When Should Pentecost
Really Be Observed?
Why is there such great controversy
about WHEN to observe God’s
annual Holy Day of Pentecost? Why do the Jews observe it one day
but many churches of God observe it
on a different day? Could the
Jews, who have observed it for
millennia, be wrong after all this time?
The
correct counting of Pentecost remains a volatile issue in the minds
of
some who insist that when all is said and done, Pentecost must be
counted from the weekly Sabbath, not the 16th
of Nisan, as the Jews have
done for millennia. They insist that
the word translated “Sabbath” in Levi-
ticus
Who is right? What is the truth? Can we determine this matter, once and
for all?
Are YOU willing to STUDY this subject, personally, carefully,
and OBEY GOD?
William
F. Dankenbring
When should Pentecost be
observed? Does it matter? Can people do as they please? Solomon wrote, “There is a way that seems
right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs
Should Pentecost be kept fifty days
after Passover, as the Jews do every year?
Or should it be calculated fifty
days from the Sunday which occurs during the Days of Unleavened Bread? This would present problems. For example:
If Passover fell on a Sunday, this would remove the beginning of the
fifty day count to the next Sunday, beginning the day AFTER the days of
Unleavened Bread. If Passover fell on a
Saturday or weekly Sabbath, then the fifty days would be counted from the very
next day, Sunday. Thus the number of
days between Passover and Pentecost would vary every year! And some years, it would be a mystery as to
which “Sunday” to count from? Different
churches disagree.
Why so much confusion and
controversy?
Most of the
controversy revolves around the usage of the word “Sabbath” in Leviticus
23:15-16. The single verse of
Leviticus 23:16 has been used by proponents of the Sadduccean Pentecost counting method to justify their
"Sunday" or even a "Monday" Pentecost. This, they claim, is their "conclusive
proof' that Pentecost should not be counted from the day after the fixed first
annual holy day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
According to these people, the Hebrew
word shabbat means exclusively the seventh day of rest -- and can never
mean "week." For example, if
you look up the word “Sabbath” in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, you will
find that in the overwhelming number of cases it refers to the weekly
Sabbath. On a few occasions it refers to
a high holy day or annual Sabbath. In a
few cases, it refers to the sabbath-year of rest, every seven years.
Now, some Bible translations translate it
as “week” or “weeks” in Leviticus 23:15-16, but others do not. Merely quoting Bible translations, in this
case, does not prove one way or the other how the word ought to be
translated. According to critics, those
who translate the word as “week” or “weeks” are simply wrong!
Were the Pharisees Wrong?
The Pharisees, whom Jesus Christ
described as the guardians of the law of God (Matt. 23:23), understood
the "Sabbath" of Leviticus 23:11 to refer to the first day of
Passover or the first day of Unleavened Bread, the 15th of Nisan, which was a
high Sabbath day of rest (Ency. Judaica, vol. 14, pp.
13-19).
The apostle Paul, who was also a Pharisee
before his conversion, still acknowledged that he was a “Pharisee” years after
his conversion. He cried out to a
council of religious leaders, approximately 60 A-D., 26 years after his
conversion in 34 A-D., “I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee” (Acts
23:6). Paul also said that as a Pharisee
he was, “as touching the law, a Pharisee,” and that as “touching the
righteousness which is in the law, BLAMELESS” (Phil 3:5-6).
Does this sound as if the Pharisees were
wrong in the way they counted Pentecost?
If the Pharisees were wrong in the way
they counted Pentecost, since they counted from the first day after the annual
Sabbath, as Josephus, the famous Jewish historian of the first century shows
beyond any doubt, then Jesus Christ, the Messiah, our Savior, would not have
said to His disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. All therefore whatsoever they bid you
observe, that observe, and DO. . .” (Matt 23:2-3).
Consider for a moment. The Pharisees very plainly said that people
should count the days till Pentecost beginning with the day after the 15th of
Nisan – beginning with the 16th of Nisan.
Jesus said that His followers should DO whatever the Pharisees bid them
observe, concerning the law of God.
