On the 8th February 2019 I posted this blog with the promise that Abba willing I would follow-up on it.
Here is the promised follow-up.
As the battle once again hots up as to which school presents the correct school to follow regarding date setting for Mo'edim (Festivals) as prescribed in Vay. (Lev.) 23, I believe we are guilty of often forgetting that the Ancients, to whom the Word was initially revealed, were possibly far more sophisticated and practical in their application of The Instructions of YHWH than we generally give them credit for, in fact I would venture to say that the "more advanced" mankind believes himself to be the further he walks away from The Truth of YHWH. For example I have deliberately used the words "mankind", "he" and "himself" to illustrate a point in question.
When I grew up we were taught by our "teachers" (they are called educators today I believe) that we were part of the "huMAN" race generically referred to as "mankind", wording I believe may have been based on a Biblical precedence guidelines and borders, thus when referring to "mankind" the correct and acceptable pronoun to be used in the English language would have been "he" or "him".
Well evidently my teachers were and my education was wrong, because if I was to believe the "educators" of today, I would know the language that was taught and which I chose to use in communicating my ideas and opinions plus the accompanying statement as set out above are all predicated on archaic, misogynistic, male dominated, Biblical foundations and certainly not on the time honoured norms and boundaries which applied to language and its use for as far back as mankind and academia can trace it.
Secondly, even though it is patently obvious that the contents discussed in my paragraphs from above and placed in the public domain for unbiased peer review have absolutely nothing to do with any "gender discrimination", "gender stereotyping", "homophobia" or any other conceivable "gender" related -ism - I should realise and accept that I will be crucified by the 1984 type "thought-police" for my "insensitive", "offensive", "brutal" and "politically incorrect" choice of words and perceived attitudes and by default have therefore made myself guilty of a "hate crime" and thus warrant at the very least a public censure as determined by the courts of public opinion.
Now we may demean my intro thus far, but taken as a whole I feel it is valid and more importantly it brings me to the crux of this 2nd blog concerning the timing of the Mo'edim, especially the Mo'ed of Pesach and the month of Abib, a month which some say begins in about 2 weeks time, and others, such as I would disagree with.
This disagreement is in my opinion very important otherwise I would not be going to these lengths to present it.
Thus the correct dating of the commencement of the Year, and may I without sounding overly melodramatic say, especially this year and at this time going forward seeing how quickly and far we have fallen globally in just about every moral, financial, theological and political area humanly imaginable, this "New Year", this "Rosh Hashanah" which sets the dates for the rest of the year's Mo'edim - must have every endeavour made to be calculated correctly because to "go with public opinion" and "tradition" without trying to make certain for oneself what is the correct date could throw the rest of the year out by at least 6 weeks and that could prove disastrous.
Please remember that these 3 annual festivals that YHWH introduced in Vay. (Lev.) 23 and instructed us to keep Shem. (Ex.) 23:14; Shem. (Ex.) 34:18-24 & D'varim (Deut.) 16:1-17, inclusive of His 7th day Shabbat, are all very special and Divine appointments which YHWH has made and which YHWH has commanded that we set aside and keep so that He may come and Fellowship with us, so again I urge us all to really do our best to try and determine what are His right and correct days of Festivals and NOT FOLLOW THE COURTS OF PUBLIC OPINION AS WE ARE SO APT TO DO!
Please allow me also to state very clearly that there are times as stated in 1 Peter 4:8 when, as translated in the CJB, we are to continue to love each other actively, because love covers many sins! That word LOVE is G26 - Agape - and describes the Love of YHWH based on an observance of His Commandments and entails telling a brother or sister in Messiah where they may be wrong!
So to "cover over", is something we need much discernment and Wisdom in applying in the situations before us, and although I do not believe that this or any other Biblically unclear theological matter (such as The Sacred Name) should ever cause unnecessary division within the Body quite simply because none of us are able to see clearly what The Ruach is showing us (1 Cor. 13:12), that does not mean that I support or in any way espouse that one not to try ones utmost to seek Him and His Truth in all these matters and attempt to arrive at what one believes is correct for oneself and their house according to His Word - any less of an attempt could very well be ascribed to spiritual apathy or in extreme circumstances be construed as rebellion, or even relying on the arm of flesh and those are very dangerous places to be in. Rev. 2:4; Rev. 3:16; D'varim (Deut.) 21:18-21; Yir. (Jer.) 17:5.
