New Moon, Full Moon? Psalm 81 and its Yom Teruah/Rosh HaShannah Context

new-moonSo, first of all, make sure you read the bibliography at the end if you want access to the source material I have been studying lately.

Second, I use Yom Teruah and Rosh HaShanah interchangeably – why? Because Tishri 1 is given no official name in Scripture – it is a concealed day, as I will show. Both names are traditional descriptions because of the nature of the day – which is multi-dimensional, but I will save that for a future blogpost. (If you are interested now in why it is considered the beginning of one of the Biblical new years, my Context for Kids video on Torah Portion Phineas actually explains this)

Third, I want to explain what a Targum is – the Targumim were Aramaic paraphrases  of the Hebrew Bible for the common people during times that were roughly contemporary with the writing of the Gospels and Epistles. The Scripture would be read in Hebrew in the synagogue and then the paraphrase was given in Aramaic – but don’t fret about the word paraphrase, all that means is that the Targumim show us how the Scriptures were commonly understood in the days of Yeshua/Jesus. In other words, they were a form of commentary. I am including the text here of Psalm 81, which I ask you to read, focusing on the first five verses:

Psalm 81 (translated by Edward M Cook and available here)

  1. For praise; on the lyre that comes from Gath, composed by Asaph.
  2. Give praise in the presence of God, our strength; shout in the presence of the God of Jacob.
  3. Lift up the voice in praise, and set out timbrels, the lyre whose sound is sweet with harps.
  4. Blow the horn in the month of Tishri, in the month in which the day of our festivals is concealed.
  5. For he made a covenant for Israel; it is a legal ruling of the God of Jacob.
  6. He made it a testimony for Joseph, who did not go near the wife of his master; on that day he went out of the prison and ruled over all the land of Egypt. The tongue I did not know I have taught [and] heard.
  7. I have removed his shoulder from servitude; his hands were taken away from casting clay into a pot.
  8. In the time of the distress of Egypt, you called and I delivered you; I made you fast in the secret place where my presence is, where wheels of fire call out before him; I tested you by the waters of Dispute forever.
  9. Hear, O my people, and I will bear witness for you, O Israel if you will accept my word.
  10. There shall not be among you worshippers of a foreign idol, and you shall not bow down to a profane idol.
  11. I am the Lord your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt; open wide your mouth with the words of Torah, and I will fill it with all good things.
  12. But my people did not receive my voice, and Israel did not want my word.
  13. And I expelled them for the thoughts of their heart, they went away in their wicked counsel.
  14. Would that my people had listened to me – that Israel would walk in my ways!
  15. In a little while, I will humble their enemies, and I will turn my strong blow against their enemies.
  16. The enemies of the Lord will be false to him, and their harshness will last forever.
  17. But he will feed him with the best of wheat bread: and I will satisfy you with honey from the rock.

This is what is called an enthronement Psalm, and according to the Aramaic Targum above, it was sung on Tishri 1. When was it sung? In what is called the “Mussaf” – the special services of a Feast Day which included special sacrifices, Psalms, and on Tishri 1, the blowing of trumpets (over and over and over again). The Targums are important not because they provide an alternate text that is somehow superior to the Hebrew, but because they sometimes explain things that are no longer known to modern readers. But in this case, does the Targum line up with the Hebrew, or does the English? I can tell you right now – it does not line up with English translations of 81.3 which are often mistakenly used as part of the whole calendar debate when in fact they have nothing to do with it:

English: Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our feast day. (ESV (2001))

Aramaic: Blow the horn in the month of Tishri, in the month in which the day of our festivals is concealed.

LXX (Septuagint – 3rd C BCE) –  Blow the trumpet at the new moon, in the glorious day of your feast.

Hebrew:  תִּקְעוּ בַחֹדֶשׁ שׁוֹפָר;    בַּכֵּסֶה, לְיוֹם חַגֵּנוּ, or, transliterated tikku v’chodesh shofar, b’kesseh l’yom chaggenu

tikku v’chodesh shofar – no big mystery here – blow the shofar at the new moon, which agrees with both versions reasonably enough. What about the second part of the verse? Does it say “full moon” or is that simply a traditional interpretation?

