Feast Day Titles Briefly Explained

You have probably noticed that I have used different titles for some of the feast days. I have also included the Shabbat (Sabbeth), Bayom Hashvi'i (Seventh day) of Hag HaMatzot and Rosh Chodesh (The New Moon). This gives us a total of ten feast days. I will be briefly explaining some of the titles that you might not recognize.

The first one is: Chag HaMatzot (Feast of Unleavened Bread). Now this is most likely not new to you if you have been studying Hebraic roots for a while, but I thought it is worth mentioning it in this way because to many times people will say that they are celebrating Passover and infer that the day is Passover when in fact the Pesach (Passover) is the food that you eat on the First Day of Unleavened Bread (Chag HaMatzot). With that said, yes it is Yahweh’s Pesach which we can clearly see in Vayikrah (Leviticus) 23:5-6 On the fourteenth of the first month at twilight Yahweh’s Pesach. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to Yahweh; seven days you must eat unleavened bread.

I understand that this passage seems to be implying that these are two separate days but if you look back at Sh’mot (Exodus) 12:1-20 you will discover that the lamb was the sacrifice and the meal and the time you slaughtered the lamb was at the going down of the sun or at twilight on the fourteenth day of the month and when you ate it was at the beginning of the fifteenth day of the month. Therefore we see the connection between the end of the fourteenth day and the beginning of the fifteenth day. Also you are to eat the Pesach with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, Sh’mot (Exodus) 12:8, this also is pointing to the First Day of Unleavened Bread. So this is why I make the clarification for the first feast day. So to be clear, Pesach is a part of Chag HaMatzot (Feast of Unleavened Bread). It is a feast within a feast. I would also, at this juncture, like to mention that each day in the lunar calendar begins in darkness and ends in darkness that is to say, sundown to sundown.

The second one is: Et-Omer Reshit Ketsirchem (The Omer of your First Reaping). This title is used in Vayikrah (Leviticus) 23:9-14. You will find that all translations use the title Feast of First Fruits in this passage. However If you look closely at the Hebrew, you will discover that the phrase firstfruits (bikurim) is not in the passage, you only have the reference to the Omer and the first reaping. Where you will find the reference to firstfruits (bikurim) is in Vayikrah (Leviticus) 23:17 ‘You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits (bikurim) to Yahweh. This passage is referring to the Feast of Shavuot (Weeks).

To confirm that Shavuot is The Day of Firstfruits let’s look at the following passage: Bemidbar (Numbers) 28:26 ‘Also on the day of the firstfruits, (Yom HaBikurim) when you bring a new grain offering to Yahweh at your Feast of Weeks (Shavuot), you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work.

With that said, we can see that Vayikrah (Leviticus) 23:9-14 is referring to the time when you begin the count towards Shavuot (The Feast of Weeks or The Day of Firstfruits). This is called counting the Omer.