Therefore, He was telling them very plainly that they, too, should count
Pentecost from the 16th of Nisan!
According to some modern churches,
therefore, Jesus either made a mistake, or He contradicted Himself! Because they teach that Pentecost must be
counted from the day after the WEEKLY SABBATH, not the day after the HIGH HOLY
DAY that begins the Feast of Unleavened Bread!
Who is right? These “self-appointed experts”? Or Jesus Christ, and the Pharisees, whose
teaching in this regard He endorsed and supported?
These things are not mere “academic”
issues of nothing but intellectual importance.
These things involve OBEDIENCE TO THE LAWS OF GOD! We are either RIGHT, or we are WRONG! There is no “middle ground” on this
issue. There is no room for compromise!
The
Hebrew Word “Shabbat”
Obviously, Jesus would not tell us in one
place that the scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, and that we should DO
what they tell us to observe, and then turn around and contradict Himself
somewhere else! Our Messiah was, and is,
PERFECT! He did not he, or make mistakes.
He was a perfect “sin offering” for us, without blemish, without spot,
without sin! (Heb. 5:9,
What, then, about the word “Sabbath”
which some make such a huge point over?
Can we prove that it also means “week” or “weeks”? What is the truth? The fact that in the vast majority of cases,
a word is used one way, does not mean that it cannot sometimes have another
meaning. A scientist studying “bats,”
small nocturnal flying mammals, would most often be thinking of them when using
the word. However, a baseball player in
the major leagues, upon hearing the word “bat,” would almost always think
immediately of a baseball bat, a slender, carved piece of wood with a handle,
smoothly sanded and polished, which he uses to hit the ball. One word – two totally different meanings!
Now, as I have shown in other places, one
way we can come to understand the Biblical usage of word is by studying related passages of Scripture, where
the same subject is being discussed Let us do this, for a moment, concerning
the word “SABBATH” as used in Leviticus 23:11, and 15-16.
First,
notice what Moses was inspired to write in Leviticus, word for word:
“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. . .”
(Lev. 23:15-16, KJV).
Now
the Jewish Scriptures, called the Tanakh, render these verses this way:
“And
from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering – the day after
the Sabbath you shall count off seven WEEKS.
They must be complete: you must count until the day after the SEVENTH
WEEK fifty days” (The Holy Scriptures, the New Jewish Publication Society
Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text).
Obviously,
the King James Version says one thing; the official Jewish Scriptures, based on
the Massoretic or Traditional Text of the Old Testament, says clearly “weeks”
and “WEEK” when the King James Version says “Sabbath” and “Sabbaths.”
If
it were merely a matter of opinion, we could chose whoever we wanted to
believe, I suppose. But human opinion
has nothing to do with it!
Many
Bible scholars and translators admit that “weeks” and “week” could be used in
these verses – as well as “Sabbath” and “sabbaths.” Some few today however, claim that ONLY
“Sabbath” and “Sabbaths” can be used – that “weeks” and “week” are totally
incorrect! Do such men have even a shred
of evidence to prove their contention, which flies in the face of all
scholarship?
Years
ago, a church leader named Herbert W. Armstrong wrote a booklet entitled “Pagan
Holidays or God’s Holy Days – Which?”, he admitted in that booklet:
“It
is of very grave importance that we figure the right day. This day, and this day only, is made holy by
the Eternal Creator. Suppose at the same
time the
That
is a good question! CHAOS would have
been the result! Confusion!
Pentecost – “Feast of WEEKS”
The
parallel Scripture which tells us HOW to count “Pentecost,” is found in
Deuteronomy 16:9. We read: “SEVEN WEEKS
[gUcJ, SHAVUAH] shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the SEVEN
WEEKS from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn. And thou shalt keep the FEAST OF WEEKS. . .”
(Deut. 16.9-10, KJV).
Says
the Jewish Holy Scriptures, the Tanakh:
“You
shall count off SEVEN WEEKS; start to count the SEVEN WEEKS when the sickle is
first put to the standing grain. Then
you shall observe the FEAST OF WEEKS to the Lord you God” (same verses).
