Released From the Support Team Study Vault! – Shavuot Feast of Oaths, where I look at whether the revelation at Sinai was given on Shavuot. May Yehovah cover us with His garment and bring us into His covenant by oath!
Released From the Support Team Study Vault! - Shavuot Feast of Oaths, where I look at whether the revelation at Sinai was given on Shavuot. May Yehovah cover us with His garment and bring us into His covenant by oath!
I look forward to reading your comments!
PODCAST VERSION:
Transcript
Support Team Study - Shavuot Feast of Oaths
Shalom, Support Team. This is a study recorded in 2014 shortly before leaving China. I lived there for a year as an English teacher, where I had 658 Chinese high school students. Back then, I recorded one of my first Support Team Studies, entitled Shavuot: Feast of Oaths. My time in China gave me the opportunity to pause for some reflection on my years of research and ministry, and the result was some pretty cool insights. The sound quality is pretty bad, but it’s still worth listening. And here it is.
Shalom guys, and happy Shavuot, Chag Shavuot Sameach! This is the second installment of… I don’t know what we’re calling this. “Nehemia rambling about the Torah!” I like that name. I don’t know… Anyway, I sent one out last week, and there was some good, positive feedback, and I decided I’m going to do another one for Shavuot for those who have supported my ministry, and really just to thank you guys. It’s really important and means a lot that you've supported my ministry; it’s allowed me to get the message out and do what I’m doing.
Anyway, I want to talk to you today about Shavuot, the holiday of Shavuot, and I wrote an article, a study that was on the internet. I think it was written in 1998; I could be wrong. And actually, it occurred to me, one of my students told me last night that it’s her birthday today. She said, “Tomorrow’s my birthday.” And we’re going to do something in class for her, and “When were you born?” “1999.” And I thought, “Wow! I have a study on the internet that’s older than this student!”
And it made me start to really think about it; that’s a lifetime for this little girl. And what’s happened to me in that lifetime? And I think one of the things that’s happened to me is, if you look at the things I wrote back in 1998, and that period, and certainly the way I remember it, in a sense I was very reactionary. And what I mean by that is, I had come out of Rabbinical Judaism, and I was what I call the “ex-smoker.” I had been a smoker, that is, a Rabbinical Jew, and I had realized that this is bad; this isn’t truth, and I’ve got to give it up. I’ve got to walk away from smoking, and I had some of that “ex-smoker syndrome”. You know what? I had some of the spirit of Shimi, I’ll be honest with you. If you don’t know who Shimi is, you need to listen to this program that Keith and I did on the spirit of Shimi. I think it’s called The Power of Positivity or something like that. It really is, I think, one of the best things I’ve ever done. I’m not saying it to brag, it’s just when I listened to it afterwards, I was like, “Did I say those things? Wow!” I give Yehovah credit for all the correct stuff, and all the bad stuff I’ll take credit.
Anyway, I was somewhat reactionary, and when it came to Shavuot, one of the things I had been taught was that Shavuot is the festival celebrating the revelation at Sinai. And my response was, “Where does it say that? You guys are making stuff up.” And no one has ever been able to show me where it said that. What they were able to say is, “Well, it says it in the Gemara, it says it in the Oral Law, in the Talmud.” “It says it in this Midrash, in this Oral Law.” No one was able to ever show me a verse or a word or anything that showed me a connection between Shavuot and the revelation at Sinai.
And when I did look at the Tanakh, what I saw was Shavuot has two functions, and really the same function. One is, it’s called Chag Ha’katzir, obviously it’s called Chag Ha’Shavuot, “The Feast of Weeks”, but it’s also called Chag Ha’katzir, “The Feast of Harvest”, and it’s also called Yom Ha’Bikkurim, “The Day of First Fruits”.
