Passover to Pentecost – Fifty Days!        Week 1 Day 2

Leviticus 23: 16 – Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath.

Okay, why fifty days?  It does not fit any of the usual numbers we associate with trials and test.  The verse is referring to the harvesting of the barely crop (a symbol of Israel); is that the only answer?  With that asked I will turn to Jewish legend, which I am finding usually has more meat than myth.  This is the time it took for Moses and the Israelites, after Passover, to get to Mount Sinai and get the Laws of God.  Pentecost (Feast of Weeks) is celebrated as the point of spiritual freedom because they were given God’s Word.

Chabada.org gives the seventh day of Passover as when Israel went through the Red Sea which puts them out of Egypt on day eight.  No, you will not find that in Scripture, but I can live and work with that idea.  Seven is recognized as the number of completion and eight as new beginnings so it does make sense.

The events that occurred from the Red Sea to Mount Sinai are mirrored in other Passovers and their history:

• Bitter water
• Food
• Water problems, again
• Amalekites
• Community structure
• God at Mount Sinai

These topics will be visited later in this series.  An immediate point is Exodus 19:1; since I am not a Hebrew scholar this verse puts a time stamp on their arrival.  I would say that it was sixty days when they arrived.  Since it is a “tradition” as to when to celebrate things I think I will look for something else to nit-pick on.