What I now wish to address concerning the establishments of the Mo'edim dates was brought into focus this morning whilst answering a mail on this topic to a brother in Messiah.
It is common knowledge that our house used the ripe barley observations when determining the beginning of the year and Abib (Passover period) in times past, however for a few years now we have not used this method and have been convicted to draw closer to the Word and rely on what is instructed in Bere/Gen. 1:14 and accompanying observations of celestial bodies as seen from Jerusalem and also as gleamed from Dev 12:11 arw 1 Kings 8:29 etc. to determine these crucial dates.
To walk this Path back to YHWH and His Kingdom rule should continually cause us to have to be asking of Him and ourselves relevant and salient questions, and hopefully these questions, once answered, would bring us into a more secure and defined relationship with our Elohim. This matter of questions being asked and correctly answered is in my opinion sorely lacking today, we base most of life's most important issues on humanistic feelings and relative truths. We no longer have a foundation of Truth, instead we have at best a religious system with a muddied and stagnant ponds from which we draw out the waters of death (not life), or at worst we seek out our own "relative truth" from the pits that we dig, but these man-made pits are dry and sadly, it is from these sources of perceived humanistic truth that we attempt to determine how we are to walk out our lives in preparation for eternity (Eze. 34:17-19; Yir, (Jer.) 2:18-19).
So please allow me to share a few of the questions that I have had in and around this Calendar of YHWH as it gathered momentum over time; I needed to ask myself things like:
If this is the time when YHWH is wanting me to put time aside so the He can fellowship with me (See. Rev. 3:20) should I not at least be both sure and certain that I had done my best to make myself available for Him?
And:
If YHWH is to use His Festivals to give us a road-map of His dealings with us and to determine the return of His Son for The Bride should I not be a little more concerned over their timing and dates?
So with this and other questions in mind I began my search, and then this morning, as I have stated, when I received the mail from my brother in Messiah I asked The Father how should I approach his mail - I knew I was to look at a few words in their original form and as contained in Bere. (Gen) 1:14 again.
Now Bere 1:14 instructs us that YHWH gives the heavenly bodies as signs - signs which are markers or indicators (literally H226 from root H225 oth - a signal, a flag, a beacon) by context signs which have been Divinely created to rise up so as to indicate something, and that that something which is indicated is the end of one season and the beginning of another (Season - Mo'ed -YHWH's set apart time to visit with us) or the end of one day and the beginning of the next.
That sign (oth; Divine Marker) shows (indicates) the "DIVISION" where one thing ends and the something else begins, in this case it is the day and night and the 4 seasons - the Hebrew word for Divide according to Strongs is H914 Badal - and it is "A primitive root; to divide (in various senses literally or figuratively, separate, distinguish, differ, select, etc.): - (make, put) difference, divide (asunder), (make) separate (self, -ation), sever (out), X utterly."
Here are the uses of that word Badal in the Tanack you will see that the absolute sense of DIVISION is carried over by this word Bâdal-
Bâdal
Total KJV Occurrences: 39
separated, 17
Lev_20:24-25 (2), Num_16:9, Deu_10:8, 1Ch_12:8, 1Ch_23:13, 1Ch_25:1, 2Ch_25:10, Ezr_8:24, Ezr_9:1, Ezr_10:8, Ezr_10:16, Neh_9:2, Neh_10:28, Isa_56:3 (2), Isa_59:2
separate, 7
Num_8:14, Num_16:21, Deu_19:2, Deu_19:7, Deu_29:21, 1Ki_8:53, Ezr_10:11
divide, 6
Gen_1:6, Gen_1:14, Gen_1:18, Exo_26:33, Lev_1:17, Lev_5:8
difference, 3
Lev_10:10, Lev_11:47, Lev_20:25
divided, 2
Gen_1:4, Gen_1:7
severed, 2
Lev_20:26, Deu_4:41
separation, 1
Eze_42:20
sever, 1
Eze_39:14
Once again I reiterate the meaning of Badal is very obvious, but my attention in this matter is drawn to "SEVER UTTERLY; DIVIDE ASUNDER". I see the intention of the sun, moon stars and so forth are there to literally divide the day from the night, to utterly sever one day, one season from the next, to sever, dive the Holy from the profane, the clean from the unclean - nowhere do I see the latitude granted to merge, mingle or mix anything that this word divides; therefore I cannot see this word, Badal, making provision for us to watch for new moon closest to mans' estimation of an equinox (ie either side of the actual equinox being presented in the heavenly bodies).
