on Friday, Sep 25. This too is a high holy sabbath day.

Next, from the 15th to the 21st day of the seventh month (Sept 30 to Oct 6) will be Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles, Lev 23:33–43).

Finally, at the end of Sukkot will be an additional holiday called Shemeni Atzeret (or the Eighth Day, Lev 23:36, occurring on Oct 7). Hebrew roots and messianic people often overlook this high holy day sabbath, but it’s part of the Torah, and so we celebrate it.

All of these festivals are significant spiritually for the redeemed believer and are steps in YHVH’s plan of salvation. The fall feasts are also prophetic of events that will happen prior to and after the second coming of our beloved Messiah Yeshua.

For written instructional materials on these feasts, please go to http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/teaching.html#feast. For videos teachings about these feasts, go to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/HoshanaRabbah.

You may wonder why some people are celebrating these feasts on other days than the ones mentioned above. There are several reasons for this. I’ll briefly explain.

The rabbinic and orthodox Jews will be celebrating their feasts two days earlier. This is because their calendar is usually incongruent with occurrence of the visible new moon. How did they get off the biblical calendar, you might ask? For the answer to this questions, please read my article at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/new_moons.pdf.

Some people keep the biblical feasts on the astronomical new moon conjunctions, which is not the biblical way to determine the months. I explain this in the following article at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/vis_moon.pdf.

If you want a comprehensive understanding of the biblical calendar please read the following article at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/cal_demyst.pdf.

It’s important that we understand the biblical calendar issues, since there is a lot of confusion out there on the subject. Also, YHVH calls his feasts moedim or divine appointments, for it is then that he meets with his people. It’s important to do so when he has told us to do so, not when we choose to so.

Get a cup of tea  or coffee, find a comfortable chair and prop up your feet and get to reading on the subject of the biblical calendar. We have provide you some simple to understand resources to understand this subject. You’ll need to concentrate though and have your Bible handy so you can look up the verses yourself and prove that what we’re saying is the truth. You might need to read over some of the material a couple of times to wrap your brain around the concepts. I’ve tried to make it as simple as possible. It’s really not that bad. Once you understand it, you’ll have a firm foundations from which to go onward and upward in YHVH’s truth.

Understanding the biblical calendar and knowing when to keep the biblical feasts is part of the restoration of all things that must occur in conjunction with Yeshua’s second coming (Acts 3:21). By obeying YHVH and keeping his feasts on the calendar he established, you are part of the fulfilling of Bible prophecy and are helping to hasten Yeshua’s coming.

 

 

New Video: The Bridegroom Is Coming — Awake, Repent & Prepare!

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The sixth month of the biblical calendar occuring in the late summer is the time to awake spiritually, repent of sin and to prepare for the fall biblical festivals, which prophetically picture the second coming of Yeshua, the Heavenly Bridegroom of the saints. This video discuss how and why to get ready spiritually.

 

The Heart of YHVH Behind the Second Passover

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Numbers 9:6–11, Defiled by a human corpse. This passage can also be understood allegorically. The second Passover is a prophetic picture pertaining to the lost and scattered sheep of the house of Israel who, like those individuals in this passage, had been journeying in exile (just like the prodigal son in Yeshua’s parable) among the Gentiles in a foreign land and away from the land and Elohim of Israel. In the process of their spiritual wandering, they have become defiled by sin and death (likened here to touching a human corpse), since the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23), and all have men have sinned and fallen short of the YHVH’s glory (Rom 3:23).

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While in exile (again like the prodigal son in the parable), they awake to their spiritual apostasy and want to come back home to observe the Passover (a picture of redemption or salvation). Passover is the only biblical festival for which YHVH’s allows a make up. At the first Passover in Egypt, those who weren’t in their houses under the lamb’s blood-painted doors fell under the death penalty for sin and were killed.

This teaches us that Passover is a picture of man’s obtaining salvation through the blood of Yeshua, the Messiah who is the Lamb of Elohim. YHVH desires that all men be saved and come to know Yeshua the Savior, and Passover is a picture of this. This is why he gives men a second chance to keep the Passover—he wants all to be saved (John 3:16; 2 Pet 3:9), including his lost, scattered, exiled and prodigal children from the house of Israel.

 

New Video: Paul on the Feast of Unleavened Bread

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If there’s one biblical feast the church should be keeping, it’s the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This is because Paul commands NT believers to do so! Paul gives us some deep spiritual insights into this wonderful celebaton and we explore these in this video.

