This is the fifth chapter of seven of the series. Since I’m finding more to expound upon than I had planned, we may have to go to chapter eight. These are not written out in advance.
As revealed last time, the moadim of Passover and Unleavened Bread were instituted with the “death of the first born” in Egypt. At Mt. Sinai, the Hebrew language, the Day of Pentecost, and the Day of Trumpets, were instituted. While in the wilderness, the Day of Atonement would be instituted after the creation of the Arc of the Covenant. The moadim of First Fruits and Tabernacles would be instituted after arriving in the Promised Land.
Early on at Mt. Sinai, Yehovah entered into a blood covenant with Israel. God had to do certain things, and Israel had to do (and not do) certain things. Moses sprinkled the people with animal blood after the people agreed to obey the commandments of Yehovah, and be His priests to the rest of the nations. Whichever party broke the covenant would have to die, or find a willing innocent party to die in their place. In less than two months, Israel broke the covenant.
Every year on the Day of Atonement, the blood of bulls and sheep had to be sprinkled on the East End of the Arc of the Covenant, for the forgiveness of sins of the people, and as a temporary perpetual place holder for the death penalty that would eventually have to be paid. Meanwhile, God promised Moses that He would raise up a Prophet from among the sons of Israel, like unto Moses (a Levite). About 500 years later, Yehovah would promise King David that his offspring would sit on the throne and rule forever. Daniel was told that the Messiah would appear 483 years after the commandment was given to restore and build Jerusalem and the Temple. All three were the same person, Yeshua.
Israel entered the Promised Land in 1558 BC. There were six years of conquest, and 450 years of provincial rule by judges. Saul became king in 1102 BC, and ruled for forty years. One of the things he did wrong (in 1077 BC), was to allow the people to stop giving the land rest from planting once every seven years, as commanded by Yehovah (Leviticus 25:3-5). By the year 587 BC, 490 years had passed without the land having rest. So Israel (Judah) was enslaved in Babylon for 70 years, so that the land could then have rest. The united kingdom had split in 982 BC, with the northern ten tribes keeping the name “Israel”, and the tribes of Judah & Benjamin becoming the southern kingdom, with the name of “Judah”. The northern kingdom was conquered and disseminated in 722 BC, by Assyria.
While in Babylon, certain “cults” arose within Judaism, such as the Pharisees, and Sadducees. The (ungodly) Talmud was written, as a supplement to the (oral) Torah, where extra, needless, unnecessary, and in some cases foolish rules and customs were “written into” Jewish life. These were like the traditions you now see, such as the long hair locks, black attire, the Kippah, the ritual of washing the hands, and others that Yeshua often fought against (Mark 7:1-7, John 2:6-10, John 5:6-11), many times making the Pharisees angry by exposing their laws as being manmade and pointless.
One notable entry written in the Talmud that you won’t find in the Bible, was that the Messiah would heal the eyes of a man born blind. One of the ridiculous rules written in was that a person could not put saliva in one’s eyes. On the Sabbath day, when Jesus encountered the man that was born blind, He spit on the ground, made mud, and put it in the eyes of the man, and told him to go wash. The Pharisees, who were such evil hypocrites, and did not want to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, got mad that He used saliva, and healed the man on the Sabbath, breaking their rules, yet fulfilling what they had written in the Talmud. Read about in it in John chapter 9.
Israel failed in their task to keep the Torah, and to convey the truth of Yehovah to other nations. The Torah (the Law) identified sin, and was a guideline for living holy. But the Jews, as was everyone else, were born with a sin nature. The monarchial heyday of Israel was lost, and the people looked forward to the coming of the promised Messiah, who would “set everything right”. But the Jews put too much emphasis on a royal empire (return to glory), and not on salvation from sin. The Ark of the Covenant was hidden away in Mt. Moriah by Jeremiah and Levite priests in 587 BC, and the debt of the death penalty was forgotten by the people.
Unfortunately, Israel focused only on the aspect of the Messiah bringing peace to the world and re-establishing the earthly kingdom of Israel. They forgot, or purposely ignored 1) that the seed of the woman (Yeshua), would have a minor injury yet deliver a death blow to Satan, 2) that God would raise up a Levite Prophet (Yeshua) to lead the people back to the Torah, whom they must obey. What they only focused on was the promise that a descendant of David, the Messiah, would deliver Israel and rule the world from the throne of David forever, which again, is Yeshua (Acts 1:6). But that occurs upon His third coming, when He returns to Earth with His saints. His second coming is the defeat of the anti-Christ, the imprisonment of Satan, and the rapture.
Israel has had selective reasoning. They have ignored the meaning of the yearly rehearsals and Temple service that King David instituted, in preparation for the coming Messiah. Every year, on the tenth day of the first month (Aviv, or Nisan), a perfect lamb was chosen from the flocks in Bethlehem, and brought through the streets of Jerusalem up to the Temple Mount, with the people shouting “Hosanna in the highest, Messiah come, Messiah come”. The lamb was to be inspected for four days, and on the fourteenth day, the lamb is roasted in the oven to be eaten at sundown. On the following Sabbath, the First Fruits of the barley were offered in the Temple by the High Priest.
Israel did this every year, except for when they were in Babylon. What did they think those rehearsals were for? It was made clear in the Torah that the Anointed One would suffer, and be sacrificed for payment of the death penalty. Who would be qualified to pay the penalty, and when would the penalty be paid? Only the seed of a woman (Mary), and not the sin seed of Adam, could produce a (male earthling) child without sin. He would be the only qualified human to redeem the souls of mankind back from Satan, reversing what Adam did when he ate of the forbidden tree. Yehovah had to come to Earth Himself as Yeshua, being fully human at birth (the Son), and fully God (Divine) after returning from His forty days in the wilderness. Yeshua was, and yet is, Yehovah.
In 457 BC, the decree to restore Jerusalem and the Temple was given on the first day on the month of the Aviv (Ezra 7:6-28). Sixty-two sevens (weeks) and seven sevens later (483 years, there is no year zero), on the first day after the renewed Moon the previous sunset, being the first month of the new year, John the Baptist saw Jesus returning to the Jordan river after fasting forty days in the wilderness. It is then that John said “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world”, on Saturday, March 29, 27 AD.
Over a year later, on Saturday, April 24, the tenth day of Aviv, in the year 28 AD, while the High Priest was yet returning from Bethlehem, Yeshua rode a foal into Jerusalem with the people shouting “Hosanna in the highest”. He, being Yehovah, was the perfect Lamb of Yehovah. The scribes, Pharisees, and Jewish elders questioned Him for four days. He was “sacrificed” on the fourteenth (Wednesday), spilling His blood onto the West end of the Arc of the Covenant hidden below, arose before sundown on the evening of the seventeenth (Saturday), and took the First Fruits (resurrected 24 elders) to Heaven Sunday morning after telling Mary Magdalene “touch me not” (John 20:17).
In the next chapter, the Day of Pentecost, being the fulfillment of Mt. Sinai.
Herman Cummings
ephraim7@aol.com