Counting Seven Sabbaths

Counting Seven Sabbaths
Supplemental Study to Keeping Yahwehs Appointments

by Jonathan David Brown 1998 - 2010
[Authors Note: As a precursor, it is suggested to have a regular commercial (Julian) calendar in front
of you for 1999 (or any year which lists Passover on a Sunday through Friday) and a few months
afterward. This will aid in graphically understanding the mechanics and difficulties of the count.]
The counting of fifty days, through seven sabbaths, from Passover to Pentecost (Leviticus 23:15-16)
has been traditionally called the Omer Count. History exists of this count dating to the First Temple
period. During that time, the commandment to wave a measurement of barley (Leviticus 23:11) was
fully experienced by the whole congregation of Israel as an acknowledgment of the beginning of the
years agricultural blessings. This measurement, translated in the King James as sheaf, is the
Hebrew word omer, or about 3.3 dry quarts.
Nowadays, because we have no temple building, the harvesting of this Omer is neither publicly
acknowledged nor offered. Nevertheless, there is still a commandment to count the Omer in order to
keep Pentecost, which is also known as the Feast of Firstfruits (Exodus 23:14-15), and the Feast of
Weeks (Exodus 34:20). The commandment states:
"And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the
sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete. Even unto the morrow after the
seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days . ." Leviticus 23:15-16 (KJV).
As stated in my book (. . Appointments pg. 59), the particular sabbath spoken of here is not
perfectly clear from the translation of the King James text (from the Masoretic). The Torah (Hebrew)
Bible translates it thus:
"You shall count from the eve of the second day of Pesach [Passover], when the Omer of grain is to
be brought as an offering, seven complete weeks. The day after the seventh week of your counting
will make fifty days." Leviticus 23:15-16.
Notice that the King James Version specifies seven sabbaths, but in the Torah its just seven
weeks. In the Masoretic Hebrew manuscript, it is clearly the word shabbat (sabbath), not shabuwa
(week). The difference is that the Torah makes it clear that the Omer count begins from the second
day of the feast of Unleavened Bread, and not merely the weekly Sabbath.
In the Septuagint Version, this starting point is confirmed as On the morrow of the first day [of
Unleavened Bread] the priest shall lift it up [the omer]. Leviticus 23:11. And, historians Josephus and
Philo both understood it this way.
Deuteronomy 16:9 gives us another clue as to how to determine the beginning of the count, 9 Seven
weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest
to put the sickle to the corn. This statement is straight-on with the barley necessarily being in the
head or ripe for the purpose of beginning the omer count.
Due to the lunar nature of the Hebrew months, every year Passover will fall on a different day of our
current commercial week. So, for example, let's say that the first high day of Unleavened Bread falls
on a Wednesday. We are to begin counting the "weeks" from the next day, Thursday, when the Omer
is waved. The count continues unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath . ." Lev. 23:16 (KJV).
So, if we begin counting on the day after the first day of Unleavened Bread, a Thursday, and number
50 solar days only, we will arrive at a Thursday - 5 days AFTER the seventh "Saturday" Sabbath. This
is hardly the morrow after, as required by Leviticus 23:16. This inadvertently points out the fallacy
of the commercial week Saturday as allegedly being Sabbath day.
But, IF we begin counting on the day after the first day of Unleavened Bread, and count seven lunar
quarters, grouping the New Moon sabbaths as ONE DAY (See . . Appointments pgs. 61-63), the
49th day will fall right on the first quarter-moon Sabbath of the 3rd month. Then the following day is
the Feast Of Weeks (Pentecost).
We cannot begin counting the day after the first day of Unleavened Bread (in a lunar position), and
then jump to the regular commercial week to end the count on the day after Saturday or Sunday
Sabbath.
To get around this, many Saturday keepers who also keep Unleavened Bread will arbitrarily delay the
beginning of the count to the day after the first Saturday following the first day of the feast (which we
hypothetically stated to begin on a Wednesday). There is no such "delay" prescribed anywhere in
scripture. To prescribe such an arbitrary method, without scriptural authority, is adding to Yahs
Laws, which is forbidden. Deuteronomy 4:2.
There are other problems that arise regarding Saturday or Sunday Sabbath with the proper counting
method. For example, if the first day of Unleavened Bread were on a Friday, the second day would of
course fall on a Saturday Sabbath. It would be unthinkable to perform the omer count beginning on a
Sabbath as it is clearly spelled out in every translation to be the day after a Sabbath, and particularly the
first Sabbath of Unleavened Bread. Moreover, since no work is to be done on Sabbath, the grain
could not be harvested on Saturday.
The reason why the specific term seven sabbaths is rendered vaguely as seven weeks in the Torah
version should now be obvious. For the translators to have kept the term seven sabbaths side by side
with the clear description that the count begins on the day after the first day of Unleavened Bread
would have exposed the lunar nature of the Sabbath Day itself. Indeed, it tends to make the religious
authorities appear to be perpetuating a fraud to declare Saturday (or Sunday) to be the Sabbath.
In the process of documenting this discovery, we have also inadvertently proved that the two or three
days where the moon disappears (new moon) must be grouped together as one day, in order to get
through seven sabbaths and properly end the count the following day. This highlights the current
commercial week (Sunday through Saturday) as being an arbitrary creation of the mind of man, and
emphasizes the wonder of Yahs creation of the moon as a natural timekeeper for all of His
Appointments.

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Supplemental Study to Keeping Yahwehs Appointments

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