Shavuot - Torah Is The Roadmap for Clarity and Direction
We are all on a journey and each day is an opportunity to remind ourselves that we are preparing for our ultimate destination. The Torah is a roadmap for this journey as it provides some deep insights, increasing our understanding on topics such as the count off to Shavuot, the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, how to use and expound the Torah, understanding the upper room experience and understanding the signs of Shavuot.
The Torah has instructed that we should count the forty-nine days until the festival of Shavuot, the anniversary of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai and the anniversary of the giving of the Spirit in Jerusalem. The Torah also commanded the Israelites to bring the "sheaf of the first fruits" of the grain harvest (the barley crop) to the Temple on the day after the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread. This harvest ritual is called the Day of the Omer which is a biblical unit of measure that indicates about one sheaf's worth of grain and also the anniversary of the Yeshua’s resurrection. Year after year, the day of the first fruits of the barley reminds us of the resurrection of Messiah, the "first fruits of those who are asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). In Judaism, the forty-nine days of the counting of the omer are traditionally regarded as a time of spiritual nurturing in anticipation of Shavuot. Among believers in Yeshua, the forty-nine days are extra special because they include the anniversary of the forty days that the risen Messiah was among His disciples.
The festival of Shavuot arrives fifty days later and it is called Pentecost because that is the Greek word for "fifty." Its Hebrew name is the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot, שָׁבוּעוֹת) because there are seven weeks of days between the beginning of Unleavened Bread and the festival of Shavuot. The day of Shavuot is the anniversary of the day God spoke the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai. According to the book of Acts, HaRuach HaKodesh (The Holy Spirit) came upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the Master's resurrection.
Most Christians are familiar with Shavuot as it is associated with wind, fire and people speaking in several languages:
When the day of Pentecost (Shavuot) came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 2:1-4)
Even before the tongues of fire fell upon the believers in Jerusalem, the fire fell upon Mount Sinai, where the first Shavuot took place. The children of Israel arrived in the desert of Sinai in the third month, as the Torah says. On the sixth day of the third month, God descended onto Mount Sinai to give Israel the Torah. He came in blazing fire heralded by the loud blast of the shofar. Just as the Passover is a memorial of the Exodus from Egypt, Shavuot is a memorial of the giving of the Torah, known as ‘Mattan Torah.’
On the first Shavuot, a thick, dark cloud covered Mount Sinai. The whole mountain shook and trembled as the sound of a loud ram’s horn trumpet, a shofar, split the air. God spoke and all Israel heard His voice. The Shavuot-miracles that accompanied the giving of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 allude to the giving of the Torah at Sinai. The mighty wind, the tongues of fire, and the speaking in other languages memorialize Mattan Torah.
Long before the disciples had this experience of speaking in other languages, Moses had this experience of speaking in tongues upon Mount Sinai. Even though Moses had a speech impediment, after He received the Torah at Mount Sinai, he overcame this challenge and expounded the Torah in seventy languages. The Midrash Tanchuma takes up the discussion:
“Come and see! When the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, “Go and I will send you to Pharaoh,” Moses said, “Woe! You are giving over the mission to me? I am not a man of words.” He said, “There are seventy languages known in Pharaoh’s court, so that if anyone comes from a foreign country, they can speak to him in his language. I am going as your apostle, and they will question me, and I will tell them that I am an apostle of the Almighty, and it will be obvious to them that I do not know how to converse with them. Will they not mock me and say, ‘Look, the apostle of the Creator of the universe who created all the tongues! He is unable to comprehend or answer.’” This is what Moses meant when he said, “Woe, I am not a man of words.” … forty years after the exodus from Egypt, however, he expounded the Torah in seventy languages, as it says, “He explained this Torah.”” (Midrash Tanchuma, Devarim 2)
The seventy tongues represent the seventy mother-languages spoken by all humanity according to Judaism. The presentation of the Torah in every language alludes to the universal quality of the revelation of God through the Torah of Moses.
Just as Moses is said to have expounded the Torah to Israel in every language, likewise, the disciples proclaimed the good news of Yeshua on Shavuot in every language. The disciples also experienced a great spiritual refreshing as the bible states that, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place” (Acts 2:1). Where was that one place? Tradition places the receiving of the Spirit on Shavuot in the upper room as per Acts 1. The disciples met in the upper room after the ascension, but ten days elapsed between the ascension and the events described in Acts 2. The story does not indicate that they were still in that upper room in Acts 2. More likely, the believers assembled in one of the courts of the Temple.
Deuteronomy 16:16 enjoins all men of Israel to present themselves before the LORD (at the Temple) on the day of Shavuot. Since the disciples were in Jerusalem, they could not fail to go up to the Temple. The disciples met every day in the Temple where they worshiped God continuously (Luke 24:52-53). If they did so on ordinary days, how much more so would they have been in the Temple on a holy day. The outpouring at Shavuot occurred at the time of morning sacrifice and prayer. According to Acts 3, Simon Peter and John kept the times of prayer in the Temple courts.
Simon Peter also preached to a vast multitude of Jews from all over the world. Only in the Temple courts would such a diverse throng assemble on the day of Shavuot. Three thousand people immersed themselves in response to his message. The Temple had pools to accommodate mass immersions.The Greek word oikos, which most English Bibles translate as “house” in Acts 2:2, is ambiguous and can refer to any building or structure. Rabbinic literature refers to the Temple as “The House (HaBayit).”
All this evidence points to the same conclusion: The pouring out of the Spirit reported in Acts 2 took place in the courts of the Temple in Jerusalem—not in the upper room mentioned in Acts 1.
According to Jewish tradition, the voice of God at Mount Sinai divided into seventy voices speaking seventy different tongues, and those voices looked like hot sparks flying forth from a hammer’s blows on stone. The voice of God appeared to Israel like hot, burning torches that descended like sparks. A similar tradition depicts the voice of God going forth from the mouth of God as flames of fire.
Rabbi Yochanan expounded on God’s teaching in several languages as well.
“The Torah says [in Exodus 20:18], “And all the people saw the voices.” Note that it does not say “the voice,” but “the voices”; wherefore Rabbi Yochanan said that God’s voice, as it was uttered, split up into seventy voices, in seventy tongues, so that all the nations should understand.” (Shemot Rabbah 5:9)
“Rabbi Yochanan said: “What is meant by the verse [in Psalm 68:12(11)], ‘The LORD announced the word, and great was the company of those who proclaimed it’? Every single word that went forth from the Almighty divided up into seventy tongues.”” (b.Shabbat 88b)
The tongues of fire and utterances in every tongue pointed directly back to the experience at Mount Sinai, and they underscored a connection between God’s Holy Spirit and His holy Torah. As both Moshe and Yeshua taught, it is important to understand the teachings of Torah and teach others Torah to the world, as the 70 languages represent the languages of all tje nations of the world.
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