Now, in the Christian Messianic World there’s some huge confusion. A lot of people think “The Day of First Fruits”, a term that appears in Numbers 28, refers to the day of the Omer Offering, but that is not the case. Read it in its context it clearly is referring to Shavuot. It lists all of the feast days in which work is forbidden and certain sacrifices are brought. Yom Ha’Bikkurim is “The Day of the First Fruits,” which is another name for Shavuot. The day of the Omer Offering doesn’t actually have a name in The Tanakh. Anyway, I digress.
So, it’s a harvest festival, and I can understand, today we live in the 21st century. And even the rabbis living two thousand years ago in their cities, in Israel most of the peasants were farmers, these were the elite of society. Harvest-shmarvest, what did they care about a harvest festival? They had to find more meaning in it, they wanted to look for a spiritual meaning.
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I think you’re missing the fact that they did have the 10 commandments since in God personally spoke them out loud to them (ch 20). The 10 Commandments became the basis of the Covenant which they all agreed to and which God then inscribed on 2 tablets of stone which Moses took back down with him and then broken them physically because the children of Israel had already broken their promise to keep them.
Shalom dear brother, it’s as though I wrote this post, I fully agree with all you wrote. May dear LORD bless you abundantly, 🙏🏻
nothing was revealed early in the third month. Moses/ Moshe was called up the mountain 40 days. No Israeli had any concept whatsoever of Ten Commandments till Moses came down the mountain. This is topic is something akin to dog’s testicles. It stands out.
When the Trumpet sounded loud the Children did not go up. The gathering at Mt Sinai was the biggest fail since Adam in the garden. Israel were being collectively offered a chance to be Kings and Priests. They baulked. 40 days plus later they are dancing around a golden calf. They still didn’t have the ten commandments because Moses just smashes the first edition. Sinai represents one disaster following another. It is a Greek tragedy and farce all wrapped up in one. Would I have done any better?
20/20 vision is a wonderful thing.
Leviticus 23.16 is one of the greatest curve balls in history.
the counts are consecutive. Not concurrent.
7 weeks shall be complete and then number 50 days. This takes us to when Ezra renews the covenant; after Jeremiah is fulfilled. God would cause them to forget. Lamentations erased the national memory.
As I write this next sunday is Day 1
Explanation of why indeed Shavuot is the Feast of Oaths at Sinai. Recorded in 2014 from Nehemiah’s Team Study in China where for one year he taught 658 Chinese high school students. Nehemiah recommends that we listen to his talk with Keith Johnson possibly entitled “The Power of Positivity” about the Spirit of Shimmy from 1998. I also enjoyed Nehemiah’s talk on Diversity at the university one hour from his home in Texas. In that talk he explains why finding the answers is so important to him. For example, why he doesn’t accept things at face value. And why it was so important to find the actual record/diary from Auschwitz with the account of the Polish Rabbi at Auschwitz before being put to death placing his hat on his head and proclaiming YHVH’s name with the Shema. He also mentioned the movie ‘Son of Saul’ which was available at the Milwaukee County Catalog/Public Library. It depicts the Polish prisoner who took a photo of the outdoor burning of those Jews that had been gassed. The crematorium could not keep up because so many Jews and compatriots were being killed at one time in Germany.
Thank you! … again!
I just have to say, sometimes I’m sorry I listen to you, because you make it impossible to think about anything else the rest of the day! Thank you so much for what you do, and I for one am much more concerned with content that presentation!
Makes such good sense! Thanks!
Thanks for this teaching. It appears from Ezekiel 16 that the covenant at Mt Sinai was likened to a marriage covenant.
Shalom Nehemia,
As I was listening to this recording again, I noticed you said nobody knows exactly when the revelation at Sinai occurred.
Does not Ex 19:1 state in the 3rd month, that SELFSAME DAY, indicate the 1st day of the 3rd month? i.e. the New Moon?