If you can read Hebrew or are familiar at least with words, l’yom chaggenu should be easily identified as our feast-day. This leaves one more word, kesseh – which does not mean full moon in this context (remember that Strongs will only tell you how a word is translated). It is from the lemma kaf samek aleph – related to words meaning throne as well as covering, and as the throne of Israel was always covered over with a canopy, a chuppah, therefore that throne was a concealed throne (just as the BRANCH of David, the Messianic King, was concealed). Psalm 81 was an enthronement Psalm, and when we read the Mussaf liturgy for Rosh HaShanah, we see it literally overflowing with overtones of the Messianic enthronement in the Last Day.  So which version matches the original Hebrew the best? – Not shockingly, it is the Aramaic paraphrase written during the days when the Temple was still standing and all in attendance could hear this Psalm and understand its meaning.

Now as for the Targum – why did the paraphrase state “Tishri, in the month in which the day of our festivals is concealed?” Very simply, we know from Rosh HaShannah 2 (starting in 2.5) the process by which the new moon sightings were determined and the new month consecrated during Temple times. Until that validated sighting and consecration happened, the specific days of the festivals in the month of Tishri were concealed, unknown. The witnesses would come to the Temple and would then be individually questioned on exactly what the moon looked like when they saw it, which way they were facing, how high in the sky it was and which direction it was leaning. Not until they had matching testimony did the Head of the Sanhedrin call out “It is sanctified,” followed by a positive response from the rest of the Court, and the new month would be official – what was concealed was suddenly revealed! Very Messianic!

An understanding of Jewish eschatology and Feast language is vital to being able to eliminate so much of the modern controversies about the Scriptures. Daniel, Ezekiel, Paul, John and many others wrote within this context of intimately knowing about the Temple, the Feasts and the language surrounding them, and they used it without the need to explain it. Sadly, we did not grow up knowing this context and so we read and often fill holes with modern concepts without even knowing we are doing it. Knowledge is increasing, as Scripture promised, and we are blessed to live in such a time that being a scholar has never been easier – IF we know where to look for our answers.

************************

References: not all of these were used in this blog (** next to the ones I am using), but just to give you some recommended reading if you are interested in the topic:

**The Lost Key Series – Joseph Good – this series is indispensable, revealing the Fall Feast language hidden in plain sight all over Scripture

**The Complete Artscroll Machzor – Mussaf service

**The Psalms in Israel’s Worship – Sigmund Mowinkel – the gold standard of authority on Psalms in worship. Written in the early 60’s by a Christian theologian, he might just be the most quoted Christian scholar in the Jewish world. Yes, he’s just that good.

**Ancient Israel Vol 1 – Roland de Vaux – Part II Chap 5 – The Person of the King. This book talks about the enthronement ceremonies of ancient Israel.

Tractate Rosh haShanah

Rosh HaShannah and the Messianic Kingdom to Come – Joseph Good

**The Book of our Heritage Vol 1 – Eliyahu Kitov

Entering the High Holy Days – Reuven Hammer

The High Holy Days – Reuven Kieval

The Biblical and Historical Background of the Jewish Holy Days – Abraham Bloch

 




What is the Temple? – New Talmidim Teacher Hangout *FREE**LIVE* Wednesday 9/7/16 @ 8pm EST

wit-newThe Wisdom in Torah Talmidim teachers are back with some new faces (but without mine – I am too busy getting my house ready to sell for our move to the wilds of Idaho!). The topic will be:

What is the Temple? The Use of Metaphor in Paul’s Writings

If you want to do some prep work ahead of time (recommended) it is suggested that you read I Cor 1-3

Scheduled for the round table discussion are Rico Cortes, Ryan White, Matthew Vander Els, Matt Nappier and Nathan Mancuso.