It should be perfectly obvious to anyone,
I believe, that these verses clearly show that the “seven Sabbaths” referred to
in Leviticus
Gesenius’ Hebrew
Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, says of the Hebrew word
"SHABBAT" the following:
“Shabbat – 1) to rest, to keep as a day
of rest . . . The primary idea appears to be that of to sit down, to sit still
. . . 2) to cease, to desist, to leave off. . . 3) to celebrate a Sabbath. . .
“Shabbath, const. state . . . 1) Sabbath,
the seventh day of the week . . . 2) PERHAPS A WEEK, LIKE THE SYRIAC AND
GREEK (Matt. 28: 1) Lev.
This same authoritative lexicon says of
the word shavua, in Deuteronomy 16:9:
“Shavua. Dan. 9:27, Gen. 29:27, should be rendered the
week of this woman) . . . a hebdomad, septenary number . . . 1) of days, a week, Gen. 29:27,
28. Daniel 10:2, 'through three weeks' .
. . the feast of (seven) weeks, Pentecost, so called from the seven weeks which
were counted from the Passover to this festival, Deut. 16:9 . . .” (p 800).
This word always means weeks and
never means “Sabbath.” Therefore, when this word, and the word “Sabbath,” are
used in precisely the same way, in similar sentences, it is very obvious to all
but the most blind that shabbat in the Hebrew can also refer to a
“week,” or “weeks.” As Gesenius points out, in both the Syriac and Greek
languages, the word “Sabbath” can also be translated “week.”
For example, in Matthew 28.1, we
read, “In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of
the WEEK. . .” The Greek word for “WEEK” here is SABBATON, THE VERY SAME
WORD TRANSLATED “SABBATH” in the first part of this very verse!
The emphasis of Pentecost is on
“weeks.” It is called in the Scriptures,
the “Feast of Weeks.” The emphasis is not on “Sabbath days,” at all, but
WEEKS! As God instructed the Hebrews,
“Also in the day of the firstfruits, when ye bring a new meat offering unto the
Lord, AFTER YOUR WEEKS BE OUT, ye shall have an holy convocation . .
.” (Num. 28:26, KJV).
“On the day of firstfruits, when you
present to the Lord an offering of new grain during the FEAST OF WEEKS, hold a
sacred assembly and do no regular work” (ibid, NIV).
In this verse, the word “Shabbat” must
refer to “weeks,” for it does not make any sense for “Sabbaths” to “be
out”! Weeks can be “out,” that is,
“completed,” but hardly could “Sabbaths” be “out.” This is speaking of weeks being fulfilled or
completed.
Biblical
Usage of “Shabbat”
Since this is a very controversial point
to some few churches, let us draw on the Scriptures themselves to prove that
the word “SHABBAT” can refer to other than the weekly Sabbath or an annual
Sabbath!
Turn to Leviticus 25. We read here of the “Sabbath year” of rest
for the land (verses 1-4). Notice what
God says:
“But in the seventh year shall be a
SABBATH unto the land, a Sabbath for the LORD:
thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vine” (Lev.25:4, KJV).
Now notice verse 8: “And thou shalt
NUMBER SEVEN SABBATHS OF YEARS unto thee, seven times seven years; and the
space of the seven SABBATHS OF YEARS shall be unto thee forty and nine years.”
Here, plainly, “sabbaths of years” must
mean “WEEKS OF YEARS”! There is no other
way to understand it! A “Sabbath” of
years would simply be “seven years” – or a complete “week of years”!
In this verse, the word “Shabbat”
obviously CANNOT refer to the Sabbath day!
It plainly refers to the number SEVEN, or WEEK. “Seven SABBATHS of years” means seven
weeks of years, or seven sevens of years –the identical meaning that seven
SHAVUA of years would have!!!
Thus in Hebrew, just as in Syriac and in
Greek, the word “Shabbat” can also refer to week or weeks – there is simply no
skirting, avoiding, or getting around this fact!
How plain! Yet some people are like those depicted by
Winston Churchill, who once said that some people walk along, stumble across
the truth, pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and continue on as if
nothing had happened to them!
