Footsteps of Messiah:
Lying Lions
How Prophecy Works
When folks begin studying prophecy, it is common for them to identify which prophecies have been fulfilled and which haven’t, especially as it pertains to Yeshua. When the feasts of Adonai are fully grasped, this adds another burst of enthusiasm for identifying which feasts Yeshua has already fulfilled and which he has yet to fulfill. For some, there is a bit of smugness, as if to entice those who don’t keep the feasts to join in so they’ll understand prophecy, too.
Well, sure, the feasts are for everybody, but there’s no need to be smug. Prophecy is not a one-and-done proposition, and this is part of the richness of the feasts, which cycle with the years. It’s easy to see that Yeshua fulfilled the spring feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits of Barley. On the other hand, doesn’t the writer to the Hebrews spend multiple chapters explaining how Yeshua fulfilled the fall feasts, especially Yom HaKippurim?
So did he, or didn’t he?
Ummmm...
Yes.
Let’s turn to the Shavuot as the axis of the feasts to unpack the cycle of prophecy, at least until some future time when prophecy will cease:
- Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. (1 Co 13:8)
This doesn’t mean that there will no longer be any gift of prophecy; it simply means it becomes inoperative. The spiritual gifts in the world to come will become unnecessary, for the righteous will be in perfect tune with the realm of the Ruach (Spirit). The challenges that necessitate these gifts will no longer exist. The spiritual pillars that are now commemorated with “time” will be part of our internal clocks, which don’t need calendars, just a well-tuned ruach, for in that day, the trees will bear fruit every month even though there will be no sun or moon to signal seasons or even day and night. Days, months, hours, years, and so forth, will form a reality that until now we only experience with the natural “clocks” of Creation. Let Shavuot guide into understanding of how Yeshua’s footsteps might sound.
Having left behind the salvation of Passover, Shavuot is the appointed time to grow from milk to solid food by Rosh HaShanah. As at Sinai, it requires a willingness to “do and hear,” or receive the Word of Moses and Yeshua. The Ruach enables this process:
- “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?” (1 Co 3:1-3)
- For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed [“inexperienced”] to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. (Heb 5:12-13)
Paul and the writer to the Hebrews do not expect the non-Jews to whom they write to continue in milk. Jewish tradition says a remnant of the nations desired the Torah when it was offered at Mt. Sinai. In Acts 2 at Shavuot, this desire was satisfied for the proselytes from the nations, and they returned to their nations with the Good News of salvation and covenant. Along with verses from Psalm 119, Psalm 67 is read each day of the counting of the omer to Shavuot. These peoples are to mature to Sukkot:
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God be gracious to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us—Selah. That Your way may be known on the earth, Your salvation among all nations. Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy; for You will judge the peoples with uprightness and guide the nations on the earth. Selah. Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You. The earth has yielded its produce [people]; God, our God, blesses us. God blesses us, that all the ends of the earth may fear Him. (Ps 67:1–7)
Shavuot commemorates both the giving of the Torah at Sinai as well as the Firstfruits of the Wheat harvest. The Seed of the Word is beginning to mature, ready to commit to the covenant anew, to learn and grow to the fullness of Sukkot, which celebrates the ingathering of everything: winevat, threshing floor, fruit of the ground, fruit of the tree, flocks and herds.
The fruit of the olive tree, however, creates a link between Sukkot and the next Passover. Because olives just begin ripening at Sukkot, it is too early to bring tithes, and perhaps even firstfruit in some late-ripening years. Processing the olive fruit is time-consuming, and it can take several weeks to harvest, process, store, and do the accounting necessary to separate tithes for the priests and Levites. The late winter fiscal year for tree fruits also affects when tithes and firstfruits might be brought. Season overlaps season, and feast overlaps feast, never disconnecting:
- “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “When the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows seed; when the mountains will drip sweet wine and all the hills will be dissolved.” (Amos 9:13)
These cycles of the feasts explain why a prophecy may be fulfilled many times, never exactly the way it was previously, but according to that template. New generation, new fulfillment.
