MAY 7, 2023 Deuteronomy 20:19 When you besiege a city for a long time, while making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; if you can eat of them, do not cut them down to use in the siege, for the tree of the […]
MAY 6, 2023 Deuteronomy 20:19 When you besiege a city for a long time, while making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; if you can eat of them, do not cut them down to use in the siege, for the tree of the […]
MAY 5, 2023 Deuteronomy 20:8 The officers shall speak further to the people, and say, “What man is there who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, lest the heart of his brethren faint like his heart.” In this and the previous verses, certain allowances are made for those who can’t or shouldn’t fight […]
MAY 4, 2023 Deuteronomy 20:1 When you go out to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, do not be afraid of them; for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Many years ago, there was a popular song that contained this lyric: “I beg your […]
MAY 3, 2023 Deuteronomy 19:21 Life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. What, exactly, did Moses mean by this statement? In times past, this has occasionally been interpreted quite literally, whereby people lost eyes, hands and feet for different offenses. There are cultures, even today, who will […]
MAY 2, 2023 Deuteronomy 19:15 One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established. Justice is so important in the Kingdom of God that, even if someone had committed a sin against another, if […]
MAY 1, 2023 Deuteronomy 19:14 You shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. From the very beginning of Creation, we see that boundaries are important to the Almighty. From Day One, […]
The Bible refers to the Tabernacle as the Ohel Mo'ed (אהל מעד), a term that our English Bibles translate as “Tent of Meeting.” The word mo'ed can refer to an appointed time or place. The Tabernacle was God's appointed place to meet with man at His appointed times. Leviticus 23 presents a list of God's appointed times (mo'adim, מעדים). They are the holy days which He appointed to meet with His people Israel.
The Master tells the story of how a certain king was giving a wedding feast for his son. He sent out his servants to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast. The servants had two critical pieces of information. They were to declare the appointed time and the appointed place of the banquet. As God summoned Israel to appear before Him, He decreed an appointed place and appointed times. The appointed place was the Tabernacle (and in later years, the Temple in Jerusalem.) The appointed times are the biblical festivals.
Since the destruction of the Temple, the appointed place has been removed, but the appointed times continue. God explains that the appointed times are to be “a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places” (Leviticus 23:14). That means that they are never to be cancelled. They are never obsolete or done away with. They are to be celebrated and observed wherever we live.
The appointed times are part of the biblical calendar. The biblical calendar is a lunar calendar. It is based on the phases of the moon. The waxing and waning of the moon determines the day of the biblical month. The tiny sliver of the new moon always appears on the first day of the month; the full moon indicates the middle of the month; the disappearance of the moon indicates the end of the month.
In Leviticus 23 God declares certain days on the biblical calendar to be mo'adim, that is, “appointed times.” They include the weekly Sabbath, the Feasts of Passover and Pentecost, Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Booths.
It is not uncommon to hear people refer to the appointed times as the Jewish festivals. This is true in that God gave His appointed times to the people of Israel. He told the Israelites, “The LORD's appointed times which you shall proclaim as holy convocations—My appointed times are these” (Leviticus 23:2). The Jewish people are the wardens of God's calendar.
However, God does not refer to them as Jewish festivals. He refers to them as “my appointed times.” They are God's holy days. Paul asks, “Is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also” (Romans 3:29). The Bible never offered Gentile Christians any alternative festival days. To say that Gentile believers are not expected to keep God's appointed times is the same thing as saying that Gentile believers are not supposed to have any holy days or days of worship. Neither the Gospels nor the Epistles grant the Gentile believers their own special festivals.
In the days of the Apostles, both Jewish and Gentile believers observed God's appointed times together. They met in the synagogues and in the Temple on the Sabbath and festival days to celebrate and observe God's holy days. When Gentile Christianity left the cradle of Judaism, the Gentile Christians began to neglect the appointed times. The Sabbath day was replaced with Sunday observance. The timing of Passover was changed. The other festivals fell into disuse. Is this what God intended for believers?
It is true that the Apostles never commanded the Gentile believers to keep the appointed times, but neither did they tell them not to. They were silent on the matter. In those days, the idea of not keeping the appointed times simply had not occurred to anyone.
Emor – ×מור : “Say” Torah : Leviticus 21:1-24:23 Haftarah : Ezekiel 44:15-31 Gospel : Luke 18-20
APRIL 29, 2023 Deuteronomy 18:21-22 If you say in your heart, “How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?” When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid […]
APRIL 28, 2023 Deuteronomy 18:15-16 The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, “Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this […]
