Passover Tidbit No. 3

By the Numbers

When reading and understanding Hebrew it is important to understand that each letter is really a picture and, as such, has a meaning built on the ideas generated by that picture.   For instance, the Hebrew letter Aleph, א is not necessarily the Alpha in Greek, or A in English, but is the picture of the Ox head.  An Ox can mean strength or power; it might carry the idea of wealth or provision.  It is often the picture of leader, and for those reasons, the letter is often associated with YHVH.   This is also why Hebrew words that contain the same letters must have related, but often wide ranging, meanings. 

In the same way, Hebrew letters also correspond to a number.  Even to this day, books written in Hebrew often use the Hebrew letters at the bottom of each page. Unlike English numbers or Roman numerals, Hebrew numbers all tell a story in much the same way as the Hebrew letters do.  Let's have a look at a few numbers associated with the Pesach.

What we commonly call Pesach or Passover really consists of three feasts, the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Chag Hamotzi) from the 14th to the 21st, Pesach on the 14th, and the Feast of First Fruits (Yom Habikkurim) on the 21st.   The Feast of Unleavened Bread is the actual name of the three feasts together, but we tend to incorrectly refer to them all as one feast called Passover.  The first numbers you might notice regarding what we call Passover is 3 in 1.  

Unleavened Bread is a time, as the name suggests, when no leaven is used in bread making, and in fact no leaven is allowed in the home during the seven days of the feast. Leaven, at least Scripturally, is the symbol of sin, khaw-mates'  חמץ in Hebrew, which means "to slowly infect" which is exactly what leaven, or yeast, does and why it is a picture of sin.  So, the underlying picture of the three feasts in one is that of removing sin from our homes and lives.  

The Feast of Unleavened Bread lasts for seven days.  Seven is the most common number in Scripture and means complete or perfect.  We can see many pictures here, for instance, once we are sin free we will be complete and perfect, and we know that condition will not happen here on Earth so this feast also points towards our final home.  

Seven is the number of millenniums allowed to the world before time and history is complete.  Six thousand years pass before the Messiah returns to rule and reign for the last thousand. When an event is recorded in Scripture as seven days, we might look at the event in terms of the completion, or the perfection, if you will, of the idea of the event.  In those terms and looking at the removal of sin in our lives, it can be reasonably expected that the Feast of Unleavened Bread would last for seven days.

In Exodus chapter 12 verse 2 YHVH instructs Moshe to change the seventh month, when Passover would be celebrated, to the first month, thus the need for both a civil and "religious" calendar. The Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover) is celebrated in either in the 1st or 7th month, depending on the calendar you are using.  

The number 1 carries the meaning of the unity or oneness of Elohiym, He is matchless and utterly unique, there is none like Him, and He is also perfect and complete, as symbolized by the number seven.  YHVH makes the point clearly by making the first and seventh months the same with regard to Pesach, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits.

Verse 3 of chapter 12 YHVH instructs Moshe to tell the congregation to select out a perfect and spotless male lamb on the 10th day of the month.  Ten is always a smaller picture of a larger whole.  Think of a countdown, they often begin months earlier, but we only count the last ten before liftoff.  In exactly the same way as the 10 Commandments represent all of the commandments, not just the 10 we are most familiar with.  Y’shua later distilled even the 10 down further to the 2, (the number of testimony, witness, and division (from the world). If we truly and completely keep the 2 then by default we are also keeping the 10, and if the 10, then we are keeping all.

So the 10th day is not simply a random nice sunny day to begin the Pesach, it is a smaller picture of a larger whole.  Of course, the larger whole of Pesach is the crucifixion and resurrection of Y'shua, which would happen exactly on these days some 1,500 years later.

Just as way countdown for a space launch starts weeks or months before the famous 10, 9, 8....  it is the last 10 numbers of the countdown that represent the entire countdown event, so too, does the 10th day of Nisan represent a much larger truth to come.  

The sacrificial lamb is killed on the 14th day of the 1st (and 7th) month, and 14 is the number in Scripture assigned to salvation, Y’shua is the word for salvation in Hebrew, by the way.  The future day of our salvation is assured by the death of our sacrificial lamb on a Roman cross, which was foretold by the sacrifice of the Pesach lamb in Egypt. On the very day 1500 years earlier.  

Y’shua asks us to remember, zaw-kar' זכר the Hebrew word that means to act on something we know to be true, not to just ponder it.  He did not ask us to zaw-kar’ His birth, or even His resurrection, because it is the sacrifice that saves, not His birth, or even His resurrection.  This sacrifice that saves, is wrapped up in the number 14 in Hebrew.  The new beginning of His resurrection, on the Feast of Firstfruits, would be pointless for us had it not followed His sacrifice. 

Lastly today we see verse 18 reminds us the Feast of Unleavened Bread lasts until the 21st day of the month.  21 is 3 times 7, 3 being the number of the authority, power, and fullness of YHVH, To the Hebrew mind the idea of the trinity is insulting, YHVH is so much more than that, and they refuse to be limited to a father, son, and holy spirit.  YHVH is more like a perfect diamond shining brilliantly in all directions, not just three. 

Three days after Pesach is the Feast of First Fruits when Y’shua rose to be our first fruits, on the exact day.  Y’shua’s sacrifice and promise, as seen in the crucifixion and resurrection are pictured, prophesied really, in the Spring feasts and confirmed by the numbers involved. 

YHVH, Y’shua, and the Spirt of Holiness are all over the first three feast of the new year. 

CB