Footsteps of Messiah
The Night Watches
In our last Footsteps of Messiah lesson, we looked at “the times of the Gentiles.” Although the measure of time is related to the reward, other measures of time are measures of significant events. There are “night watches” to which Yeshua refers concerning his return once the times of the Gentiles is fulfilled. In The Hours Not Even the Angels Know, we explained the Temple hours as calculated for Temple service. In that case, an hour is not sixty minutes, but a division of daylight hours of service. An hour can also be a month, or simply a significant time. It’s mind-bending, but studying the context is the best way to determine what kind of time of hour is the subject.
Here is Yeshua’s prophecy concerning the “hour” and “watch” of his Footsteps:
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Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will prepare himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and he will come up and serve them. Whether he comes in the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into. You too, be ready; because the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not think He will.” (Lk 12:37-40)
Here are some thought questions to guide us:
- When is an “hour”?
- When do we “recline at the table”?
- Why would the Master serve His servants instead of His servants serving Him?
- Why would the servants “think not” that the Master was coming at a certain hour, yet He will arrive and “come up,” or ascend at an hour of preparation for Him? (Psalm 27:10 “But the LORD will take me up...”)
Hours can be:
- simple divisions of daylight time in the Temple service
- the twenty-four hours in a literal day
- a month of days
- an appointed time of action
Here is another example of an “hour” of significance to Sardis, which is the fifth assembly of Revelation, representing Rosh HaShanah, the Feast of Trumpets:
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So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Then if you are not alert, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. (Re 3:3)
This is consistent with the tradition that the ten-day period between Yom Teruah and Yom HaKippurim is for the intermediates, or as Yeshua calls them, “lukewarm." In the memo to Laodicea, Yeshua says that he wishes they were either hot or cold, but since they had not repented, he would vomit them out. Laodicea aligns with the Feast of Sukkot, for it is the seventh assembly, and Sukkot is the seventh feast. Traditionally, the decrees sealed at the conclusion of Yom HaKippurim are handed off to the angels for execution at Sukkot. It is believed in tradition, based on passages concerning Mt. Sinai, that the righteous were sealed and made perfect at Shavuot. Shavuot concludes Pesach because the omer of barley must be completed.
Perhaps the writer to the Hebrew is reminding them of this:
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For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words, which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. For they could not cope with the command, “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, ‘I am terrified and trembling.’ But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly [cognate-moed] and church [cognate-kahal] of the firstborn who are enrolled [katav] in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous [tzaddikim] made perfect...” (He 12:18-21, 23)
The shofar for the righteous is heard at Shavuot, at the mountain of the Living God, the place where they affirm the Covenant: “We will do and we will hear.” The shofar at the Feast of Trumpets in the Seventh Month is a realization of the sealing that has already taken place. For the lukewarm, though, the Feast of Trumpets shofar is the final call to repentance. They’ve waited long into the night, and they are in danger of becoming vomit when the sun rises.
The watches of the night are similar to the Temple “days,” which are divided into twelve regardless of the literal number of hours of daylight. Night watches are divided into three watches regardless of the time of sundown and sunup. Watches are important because Temple activities occurred at the changing of the watch. They are also important because Yeshua mentions the second and third watches as potential watches of return. Also think of the “about midnight” repetition of the Pesach seder night.
If we return to Yeshua’s “recline at the table” hint, then the righteous begin their journey at Passover, for this is the night in which they recline at the table. As the head of the house conducts the Passover seder with those who recline to drink the cups of salvation, redemption, and sanctification, so Yeshua says he, the Lamb, will serve those at the table. The flesh of the lamb had to be eaten by sunup, but practice was to consume it before midnight, for it was “about midnight” when so many prophetic events occurred in Scripture, including the plague of the firstborn.
There are three watches of the night, just as the hours of the daylight are divided into “hours.” The first watch is from sundown to about midnight, depending upon the length of the night. The hours of darkness form three night watches. The second and third watches are about equal, impossible to delineate with a sundial because they are divided in darkness. For this reason, Jewish sages used SOUNDS to mark the night watches. As Yeshua said, his return is not with signs to be observed (with the physical eye). His return will be marked by SOUNDS, perhaps the sound of a baby nursing, perhaps the sound of a couple speaking in the pre-dawn, and most assuredly, the sound of a shofar.
Why these sounds? The sages don’t explain why, but Yeshua does allude to these audio-sign symbols. If Passover is the entry point to the feasts, then it explains why the shofar (yovel) was also sounded at the Passover season when Joshua led the Israelites against Jericho:
- And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him. (Joshua 6:5)
This verse is often associated with the Feast of Trumpets, and well it should:
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He subdues peoples under us and nations under our feet...He chooses our inheritance for us, the pride of Jacob whom He loves.* Selah. God has ascended with a shout, the LORD, with the sound of a trumpet...God reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne. (Ps 47:3-8)
Adonai loves Jacob, but “Esau I have hated...”(Mal 1:3)
To be accurate, “hate” in Scripture can sometimes just mean to rank lower than the “loved,” not the intense emotion of hate that Western readers associate with it.
The point, though, is that Esau is associated with Edom, The Red One, or the red beast as viewed by John in Revelation. Edom is the iron mingled among the clay nations in the image of the beast’s feet. Rome’s systems, and therefore, power and control of the peoples, continues to lie in any of its organizations: government, politics, sports, medicine, language, military, education, philosophy, literature, drama, etc. All these systems charmed the nations into joining up, sometimes without ever a sword being raised. What charming organizations didn’t win, coercion and the iron teeth did.