Now I realize there is a difference between the actual new moon date and the “sighting method,” as adopted by Jews (that I can’t find in scripture) I also know you have a podcast concerning new moons that I need to review again – but does not scripture point to the 3rd day after the start of the new 3rd month? 3rd month, 3rd day, which in 2020, Chicago time, wouldn’t the anniversary be the eve after Shabbat – 5/23 and day of Sunday 5/24/2020 by actual new moon and/or a couple days later as Jewish people’s wait for actual sighting?
Toda rabba
7 more days to the renewal of the covenant at Senai, 2020 ?
I love this. I have used almost the exact words to teach my handicapped adult son about the relationship of Israel and Yehovah and I was right. It is a beautiful story. Thank you again Nehemia for making all this much more understandable.
Nehemia,
Excellent lesson as always.
Sound quality was a little difficult at times, along with trying to follow back and forth with Jubilees verses that I read online with you. You move quickly. It seemed to me that the covenants with Noah in Jubilees were about eating no blood with the flesh AND the rainbow covenant, and that was what I took Jubilees to be referring to, when they renewed the covenant from year to year. The rainbow and not eating blood covenant renewal.
The only verse I saw in Jubilees that even hinted about the Sinai covenant might have been verse 6:11, as it spoke about making a covenant with Israel on the mountain. Unfortunately, I did not see much of a link between Jubilees and the Commandments. Not saying you are wrong, because NUMEROUS times I have been proven wrong by your knowledge, however, I did understand the concepts between seven and oaths.
I myself, have always thought that Shavuot/Pentecost/Feast of Weeks was a set day, always on the first day of the week, after the 7th Sabbath, and Yehovah speaking the 10 commandments to Israel occurred on the 3rd day of the 3rd month EX 19:1,11. Though they both occur about the same time, new moon dates change, whereas the Feast of weeks seems to always be a set day of the week. But I do not have the knowledge, education, experience, upbringing in Judaism, etc.. that you have.
Shalom. Thanks and be blessed.
Phillip,
It was not 100 days from Passover/Unleavened Bread to Shavuot/Pentecost/Feast of Weeks. It was 7 weeks, or 50 days.
In the NT Pentecost is said to have been an early morning event when the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) came down upon the believers in the upper room.
But where you are mistaken is that you do not understand that Yehovah God counts time from evening to evening, basically sundown to sundown/darkness to darkness. There was evening and morning, day 1 of creation. Evening and morning, day 2, etc… Darkness preceded light, so darkness begins each day.
As for Jesus rising on Sunday morning, that is a concept devised by pagan Romans – the Catholic Church who knew so little about Yehovah it isn’t funny, but sad. Yeshua said in MT 12::28-40 He would be 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth. Since He was placed in the tomb at the gpoing down of the sun, this phrase probably is mistranslated and should read 3 nights and 3 days, since He began His internment as evening was beginning. Mark 15:42-43
Therefore, He would have resurrected as evening began the NIGHT before, so of course He was gone in the early morning at or before daylight on the 1st day of the week. He resurrected the night before as the Sabbath was ending! Sunday was just the first chance the women got to come to the grave after observing the 7th day Sabbath (Saturday) and then sleeping through the night.
By the way, besides not resurrecting on a Sunday morning, He was NOT crucified on Good Friday either. To believe that doctrine is to call Messiah a liar. I will pay $1,000 to the first person who can show me just one minute of a third night between Friday sunset to Sunday morning. There is Friday night and Saturday night, two nights, yet Yeshua specifically said 3 days AND 3 NIGHTS. To believe otherwise is to call the Messiah a liar, something Catholic founders had no problem doing, and then Christianity followed in Catholicism’s footsteps of lies. Shalom.
Phillip,
Aaron would not have KNOWN to be staging a feast while Moses was on the mountain receiving the law. Lest I’m mistaken, and I often am, per accepted scripture, the ONLY Feast Israel had knowledge of at the time was Passover, since they had been slaves in Egypt some 200+ years of the 430. How could Aaron have been conducting a feast before he even knew it would be a feast day?
