The Passover Shabbat

The Passover Shabbat - A Question

David writes, “You mention the “Passover Sabbath” being mid-week. Please, what is the “Passover Sabbath”? Is it in the Tanach? Can you please explain this concept including references?”

The Answer:

Yes, it is in the Tanakh and also in the Evangelists. The Passover Shabbat is the first of seven annual Sabbaths in a year (cf. Lev. 23). The annual Sabbaths are fixed according to the moon, and therefore they may occur on any day of the week, most often not falling on the seventh day Sabbath, but sometimes they do.

Now a sect of Jews, called Karaites, and certain Christian scholars deny that there is a such thing as a “Passover Sabbath,” and sometimes they deny that any annual holy day is called a Sabbath, except perhaps Yom Kippur in Lev. 23:32. This is because the day is not directly indentified as the “Passover Sabbath” in Scripture, and therefore it is opportune to deny its existence if it does not agree to one’s doctrine.

This sect, and these scholars have stumbled over the downside of the parable principle. Not everthing is directly explained in Scripture, but you have to put several or many scriptures together to discover a concealed truth. And some statements in Scripture may be easy to dismiss or interpret another way if what else the Scripture says on the matter is not taken into account. In fact some chronological issues in Scripture can be misleading when read alone without the other facts. For example Noah lived 500 years and be begat Shem, Ham, and Yaphet. One might assume that they were all born (triplets) when he was 500 years old. But no one who has read that the flood was in Noah’s 600th year, and that Shem was 100 years old in the second year after the flood interprets it this way. Rather, it is concluded that only Yaphet, the oldest, had to be born when Noah was 500. The others were born a bit later. The same riddle occurs with Terah and Abraham also.

The parable principle applies to those who simply want to assume they know what Scripture means without actually listening to it. Messiah called this hearing, but not hearing, and seeing, but not seeing. We cannot expect all things to be directly explained. Certainly the third day theme is not directly explained as it applies to Messiah Yeshua, at least, not at first. He explained it during his earthly ministry, but this was thousands of years after the Scripture first introduced the theme.

The same Scriptural riddles that pertain to chronology in Scripture are also used for messianic prophecy in general. The messianic prophecy theme is woven into the literary fabric of many stories and prophetic utterances in Scripture. It is not always obvious who the text is talking about, just as the Ethiopean Eunuch was confused about Isaiah 53, and had to have Philip explain it to him.

The Passover Shabbat

So with this said, let us put the pieces together. A fiftieth day was to be counted after a particular Sabbath until the feast of Shavuot (Pentecost). See Lev. 23:11-16. And on that 50th day was the feast of Shavuot. Certain Samaritans, Sadducees, and the later the Karaite Jews and Sunday Christians could not be bothered to understand the historical context of this passage from other texts. So they simply assumed that the particular sabbath in Lev. 23:11 was a regular weekly Sabbath, and as it logically follows from this assumption, Pentecost would always be on a Sunday.

Most other Jews, and mainly the Pharisees and later Rabbis, said that the particular Sabbath in Lev. 23:11 was really an annual Sabbath, and in fact, the first day of unleavened bread, which is when the Passover lamb was eaten, and when the Passover Seder is observed. So you see, they regarded this Sabbath as the “Passover Sabbath.” They believed that the words “the Sabbath” in Lev. 23:11 and 23:15 applied to the first day of the annual feast.

So who is correct? It turns out that one group is paying attention to the historical context and the other is not. And today you will find Messianic Jews and messianic non-Jews on both sides of the question. Who is correct?

The Scripture lets us know that the first Shavuot (Pentecost) was on the weekly Sabbath, which will shortly be proved. First let us examine the consequence. If the 50th day was on the weekly Sabbath in the year of the Exodus, then the 1st of the 50 days would be also on a Sabbath. The only way this happens is if Lev. 23:11 speaks of an annual Sabbath that landed on Friday in the year of the Exodus. According to the view that Lev. 23:11 speaks only of the weekly Sabbath, Shavuot can NEVER fall on any day except Sunday. If it EVER fell on any other day of the week in Scripture, than the Karaite interpretation is proved incorrect. Well, the very first Shavuot did fall on another day, and not Sunday, which will now be proved. And thus it will be shown the Pharisees and Rabbis are correct on this issue.

