Shavuot - Feast of Weeks - Pentecost

Sunday, June 8 at sundown marks the beginning of Feast of Weeks - Shavuot which is the plural word in Hebrew for weeks. This is also known as Pentecost. Pentecost means fifty. There are 50 days between the sabbath after Passover and Feast of Weeks. That is where the term Pentecost came from. The church always counts it as 50 days from Easter using the solar calendar but the Bible uses the lunar calendar.

Feast of Weeks is the second pilgrimmage feast to Jerusalem. The first one is Passover, Unleavened Bread and FirstFruits which occur within an eight day period of time in March-April. It was late this year as are all of the feasts. There was a 12th month and a 13th month in the Jewish calendar. This occurs every 19 years to keep it in sync with the Gregorian calendar. There were two months of Adar. There was Adar I and Adar II. Adar is the 12th month and so we had 13 months this year. The third pilgrimmage feast is Feast of Tabernacles which occurs in the fall. Feast of Tabernacles is an 8 day feast. Shavuot is only a one day feast and so this was a difficult journey for anyone who came for just one day. However, it was the harvest season and they could not be away from their crops very long.

I will be writing about Shavuot all this week.

Blessings,