You can find the teaching at the following link on Wednesday night




Los Cuarenta Días de Teshuvá y la Tentación del Mesías

Tentacion-del-MesiasThanks so much to Lisa Velazquez for translating this morning’s blog and creating the Spanish meme “just in time” for the Season of teshuva to commence!

Gracias a Lisa Velazquez por traducir este articulo. Puede escucharla a traves deTeshuva.tv los Domingos a las 6pm en el programa radial: Caminando en Obediencia.

Un consejo que mi maestro del Templo Joseph Good, me enseñó acerca de esto – y mucho más que simplemente no puedo compartir con ustedes, ya que sería un blog de mil partes. Si esto le interesa, esto es sólo una pequeña muestra (una muy pequeña muestra) de su serie de la enseñanza La Reunión The Gathering (haga clic en el enlace rojo), vale la pena cada centavo para las personas que quieran entender el Nuevo Testamento y especialmente el libro de Revelación, que fue escrito en el lenguaje del Templo de acuerdo a las creencias escatológicas judías en el tiempo.

Los Evangelios judíos de Mateo a  Juan, así como las Epístolas y en especial el libro de Revelación, están llenos de referencias a las creencias escatológicas judías del primer siglo – si conocemos el  lenguaje. Por desgracia, este lenguaje apenas ha sido estudiado por nuestros antepasados cristianos lo largo de los siglos, dando paso a las creencias basadas en lo que la gente presume que los autores estaban hablando y dando lugar a mucha especulación popular sin estudios serios – de los cuales yo misma he sido más que culpable. Así, que en lugar de ser testigo del tan repetido Día del Señor, el reino milenario del Mesías a partir de la tribulación, Juan estaba en su lugar teniendo una visión en un domingo. La “Final Trompeta” hace referencia una y otra vez en los escritos judíos como la Ultima Trompeta soplada en la ceremonia del Templo en Rosh Hashaná, la cual se convierte simplemente en una explosión al azar del Cielo llamando a casa los elegidos, y la Gran Trompeta de Yom Kippur se agrupa con la Séptima trompeta de Revelación o la ya mencionada Final Trompeta de Rosh Hashaná ¡como si fuera todas las mismas! Oímos palabras como “levántate” y “despierta” y porque no estamos familiarizados con lo que sabían los autores – las ceremonias del Templo – nos parece completamente extraño y malinterpretamos lo que estamos leyendo. No sabemos cuándo se abrían y se cerraban las puertas ” ni cuando se abrían y se cerraban los “libros”. Teologías enteras han surgido en el Cristianismo, el Judaísmo Mesiánico, y en el movimiento de Raíces Hebreas, que ignoramos por completo el contexto que nos encontramos a lo largo de las Escrituras hebreas y escritos extra bíblicos del Segundo Templo – pero sí tenemos un gran perjuicio a los Judíos como el Apóstol Juan cuando ignoramos lo que sabían, lo que nuestros antepasados optaron por alejarse de u olvidar, o tal vez nunca tuvieron la oportunidad de conocer en primer lugar.

Esto ha sido tristemente acoplado con una creciente y preocupante tendencia a escribir de todo lo relacionado con el judaísmo que tienen sus raíces en la religión babilónica – sin una demanda del peso de presentar pruebas. Habiendo estudiado la religión babilónica, que ahora sabemos mucho acerca debido a los avances arqueológicos y lingüísticos del pasado medio siglo, no llego a ver las conexiones. Babilonia no era más abiertamente pagana que cualquier otra cultura del Antiguo Medio Oriente, y en algunos aspectos, era bastante menos pagana (es difícil imaginar que nadie fuera mas pagano que los hititas). En la Escritura, es Egipto y Canaán que se asociaron en varias ocasiones con el paganismo, mientras que Babilonia se asoció con el gobierno en la rebelión, comercio, orgullo y la guerra. En cualquier caso, cuanto más estudio las liturgias judías asociadas con las fiestas (que son un testimonio de las oraciones y canciones que se ofrecen a Dios durante sus fiestas), veo más el idioma aparecer en los Evangelios y Epístolas. Yeshúa (Jesús) mismo hace repetidas referencias positivas a las oraciones Amidá (de pie) en sus sermones (lo cual detallare en futuros blogs), así como a muchos de los rituales practicados durante las fiestas que apuntaban directamente hacia Él mismo.

