Chapter VI The Jewish Feasts and Jubilee Years No study of Bible prophecy is complete without having a look at the Jewish feasts and jubilee years. It is widely accepted that the seven Jewish feasts as given to Moses by God, are highly symbolical of strategic New Testament events. Here again it is impossible not to notice the pattern of 7 that manifests itself in various ways. We need not dwell on this aspect here as it will become evident as we progress through the chapter. Now the Jewish feasts were ``a shadow of what was to come'' (Col 2:17). We must therefore have a look at their meaning and their sequence to obtain a perspective of the things to come. The seven Jewish feasts that are spelt out in Leviticus chapter 23 fall mainly into three annual groupings. These feasts, which were given to Moses before the Israelites entered the promised land, were in part based on the harvest times unique to Canaan. No other land climatically fitted these times. At the beginning of the Jewish year there were three feasts, during the barley harvest viz: (1) Passover (14th day of the 1st month ± Abib (Nisan) ± Lev 23:5) (2) The Feast of Unleavened Bread, which started the day after the Passover and continued for 7 days ± (Lev. 23:6) (3) The Feast of the First Fruits ± (Lev 23: 10, 11) Then during the wheat harvest, in the 3rd month Sivan: (4) The Feast of Pentecost was held 50 days after the Feast of the First Fruits. (Lev 23:15-17). This feast has traditionally been celebrated 50 days after the Passover Sabbath. 37
THE JEWISH FEASTS & JUBILEE YEARS Then in the 7th month Tishri there was: (5) The Feast of Trumpets (1st day of the month ± Lev 23:24) (6) The Day of Atonement (10th day of Tishri ± Lev. 23: 27-28) (7) The 7-day Feast of Tabernacles during which time the Israelites stayed in tents or huts as a reminder of their journeying through the wilderness. (Lev 23:33.34) These feasts are summarised in Table 6 below: Feast Date Description of Feast 1 14th day of 1st month Abib (or Nisan) 2 15th to 21 st day of 1st month Nisan Table 6: The Seven Jewish Feasts ± Leviticus Chapter 23 Passover Lamb is slain in remembrance of the 1st Passover in Egypt Feast of Unleavened Bread (Unleavened bread eaten for 7 days) 3 18th Nisan Feast of the First Fruits Wave offering, barley sheaves waved before the Lord on the day following the Sabbath Duration (Days) 1 (evening) Jewish Name of Feast Text Pesach 1 Lev 23:5 Deut 16:1-2 Num 28:16 7 Pesach 1 Lev 23:6-8 Num 28:17-25 Ex 12:18-20 New Testament Fulfilment Jesus was slain as our Passover Lamb (Good Friday) Holy Communion I Cor 11:26 Jesus in the grave (Jn 6:51 and 12:24) 1 Lev 23:10-14 The resurrection of Jesus i.e. day after the Sabbath (Easter Sunday) 4 50 days after First Fruits. 6th day of 3rd month, Sivan 5 1st day of 7th month Ethanim (or Tishri) 6 10th day of 7th month Tishri 7 15th to 21st day of 7th month Tishri Feast of Pentecost (or Feast of Weeks) Waving of the two loaves of leavened bread: Wheat Harvest Festival Feast of Trumpets Day of worship and rest, Trumpets blown Day of Atonement Day of Fasting, Abstinence and Rest Feast of Tabernacles (Tents) Time of rejoicing. Israelites dwelt in Arbor Tents (or Huts) for 7 days 1 Shavuot Lev 23:15-21 Deut 16:9-11 1 Rosh Hashanah Lev 23:24-25 Num 29:1-6 1 Yom Kippur Lev 23:27-32 Num 29:7-11 7 Sukkot (or Succoth) Lev 23:34-36, 39-43 Deut 16: 13-15 Num 29:12-34 Outpouring of Holy Spirit during Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4) The rapture of the saints with sound of the trumpet. I Cor 15:51,52 & I Thes 4:16,17 (First return of Jesus as a thief in the night) Atonement of Jewish Nation as they accept Jesus as Messiah (Second return of Jesus in glory) Zech 12:10, 13:1, Rom 11:26,27, Rev 19:11-21 Millennium kingdom ± 1 000 years of peace. Feast of Tabernacles kept by all nations (Zech 14:16) 38
