For God so loved the world...
BibleBackStory
Passover Tidbit #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, or Alpha in Greek, or A in English, is the picture of the Ox. An Ox can mean strength or power. It might carry the idea of wealth or provision. It is often the picture of leader for those reasons, and that is why the letter is often associated with YHWH. This is why Hebrew words that contain the same letters have to have related or similar 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 rather than the English numbers we are familiar with. 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 found the Passover account.
What we commonly call Passover really consists of three feasts, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Passover, and the Feast of First Fruits. The Feast of Unleavened Bread is the actual name of the three feasts together, but we tend to incorrectly refer to them all as Passover. Unleavened Bread is a time, as the name suggests, when no leaven is used in bread making, and in fact no leaven (picture of sin) is allowed in the home during the seven days of the feast.
Leaven, at least Scripturally, is the symbol of sin, khaw-mates' in Hebrew, which means "to slowly infect" which is of course, exactly what leaven, or yeast in English, or sin does. The feast of Unleavened Bread lasts, not coincidentally, for seven days. Seven is the most common number in Scripture and means complete(d) or perfect. We can see many pictures here. For instance, once sin free we will be complete and perfect. Seven is the number of millenniums allowed to the world before time and history is complete. Six, and then the Messiah will return to rule and reign for the last one. When the event recorded in Scripture is seven days, you might try to look at the event in terms of completion, or the perfection if you will, of the idea contained in the event. Seven is a very popular number in Scripture and the single most common number to be found in all Scripture. So it is to be expected that a feast, where sin is moved out of the house, will last for seven days.
In Exodus chapter 12 verse 2 YHWH instructs Moses to change the seventh month, when Passover is celebrated, to the first month, thus the need for both a civil and a so called religious calendar. The number 1 is the number of the unity of God. Again the picture is a pretty good one, the unity, or oneness, matchless, or uniqueness of God, is also perfect and complete, or the number seven. YHWH makes the point clearly by making the first and seventh months the same with regard to Passover, Unleavened Bread and First Fruits, and the picture is the same no matter which calendar we are looking at.
Verse 3 of chapter 12 YHWH instructs Moses to tell the congregation to select out a perfect and spotless lamb on the tenth day of the month. Ten is always a smaller picture of a larger whole. Just as the 10 Commandments actually represent all of the commandments, not just the 10 we are most familiar with. It would be impossible to keep these ten if the others were not first kept, and when Jesus distilled them down further to the two, (the number of testimony, witness, another, division) again even those two are impossible with out keeping the 10, and those 10 impossible with out keeping the rest. So the tenth day is not a random, nice, sunny day to begin the Passover, it is a smaller picture of a larger whole. Of course, the larger whole of Passover is the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, which would happen exactly on these days some 1,000 years later.
In the same way, countdown for a space launch starts weeks or months before the famous 10, 9, 8.... but it is the last 10 numbers of the countdown that represent the entire countdown event, so too, does the tenth day at the Passover represent a much larger truth to come. Our Passover Magid, or storyteller, will tell us about this larger picture at this year’s Seder.
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. The day our salvation is assured by the death of the sacrificial lamb on a Roman cross, and certainly then both the idea and the actual event of our salvation would have to happen on the fourteenth day, ideally in the first or seventh month, or both as God worked it out.
Jesus asks us to remember, (za-car' the Hebrew word that means to act on something we know to be true not to just ponder it) His sacrifice. He did not ask us to za-car’ His birth, or even His resurrection, because it is the sacrifice that saves. This sacrifice that saves, is wrapped up in the number 14 in Hebrew. The new beginning of His resurrection would be pointless for us had it not followed His sacrifice. All are ideas pictured in the Passover, and seen again by investigating the numbers.
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 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, multiplied by completion and perfection. This is the Feast of First Fruits, and the conclusion of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover) and is more importantly the day Jesus rose from the grave to be our First Fruits, an act first pictured at the Spring feasts. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and completion and perfection, all wrapped into one day. It seems obvious when we look at it like this. Jesus had to be raised on the 21st day of Nisan during the Feast or Unleavened Bread or Passover, as we call it .
A beautiful and perfect finish to the Feast.
CB