Psalm 47 prophesies that the feet of the Beast Edom (Rome) upon the nations are replaced by the “inheritance” of Israel, who will rule with Messiah from Jerusalem and Mt. Zion, imposing the will of Heaven upon earth after the wrath of the Lamb and their resurrection with shofars and their “torches” emergent upon the shattering of the clay vessels. This prophecy is given when Gideon's 300 attack the Midianite camp during the Passover season. So is it Passover, Shavuot, or Trumpets?
Yes. Be prepared and alert at all the feasts! The odd turn of phrase in Luke 12:37-40 mentions that the Master will "come up" to serve those who are expecting Him while they recline at the table. Passover may have a gathering significance just as much as the Feast of Trumpets.
The Shema
Yeshua does not mention returning during the First Watch, but of the Second or Third. This Mishnah explains that the beginning of the “day,” that is, 24-hour-evening-to-morning, includes the First Watch, in which one recites the evening Shema.
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“MISHNA: From when, that is, from what time, does one recite Shema in the evening? From the time when the priests enter to partake of their teruma. Until when does the time for the recitation of the evening Shema extend? Until the end of the first watch. The term used in the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:7) to indicate the time for the recitation of the evening Shema is beshokhbekha, when you lie down, which refers to the time in which individuals go to sleep. Therefore, the time for the recitation of Shema is the first portion of the night, when individuals typically prepare for sleep.” (Berakhot 2a)
The evening Shema is typically recited during the First Watch, although like the Passover lamb, it may be recited all the way through the Third Watch, but when the dawn breaks, the Third Watch is over. It is too late to affirm the Lover of our souls, and the previous evening's Shema was missed.
In a more detailed opinion, the sages said the evening Shema may be recited until midnight. However, according to the law of the burnt offering, which could burn until morning (Le 7:15), technically the Shema could be recited until dawn. The custom of midnight was set to prevent laxity that might lead to omission in which a person realized too late that the opportunity had passed. (Berakhot 2a)
Yeshua says “even the Third Watch,” which suggests he is giving stragglers time to recite the Shema, or prepare for resurrection, by affirming the commandments. Every Shema, evening and morning, is our little Mount Sinai.
The daylight says the night watches are over. Daylight marks the beginning of the morning Shema. The Morning Star is the marker for this time, but it can be obscured by clouds. It is sounds that are emphasized, not sights.
Take a peek at the reunion of Bride and Bridegroom in the context of the watches of the night. The Bride inquires of the night watchmen as to the whereabouts of the Groom, whom her “soul loves,” a phrase of the Shema:
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Song of Songs 3:1 “On my bed night after night I sought him Whom my soul loves; I sought him but did not find him. 2 ‘I must arise now and go around in the city; in the streets and in the public squares, I must seek him whom my soul loves.’ I sought him but did not find him. The watchmen who make the rounds [ha-sovevim] in the city found me, and I said, ‘Have you seen him whom my soul loves?’ Hardly had I left them when I found him whom my soul loves; I held on to him and would not let him go until I had brought him to my mother’s house, and into the room of her who conceived me.”
The night watchmen are the sovevim, those who know the cycles of the moedim, or feast days of Israel. They can inform the seeking Bride where her Bridegroom may be found in the watches of the night of exile. In that exile, she will find him at Passover, where she will hold onto him, keeping his appointed times, until she takes him into the Temple, “the room of her who conceived me.”
The Temple is the House, where the abiding Presence of the Holy One is found, where all Israel celebrates the feasts. The Presence is often called the Shekhina, a feminine noun, which is formed from shakhan (dwelling) or Mishkan (Tabernacle). It is the Spirit of Adonai which conceived Israel, just as Yeshua was conceived of the Ruach HaKodesh.
The Shema reminds Israel of the One whom her soul loves, the One to Whom she's pledged allegiance, “We will do and we will hear.” Hear. We will hear the watches of the night of exile. We will keep the feasts, for it is when the Bride encounters the night watchmen that she is finally able to embrace the One Whom her soul loves: “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, will all your soul, with all your strength…”
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“And signs of the transition between each of these watches in the upper world can be sensed in this world: In the first watch, the donkey brays; in the second, dogs bark; and in the third people begin to rise, a baby nurses from its mother’s breast and a wife converses with her husband.” [ibid]
Notice how each of the three signs are not seen, but heard. “He who has an ear...,” “Hear O Israel...,” “Give ear...” The Shema becomes a kind of marker for the end of the Third Watch when the night of exile has passed, or when judgment begins on the wicked. Another sign that the night is over is the “rooster” crow, which is also the Temple trumpeter sounding Tekia-Teruah-Tekia.
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“What is the practical ramification of this sign? It is relevant to one who recites Shema while lying in a dark house, who cannot see the dawn and who does not know when the time for reciting Shema arrives. That person is provided with a sign that when a woman speaks with her husband and a baby nurses from its mother’s breast, the final watch of the night has ended and he must rise and recite Shema.” [Berakhot 3a]
The Shema is part of our lying down in our beds and our rising up, a prayer for resurrection. Boaz discovered Ruth around midnight, then loaded her with six measures of barley just before daylight.
Yeshua mentions these "too late" signs:
- Woe to those women who are pregnant, and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land, and wrath to this people... (Lk 21:23)
Luke 17:20-37 is a long passage, but it mentions the second sign, “two in bed” “on that night.”
Strangely, in the same passage, Yeshua mentions two activities we’d associate with “day,” grinding and working in a field. Perhaps Yeshua is suggesting they missed the watch of the Son of Man, for now the night watch is over, and they have commenced the new day. Perhaps the omer has already been reaped and ground. Perhaps Yeshua has already gathered those whom he loves. Who love the Father with all their heart, soul, and strength.
Hear, O Israel. Hear his Footsteps.
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SHABBAT SHALOM!