As for wine, grapes are harvested in the fall or maybe early summer. Ancients DID NOT have the storage capabilities we have today, and likely not the knowledge of boiling and preserving with vacuum sealing. Therefore, ANY grape juice saved until spring would have HAD to have been fermented into wine OR turned into vinegar.
As for the fourth month, Ex 19:1 reveals that it was the 3rd month (Chodesh meaning new moon or month,) when Yehovah spoke to all Israel at Mt. Sinai. Verse 19:11 reveals that Israel was to be ready against the 3rd day.
As Nehemia pointed out in this podcast, it was, give or take, 45 days from leaving Egypt that they came to Mt. Sinai, GIVE or TAKE. Add 3 days to the new moon makes it, give or take, 48 days of the 50.
Jews, if I’m not wrong, sought to see the new moon sliver before declaring it a new moon, which adds at least a day or two, thus 48+2=50. This is approximates since I was not there, neither do I know much of anything compared to Nehemia. Be blessed.
Garry, Seven Sabbaths shall be complete. A Sabbath occurs every 7 days, so 7 days (week) x 7 Sabbaths = 49 days, to the morrow AFTER the seventh Sabbath, 49 + 1 = 50 days. Unlike you,I do not see how your quote adds 50 days to the 7 weeks or seven Sabbaths.
Pentecost fully come means it was a Sunday, Eighth day, early morning event.
Just like the resurrection.
The question is was it 100 days from the Resurrection. Seven Sabbaths passed and then fifty days counted out.
Hidden in plain sight.
There’s something else.
the passover was always to be celebrated with bread made from flour from last years crop.
because nothing could be harvested until after passover and the festival of first fruits.
the next offering is Shavuot with bread made from the current year.
ie. the passover had to be Old Testament sinless.
the Pentecost is New Testament sinners saved bread with leaven \ for New Wine in New Wine Skins,
Shavuot is full summer. LIke the midnight hour with Ruth at the threshing floor. Merry with wine.
Naomi is the OT faithful but with dead sons/ rabbinical judaism
Ruth is the Gentile Bride.
They were sleeping out in the open because it was full summer.
I agree.
the New Wine was in.
a new grain offering, implies planted in the same year, from the spring.
Moses came down with the tablets at the time Aaron was staging a feast, it seems it was an appointed feast.
It would have been in the fourth month, late in the fourth month,
Jesus said, four more months to the harvest.
It would be fabulous if a great linguist could attend to this. But isn’t it a fact that an expert, a real expert, can fail to see things hidden in plain sight. cheers in Jesus
Lev 23:15-16 And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete: Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.
Is this saying the feast of weeks is seven weeks plus an additional 50 days after the seven weeks? That is how I read it. Is there something wrong with the translation?
Another connection made is in the book Acts, when on Shavuot 3,000 observant Jews were added to the numbers of Yeshua believers, where as when we received the tablets of the Covenant, 3,000 people were killed for disobedience.
Shalom, brother. Thank you for your tireless efforts in educating us?
Thank you for this brilliant article. In support of what you said we can look in the book of Yashar for further ‘proof’ In chapter 82:6 we read:
‘And in the third month from the children of Israel’s departure from Egypt, on the sixth day thereof, the Lord gave to Israel the ten commandments on Mount Sinai’.
I am not holding the extra-biblical books on par with the Tanach, but if it supports the construct, why not use it?
Thank you for this teaching Nehemia. Would love to be apart of your study group, so exciting to learn new revelation.
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
Shalom, Nehemia!
I have downloaded this both to my computer and MP3 player and have found parts of it to be difficult to understand the words being spoken 🙂 and I was wondering if it would be possible to get a transcription version for I appreciate your in-depth studies and like to look through the Scripture references as well. Because I do not speak biblical Hebrew it is sometimes hard to understand it when you do so the transcribed articles are more beneficial that way to myself and possibly to others out there wishing to also understand what you have said in Hebrew.