How true!
Other people, when confronted with the
truth of God, tend to get all confused in their mind. When the truth does not conform to what they
have previously believed, or what they have assumed to be true, they react with
dismay, consternation, bewilderment. The
error in their minds, like a pea-soup fog, blocks their minds from seeing the
crystal clarity of the new truth!
Others have the attitude, “Don’t confuse
me with the facts.” Still others say, “Leave me alone. I’m content with
what I’ve always believed. Don’t disturb
my slumber.”
I
think of the minds of such people as being like a cement mixer, churning up
sand, rocks, cement, and water to make concrete. Once the concrete is poured out, and the sun
bakes it for a while, and it dries, it becomes permanently set. The minds of such people are like that
concrete – all mixed up, and permanently set!
From the
Ambassador College Correspondence Course
It
is very interesting to me that one of the groups which insists that Pentecost
must be counted from the weekly Sabbath, as the Sadducees counted it, and
who dismiss the teaching of the Pharisees totally, is the Worldwide Church of
God. Yet, in an old lesson of the Ambassador
College Correspondence Course, the authors admitted that the word
“Sabbaths” meant “weeks” and not Saturdays.
Notice this remarkable admission:
“3. How many days were the Levites to
count? Lev. 23:15-16.
“Comment:
The phrase ‘seven Sabbaths’ does not mean to count seven Saturdays, but
‘SEVEN WEEKS,’ as Hebrew scholars admit.
The word ‘Sabbath’ here comes from an original Hebrew word which can
mean 'weeks' (Strong's Exhaustive Concordance). The Greeks who translated the word into
‘Pentecost’ clearly understood that it meant weeks, and that they should
number, not seven Saturdays, but seven weeks and a day – or fifty days! Now turn to Numbers 28:26. Here you will find the expression ‘After your
weeks be out.’ The Hebrew word here can mean only weeks, not Sabbaths” (Lesson
35, original Bible course).
Yet today, that church has abandoned all
God’s annual Holy Days!
Another
Authority Speaks Out
The Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological,
and Ecclesiastical Literature, by M'Clintoch and Strong,
volume VIII, published in 1877, says about Pentecost:
“Pentecost, the second of the three great
annual festivals on which all the males were required to appear before the Lord
in the national sanctuary, the other two being the feasts of Passover and
Tabernacles. It fell in due course on
the sixth day of Sivan, and its rites, according to the law, were restricted to
a single day . . . The time fixed for the celebration of Pentecost is the
fiftieth day reckoning from 'the morrow after the Sabbath' of the Passover
(Lev. 23:11, 15, 16). The precise
meaning, however, of the word [shabbat] in this connection, which determines
the date for celebrating this festival, has been a matter of dispute from time
immemorial. The Boethusians and the
Sadducees in the time of the second temple (Mishna, Menachoth, x, 3), and the
Karaites since the 8th century of the Christian era, took [shabbat] in its
literal and ordinary sense as denoting ‘the seventh day of the week,’ or ‘the
Sabbath of creation,’ and maintained that the omer was offered on the day
following that weekly Sabbath which might happen to fall within the seven days
of the Passover, so that Pentecost would always be on the first day of the
week. But against this it is urged
“(a) That Joshua 5:1 1, where [the morrow
after the Passover] is used for [the morrow after the Sabbat] shows that
[shabbat] in Lev.
“(b) The DEFINITE ARTICLE in [ha-shabbat,
or 'the Sabbath'] in Lev. 23:11 REFERS TO ONE OF THE PRECEDING FESTIVAL
DAYS.
“(c) The expression ['shabbat]is also
used for the Day of Atonement (Lev.23:32), and the abstract [‘shabbat’] is
applied to the first and eighth days of Tabernacles (ver. 39) and the Feast of
Trumpets (
“(d) According to Lev.