Mañana comienza el primero de Elul, el comienzo de los 40 días de arrepentimiento nacional corporativo que apuntan hasta Yom Kippur. Muchas personas no van a participar, lo que no tengo ningún problema con ello, pero algunos de los que le citan como razón los orígenes babilónicos como si fuera un hecho probado, si tengo un problema con eso. Como alguien que solía decir esas mismas cosas, me siento avergonzada de admitir que estaba simplemente repitiendo lo que había oído de todos los demás – sin tener que estudiar la abrumadora cantidad de información que tenemos ahora sobre el tema. Ellos utilizarán los “40 días de llanto por Tamúz”, que es un mito total. Tamúz no se lloró durante más de un periodo de 40 días – He leído la mayor investigación sobre Tamúz (Dumuzi), y cada mito asociado con él y su esposa Ishtar (Inanna) y no hay nada que sugiera tal cosa – a pesar de que muchos sitios de Internet de fabricación religiosa afirman estas solicitudes como si de hecho hubiesen pruebas. Ciertamente, hubo llanto, pero no fuera de cualquier sentido de arrepentimiento, y no fue por 40 días. Si desea leer lo que la investigación realmente qué dice sobre el ciclo agrícola y el llanto simpático en el culto a Tamúz, haga clic aquí.

Pero vemos un episodio de cuarenta días en el comienzo mismo del ministerio del Mesías que es muy importante. Después de su bautismo en el Jordán, Yeshúa es llevado por el Espíritu al desierto durante 40 días. Creo que este período de tiempo es, precisamente, estos cuarenta días de arrepentimiento por un par de razones:

(1) Aunque muchos escritos judíos del período del Segundo Templo propusieron que el Mesías vendrá en Yom Terúa (que es el día en que los reyes eran coronados), Yeshúa mismo dijo que vendría en Yom Kippur después de los dolores de parto del Mesías (llamado tribulación en el cristianismo):

Mateo 24:29-31: 29 “Inmediatamente después de la tribulación de aquellos días, el sol se oscurecerá, y la luna no dará su resplandor, y las estrellas caerán del cielo, y será sacudido las potencias de los cielos. 30 Entonces aparecerá en el cielo la señal del Hijo del Hombre, y entonces todas las tribus de la tierra se llorar, y verán al Hijo del hombre venir sobre las nubes del cielo con poder y gran gloria. 31 Y él enviará a sus ángeles con gran voz de trompeta, y juntarán a sus escogidos de los cuatro vientos, desde un extremo del cielo hasta el otro. ”

En hebreo, este “fuerte toque de trompeta” no es la última trompeta de Rosh Hashaná, sino el Tekiá Gedolah – el sonido muy fuerte y largo que también se asocia con el inicio del Año del Jubileo (¡una vez oí a un “estruendo” que se prolongó durante más de un minuto por un shofarista maestro!). A medida que el Jubileo marca el regreso de herencias ancestrales, y la libertad de todas las deudas, esta trompeta señala tanto la restauración y la libertad. Después de una ausencia de cuarenta días, Yeshúa habría reaparecido después de un no un día, pero desde hace mucho tiempo de cuarenta días de ayuno y oración, en Yom Kippur – el cuadragésimo día. Su primer acto de su ministerio fue aparecer, por así decirlo en Yom Kippur, anunciando Su segunda venida.