 

Purge out the old leaven, become a new lump of dough

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Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Cor 5:7–8)

1 Corinthians 5:8, Leaven of malice and wickedness. Interestingly in the Torah, there are two Hebrew words used for leaven, which is a biblical metaphor for sin. The first word, chametz refers to the sin of malice (or ill-will, malignity, desire to injure, or bitterness), while seor, the second word, refers to wickedness or sin in general, which the Scriptures refers to as the violation of YHVH’s Torah commands (1 John 3:4). It is likely that Paul had this concept in mind when he wrote this verse.

chametz/ץמח, is a noun (Strong’s H2557) meaning “leaven, that which is leavened, bitter.” Chametz is from the root H2556 chametz/ץמח (a verb) meaning “to be sour, to leaven.” According to The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, the root word chametz designates the action and result of yeast, which ferments or sours bread dough. This idea of becoming sour is extended to a person’s negative attitude. For example, in Psalms 71:4 chametz is translated as cruel [and in Ps 73:21 as grieved]. The Torah strongly instructs that anyone eating chametz during Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread will be “cut off” from Israel (Exod 12:19–20). Exodus 12:39 notes that the daily bread the Israelites baked on the day they left Egypt was not leavened because they left Egypt in such haste that there wasn’t enough time for their bread dough to rise. Thus it had the symbolic value of teaching Israel that having been redeemed from Egypt they should leave their old life [and sinful, “sour” carnal nature] behind quickly and set out toward the Promised Land in a sin-free state. Leavened bread was also prohibited in connection with the sacrificial system (Exod 23:18; 34:25). Neither it nor honey could be burned with the meal (Lev 2:11), and it could not be baked with the fire offering (Lev 6:15). But leavened bread could be eaten with the thank offering (Lev 7:13) and with the first fruits offering on Shavuot or Pentecost. In later Jewish thought, leavened bread become a symbol of corruption and impurity, as also in Yeshua’s teachings (Pss 71:4; 73:21; Hos 7:4; Matt 16:2; Mark 8:15) and in one remark by Paul (1 Cor 5:8; TWOT, vol. 1, page 289).

se’or/ראשׂ (Strong’s H7603) means “leaven.” This is the generic term for leavening or leavened bread and is found five times in Scripture (Exod 12:15, 19; 13:7; Lev 2:11; Deut 16:4). In the first four references, se’or is used in parallel construction with chametz. In all places but Leviticus 2:11, it is used in reference to the Feast of Unleavened Bread, while in the former se’or is used in reference to the meal offering.

Paul juxtaposes malice, wickedness and leavening with sincerity, truth and unleavened bread. The former is sinful and unacceptable to Elohim and must be gotten rid of, while the latter is righteous and accepted of Elohim and must be cultivated in the saint’s life. The latter is copacetic to Elohim’s character, and the former is not. If the believer’s life is analogous to a lump of bread dough, then the malice and wickedness, like yeast, infects, sours and brings rottenness and causes the dough to be puffed up. This is Continue reading →

 

The Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Wavesheaf Offering and the Resurrection of Yeshua

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Chag HaMatzot (The Feast of Unleavened Bread): An Overview

Chag HaMatzot or the Feast of Unleavened Bread is the second annual festival on YHVH’s biblical calendar, and occurs on the fifteenth day of the month of the Abib, which is the day immediately following Passover (or Pesach, Lev 23:5–8). Because both of these feasts (Exod 34:25; Lev 23:2, 6) occur back-to-back, the Jews often refer to Passover and Unleavened Bread simply as Passover Week or some similar term that places the main emphasis on the Passover. But it must be noted that, though related, these two festivals are separate in meaning and purpose. Passover pictures Israel coming out of Egypt. Upon separating from Egypt, YHVH (the LORD) then commanded the Israelites to put all leavened food products out of their houses and to eat unleavened bread (flat bread) for seven days, hence the origins of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Additionally, the first and seventh days of this week-long event are Sabbaths, and YHVH commanded his people to hold a set-apart convocation (or gathering) on these Sabbaths.

What, you may ask, is the purpose of putting leavening out of one’s home and eating unleavened bread products such as matzoh for one week? This seems like a curious request by YHVH of his people. Not surprisingly, the Creator of the universe has a reason for everything. The spiritual implications are enlightening and highly relevant to the disciples of Yeshua. In commanding his people to de-leaven their homes and lives, YHVH is teaching us an object lesson that applies to us as much today as to the Israelites of long ago.

Eating unleavened bread for seven days is a memorial, remembrance or reminder (Exod 13:6–9) of our coming out of our own spiritual Egypt. But how did unleavened bread enter into this picture? The Torah tells us that the Israelites left Egypt early in Continue reading →