Again all the KJV translations of this word BADAL are very specific in that the use of this word is an absolute and utter severance or separation of two almost "opposing" positions.
So I sum up in this way - the Equinox, when sighted, declares that there is a Divinely ordained and calculated absolute end of one season and the absolute beginning of the next - a moment in time has been broached in Nature, space and time!
Again, I do not however see a sliding scale measure being used to determine seasons in this case Abib - the beginning of the Divine year - Shem. (Ex.) 12:2ff as the Rabbinical Hillel II calendar promotes. To use the "new-moon" sighting or estimation closest to, but before the actual equinox is sighted in Jerusalem, is in my opinion & as I understand the Word to instruct at this time, an incorrect application.
Again please consider this question:
Is it possible that if one uses this Hillel II "sliding scale" method one may very well be beginning a new season (Mo'ed) whilst the old has not yet passed according to The Creator's design, Word and ordained times?
We started this blog by addressing the Wisdom of the Ancients therefore I believe my final question I would like to pose should then be:
Would the Ancients have declared their seasons according to a new moon approximation to an expected Equinox declaration through the celestial bodies, or through a definitive sign of the sighted celestial declaration first and then followed by the witness of the next new-moon as instructed in Bere/Gen. 1:14?
Obviously man and science have advanced since those times and additionally I was not there, but looking at the Word as we have it today I would venture to say that they, the Ancients without the assistance of telescopes, nuclear timepieces etc would have called out Rosh Hashanah (the new moon sighting) after having sighted the celestial indicators as given by The Creator as His marker as to when a the new season had begun and as indicated in His Word.
Therefore the Swanepoel house will, in accordance with our understanding of the Word at this time, be counting in our Pesach Mo'ed from Abib 1, as calculated by the first Jerusalem sighted New-Moon after 21/22 March 2019 according to the Gregorian Calendar, albeit by relying on our computer to establish when in Jerusalem the moon is sighted.
Thus I posit that the "Ancients", although having also fallen in Sin, may very well have been far more dependent on the Creator and His Signs than we are today in our enlightened and liberal humanistic "utopia" and thus as said in the beginning of the blog, far wiser than we give them credit for!
Once again please check out all that I have said against the Word in prayer.
Shabbat shalom
Bo'az
Well evidently my teachers were and my education was wrong, because if I was to believe the "educators" of today, I would know the language that was taught and which I chose to use in communicating my ideas and opinions plus the accompanying statement as set out above are all predicated on archaic, misogynistic, male dominated, Biblical foundations and certainly not on the time honoured norms and boundaries which applied to language and its use for as far back as mankind and academia can trace it.
Secondly, even though it is patently obvious that the contents discussed in my paragraphs from above and placed in the public domain for unbiased peer review have absolutely nothing to do with any "gender discrimination", "gender stereotyping", "homophobia" or any other conceivable "gender" related -ism - I should realise and accept that I will be crucified by the 1984 type "thought-police" for my "insensitive", "offensive", "brutal" and "politically incorrect" choice of words and perceived attitudes and by default have therefore made myself guilty of a "hate crime" and thus warrant at the very least a public censure as determined by the courts of public opinion.
Now we may demean my intro thus far, but taken as a whole I feel it is valid and more importantly it brings me to the crux of this 2nd blog concerning the timing of the Mo'edim, especially the Mo'ed of Pesach and the month of Abib, a month which some say begins in about 2 weeks time, and others, such as I would disagree with.
This disagreement is in my opinion very important otherwise I would not be going to these lengths to present it.
Thus the correct dating of the commencement of the Year, and may I without sounding overly melodramatic say, especially this year and at this time going forward seeing how quickly and far we have fallen globally in just about every moral, financial, theological and political area humanly imaginable, this "New Year", this "Rosh Hashanah" which sets the dates for the rest of the year's Mo'edim - must have every endeavour made to be calculated correctly because to "go with public opinion" and "tradition" without trying to make certain for oneself what is the correct date could throw the rest of the year out by at least 6 weeks and that could prove disastrous.