(2) Cuando los discípulos de Juan vieron Yeshúa, Juan dijo: “He aquí el Cordero de Dios que quita el pecado del mundo” (Juan 1:29) y la mayoría de la gente históricamente tomaron esto como el Cordero de Pascua – sin embargo, voy a publicar una cita del excelente libro de Oscar Cullmann “The Christology of the New Testament” [“La Cristología del Nuevo Testamento”] pagina 71:

“Pero incluso el Cuarto Evangelio no se refiere únicamente a la necesidad de la muerte de Jesús en general. Contiene una referencia directa y precisa a Isaías 53 en 1:29 y 1:36 en el testimonio de Juan el Bautista: “. Este es el Cordero de Dios, que quita el pecado del mundo ‘… que la frase aramea טליא דאלהא lo que significa tanto “Cordero de Dios” y “Servidor de Dios,” muy probablemente se encuentra detrás de la expresión griega αμνὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ. Dado que la expresión “Cordero de Dios” no es de uso común en el Antiguo Testamento como una designación para el cordero pascual, es probable que el autor de Juan pensó principalmente en ebed Yahweh “.

Aquí vemos un excelente argumento de Cullmann que se refiere a Yeshúa, en términos arameos del primer siglo, como el Siervo de Dios, que quita el pecado del mundo. ¿En qué estación cercana estuvieron ellos cuando Juan el Bautista habló? ¡Los cuarenta días de arrepentimiento que culminarían en Yom Kippur, cuando se llevaban lejos los pecados de la nación por el macho cabrío Azazel! Aunque Cullmann, escribiendo en la década de 1950, por error vio el Cordero Pascual según la tradición cristiana como un sacrificio del pecado (que no era, no se menciona jamás se ha hecho del pecado – la sangre del cordero pascual en lugar marco los hogares como el pueblo de Dios solo como la sangre de Yeshúa marca al creyente), su observación conduce a Yeshúa en lugar de ser comparado con la Fiesta en la que surgiría en la plenitud de su ministerio, habiendo soportado fielmente la tentación – nos muestra el camino. ¡También nos enfrentamos a la tentación, por supuesto, pero no hasta ese punto! Él, siendo perfecto, tenía que pasar por mucho más de lo que podríamos manejar y ha satán realmente no tiene un horario suficientemente libre para ser profundamente invertido en cualquiera de nosotros como individuos.

Cuando pase el tiempo de Elul 1 a 10 de Tishri haciendo un examen de conciencia muy profundo, me acuerdo del Mesías siendo tentado por el enemigo en el desierto. De hecho, como un reloj sincronizado, las cosas suceden en mi vida desde Elul 1 hasta (empezando después de Shavuot / Pentecostés) que me retan muy profundamente – generalmente hay dificultades y traiciones y una gran cantidad de locura que me revelan mis defectos de carácter todavía muy vivos – defectos que tengo la tentación de justificar, mecanismos que me quiero revolcarse en ellos, rencores que siento la tentación de nutrirlos, en las necesidades que me siento tentada a celebrar mi propia pequeño fiesta de compasión personal,  recuerdos de la justicia que he negados a otros en el pasado y la restauración estoy obligada a hacer, o nuevos dilemas para los que no tengo respuestas. A veces incluso hay éxitos que me tientan ya sea hacia el orgullo o la sensación de que estoy siendo reivindicada por mis enemigos. Este año estoy experimentando todos ellos al mismo tiempo, y me siento como si yo fuera (de nuevo) siendo llevada al desierto con el fin de tratar con ellos.

¿Pero es esto lo que se supone que suceda cuando seguimos a Yeshúa? Cuando lo seguimos, ¿no nos llevan en los mismos caminos que Él mismo caminó? No, no estamos llamados a ayunar durante 40 días, pero sentimos que hemos sido llamados al desierto de nuestras propias almas con el fin de orar y luchar contra las tentaciones de satanás en esta temporada muy profética.




The Forty Days of Teshuva and the Temptation of Messiah

wildernessHat tip to my Temple Teacher Joseph Good, who taught me much of this – and a whole lot more that I just cannot share with you because it would be a one thousand part blog. If this interests you, this is just a small taste (a very small taste) of his teaching series The Gathering (click on the red link) and worth every penny to people who want to understand the New Testament and especially Revelation, which was written in Temple language according to Jewish eschatological beliefs at the time.

