The Seven Appointed Times Or Feasts

S P R I N G    F E A S T S  –

1)      Pesach (Passover). The Greek rendering is Paska.    

2)      Chag Hamatzah  (Feast of Unleavened Bread) – An Annual High Sabbath Day. (Week of Unleavened Bread)—continues on for 6 more days totaling 7 in all.

3)      Bikkurim (First Fruits of Barley) & begin the omer counting.

    4)      Shavuot  a/k/a Feast of weeks (Pentecost a/k/a First Fruits of Wheat)  

When dealing with the Spring Feasts it is important to realize that feasts #1, #3, & #4 overlap or coordinate with #2. So, there is no real situation where there is a break where one feast completely stops before another feast starts except for the case of “Passover” which depicts the act of killing the Lamb for sacrifice on its own appointed day. That slaughtered lamb is later eaten the next day on the first day of the week of unleavened bread, but Jewish tradition often labels that meal as the “Passover” meal instead of “the first unleavened bread meal”. Technically the Lamb is slaughtered on a different day that it is eaten, but the slaughtering and eating both usually happen within 6 to 12 hours because of the way that biblical days are calculated. Biblical days do not start in the dawn of daylight, nor during the darkness at midnight. 24-hour days in the bible run from Sunset to Sunset so if you slaughter a lamb in the afternoon just before the sun goes down, and then cook it, it will be ready to eat the next day which will occur as soon as it is dark after sundown. Since our western time system and calendar is so different from the biblical one, we would consider the whole affair of slaughtering, cooking, and eating the lamb to have happened within the last 6 hours of the same 24-hour day.

F A L L    F E A S T S –

5)     Yom Teruah (Day of Trumpets) & wrongfully known as Rosh Hashanah (Head of the Year)

6)      Yom Kippurim (Day of Atonements), not spelled “Yom Kippur” or “Day of Atonement” because it is plural

7)      Sukkot (Tabernacles) and The last Great Day –  an added 8th day to the Feast of Sukkot.

There are three travelling feasts each year where all males are supposed to travel to a place Yahweh has placed his name (Jerusalem is preferred) to celebrate them there, but there are some verses which indicate that we should also bring other people to these events such as our relatives, and strangers who also believe. So really it should be attended by all believers who worship Yahweh, but only the males would be sinning if they ignored them. These three feasts are the Chag Hamatzah (Feast of Unleavened Bread), Shavuot (Pentecost), and Sukkot (Tabernacles—which is 8 days in a row when “the last great day” is added to at the end as it always is).