“(e) The sabbatic idea which underlies
all the festivals, and which is SCRUPULOUSLY observed in all of them, shows
that the reckoning could not have been left to the fifth or sixth day of the
festival, but must have FIXEDLY BEGUN ON THE 16TH OF NISAN. Thus, each Sabbath comes after SIX EVEN
PERIODS:
“1. The Sabbath of days, after six days
“2. The Sabbath of months, after six
months
“3. The Sabbath of years, after six years
“4. The Sabbath of sabbatic years, after
six sabbatic years
“5. The Sabbath of festivals = the Day of
Atonement, after six festivals; hence the SABBATH OF WEEKS, i.e., PENTECOST,
must also be at the end of six common weeks after Passover, which could be
obtained ONLY by reckoning from the 16th OF NISAN, as this ALONE yields six
common weeks; for the first week during which the counting goes on belongs to
the Feast of Passover, and is NOT common.
“(f) The Septuagint, Josephus, Philo,
Onkelos, and the synagogue have understood it in this way and acted upon it,
and most Christian commentators espouse and defend the traditional
interpretation . . . It is therefore EVIDENT THAT THE JEWS, WHO
DURING THE SECOND TEMPLE KEPT PENTECOST FIFTY DAYS AFTER THE 16TH
OF NISAN, RIGHTLY INTERPRETED THE INJUNCTION CONTAINED IN LEV.23:15-22”
(Cyclopeifia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, by
M’Clintoch and Strong, vol. VII,
p.924-925).
The
Evidence from Joshua
The reference cited above mentions the
evidence from the book of Joshua that the “morrow after the Sabbath” of
Leviticus
“On the evening of the fourteenth day of
the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of
Remember, the Israelites were not
permitted to eat of the grain of the harvest UNTIL the “wave sheaf offering”
had been presented on “the morrow after the Sabbath” (Lev.
Since the Israelites ate that grain on
the morrow AFTER THE PASSOVER and remember, the Passover was slain on the 14th
of Nisan, but EATEN on the 15th of Nisan therefore, this “morrow” would have to
be the 16th of Nisan!
Therefore, “the day after the Sabbath” of
Leviticus 23:11 must be the same day as the “DAY AFTER THE PASSOVER” of Joshua
5. 11!
Remember, the Bible interprets its
own symbols and figures of speech, and makes its own puzzles plain. All we need to do is “SEARCH THE SCPJPTURES”
and we will find the answer to these enigmas which have stumped theologians for
years!
Sadly, many are still befuddled and
perplexed by these questions!
Follow the
Sadducees?
Some insist that we must observe the same
day as the Sadducees of Jesus’ time. But
who were the Sadducees? As we have
already seen in the works of Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first
century, they were a Hellenizing sect which was subservient to the Pharisees in
terms of practice. The people all
followed the Pharisees. Although many of
the priests were Sadducees, this did not mean they governed the set times for
holy days, or regulated
Should we follow the capricious teachings
of the Sadducees, as some continue to suggest?
Let us look into the Bible itself and see. What does Jesus say about their knowledge of
the laws of God, and His commandments?
When a group of Sadducees came to Jesus
asking Him a “technical question,” Jesus rebuked them. Notice the account:
“That same day the SADDUCEES, WHO SAY
THERE IS NO RESURRECTION, came to him with a question. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘Moses told us that if
a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have
children for him. Now there were seven
brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no
children, he left his wife to his brother.
The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down
to the seventh Finally, the woman died.
Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven,
since all of them were married to her?’
“Jesus replied, ‘YOU ARE IN ERROR
BECAUSE YOU DO NOT KNOW THE SCRIPTURES OR THE POWER OF GOD. . .’” (Mat.
22:23-29, NIV).
Does this statement of the Messiah
Himself, Jesus Christ, sound as if we should look to the doctrines of the
SADDUCEES for our beliefs?
Be honest with yourself! Confess it!
Do you really believe that? If
the Messiah Himself blasts the Sadducees, and rakes them over the coals, and
makes a broad, sweeping denunciation of their teaching, saying THEY KNOW NOT
THE SCRIPTURES, nor the POWER of God, would you then go to THEM for spiritual
"enlightenment" as some insist today on doing?
How amazing! How dumfounding! How flabbergasting!
