Shavuot in the Torah

For those whom are observing Shavuot on Sunday, May 19^th here is a short post.

Shavuot occurs on the 50th day of the counting of the Omer. Because you always start counting the Omer on the day after the weekly Shabbat (Sabbath) of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Shavuot always occurs on a Sunday, the day after the seventh Sabbath. Shavuot is a high Sabbath, no work to be done.

This feast is also called Pentecost (a Greek word that means ‘counting 50’) because we count 50 days and is also called the Feast of Sevens or Weeks because we count seven weeks.

“Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to YHVH. On that same day you are to proclaim a sacred assembly and do no regular work. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live.” – Leviticus 23:16, 21

Once the Israelites were free from Egypt, they trekked through the desert until they came to Mount Sinai. While they camped at the base of the mountain, Moses went up to talk to the Almighty. YHVH told him to tell the people, “If you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people. For all the earth is mine, and you shall be a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.” And he told Moses, “Lo, I will come to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you and believe you forever.”

The people prepared themselves for two days, and on the third day, they gathered around the base of Mount Sinai. That third day, the Almighty spoke in an audible voice that shook the mountain and the people to their cores. It would surely be a day none of the people there ever forgot. And it is a day the Almighty never wants us to forget.

As the people watched, a thick cloud covered the mountain, lightning bolts ripped through the sky, and the mountaintop began to smoke like a furnace. The deafening sound of a trumpet blasted, thunder rumbled, the earth trembled, and everyone shook with fear. As the trumpet got unbearably louder and louder, Moses spoke to the Almighty, and the Almighty answered. All the people witnessed this and believed that Moses was sent by YHVH.

Then YHVH began speaking, and what he shouted from the mountaintop was what we now know as the 10 Commandments.

Shavuot during the Messiah’s Ministry - The Messiah often performed miracles on and around the feasts, and Shavuot is no exception. Early in his ministry, Yeshua healed a man on the seventh Sabbath, the day before Shavuot.

“And there was a certain man, which had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Yeshua saw him lying there, and knew that he had been infirm a long time, he said to him...” Rise! Roll up your bed and walk.’ Immediately the man was made whole, and he rolled up his bed and walked, and it was on the Sabbath day. The Pharisee leaders chastised the man that was cured, ‘It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry your bed.’ He answered them, ‘He that made me whole said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” – John 5:5-11 [CKJV]

As he often did, Yeshua used this Sabbath as an opportunity to teach the most repeated message of his ministry. The religious leaders (the Pharisees) had created thousands of extra rules and laws for the people to follow, calling them the “oral Torah.” One law was that a person couldn’t carry items a certain distance on Shabbat. Yeshua wanted all the people to understand that the Pharisee’s rules were NOT the Torah.

He wanted to set them free from the impossible-to-keep laws of the religious leaders. When he healed the man, he made sure to tell him to break the Pharisee rule about carrying items on Shabbat. Yeshua taught by demonstration what YHVH commanded us in Deuteronomy 4:2 – “You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish anything from it, that you may keep the commandments of YHVH your God which I command you.”

On the day of Shavuot, Yeshua taught in the Temple. He said, “TRUTH, I say to you, he that hears my word and believes in him that sent me has everlasting life” (John 5:24 CKJV). He also said, “The works that I do bear witness that the Father has sent me” (John 5:36 CKJV). Yeshua came to teach and show us the gift of the true Word of YHVH. On Shavuot at the end of the Messiah’s ministry, after he was crucified and raised from the dead, a final gift was given…

The Final Gift - “When the high day of Shavuot (Pentecost) had finally come, they were all together in one area of the Temple Mount. Suddenly there came a sound like a rushing mighty wind from heaven, and it completely filled the House of Prayer, where they were sitting. There appeared to them a pillar of fire, splitting apart and resting upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Ruach Kodesh (Holy Spirit) and began to speak in other languages as the Ruach gave them the articulation.

At that time, there were devout Yehudim from every nation under heaven dwelling in Yerushalayim for the Feast of Shavuot. When this incident was heralded abroad, the multitude came together, but they were confounded because every man heard them speak in his own language. They were all amazed and marveled, saying to each other, ‘Look! Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how do we hear each of them speak in the dialects of the nations in which we were born? We hear them speak the wonderful works of YHVH in our own languages!’” (The Acts 2:1-8, 11 CKJV).

This gift of the Holy Spirit demonstrates the renewed covenant with YHVH. He puts his Torah in our hearts, and we live with the power of the Holy Spirit within us.