Bible Studies
Tongues of Fire
Part Five of the Eight Feasts of YHWH
By David Wiseman
“And you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to Jehovah your God according to the measure of the free-will offering of your hand, which you shall give according as Jehovah your God blesses you.” D’varim (Deuteronomy) 16:10 (LITV)
Interestingly, in Deuteronomy 16:10 YHWH actually commands a free-will offering. That is a mystery that remains to be solved.
Leviticus 23:15-16, “And you shall number to you from the next day after the Sabbath, from the day you bring in the sheaf of the wave offering; they shall be seven perfect Sabbaths; to the next day after the seventh Sabbath, you shall number fifty days; and you shall bring near a new food offering to Jehovah.” (LITV)
Some argue that “the Sabbath” mentioned here is the first day of Unleavened Bread. That is not possible. It says to count seven Sabbaths. If the first day of Unleavened Bread is in the middle of the week, then there are not Sabbaths to count, and it will not end up on the first day after the Sabbath, as the command is. So this must be counting actually from the feast of Firsfruits, also Bikkorim or Reshit, which is on the first day after the first weekly Sabbath after Passover. Fifty days later is the feast of Shavuot.
Shavuot is the second feast of the first fruits of the harvest. It is often confused with the feast of Bikkorim. This is because of Exodus 34:22, “And you shall observe a Feast of Weeks for yourself, the firstfruits of the harvest of wheat; also the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.” (LITV)
However, the feast of Firstfruits is the feast of the barley harvest, and this is of the wheat harvest, which comes later than the barley.
Leviticus 23:21 says, “And you shall make a proclamation on this same day; it is a holy gathering to you. You shall do no work of service. It is a never-ending statute in all your dwellings throughout your generations.”
This is a Sabbath to YHWH. It is a holy gathering, a day to feast and rejoice for a bountiful harvest. Most of the celebrations of Shavuot, found in Leviticus 23:15-21, are about the sacrifices that are to be made, which cannot be kept now. There is an offering of two loaves of leavened bread, seven lambs, one bull, two rams, a food offering, and a drink offering. Also a male goat as a sin offering, two lambs for a peace offering.
Traditionally, this is the day that the Law was given at Mount Sinai in Arabia. This would be roughly fifty days after they left Egypt, so it is reasonable to say that this could be true. The giving of the Law, or the Torah, is a lesser firstfruit offering.
This feast carries another meaning. “And when the days of Pentecost were fully come, while they were all assembled together, suddenly there was a sound from heaven, as of a violent wind; and the whole house where they were sitting was filled with it. And there appeared to them tongues, which were divided like flame; and they rested upon each of them.” Acts 2:1-3 (Murdock)
The word Pentecost comes from the Greek word Pentekoste, literally meaning “the fiftieth day.” This comes from the fact that Shavuot is counted as fifty days after the weekly Sabbath after Passover. While Messiah was the early firstfruit, the late firstfruits were the apostles in their preaching. The drink offering that was offered at Shavuot in Leviticus 23:18 is the Hebrew word nesech, which is literally, “to pour out.” Acts 2:4 says, “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in diverse languages, as the Spirit gave them to speak.” (Murdock)
They were filled because the Holy Spirit was poured into them, a pouring-out like the drink offering of Shavuot.
It is often thought that there were literally little flames over each of the apostles’ heads. This is a Hebrew idiom. In the Tabernacle there was a lamp-stand with seven branches. It was the light for the Tabernacle, and it burned oil. This oil represents the Holy Spirit, or the Ruach Qodesh, and so the flame is also used as a symbol of the Ruach Qodesh. Saying a flame rested on them is saying that they were covered by an outpouring of the Ruach Qodesh.
When Acts 2 says “a violent wind” this is a play on the fact that the Hebrew and Aramaic words for spirit and wind are the same word. The Hebrew word ruach not only means spirit, but wind aswell. Likewise, the Aramaic rucha means both spirit and wind.
This outpouring of the Ruach Qodesh corresponds, also, to the giving of the Torah. In both cases something was given, even poured out, from Heaven on His people.
Some say that Acts 2 is only an intermediate fulfillment of the feast of Shavuot, and that there is another coming. This school of thought teaches that the fulfillment of Shavuot is the gathering of Believers mentioned in I Thessalonians 4:17, “and then, we who survive and are alive shall be caught up together with them to the clouds, to meet our Lord in the air; and so shall we be ever with our Lord.”
This would be a second firstfruits offering, as the Believers are the firstfruit offering to YHWH.
Some say that after Acts 2 this feast does not have to be kept because, they say, it has been fulfilled. Whether or not it has been fulfilled, why did YHWH say in Leviticus 23:21, “It is a never-ending statute”? Also, these are hard-pressed to explain Acts 20:16, “For Paul had determined with himself to pass by Ephesus, lest he should be delayed there; because he hasted on, if possible, to keep the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem. And from Miletus, he sent and called the Elders of the church at Ephesus.” (Murdock)
Paul had to be at Jerusalem for the feast because Shavuot is one of the three “Feasts of ascension” according to Deuteronomy 16:16, “Three times in a year shall all your males appear before Jehovah your God in the place which He shall choose: In the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and in the Feast of Weeks, and in the Feast of Tabernacles. And they shall not appear before Jehovah empty,” (LITV)
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