True, many Sadducees were priests. But most of the priests of that time were
reprobates, renegades, disobedient to God, and used their priestly power to
serve the king, not God. They were
clever politicians,
seeking political favor and handouts, and did not really serve God at all. Jesus roundly condemned them in scathing
language, many times.
Josephus
tells us that the high priesthood during those times was a game of musical
chairs, with the priests subservient to the king, who appointed them to office
according to HIS pleasure. King Herod
had the priests slavishly seeking his favor and pleasure, as he was the one who
appointed the high priests. We read:
“Herod
was then made king by the Romans, but did no longer appoint high priests out of
the family of Asamoneus; but made CERTAIN MEN TO BE SO THAT WERE OF NO EMINENT
FAMILIES, BUT BARELY OF THOSE THAT WERE PRIESTS. . .
“Archelaus
also, Herod’s son, did like his father in the appointment of high priests, as
did the Romans also, who took the government over the Jews into their hands
afterward.
“Accordingly,
the NUMBER OF THE HIGH PRIESTS, from the days of Herod until the day when Titus
took the temple and the city, and burnt them, WERE IN ALL TWENTY-EIGHT; and the
time also that belonged to them was A HUNDRED AND SEVEN YEARS” (Ant., XX,x,
1).
These
high priests only reigned for about 3.8 years, on the average. They were shuttled in and out like an express
elevator. Originally, however, God had
appointed this office to be for life, and it was hereditary, through the sons
of Aaron – not an office to be held at the whim of a pagan or heathen king or
despot! (see Exodus 28:1;
40:12-15). But by the time of Christ,
the office of high priest had degenerated into disgrace, disrepute, and
disregard. Says the
“The
chief priests who are mentioned in the N.T. were the officiating high priest,
former high priests still alive, and members of their families. They were AN ANOMALY OF THE TIMES. The law that regulated the succession to the
high priesthood HAD COME INTO ABEYANCE THROUGH POLITICAL CONFUSION AND FOREIGN
DOMINATION. HIGH PRIESTS WERE MADE AND
UNMADE AT THE WILL OF THE RULERS” (article "Priests," p.764).
Are
these the kinds of men we should look to for leadership and determination of
God's commandments, the figuring of dates of God's holy days, and spiritual
guidance and enlightenment? GOD
FORBID!
Any
who would look to the Sadducean priests for spiritual truth and guidance must
have rocks in their heads! You figure it
out!
Why
can’t grown men, supposed to be ministers of the Most High God, see this plain
and stark truth? Or are they, too,
blind, like the “king who had no clothes,” and didn’t know that he was stark
naked?
Bo
Reicke, in The New Testament Era, wrote:
“When
he became king, however, Herod repressed both the patricians and the priestly
aristocracy, turning the Sanhedrin into a DOCILE INSTRUMENT FOR CARRYING OUT
HIS POLICIES . . . Ananus 1, or Annas, held the office of high priest from A.D.
6 to A.D. 15. He was the head of a
priestly family that, upon his accession, began to supplant the family of BOETHUS,
WHICH WAS RELATED TO THE HOUSE OF HEROD and had hitherto dominated
the priesthood . . .” (p.142).
Boethus,
who was related to the house of Herod, was himself a Sadducee. These high priests were completely confused
spiritually; they dwelt in a spiritual wasteland. They had perverted the ways and truths of
God. Their spiritual degeneration was so
gross and despicable that Jesus went so far as to tell them pointedly, “You DO
NOT KNOW THE SCRIPTURES” (Matt. 22:29, NIV).
What
about the Samaritans?
There was one other renegade, heretical
group during the time of Christ which also counted Pentecost from the day after
the weekly Sabbath during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. They were the infamous “Samaritans.” Who were
they? Should we respect and follow their
reckoning in this matter?
Rather than give you my own personal
opinion, notice what Jesus Christ, the Messiah, had to say about the
Samaritans. One time when Jesus was
going through the countryside of
“The
Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For JEWS DO
NOT ASSOCIATE WITH SAMARITANS)” (John 4.7-9, NIV).