WHEN IS JESUS COMING? So we see that each feast has its New Testament counterpart, in the same chronological order, as follows: OLD TESTAMENT FEAST NEW TESTAMENT FULFILMENT 1 PASSOVER Crucifixion ± Jesus was slain as our Passover Lamb 2 FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD Jesus in the grave 3 FEAST OF FIRST FRUITS Resurrection of Jesus 4 FEAST OF PENTECOST Outpouring of Holy Spirit on Day of Pentecost 5 FEAST OF TRUMPETS Rapture of the saints with the sound of the trumpet (I Thes 4:16,17) 6 DAY OF ATONEMENT Atonement of Jewish nation when they accept Jesus as Messiah at the end of the Tribulation (Zech 12:10, 13:1) 7 FEAST OF TABERNACLES 1 000 years peace ± Feast of Tabernacles observed by all nations (Zech 14:16). The fulfilment of the first four feasts is now history, while the last three still have to be fulfilled. And it is Feast No 5, the Feast of Trumpets, which is of particular importance to us at this point in time. This feast, as per God's instructions to Moses in Leviticus 23:24, was to take place on the first day of the seventh month Ethanim (or Tishri). If God the Father adheres to the above pattern then we would logically expect the rapture of the Saints to coincide with the Feast of Trumpets, (or Rosh Hashanah) in the near future. However, just to complicate matters, between biblical times and the present, an error has crept in resulting in the modern Jewish religious calendar being six months out of step with the original year cycle which started off with the month Abib (or Nisan) (Ex 12:2-14, Deut 16:1). This six month shift means that the Jews now start their New Year with the Feast of Trumpets which normally falls in September. For accurate chronological dating purposes, however, the Jewish New Year is taken to be 14 days prior to the spring Passover festival which normally falls in April. [During Israel's seventy year sojourn in Babylon their calendar acquired the names of the Babylonian months which are in use today, i.e. Tishri, Heshwan, Kislev, Siwan, Tammuz, etc. and for this reason both the Old Testament name and the new name are quoted in books on the subject, viz Abib/Nisan, Ethanim/Tishri, etc.] v v v v v Let's move on to Leviticus chapter 25. Lev 25:1-4 tells us that there was also a 7-year cycle and that every seventh year was to be regarded as the Sabbath Year or Year of Rest for the whole land. This ``week'' of years was called a Shavuah and the Sabbath Year was known as the Shemittah (Lev 25:1-7, Ex 23:10-11, Deut 15:1-2). During this year the Lord decreed that the ground must not be cultivated; it had to be given a rest. 39
THE JEWISH FEASTS & JUBILEE YEARS Today, especially in Israel, one can find in supermarkets etiquettes on the food products stating that they were not produced during the Shemittah. In Lev 25:8-10 God develops his theme of sevens even further laying down that after every seven of these seven-year periods (i.e. after every 49 years) there was to be a jubilee in the 50th year that followed. ``You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years so that the seven weeks of years amount to forty nine years. Then on the tenth day of the seventh month, you must sound a loud trumpet blast through the land; the trumpet blast shall sound aloud on expiation day. You must hallow the fiftieth year by proclaiming liberty to all the inhabitants of the land; it shall be a jubilee year for you'' (Lev 25:8-10). One could almost call it a Pentecost Year because it is reckoned in years in precisely the same way that Pentecost is reckoned in days, i.e. 7 2 7 + 1 = 50. (Lev 23:16) The word ``Jubilee'' derives from the Hebrew word for ``Ram's Horn'' so the Jubilee year literally means the ``year of the Ram's Horn'' and the trumpet referred to in the above scripture was actually a special ram's horn which was only blown by the priests on very special occasions. This Jubilee Year was to be a year of restitution, redemption, liberation and jubilation throughout the land. Outstanding debts were cancelled, slaves were set free and acquired land and properties were returned to the original owners; good reason indeed for country-wide rejoicing. The ground also had to rest during the jubilee year with no ploughing, sowing or reaping allowed. So the jubilee year was not only one of rejoicing and restoration, it was one of rest for the nation. This 50 year jubilee has a strong prophetic connotation 2 and points to the biblical millennium when God will forgive Israel's sin of