The Jewish Gospels of Matthew through John, as well as the Epistles and especially Revelation, are filled with references to the Jewish eschatological beliefs of the first century – if one knows the language. Sadly, this language has hardly been studied by our Christian forefathers over the centuries, giving way to beliefs grounded in what people presume the authors were talking about and resulting in a lot of popular speculation without serious scholarship – of which I myself have been more than guilty. Thus instead of being witness to the oft repeated Day of the Lord, the Millennial reign of Messiah beginning with the tribulation, John was instead having a vision on a Sunday. The “Last Trumpet” referenced over and over again in Jewish writings as being the Last Trumpet blown in the Rosh Hashannah Temple ceremony becomes simply a random blast from Heaven calling home the elect, and the Great Trumpet of Yom Kippur gets lumped in with the seventh Trumpet of Revelation or the aforementioned Last Trumpet of Rosh HaShannah as though they were one in the same! We hear words like ‘arise’ and ‘awake’ and because we are not familiar with what the authors knew – the Temple ceremonies – we utterly miss and misinterpret what we are reading. We do not know when the ‘gates’ were opened and closed or when the ‘books’ were opened and closed. Whole theologies have sprung up in Christianity, Messianic Judaism, and in the Hebrew Roots movement, that utterly ignore the context that we find throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and extra-biblical Second Temple writings – but we do a great disservice to Jews like John the Apostle when we ignore what they knew, what our ancestors chose to walk away from or forget, or maybe never had a chance to know in the first place.

This has been sadly coupled with a growing and disturbing tendency to write off everything concerned with Judaism as having its roots in Babylonian religion – without a demand for the burden of proof to be presented. Having studied Babylonian religion, which we now know a great deal about because of the archaeological and linguistic advances of the past century and a half, I fail to see the connections. Babylon was no more overtly pagan than any other Ancient Near Eastern culture, and in some ways it was a good deal less pagan (it is hard to imagine anyone being more pagan than the Hittites). In Scripture, it is Egypt and Canaan which were repeatedly associated with paganism, whereas Babylon was associated with government in rebellion, commerce, pride, and warfare. In any event, the more I study the Jewish liturgies associated with the Feasts (which are a witness to the prayers and songs offered up to God during His feasts), the more I see the language showing up in the Gospels and Epistles. Yeshua (Jesus) Himself makes repeated positive references to the Amidah (standing) prayers in His sermons (I will be detailing these in future blogs) as well as to many of the rituals practiced during the Feasts that pointed directly towards Himself.

Tomorrow begins the First of Elul, the beginning of the 40 days of corporate national repentance leading up to Yom Kippur (a practice based on the Book of Haggai, where in chapter one we see God repeatedly calling the returned Israelites to “Consider their ways” beginning on the first day of the sixth month, Elul 1). Many people will not participate, which I have no problem with, but some of those will cite as their reason Babylonian origins as though it is a proven fact, and I do have a problem with that. As someone who used to say those same things, I am embarrassed to admit that I was simply repeating what I had heard from everyone else – without actually studying the overwhelming amount of information we now have on the subject. They will draw upon the “40 days of weeping for Tammuz” which is an outright myth. Tammuz was not wept for over a period of 40 days – I have read the major research on Tammuz (Dumuzi), and every myth associated with him and his wife Ishtar (Inanna) and there is nothing there to suggest such a thing – despite many religious internet sites making said claims as though there is in fact proof. There was certainly weeping, but not out of any sense of repentance, and it was not for 40 days. If you would like to read what the research actually does say about the agricultural cycle and sympathetic weeping in the Tammuz cult, click here.