All
through the history of
Should
we look to pagan Samaritans, who adopted some of the beliefs of the northern
Kingdom of
Jesus
Himself answers this question. Later on
in this same chapter of John, He tells the woman from
“YOU
SAMARITANS WORSHIP WHAT YOU DO NOT KNOW, we [Jews] worship what we DO
KNOW, for SALVATION IS FROM THE JEWS” (John 4.22).
If
you want to follow someone who doesn't even know what he is worshipping, such
as the SAMARITANS, then that would be your decision. But as for me and my house, we will follow
the Lord God and His Word (Joshua 24:15).
“This Is My God”
Famous
novelist Herman Wouk, himself a Jew, discusses Pentecost in his book This Is
My God. According to Wouk:
“On the morning
of the second day of Passover [Nisan 16], in olden times, the community brought
a measure called an omer of barley into the Temple for a ceremony hailing the
earth’s awakening fertility . . . with
this omer the annual harvest actually began; new produce was never eaten in
Palestine until after the barley rite . . . From the day the measure of barley
came to the Temple, seven full weeks were told off. On the fiftieth day the nation celebrated the
summer festival Shavuos . . . The Talmud calls it Atzeres, or Last Assembly
Day, implying that the holiday is the end of a single religious observance that
starts with Passover. Leaving
“The Rabbis
found, analyzing the narrative texts of Exodus, that the revelation at Sinai
occurred fifty days after the second day of Passover, the date of Savous. The summer festival therefore became the
feast of Sinai revelation . . .” (This Is My God, p.74).
Another
Commentary, called Aid to Bible Understanding, published by the
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, says concerning Pentecost:
“A later name
used to denote the festival of harvest or festival of weeks, called also ‘the
day of the first ripe fiuits’. . .-It was to be celebrated on the fiftieth day
from Nisan 16, the day that the barley sheaf was offered (Lev.23:15,16). In the
Jewish calendar it falls on Sivan 6. It was after the barley harvest and the
beginning of the harvest of wheat, which ripened later than the barley. Ex. 9:31,32.
“The Israelites
were not allowed to begin the harvest until the firstfiuits of the barley had
been presented to Jehovah on Nisan 16.
Therefore, in Deuteronomy 16:9, 10 the instructions are: 'From when the
sickle is first put to the standing grain you will start to count seven
weeks. Then you must celebrate the
festival of weeks to Jehovah your God.' . . . The Jews traditionally hold that
Pentecost corresponded to the time of the giving of the law at Sinai, when
Pentecost and Josephus the Jewish Historian
It is well
known that the Pharisees observed Pentecost on Sivan 6. It is also well known that Josephus, Jewish
historian of the first century, who was himself a priest, a famous general in
the war against the Romans in 70 A.D., was a Pharisee as well. He writes about Pentecost:
“But on the
second day of unleavened bread, which is the sixteenth day of the month, they
first partake of the fruits of the earth, for before that day they do not touch
them . . . . They also at this participation of the first fruits of the earth
sacrifice a lamb, as a burnt offering to God.
“6. When a week
of weeks has passed over after this sacrifice, (which weeks contain forty and
nine days,) on the fiftieth day, which is Pentecost . . . they bring to God a
loaf made of wheat flour” (Antiquities, III, x, 5-6).
Observing this
day was the customary practice of the Jews in the time of Christ. Josephus tells us that ALL THE MULTITUDE
followed the teachings of the Pharisees in this respect. He tells us: “. . .the Pharisees, who are one
of the sects of the Jews . . . These have SO GREAT A POWER OVER THE MULTITUDE,
that when they say anything against the king or against the high priest, they
are presently believed” (Antiquities, XIII, x, 5).
Concerning the
Sadducees, the other sect of the Jews, which included some of the aristocracy
and some of the high priests, who counted Pentecost from the day after the
weekly Sabbath which fell during the Days of Unleavened Bread, Josephus tells
us: “. . . the Sadducees are able to
persuade NONE BUT THE RICH, and have not the populous obsequious to them, but
the Pharisees have the MULTITUDE ON THEIR SIDE. . . “ (Anti.,
XIII, x, 6).