Page 127 - Advanced Biblical Backgrounds Revised

It was on Mount Sinai that God gave Moses the dates and observances for the seven major feasts for the
Jewish people to observe. Here are their names:

Weekly Feast
The Sabbath Day (Shabbat, a weekly feast)

The Hebrew word for a feast is miqra (mik-raw), and it means “something called out, that is, a public
meeting; a rehearsal for what is to come; an assembly, calling, convocation, reading…

The word rehearsal means to practice in preparation for a public performance. Evidently, these feasts
were a way Israel could practice the significance of each feast until GOD performed the truth of the
feast in reality. Each feast can be associated with something God has done historically or is going to do
in the future.

Seven Annual Feasts
The Spring Feasts – fulfilled in the Past TO THE DAY in Christ’s first coming.
1. Passover (Pesach) – Nisan 14: a picture of Jesus’s Death on the Cross.
2. Unleavened Bread (Chag hamotzi) Nisan 15-22: a picture of the burial of Jesus.
3. First Fruits (Yom habikkurim) – Nisan 16: a picture of the resurrection of Jesus.
4. Pentecost (Shavu’ot) – Silvan 6: pictures the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church.

The Fall Feasts – prophetic in nature and may be fulfilled TO THE DAY in Christ’s second coming.
5. Trumpets (Yom Teru’ah) – Tishri 1: a rehearsal for the Rapture of the Church
6. Atonement (Yom Kippur) – Tishri 10: a rehearsal for the Second coming of Jesus Christ.
7. Tabernacles (Sukkot) – Tishri 15: a rehearsal for the Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ.

Sabbath
God recorded the Fourth Commandment in Exodus 20:8-11

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the
seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your
daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is
within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in
them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”

According to Exodus 20:8–11, the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, on which the children of Israel
were to rest, in remembrance that God created the universe in six days and then “rested” on the
seventh day. In ancient Israel, the day began in the evening when the sun was setting. That is because
the Genesis account describes each day by the “evening and the morning was the number day.” The
sabbath began at sundown on Friday night (around 6 PM) and ended at sundown on Saturday. It was a
day when Israel was to rest and worship and set aside their daily work and burdens to concentrate on
the goodness of the Lord. The Pharisees created hundreds of rules that would regulate what could and
could not be done on the Sabbath and accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath because He violated their
rules. He reminded them that He was the Lord of the Sabbath, the One who created the day and made
up the rules! (Matthew 12:8)

126