Another query for you: would you be able to share with us how to celebrate this special chag of Yehovah’s outside of Yis’re’al where bikuriym are not available at this time of year due to being too early in the year for such produce; how would one share with other people Yehovah’s blessings? I live in a remote northern part of the States and do not quite know how to do this; doubt that I am the only person with this dilemma 🙂
Be blessed this Chag Shavu’ot – Bikuriym as you speak here in the States and celebrate this special occasion.
Thank you Nehemia. This is very good. Here is an interesting spin on why Jehovah said, “Not the covenant I made with your Fathers…” Not saying it is right, but consider it another perspective perhaps.
Just like there is a Feast of First Fruits, there is the former rain that watered the first harvests. Also there is a latter rain that waters the latter harvests. What if the covenant Jehovah is describing is yet to be fulfilled in regards to this latter harvest?
Jeremiah 31:27-34 describes sowing the House of Israel and the House of Judah with the “seed of man.” It describes Yehovah bringing His people back and Gentiles who want to be a part of the covenant, and making them new. It is literal but also describes this heart change, a conversion if you will that is different than what happened with the first covenant made from Sinai.
I agree the covenants are the same, but the results seem to be dramatically different. Now with this latter renewing of the covenant the people are changed and following His Laws wholeheartedly vs. the first group of Israelites in the wilderness, who honestly, most of them gave Yehovah lip service but rebelled and had to be killed.
Just a twist as I said. What do you think? Could not this be describing future events of Yehovah renewing Israel and whoever takes the name of Jehovah, their hearts, and renewing the Land of Israel?
I never got around to hearing this in 2014, but it was worth the wait! A few years ago I was pondering the commandment to hear the teruah at Yom Teruah, and it dawned on me that one possible reason might be to tie it to Shavuot as the Feast of Oaths, when the shofar blew louder and louder. Since the sound of the shofar is sometimes tied to the teruah, at Yom Teruah, we are reminded of our oaths at Shavuot and now we are held to account, to see how we have done in holding to our oath. Thanks for this Shavuot teaching, it was terrific!
With your recent teaching on Shemitah and now Shavu’ot it has caused another question to arise in my mind about the keeping of time and the date of which year we are now in. If you could, would you please explain how and why the various differences have come about and what is the year?
I appreciate the fountain of knowledge that flows through and in you from Yehovah’s Ruach, enriching the rest of us and encouraging us to keep studying and digging to learn His truth.
Shalom!
Thank you Nehemia, really enjoyed listening to this audio and looking forward to celebrating Feasts of Oaths from now on.
Good food! Thanks so much, and looking forward to more from you!
shalom from Jerusalem- Miri~
Beautiful, thank you for your help and both Dev and you taking the time to do this! Shabbat shalom!
Thank you for this learning.
The biblical Shavuot *cannot* occur before the Fourth Day of the Third Month – how do you interpret the chronology of Exodus 19? I interpret it to say that the revelation occurred on the third day of the month. (I am open to the possibility that Exodus 19:1 is not referring to Rosh Chodesh; but I think that is a strained reading given the “bayom hazeh” language.)
FWIW, and as you know, two of the more prominent Karaites Yeshua Ben Yehudah (who is about as Karaite as they come) and Eliyahu Bashyatzi (who had rabbanite influences, to say the least) connected Shavuot with the Revelation. So the view is within the spectrum of Karaite thought, and even today in Karaite synagogues we read Parashat Yitro on the Ten Commandments, because of the timing connection.
Everyone agrees that the revelation happened *around* the time of Shavuot. And everyone (for the most part) agrees the words “seven”/”week”/”oath” are connected.
But frankly I think the fact that we have to bring references from completely unrelated verses to try to prove something that was never stated in the most relevant verses makes it very doubtful that the events occurred on the same day.
Yah bless, Nehemia; About your title scripture on the email from Ez 16:8. It has been my conviction that the masorets “enhanced” the vowel points on “adoni” (my master?) to make it conform to their replacement for YHWH to lend the replacement extra credibility. Your thoughts?
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