Ki Tavo, When You Go In... follows Ki Teitzei, When You Go Out... What's the difference between in and out? Going out implies going out for a mission or a battle. Going in refers to Israel's going into the Land of Israel in order to:
1. take possession
2. dwell
3. have peace
Once the peace is achieved for twelve tribes, Israelites will plant crops. Once the crops are planted, the commandments of the first fruits (
bikkurim) and tithe (
maaser) are activated.
The Land of Israel is a type and shadow of the Garden of Eden. When three things converge, a physical picture emerges of the spiritual place that is joined to it. Those three things are the Covenant, the People, and the Land. Only when the first resurrection occurs will those three physical things be restored to their spiritual place. It will become a special place for the righteous, who will be able to "go no more out" "when they go in."
Israel's presence in the Land is testimony that there IS a resurrection, and therefore, a judgment, a doctrine the Pharisees presented to First Century Judea and Galilee, along with the expectation of a Messiah who would actuate this process on behalf of the Holy One.
The Sadducees rejected both resurrection and therefore, final reward/judgment, so it is easy to see why the Sadducee-dominated Temple establishment rejected Yeshua. Since they rejected the Prophets as authoritative, and they did not see resurrection in the Torah, it crippled their spiritual view. The Essenes believed in resurrection, but appeared to have leaned toward a more Greek mindset of spiritual resurrection, but not bodily resurrection.
Everything about Yeshua challenged the Sadducees. He preached resurrection, and then he was resurrected. He preached judgment to reward or punishment, and there will be judgment, whether at the first resurrection for the righteous or the second resurrection for the intermediates and wicked. Yeshua resurrected and invited his disciples to touch him. He cooked and ate food. So there is a bodily resurrection with the spiritual resurrection. Strike three for the Sadducees, and three hits out of the park for the Pharisees in Biblical interpretation of the Torah and Prophets!
The offerings of bikkurim in the baskets must be offered at Sukkot, the Season of Joy. There was a third-year tithe that was offered on the eve of Pesach, which provokes some thought about that tithe in relation to Yeshua's sacrificial death, but that's another lesson. What's in the basket at the Sukkot Season of Joy represents the family who brings it.
For this reason, the person offering it joins the priest in waving it. The Hebrew grammar of the text implies that the priest places his hand beneath the offeror's when the basket is lifted twice. So is the priest waving it with joy, or is the individual? Yes. The priest is a type of Messiah, and without his death, burial, and resurrection at Passover, we would have no joy in our own resurrection at Sukkot. His hand underpins ours as we rise to our joy.
The seven species subject to bikkurim baskets at Sukkot are:
barley,
pomegranates, figs,
wheat,
grapes, the
aguri
olive,
date honey
There is an easy way to remember these bikkurim fruits that go in the Sukkot basket every year except the Shmittah and following year. Remember them by festival season:
EARLY SPRING/NISAN OR FIRST MONTH
Barley: Barley is the first ripe grain in Israel. The first ritual sheaf is waved during the Pesach week. It is poor man's bread, and we eat HaLachma Anya (Bread of the Poor) at Passover. It is scorched, a picture of descent to Sheol before being raised as a worship offering to Heaven.
Pomegranates: Pomegranate trees send out their leaves early in spring, and the "pips" of the fruit represent the 613 commandments. Our observance of the Word should be refreshed in the first of the months to carry us to the Season of Joy in the final feast of the year.
Figs: Figs also ripen early. Yeshua uses the early bikkur fig as a Passover sign of the tribulation to follow, especially the terrible days of the fall feasts.
EARLY SUMMER/SHAVUOT
Wheat: The first fruits of the wheat is offered at Shavuot, and two leavened loaves are offered from its fruit-grains. The "bad" leaven was removed at Passover, and the "good" leaven, the leaven of the Kingdom, is spreading throughout the earth. Shavuot commemorates the giving of the Torah, which is shared with the nations like pomegranate pips of the Word, each in their own tongue. Two loaves "rise," which can represent many spiritual truths. One is that because of Yeshua's resurrection in the Spring feast of Passover week, the righteous also will rise between Trumpets and Yom Kippur in the Fall feasts. Shavuot means "weeks." The perfect sevens of seven weeks is the little jubilee each year, but because Shavuot stands in the middle of the Spring and Fall feasts, it can represent both the "week" of Passover and the "week" of Sukkot chiastically.
