MAY 13, 2022 Leviticus 23:3 Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. In Ecclesiastes 3, Solomon declared that everything has a season and that there is a reason for every season. Inferred in […]
MAY 12, 2022 Leviticus 23:2 Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: “The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.” As I explained in the previous devotional, the Hebrew word moedim is literally translated as “appointed times.” This is the plural form of the root, moed, which means […]
MAY 10, 2022 Leviticus 23:2 Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: “The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.” When it comes to the Biblical feasts such as Passover or the Feast of Trumpets, there is a widely held misconception that these are “Jewish feasts.” While it […]
MAY 10, 2022 Leviticus 22:10 No outsider shall eat the holy offering; one who dwells with the priest, or a hired servant, shall not eat the holy thing. In the Sanctuary, anything that was considered holy could not be used for any common purpose. For instance, the shovels and pans used to gather the coals from the altar […]
MAY 9, 2022 Leviticus 22:1-2 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they do not profane My holy name by what they dedicate to Me.” Pursuant to the command we read in the previous devotion, this command emphasizes the need for the […]
MAY 8, 2022 Leviticus 21:16 Speak to Aaron, saying: “No man of your descendants in succeeding generations, who has any defect, may approach to offer the bread of his God.” On the surface, this sounds pretty harsh because, after all, who is the One who creates man? Why would He allow someone to be born with a defect and […]
The Torah commanded the Israelites to bring the “sheaf of the first fruits” of the grain harvest to the Temple on the day after the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread. The first grain to ripen in the land of Israel is the barley crop. The harvest ritual of offering the first fruits of the barley harvest in the Temple is called the Day of the Omer. An omer (עוֹמֶר) is a biblical unit of measure that indicates about one sheaf's worth of grain.
Coming immediately after the first day of the week of Unleavened Bread, the Day of the Omer is the anniversary of the Master's resurrection. According to the gospel of John, the Master suffered on the day of Passover. He remained in the tomb on the first day of Unleavened Bread and rose after the Sabbath: the day of the Omer.
Year after year, the day of the first fruits of the barley reminds us of the resurrection of Messiah, the “first fruits of those who are asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20).
The day of the first fruits of the barley offering is day one of a forty-nine day count-off to the festival of Pentecost. Pentecost is the fiftieth day. The name Pentecost is derived from the Greek word for “fifty.”
The Torah commands us to count each of the intervening days. The forty-nine-day count-off is called the “counting of the omer.” During the forty-nine days of the omer count, the wheat crop in Israel ripened. By the end of the omer count, the crop was ready for harvest, and the first fruits of the wheat crop were offered as a bread offering in the Temple at Pentecost.
The days of the counting of the omer are an important part of the cycle of sanctification for believers. In Judaism, the forty-nine days of the counting of the omer are traditionally regarded as a time of spiritually shining up the soul in anticipation of Pentecost. In Messianic Judaism, the forty-nine days are extra special because they include the anniversary of the forty days that the risen Messiah was among His disciples; they include the anniversary of His ascension, and they culminate with the anniversary of the day the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the believers. As we count our way through the forty-nine days, we are advancing along the cycle of sanctification.
Fifty days later comes the festival of Pentecost. It is called Pentecost because that is the Greek word for “fifty.” Its Hebrew name is the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot, שָׁבוּעוֹת) because there are seven weeks of days between the beginning of Unleavened Bread and the festival of Pentecost.
According to Judaism, the day of Pentecost is the anniversary of the day God spoke the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai. According to the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the Master's resurrection.
We are all on a journey with our Creator. Our journeys are full of purpose and design. And, like all travelers, we make constant choices to move ahead, stand still, drift, or fall backwards. The seed of redemption planted in us at Passover has forty-nine days to grow and mature until the harvest of Pentecost. These days of counting provide a natural and timely opportunity to consider our path and make goals about our destinations.
Emor – ×מור : “Say” Torah : Leviticus 21:1-24:23 Haftarah : Ezekiel 44:15-31 Gospel : Luke 18-20
MAY 7, 2022 Leviticus 21:10-12 He who is the high priest among his brethren, on whose head the anointing oil was poured and who is consecrated to wear the garments … shall not go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God; for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is upon him: I am the Lord. Needless […]
MAY 6, 2022 Leviticus 21:8 Therefore you shall consecrate him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I the Lord, who sanctify you, am holy. Though it is not clearly stated in this verse, rabbinic sources interpret this verse to say that being consecrated to “offer the bread of your God,” the priests […]
MAY 5, 2022 Leviticus 21:1-2, 4 Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: “None shall defile himself for the dead among his people, except for his relatives who are nearest to him … Otherwise he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself.” On many occasions, God reminds Israel […]