The blessings upon the tribes are sometimes oblique, but the blessing on Judah is fairly straightforward, an excellent example of the growth principle.
- “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down to you. Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He couches, he lies down as a lion, and as a lion(ess), who dares rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. He ties his foal to the vine, and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine; he washes his garments in wine, and his robes in the blood of grapes. His eyes are dull from wine, and his teeth white from milk.” (Ge 49:8-12)
Milk grows teeth for solid food. Wine is for grownups, especially associated with the Feast of Sukkot. At Sukkot, the Torah scrolls are re-rolled to start reading in the new cycle with Genesis (Bereishit). Judah has grown strong adult teeth to digest the Word. Inheritance is for the mature, not infants or children. A child who will inherit is taught, guided, rehearsed, and prepared to manage that inheritance. Some will faithfully grow in each feast cycle so that they may inherit the Kingdom. Others will live as little children perpetually, unwilling and unable to manage tasks assigned by the Holy One.
Judah is the focus of the above Messianic prophecy, but a rule of Scripture is that it must first apply at the simple level. What applies to Messiah Yeshua will also apply to Judah and Israel, for it is understood that each tribe has some measure of every blessing, but the blessings identified with them are evident and characteristic. For instance, there were kings from other tribes, but Judah is assigned the scepter and dynasty. Israel is a royal priesthood, but Judah will provide the king, and the Levites provide the priests.
In Judah’s blessing, he is identified both with a young donkey and its mother; it is a blessing of both growth and continuity that is echoed in the lion symbols. Judah is first a cub (gur aryeh), next a lion (ari), and then a lioness (lavi). Even though context presents child, male, female, all three symbols collectively are “he,” yet they symbolize the same tribe. Believers as individuals mature from nursing children to mature adults to adults with the ability to nurse new believers:
- "But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children." (1 Th 2:7)
The Corinthians and Thessalonians were once "strangers to the covenant," yet the apostles who ministered to them refused to allow them to remain little cubs in the Word. They were supposed to grow to solid food and become teachers of the Word. The whole Word. The term for "cub" in Judah's blessing is gur aryeh. Gur shares the same two-letter root with the ger, the Hebrew word for stranger. A stranger in Israel is just a newcomer to the Word, but he or she will not stay a cub.
The stranger in Israel is there to learn, grow, and engage the covenant, not to remain a stranger. They are to become fellow-citizens with all the rights and obligations of Israel when they take the covenant yoke of Kingdom with Yeshua. The good news is that putting your neck in the yoke with Yeshua means that he is strong enough to make the burden easy, and he won't drag you along if you need more learning time. He has sent the Ruach HaKodesh to teach us.
As long as these cycles of the feasts continue, until the resurrection of the dead, we have the opportunity to do two kinds of growth each year:
- grow in a new cycle individually, like the shoots of the olive plant that will mature the fruits at Sukkot
- grow together as Israel into the vine of Sukkot maturity
Israel is the Vineyard: "You removed a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and planted it." (Ps 80:8)
So yes, it takes a baby, a lamb, at Passover. The Seed of the Word begins to mature at Shavuot. The vines and olives reach full growth by Sukkot, yet they continue into the next Passover.
In contrast to the tribal territories of Joshua’s generation, Ezekiel’s millennial tribal allotments are in straight, horizontal lines, forming the shape of vineyard rows, representing the Vineyard of Israel:
- How blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways. When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, you will be happy and it will be well with you. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children like olive plants [new slips] around your table. Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. (Ps 128:1–4)
So yes, Yeshua has fulfilled prophecies, and be prepared for him to fulfill them again. When the Lion of the Tribe of Judah descends, his footsteps will be very heavy on the earth. Who dares arouse a mature lion? Who dares to threaten a lioness' cubs?
We’re on a growth cycle preparing to rule and reign as grownups, a royal priesthood. Between now and the fall feasts, study to be the disciple…excuse me…lion and lioness…that no one dares to rouse up!
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Shabbat Shalom!
