Hello Steve,
I just want you to know that your tenacious love for Yahweh’s word thrills my heart. You don’t find too many believers today who love getting into His word. It’s a blessing just to know you all are looking into the truth.
Here’s what you just wrote to me: “As I’ve stated before, I am currently trying to update the end of Days series.
“I’m in agreement with what you mention here except for one point. Please be open here….I don’t see a need of having to start counting from 1949 but rather 1948. The feast of weeks does not last for 50 days. It’s a one day feast that happens 50 days after First Fruits.
“Deut. 16:16 Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, theFeast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. No man should appear before the LORD empty-handed:”
Gene: So why is it called the Feast of Weeks and not the Feast of Week, or the Feast of One Day? To break the 50th day away from the seven complete Sabbaths, or the 49 day count, is to break the symmetry of the Feast. It is a 50 day Feast, beginning with the first of the First Fruits wave offering on the day after the Sabbath during Unleavened Bread and ending with the two wave loaves offering on the 50th day. Otherwise, it’s like having a Temple without Jerusalem, or the crown without the King, or the King without a kingdom, or the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, Day FIFTY, without first having the Resurrection of Yahshua on day ONE!! You end up with a piece of a Feast, but not the whole that I believe Yahweh wants us to have and learn from. We certainly wouldn’t want to miss the promise of Yahshua’s Advent 2.0 made on day FORTY, His Ascension day. At the very least, the 49 days represents the harvest season, with the celebration of that harvest on the 50th day. It’s a picture of the Jubilee, Yahshua’s Advent 2.0 and all of redemption! The two loaves wave offering is the final First Fruits offering, per Leviticus 23:17 (NKJV) “You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to Yahweh.”
As a side note: You probably already know this, that in Matthew 28:1, and other places in the NT, the word is weeks, not week. The two Marys went to the tomb sometime during that first week of the Feast of Weeks in 30 CE, not necessarily on a Sunday.
Of course, you can begin counting Daniel’s 70 Feasts of Weeks in whichever year you believe is correct.
Steve: “Thus, the first Feast of weeks that should be counted is the one immediately after them becoming a nation in 1948. This would take us all the way to 2017 to total the 70. If this is the case, this would mean that the 3 1/2 years would start in 2014 around passover. The time the blood moons tetrads begin. Which kind of makes sense since the last ones that happened there was war too. Also, this keeps the 50 year cycle intact from the 6 day war in ’67. Maintaining that the land is returned sometime in the 50th year. Otherwise, it would seem that the 50 years is meaningless.”
Gene: 1967 was an interesting year. On Ezekiel’s Jubilee calendar, 1967 was the 7th year of the 6th Septennate, or the 42nd year, SEVEN years BEFORE an Ezekiel Jubilee Year would have been announced! I could be mistaken in that, but I still have much work to do just on the Ezekiel Jubilee.
If we choose to declare that the 6 Day War occurred during a Jubilee year, then that Jubilee year began either on Tishri 10, 1966, or on Nisan 1, 1967, depending on which scholar’s Jubilee teaching you follow. That means we began counting the current Jubilee cycle in 1966/1967, year One, because according to the biblical and historical pattern of Jubilee, the 50th year is tucked inside of the 49 year cycle as the first year of the next Jubilee cycle. This means that our next Jubilee would be announced on Tishri 10 of the 49th year, which will be in 2014 CE! The Jubilee Year, or 50th year then begins either on Tishri 10, 2014, or Nisan 1, 2015 and thus ends in 2016 CE! At least one school of thought states that the 49th year IS the Jubilee year, thus 2014/2015 will be the Jubilee year! This current Jubilee cycle never reaches to 2017 or 2018, unless you move to a straight 50 year Jubilee cycle, which breaks the symmetry taught in Scripture, of seven seven day periods, or seven seven year periods. Yahweh’s Feasts are pretty amazing and will take an eternity to learn all that He wants us to learn. The 50 years is never meaningless, we just have to get inside Yahweh’s great mind to learn the significance of 49 and 50 years! It really is the whole story of redemption taught over and over again for all eternity!
If we began counting the current Jubilee cycle in 1967/1968, as year ONE, the year AFTER the Jubilee year of 1967, then the next Jubilee will be announced on Tishri 10 of 2015 and the 50th year will begin on either Tishri 10, 2015 or Nisan 1, 2016, thus ending in 2017! Hebrews will be arguing these points until Yahshua returns and straightens us out. Actually, Moses and Elijah as the two witnesses may be the ones to get us straightened out before our King returns. That would be a great help and much less embarassing for us on Coronation Day, or at Yahshua’s Advent 2.0.
Whenever Yahshua announces the next Jubilee, we know we Hebrews will be allowed to return to our own land possessions, wherever we are in the world at the time. Personally, I’m looking forward to regaining my Grandpa’s two farms for my family and my cousins. Will that occur in the 2000 teens, twenties, or thirties? I don’t know yet. Well, now you have my thoughts, use as you see fit.
Yahweh is impressing me to share another thought on the Feast of Weeks. Look at Leviticus 23:15 (NKJV) “And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed.” Yahweh is into completeness, wholeness, that is His nature. The fiftieth day completes the forty nine day count. The Feast of Shavuot on the 50th day would not be a complete Feast of Yahweh without the counting of each of the 49 days and 7 COMPLETE Sabbaths. That word complete is Strong’s number 8549, tamiym, meaning entire, integrity, truth, whole, sound, healthful. Not an insignificant word to Yahweh. Israel’s declaration of independence cut into the middle of the Feast of Weeks in 1948. That is why I started the Daniel 70 Weeks count in 1949, just to begin with a complete Feast. But, Yahweh may have allowed Israel’s declaration in 1948 just to get our attention on 1948!! Many scholars believe Yahweh and the ancient Hebrews always spoke and understood in terms of whole days, months, and years. If a king reigned for only part of a year, that whole year was reckoned to his total years of monarchy. So, using this logic, you are correct, and I stand corrected! Because modern Israel began in the midst of the Feast of Weeks in 1948, we must reckon it as a whole Feast!! Just like we are reckoned righteous, even though we still carry our sin nature with us. Now you’re getting into heavy theology!!
This is why we look forward to the final seven year tribulation, the end of man’s rule on earth! The 50th year BEGINS our new experience with Yahshua reigning on earth, and the real end to our sin nature at our resurrection or rapture.
There is nothing trivial in any of Yahweh’s Feasts or Torah teachings. Thanks for causing me to look a little more into this. Now, does the King return after 69 weeks or 70 weeks? Daniel 9:25 (NKJV) “Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times.” Ummmm.
Blessings to all of you,
Gene Benjamin II
April 26, 2013 CE