But we do see a forty day episode at the very beginning of the ministry of Messiah that is very important. After His baptism in the Jordan, Yeshua is led by the Spirit into the desert for 40 days. I believe that this time period is precisely this forty days of repentance for a couple of reasons:

(1) Although many Jewish writings of the Second Temple Period proposed that Messiah will come on Yom Teruah (which is the day that kings were coronated), Yeshua Himself said that He would return to Jerusalem to reign on Yom Kippur after the Birthpangs of the Messiah (called the tribulation in Christianity):

Matthew 24:29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

In Hebrew, this ‘loud trumpet call’ is not the Last Trumpet of Rosh Hasahhah, but the Tekiah Gedolah – the very loud and long trumpet call that is also associated with the onset of the Jubilee year (I once heard a ‘blast’ that went on for over a minute by a master shofar blower!). As the Jubilee marks the return of ancestral inheritances, and freedom from all debts, this trumpet signals both restoration and freedom. After a forty days absence, Yeshua would have re-emerged after not a one day, but a forty day long time of fasting and prayer, on Yom Kippur – the fortieth day. His first act of ministry was to emerge, as it were on Yom Kippur, foreshadowing His second coming as Messiah ben David, the conquering King.

(2) When John’s disciples see Yeshua, John says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” (John 1:29) and most people have historically taken this to mean the Passover Lamb – however, I am going to post a quote from Oscar Cullmann’s excellent book “The Christology of the New Testament” pg 71:

“But even the Fourth Gospel does not deal only with the necessity of the death of Jesus in general. It contains direct and precise reference to Is 53 in 1:29 and 1:36 in the testimony of John the Baptist: ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.’ … that the Aramaic phrase טליא דאלהא which means both ‘Lamb of God’ and ‘Servant of God,’ very probably lies behind the Greek expression αμνὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ. Since the expression, ‘Lamb of God’ is not commonly used in the Old Testament as a designation for the paschal lamb, it is probable that the author of John thought primarily of the ebed Yahweh.”

Here we see Cullmann’s excellent argument for Yeshua being referred to, in first century Aramaic terms, as the Servant of God, who takes away the sins of the world. What season was nearly upon them when John the Baptist spoke? The forty days of repentance which would be followed by Yom Kippur, when the sins of the nation would be taken away by the Azazel goat! Although Cullmann, writing in the 1950’s, mistakenly saw the Paschal Lamb according to Christian tradition as a sin sacrifice (which it was not, no mention is ever made of sin – the blood of the paschal Lamb instead marked households as the people of God just as Yeshua’s blood marks the believer), his observation leads to Yeshua instead being compared to the Feast at which He would emerge into the fullness of ministry, having faithfully endured temptation – showing us the way. We also face temptation of course, just not nearly as much! He, being perfect, had to go through a lot more than we could ever handle and hasatan really doesn’t have a free enough schedule to be deeply invested in any of us as individuals.

When I spend the time from Elul 1 to Tishri 10 doing very deep soul searching, I am reminded of Messiah being tempted by the Enemy in the wilderness. In fact, like clockwork, things happen in my life heading up to Elul 1 (starting after Shavuot/Pentecost) that challenge me very deeply – there are generally hardships and betrayals and a lot of craziness that reveal my still very much alive character flaws – flaws that I am tempted to justify, coping mechanisms that I want to wallow in, grudges that I am tempted to nurse, hardships that I am tempted to celebrate my own personal little pity party over, memories of justice I have denied to others in the past and the restoration I am required to bring, or new dilemmas for which I have no answer. Sometimes there are even successes that tempt me either towards pride or the feeling that I am being vindicated over my enemies. This year I am experiencing all of these at the same time, and I feel as though I am (again) being led into the wilderness in order to deal with them.

But should this not be what happens when we follow Yeshua? When we follow Him, does it not lead us in the same paths that He Himself walked? No, we aren’t called to fast for 40 days, but I do feel that we are called into the wilderness of our own souls in order to pray and fight against the temptations of hasatan in this very prophetic season.

I have been asked – “Could this by the inspiration for the Catholic Lent season?” Quite possibly – they traditionally put the Temptation of Messiah in the spring before Passover, and the fasting of Lent mimics the 40 days of Yeshua in the wilderness in preparation for public ministry. That being said, I haven’t actually done the footwork to prove the connection so all I can say is, “It does make a logical argument.” Though I have to say, that according to the available material on the subject – I sincerely doubt it was a conscious choice and had more to do with what they thought Yeshua was doing than with what He actually was doing.