rejecting his Son and restore them as his chosen race, giving them peace and prosperity for a thousand years. In Lev 25:8-9 we see that the jubilee year was proclaimed on the Day of Atonement of the 49th year, i.e. on the 10th day of the 7th month with the blowing of the trumpets. This is quite significant in that in all the other years the trumpets were only blown on the first day of the 7th month. Only once every 50 years were they also blown on the Day of Atonement, ten days later. At this point we must briefly digress to clear up an important principle. The scriptural definition of the jubilee period is 50 years (Lev. 25:8-10). This 50 year jubilee cycle subsequently became the ultimate unit of time reckoning of the agricultural calendar and was the largest unit of time reckoning in the Old Testament. In later times the 50 year jubilee appears to have been replaced by a 49 year jubilee period. In the ``Book of Jubilees'' which was written between 153 B.C. and 105 B.C. the jubilee period consists of only 49 years i.e. 7 consecutive sabbatical periods with the 50th year being completely disregarded. 3 Moreover, certain later rabbinic authorities likewise reckoned a jubilee period of only forty nine years which has traditionally persisted to the present time. This has distorted the picture somewhat. The author maintains that if God prescribed the jubilee period as fifty years then fifty years it should be, and not forty nine years, albeit the latter had more practical appeal to the Jewish Authorities. When dealing with prophetic periods, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with God's time reckoning and not man's interpretation or 40
WHEN IS JESUS COMING? adaptation thereof. The Holy Spirit was poured out when the ``day of Pentecost had fully come'' and not on the previous (49th) day. We have seen that the blowing of the ram's horn trumpets on the 1st day of the 7th month symbolises the rapture of the saints (compare I Thes 4:16, 17) and here we have the ushering in of the Jubilee Year on the Day of Atonement, 10 days later, also heralded with the blowing of trumpets which can be considered as typifying and pointing to the blowing of the heavenly trumpets at the End of the Age when the Messianic Dispensation is ushered in and the Jewish Nation finds permanent atonement. ``Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet and voices were heard in Heaven shouting: the sovereignty of the world has passed to our Lord and his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever'' (Rev 11:15). The fact that the jubilee year was to be proclaimed on the Day of Atonement is extremely significent. It means that God has linked the Jubilee Year periods to the Day of Atonement which we have seen is specifically symbolical of the great day of atonement for the Jewish Nation when they finally accept Jesus as Messiah at the end of the Age. Thus the Jubilee Year is a strong type of the final restitution of the Jewish Nation and the a thousand years of peace that follow: We therefore conclude that there is a distinct linkage between the jubilee periods and the End of the Age. So here we have an important clue. If we are to determine the `date' of the end of this age we must look for a period which derives from these 50 year jubilee periods. Since this period covers a time-span of thousands of years, logic dictates that these 50 year jubilee periods be regarded as finite building blocks of a much longer, over-arching, atonement period which would, by implication, be a multiple of these jubilee periods. ÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐ 1 Traditionally, the passover supper and the seven day feast of unleavened bread have been combinded into a single eight day festival called Pesach. 2 It is important to note that when God gave the Law to Moses and specified the Jubilee years, the solar years were in fact equal to the prophetic years, consisting of 360 days according to our reckoning in Chapter IV. The Jubilee periods therefore consisted of fifty, 360-day years. 3 ``The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible'' ± George Arthur Buttrick ± (Editor), page 1 002. 41