Blog Post: Yahuweh's Feasts - Dating the Festivals Part 1

[TWTY-Admin]

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[Juski]

Thanks Swalch

Very clearly written, and makes sense, horrah

[Rob]

tis true - good to see it laid out like that.

[YahTselem]

Reasoning is sound. I don't have any disagreements with it.. however, I'm going to dig into the translations to see and understand it for myself. Thanks a lot for the insights. I hope to comment after I look into it. I could care less if it falls on a Sunday.. if that's what Yah says, then that's all that matters.

[TWTY-Admin]

This'll probably help you quite a bit: http://biblos.com/leviticus/23-1.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[RidesWithYah]

How does this fit with your timeline:

In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even.

Exodus 12:18

Not saying you're wrong, as my understanding is similar (though not exact), just trying to reconcile the pieces.

[TWTY-Admin]

That does seem to be a bit of a conundrum.

Leviticus specifically says that Unleavened bread is from the 15th day of the month (Lev 23:6), yet Exodus 12:18 appears to want to count it from the fourteenth day of the month

[Rob]

ow nice catch. interesting.

[TWTY-Admin]

Checking the Hebrew of Exodus 12:18, whilst the Hebrew word translated as "evening" is the same as that seen in Exodus 12:6 ‘ereb/ערב, it is only ‘ereb's singular form, and not its dual form. It is also preceded by the preposition ba/ב meaning "in, at" and the definite article ha/ה meaning "the".

So the Hebrew literally says in Exodus 12:18: In the first month, at the fourteen day of the month, in (ba/ב) the (ha/ה) evening/sunset (‘ereb/ערב), all of you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month, in (ba/ב) the (ha/ה) evening/sunset (‘ereb/ערב).

Due to the fact that this is quite different from the "between the evenings/sunsets" as seen in both Exodus 12:6 and Leviticus 23:6, I think that "in the evening" is the ending evening/sunset of the fourteenth / beginning evening/sunset of the fifteenth, and so therefore the ending evening/sunset of the twenty-first / beginning evening/sunset of the twenty-second.

[RidesWithYah]

I get your logic, but didn't you say we should eat the Passover on the 14th, not the 15th?
The Passover is also eaten with unleavened bread.
So are you saying we eat unleavened bread eight days?
(Passover on the 14th plus seven days of the Feast)

[TWTY-Admin]

Whilst it certainly says that we're to eat unleavened bread with the passover meal (which happens during the night of the fourteenth, I'd reckon sometime around midnight), I don't think it says we're not to eat leavened bread at any other time on the fourteenth.

Edit:

Let's throw this into the mix as well.

With regards to Unleavened bread, Exodus 12:17 states this: And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever.

So, before they've even left Egypt, Yahweh has told the Yisra'elites that the first day of Unleavened bread is the day that He "brought [their] hosts out of the land of Egypt". So what "day" was this exactly?

Numbers 33:3-4 gives us the answer: They set out from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month. On the day after the Passover, the people of Israel went out triumphantly in the sight of all the Egyptians, while the Egyptians were burying all their firstborn, whom Yahweh had struck down among them. Yahweh also executed judgements on their gods.

I'm now absolutely certain that Unleavened bread is specifically from the fifteenth day of the first month.

[RidesWithYah]

We're instructed to remove the leaven on the 14th day;
and you're suggesting we can eat leaven on the 14th just not with the Passover.

So the timing might look like:

Sun goes down, starting Abib 14.
Prepare and eat the Passover, late at night, with unleavened bread.
Get some sleep.
Eat leaven with breakfast.
Clean house, get rid of leaven.
Sun goes down, start of Abib 15.
No More Leaven for seven days.
Start of set-apart miqra, aka "holy convocation".

I'm not meaning to be flip, but toast with my eggs after eating Passover doesn't seem right?
If it is, what's the symbolism of the "intermission" where we are allowed leaven between the Passover meal and the start of the feast?

[TWTY-Admin]

We're instructed to remove the leaven on the 14th day;

It does? I honestly can't see which verse is being referred to at the moment.

From what I can understand from Exodus 12:15, the first day of Unleavened bread is when we remove the leaven from the homes, not on the fourteenth:

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.

and you're suggesting we can eat leaven on the 14th just not with the Passover.