Please remember that these 3 annual festivals that YHWH introduced in Vay. (Lev.) 23 and instructed us to keep Shem. (Ex.) 23:14; Shem. (Ex.) 34:18-24 & D'varim (Deut.) 16:1-17, inclusive of His 7th day Shabbat, are all very special and Divine appointments which YHWH has made and which YHWH has commanded that we set aside and keep so that He may come and Fellowship with us, so again I urge us all to really do our best to try and determine what are His right and correct days of Festivals and NOT FOLLOW THE COURTS OF PUBLIC OPINION AS WE ARE SO APT TO DO!
Please allow me also to state very clearly that there are times as stated in 1 Peter 4:8 when, as translated in the CJB, we are to continue to love each other actively, because love covers many sins! That word LOVE is G26 - Agape - and describes the Love of YHWH based on an observance of His Commandments and entails telling a brother or sister in Messiah where they may be wrong!
So to "cover over", is something we need much discernment and Wisdom in applying in the situations before us, and although I do not believe that this or any other Biblically unclear theological matter (such as The Sacred Name) should ever cause unnecessary division within the Body quite simply because none of us are able to see clearly what The Ruach is showing us (1 Cor. 13:12), that does not mean that I support or in any way espouse that one not to try ones utmost to seek Him and His Truth in all these matters and attempt to arrive at what one believes is correct for oneself and their house according to His Word - any less of an attempt could very well be ascribed to spiritual apathy or in extreme circumstances be construed as rebellion, or even relying on the arm of flesh and those are very dangerous places to be in. Rev. 2:4; Rev. 3:16; D'varim (Deut.) 21:18-21; Yir. (Jer.) 17:5.
What I now wish to address concerning the establishments of the Mo'edim dates was brought into focus this morning whilst answering a mail on this topic to a brother in Messiah.
It is common knowledge that our house used the ripe barley observations when determining the beginning of the year and Abib (Passover period) in times past, however for a few years now we have not used this method and have been convicted to draw closer to the Word and rely on what is instructed in Bere/Gen. 1:14 and accompanying observations of celestial bodies as seen from Jerusalem and also as gleamed from Dev 12:11 arw 1 Kings 8:29 etc. to determine these crucial dates.
To walk this Path back to YHWH and His Kingdom rule should continually cause us to have to be asking of Him and ourselves relevant and salient questions, and hopefully these questions, once answered, would bring us into a more secure and defined relationship with our Elohim. This matter of questions being asked and correctly answered is in my opinion sorely lacking today, we base most of life's most important issues on humanistic feelings and relative truths. We no longer have a foundation of Truth, instead we have at best a religious system with a muddied and stagnant ponds from which we draw out the waters of death (not life), or at worst we seek out our own "relative truth" from the pits that we dig, but these man-made pits are dry and sadly, it is from these sources of perceived humanistic truth that we attempt to determine how we are to walk out our lives in preparation for eternity (Eze. 34:17-19; Yir, (Jer.) 2:18-19).
So please allow me to share a few of the questions that I have had in and around this Calendar of YHWH as it gathered momentum over time; I needed to ask myself things like:
If this is the time when YHWH is wanting me to put time aside so the He can fellowship with me (See. Rev. 3:20) should I not at least be both sure and certain that I had done my best to make myself available for Him?
And:
If YHWH is to use His Festivals to give us a road-map of His dealings with us and to determine the return of His Son for The Bride should I not be a little more concerned over their timing and dates?
So with this and other questions in mind I began my search, and then this morning, as I have stated, when I received the mail from my brother in Messiah I asked The Father how should I approach his mail - I knew I was to look at a few words in their original form and as contained in Bere. (Gen) 1:14 again.
Now Bere 1:14 instructs us that YHWH gives the heavenly bodies as signs - signs which are markers or indicators (literally H226 from root H225 oth - a signal, a flag, a beacon) by context signs which have been Divinely created to rise up so as to indicate something, and that that something which is indicated is the end of one season and the beginning of another (Season - Mo'ed -YHWH's set apart time to visit with us) or the end of one day and the beginning of the next.