FALL/TISHREI OR SEVENTH MONTH
Grapes: Grapes ripen later in the summer and fall, prophesying of the joy that will accompany Sukkot, the Feast of the Nations. It was the gigantic grapes of Eshkol that discouraged Israel from "going in" the first time, and they lost faith in the resurrection. One last time Israel will be urged to "go in" and proclaim their faith in the resurrection, judgment, and restoration to the Garden. The Yom Teruah trumpet is called The Last Trump. It is the shouting trumpet. When Israel sees the gigantic grapes of the Garden at the Shouting Trumpet, she will go in instead of out. This coincides with the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Teruah, when Israel is gathered into the Cloud and protected from the four altar judgments prophesied upon the earth: wild beasts (scorpions, serpents) plague, war, and famine. Yom Teruah is a day of rejoicing even though ten days later is a day of somber judgment. The basket of first fruits requires a loud, vocal declaration to the priest of one's personal escape from Laban and Egypt, and so Yom Teruah is the day of Yeshua's return with a "shout." This parallels the personal story of salvation from Egypt at Passover. Perhaps as another hint as the Yeshua's role as a priest, the priest sings a line, then the offeror repeats it loudly, the priest sings a line, the offeror repeats it, etc., until the song of First Fruits is complete. By joining hands and echoing Yeshua's loud song, we repeat his resurrection.
Aguri
olive:
The aguri (oil) olive is distinct because its oil isn't diffused throughout the fruit like an apple, but it yields the oil easily upon pressing.
It doesn't have to be pulverized to get the sweet stuff! The good oil separates from the fruit pulp, and the oil supplies are kept in reserve for the Holy Menorah as well as the Shabbat lights. In the Garden, Israel will have spiritual light in all its dwellings on the Shabbat as well as the feast week of Sukkot, the Seventh of the Feasts. Like the parable of the ten virgins, many will burn their oil in this life on earth, but at the resurrection, they realize that their bodies are empty. There is no oil (spirit) to restore to a resurrected body, and the spirit goes back to God who gave it. To know Yeshua is to know him in the fellowship of his suffering, allowing the oil to separate easily from the pulp in our tribulations and tests. Every human being has a measure of oil, the Spirit of God within him, but not every human has the extra measure required to "go in" to life in the Garden. Those with the extra measure will be judged so at Yom Kippur, and then the gates are closed at the closing prayer service. One will have either "gone in" the gates at the Great Trump to Sukkot with Israel in the Cloud and Garden, or they will remain outside trying to find oil to survive the outcome of their judgment and days of darkness without it. The book of Jonah (Yonah) is read on Yom Kippur, and a yonah (dove) is the bird who returns to Noah with an olive-leaf in her beak, a sign of resurrection not just to Noah, but to the earth restored. The catastrophic judgment is over and sealed up, and the saved family goes forth to a refreshed world.
Date honey: Date honey comes from palm trees, which represent righteousness and uprightness. While the judgment on the nations rages outside the Cloud, and the King of Kings is going over the leftover grapes in wrath, First Fruits Israel is enjoying the sweetness of the seven species prepared in their resurrected baskets. The 70 palm trees of the early Exodus camp prophesied that there would be righteous among the nations as first fruits, bikkurim, who would be waved in the second wave (First Resurrection) with Yeshua their high priest. The final judgment takes place for the righteous at Sukkot, which is an examination by the Seven Shepherds as to how well they've dwelled in Sukkot of Glory with brothers and sisters in Israel. They're going to be together for eternity!
Part 2, Are You Reed-y for Sukkot? will discuss the parable of the fig tree in relation to the annual prophecy of the bikkurim and the olive tree.