So the timing might look like:

Sun goes down, starting Abib 14.
Prepare and eat the Passover, late at night, with unleavened bread.
Get some sleep.
Eat leaven with breakfast.
Clean house, get rid of leaven.
Sun goes down, start of Abib 15.
No More Leaven for seven days.
Start of set-apart miqra, aka "holy convocation".

I'm not meaning to be flip, but toast with my eggs after eating Passover doesn't seem right?

I think that it's actually:

Sun goes down, starting Aviv 14.
Prepare and eat the Passover, late at night, with unleavened bread.
Don't sleep. Gotta be ready and alert.
Eat whatever you want with breakfast. Can be leaven, can be unleavened. Scripture says nothing to the contrary.
Don't do anything to your house, wait for sundown.
Sun goes down, start of Aviv 15.
Remove leaven from homes, and no more leaven for seven days, have a Miqra' assembly on this first day also.

If it is, what's the symbolism of the "intermission" where we are allowed leaven between the Passover meal and the start of the feast?

Dunno. Yahweh doesn't say. Possibly indicating the time when sin is going to be associated with the Messiah?

[YahTselem]

speaking of Exodus 12:15 and changing the subject to firstfruits.. The English versions render it as "on the first day you shall remove leaven"... but, the root word used (according to my limited ability to use logos) is shabbat (שׁבת). So, couldn't it be rendered as "you shall observe the sabbath by removing leaven from your homes"? If so, then perhaps Yah is saying that the first day of unleavened bread is a sabbath..

[TWTY-Admin]

Hmm, the Hebrew word I have for "first" is ri'shown/ראשון.

If you're referring to the word for "remove", that certainly is the Hebrew verb shabat/שבת (#H7673), however, if the Hebrew was referring to it as the Sabbath or a Sabbath day, then the Hebrew would have to appear exactly as שבת in the Hebrew text.

It actually appears as the active, plural, masculine, second person form of the verb (תשביתו/tashbituw), so it can only mean "you shall cease/desist/remove/eliminate/destroy/exterminate" something. In this case, it's leaven (שאר/sa'or).

Whilst looking at the root Hebrew words are great and all, you still have to look at how the word actually appears in the text itself so as to determine whether it's being used as a verb (to cease, rest), or a noun (Sabbath, the day of rest), or any of the other umpteen ways a Hebrew word can be used, heh.

It's the same thing with Greek and other languages

[YahTselem]

Hi Swalch. Thanks for the tip. I understand that it is a verb. In logos, when I went to that verse and then referenced the DBL Hebrew, it says the verb definitions for shabat are: 1.observe the sabbath 2. stop, put to an end 3. stop, put to an end, put to a stop.
so their very first rendering of the verb definition is "observe the sabbath".
not sure what you think of the DBL Hebrew, it just happens to be one I use when doing Hebrew translations. take a look for yourself if you use logos and let me know what ya think. THANKS

[TWTY-Admin]

Oh, the Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains?

I wouldn't put that high up on any list. You really want to be looking at either the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, or the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew-English Lexicon, extremely highly regarded dictionaries and Lexicons.

Both of them give "cease, desist, rest" as the primary meaning of shabat/שבת.

I also think the fact that the verb shabat/שבת is preceding the noun שאר/sa'or/leaven, the verb has therefore to be modifying the noun, so "you shall observe the sabbath leaven" makes absolutely no sense, and am quite confident that if Yahuweh had considered the first and last days of Unleavened bread to be Sabbath days, he most certainly would've had the noun shabbat/שבת in the text instead of the verb form as noted above

[BlessYahowah]

omitted

[TWTY-Admin]

Well, the fact that the DBLSD:H module has managed to put a definition of a word as its first meaning, but that everything else has put as the last definition of the word somewhat settles the "it's not that good".

It's also linked to the A Greek-English Lexicon based on Semantic domains, which obviously is useless when one wants a definition of the Hebrew word, this therefore makes DBLSD:H more or less redundant compared to BDB and the TWOT, or in fact, the Hebrew Lexicon found in Strong's Concordance.

And yes, Feast of Sevens/Weeks/Pentecost starts at Sundown on Saturday the 11th of June if you agree with the way it's been deduced in the blog and the discussion above