Read through Exodus 1-12. Moses several times tells Pharoah that Israel must go a three day journey into the wilderness to keep a feast (with sacrifices). What feast was this? It was not Passover, because they kept Passover in Egypt. What happened 50 days after they left Egypt? Israel received the Torah from Mt. Sinai. In Exodus 19, they entered the wilderness of Sinai on the 1st day of the third month. They traveled the three days. They were told then to prepare two days and be ready the third day. The Law is given starting in Exodus 20, and in Exodus 24 they offer the sacrifices that Moses had told Pharoah about. So that must be the day of the feast he promised they would keep.

Then Exodus 24:15-16 tells us that Moses went up on the mountain and that the cloud covered the mountain for six days, and then on the seventh day the Almighty spoke with Moses. What day was the seventh day? It was the weekly Shabbat. Therefore, the day before the six days, upon which the feast was, was also the weekly Shabbat. Therefore, it is concluded that the first Shavuot was on the weekly Shabbat.

The Evangelists

If Matthew 12:40 is taken literally, then the three days of Messiah’s Suffering and Entombment are a day and a night, a day and a night, a day and a night, just as days are timed for the continual offering (cf. Lev. 6:9-10). As a second witness, Mark 8:31 says that Messiah would rise “after three days.” This means in Greek and Latin idiom more than the 36-40 hours of the Catholic Friday to Sunday chronology for the death and resurrection of Messiah. In fact “after three days” requires after 48 hours. And this is more than Friday afternoon to Sunday morning. So these passages can only be explained by putting the death of Messiah back to midweek. I show elsewhere that it was Wednesday. Some believe it was Thursday. In this case, it does not matter which. The next day is called “the Sabbath” by all four Evangelists, and John 19:31 says it was a “great Sabbath.” In neither case was it the weekly Sabbath. It is thus proved that if we take Matthew 12:40 and Mark 8:31 seriously that a Passover Sabbath fell in the middle of the week.

The Translations

If we go to the level of correcting the translations in Mat. 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1; and Acts 20:7, the proof that the Evangelists speak of a midweek Passover Sabbath is confirmed fourfold. The “first day of the week” passages in Greek are literally “the first of the Sabbaths,” which is explained by Lev. 23:15. These seven Sabbaths are counted off after the Passover Sabbath, which in the year of the Passion has to be three days earlier than the first of the Sabbaths. The conclusion then is that the Sabbath in Lev. 23:11 and at the beginning of 23:15 is the Passover Sabbath and not a weekly Sabbath.

Matthew 28:1 translates, “the late [one] of the Sabbaths,” which is the weekly Sabbath after the Passover Sabbath. So Matthew indirectly acknowledges a former Sabbath by speaking of the latter Sabbath.

Daniel 9

Daniel 9 confirms also that John 19:31, Mark 16:1, and Luke 23:56 speak of the Passover Sabbath. The prophecy works out between 445 BC and AD 34 on the basis of counting 7 sabbatical years, and 62 sabbatical years, the last of the 62 sabbatical years being Tishri 1, AD 32 to Tishri 1 AD 33. The Passion was in AD 34. In this year the 14th day of Aviv (Nisan) fell on Wednesday, March 24. This makes Wednesday evening to Thursday Evening the annual Sabbath wherever the texts speak of “the Sabbath” just after Messiah was entombed. So it is clear that the Evangelists are calling the Passover holy day (Nisan 15) “the Sabbath,” which accords with the Pharisees interpretation of Lev. 23:11, and the Rabbis generally.

Christian Commentaries, Josephus and the LXX

A significant number of Christian commentaries conceed that interpreting Lev. 23:11 to refer to the annual Passover Sabbath, the first day of unleavened bread, is the better interpretation. One such case is Lange’s commentary. Jospehus also tells us that the sheaf was waved on the second day of unleavened bread, which accords with Lev. 23:11 identifying the annual Passover Sabbath. And the LXX (Old Greek translation) actually translates Lev. 23:11 as “first day” of unleavened bread.

Conclusion

Like the solution to the Noah and Terah links in biblical chronology, the existence of the Passover Shabbat is concealed until we consider other texts that go with it. Like Messiah being concealed in the third day passages, the full revelation of the timing of his death and resurrection is concealed in surrounding riddles, which may be solved, and logically fitted together. The Almighty has his purpose in concealing these matters, which are clearly stated in the Evangelists with respect to Messiah’s reason for revealing truth in parables. No one has to “like” God’s method. But an examination of the facts shows that no one can deny that it is his method.