That sign (oth; Divine Marker) shows (indicates) the "DIVISION" where one thing ends and the something else begins, in this case it is the day and night and the 4 seasons - the Hebrew word for Divide according to Strongs is H914 Badal - and it is "A primitive root; to divide (in various senses literally or figuratively, separate, distinguish, differ, select, etc.): - (make, put) difference, divide (asunder), (make) separate (self, -ation), sever (out), X utterly."
Here are the uses of that word Badal in the Tanack you will see that the absolute sense of DIVISION is carried over by this word Bâdal-
Bâdal
Total KJV Occurrences: 39
separated, 17
Lev_20:24-25 (2), Num_16:9, Deu_10:8, 1Ch_12:8, 1Ch_23:13, 1Ch_25:1, 2Ch_25:10, Ezr_8:24, Ezr_9:1, Ezr_10:8, Ezr_10:16, Neh_9:2, Neh_10:28, Isa_56:3 (2), Isa_59:2
separate, 7
Num_8:14, Num_16:21, Deu_19:2, Deu_19:7, Deu_29:21, 1Ki_8:53, Ezr_10:11
divide, 6
Gen_1:6, Gen_1:14, Gen_1:18, Exo_26:33, Lev_1:17, Lev_5:8
difference, 3
Lev_10:10, Lev_11:47, Lev_20:25
divided, 2
Gen_1:4, Gen_1:7
severed, 2
Lev_20:26, Deu_4:41
separation, 1
Eze_42:20
sever, 1
Eze_39:14
Once again I reiterate the meaning of Badal is very obvious, but my attention in this matter is drawn to "SEVER UTTERLY; DIVIDE ASUNDER". I see the intention of the sun, moon stars and so forth are there to literally divide the day from the night, to utterly sever one day, one season from the next, to sever, dive the Holy from the profane, the clean from the unclean - nowhere do I see the latitude granted to merge, mingle or mix anything that this word divides; therefore I cannot see this word, Badal, making provision for us to watch for new moon closest to mans' estimation of an equinox (ie either side of the actual equinox being presented in the heavenly bodies).
Again all the KJV translations of this word BADAL are very specific in that the use of this word is an absolute and utter severance or separation of two almost "opposing" positions.
So I sum up in this way - the Equinox, when sighted, declares that there is a Divinely ordained and calculated absolute end of one season and the absolute beginning of the next - a moment in time has been broached in Nature, space and time!
Again, I do not however see a sliding scale measure being used to determine seasons in this case Abib - the beginning of the Divine year - Shem. (Ex.) 12:2ff as the Rabbinical Hillel II calendar promotes. To use the "new-moon" sighting or estimation closest to, but before the actual equinox is sighted in Jerusalem, is in my opinion & as I understand the Word to instruct at this time, an incorrect application.
Again please consider this question:
Is it possible that if one uses this Hillel II "sliding scale" method one may very well be beginning a new season (Mo'ed) whilst the old has not yet passed according to The Creator's design, Word and ordained times?
We started this blog by addressing the Wisdom of the Ancients therefore I believe my final question I would like to pose should then be:
Would the Ancients have declared their seasons according to a new moon approximation to an expected Equinox declaration through the celestial bodies, or through a definitive sign of the sighted celestial declaration first and then followed by the witness of the next new-moon as instructed in Bere/Gen. 1:14?
Obviously man and science have advanced since those times and additionally I was not there, but looking at the Word as we have it today I would venture to say that they, the Ancients without the assistance of telescopes, nuclear timepieces etc would have called out Rosh Hashanah (the new moon sighting) after having sighted the celestial indicators as given by The Creator as His marker as to when a the new season had begun and as indicated in His Word.
Therefore the Swanepoel house will, in accordance with our understanding of the Word at this time, be counting in our Pesach Mo'ed from Abib 1, as calculated by the first Jerusalem sighted New-Moon after 21/22 March 2019 according to the Gregorian Calendar, albeit by relying on our computer to establish when in Jerusalem the moon is sighted.
Thus I posit that the "Ancients", although having also fallen in Sin, may very well have been far more dependent on the Creator and His Signs than we are today in our enlightened and liberal humanistic "utopia" and thus as said in the beginning of the blog, far wiser than we give them credit for!
Once again please check out all that I have said against the Word in prayer.
Shabbat shalom
Bo'az
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