This year Shavuot or Pentecost was observed in the Jewish community last Sunday, at Sundown. All days in Jewish tradition begin in the evening because in Genesis 1 God said, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.”
The Jewish calendar differs from the Christian calendar because it is based on God’s Law given to Israel. To fulfill those commands, one must combine the times of both the sun and the moon. The Christian calendar is based only on the sun.
That is why Passover and Easter only occasionally fall on the same day.
Shavuot/Pentecost is second of the 3 pilgrim feasts, the first is Passover, the second is Shavuot/Pentecost and the third is the Feast of Tabernacles. On those days God commanded those who love Him to present themselves in Jerusalem.
It was no coincidence that Yeshua died on Passover. God had set the stage for His chosen people to be present for the death and resurrection of His beloved Son Jesus, the promised Messiah and hope of Israel.
The first Sunday after Passover was the Biblical holy Day of First Fruits. There are seven holy days or appointed times that God gave to Israel. They are listed in Lev. 23 and each foreshadow events fulfilled in the New Covenant.
Just as Yeshua died on Passover, He rose from the dead on First Fruits. As Paul reminds us in 1 Cor. 15:22 “But now Messiah has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.”
In Lev. 23:9-11 we read this: Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you enter the land which I am going to give to you and reap its harvest, you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD for you to be accepted; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.
Jesus died on Passover and rose from death on First Fruits.
Shavuot is the Hebrew word for (Weeks). The Greek speaking Jews who were dispersed in the nations called it Pentecost (Fifty). Because this Holy Day came 50 days after Passover.
On First Fruits God commanded His children to count the days after First Fruits, inn Lev. 23:15 we read: You shall also count for yourselves from the day after the sabbath, from the day when you brought in the sheaf of the wave offering; there shall be seven complete sabbaths. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh sabbath; then you shall present a new grain offering to the LORD.
The counting is called “the Omer” in Hebrew. On the first Sunday morning after Passover the High Priest in the Temple would wave an offering of barley as First Fruits to the Lord.
Barley was the very first harvest in Israel ripining in March or April like winter wheat harvested at the same time in our country. The counting of the Omer would continue for 49 days or 7 weeks until Shavuot/Pentecost.
Shavuot marked the start of the main harvest from late May or Early June to Fall when the third pilgrim Holy day would occur – The Feast of the Ingathering or Tabernacles where the fall harvest was celebrated with joy and thanksgiving offerings made to the Lord in the Temple.
In Acts 1:6 Yeshua told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem until the Spirit would come upon them. So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
That was the 40th day of the counting of the Omer. 10 days later in keeping with God’s Law they would be in Jerusalem for Shavuot or Pentecost.
The Jewish focus of the 50th Day commemorates the events on Mt. Sinai when God gave the covenant and Torah. It celebrates the moment Israel moved from freedom (Passover) to covenantal responsibility at Sinai.
Day 50 represents not just deliverance but a time of spiritual maturity, new birth, and empowerment.
The move from 49 days or 7 weeks (Shavuot) to day 50 Pentecost is rich with spiritual, historical, and theological significance. The number 50 marks a culmination—a jubilee moment, a point of fulfillment and new beginning.
The 50th Pentecost, symbolizes Spiritual completion and preparation. The number 7 in Scripture speaks of completion as in the Sabbath. Seven squared or 7×7 = 49 and represents the full cycle of spiritual preparation.
Let’s see how the 50th day points to three key themes associated with the holy day of Pentecost: Sanctification, Revelation, and Empowerment.
1. Sanctification means to be Set Apart for God. This is what holy means. When we come to faith in God and His Son, Yeshua we are made holy or set apart as belonging to God. Just as Israel was a holy nation so too are Christians.
Sanctification is the process by which God’s Spirit transforms us into the image of Israel’s King, Yeshua by God’s Holy Spirit. In Exodus 19:10–11, before the giving of the Covenant on Mt. Sinai, the Lord instructed Moses: “Sanctify the people today and tomorrow and let them wash their garments. And be ready by the third day…”
Sanctification involves:
- Cleansing from impurity (both external and internal)
- Aligning the heart with God’s will
- Dedication to holiness in thought, word, and deed
When God’s chosen people came to Jerusalem, before they came into the Temple they cleansed themselves by being baptized. Baptism in Hebrew is mikveh. Before they could enter the Temple, all Jewish men needed to be immersed.
Baptism is an outward picture of an inward experience. Baptism does not save us faith does. Baptism is a picture of our faith. The remnant of God’s people the people of faith in Yeshua’s day demonstrated their faith by being immersed before they entered the Temple. Internal cleansing by faith and then external with Mikveh.
Orthodox Jews to this very day in preparation for worship on the Holy Days immerse themselves before they gather in their Synagogues.
The Jewish disciples in Acts 1 were in the days of the Omer waiting in Jerusalem as their kinsmen were coming for the second Pilgrim Holy Day. They were counting the days in the upper room in prayer and unity, aligning their hearts to be ready for what God had prepared for them.
2. The second key point on the 50th day points to Revelation – God Speaking and Disclosing His Will.
On the 50th day, God spoke. He revealed Himself not just through mighty signs—thunder, lightning, and fire—but through His Word, the Ten Words or Commandments, which formed the foundation of His covenant with Israel (Ex 20).
Revelation means more than just learning facts—it is God disclosing Himself, revealing His nature, His truth, and His expectations. Shavuot is: The celebration of divine instruction in God’s Word.
Just as God’s Covenant with His chosen people was given on Shavuot at Sinai, so the Holy Spirit was given on that same day in Jerusalem as we read in Acts 2 we read:
When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them the ability.
At Sinai: God wrote His law on tablets of stone. There was fire on the Mountain when Moses received the covenant. 1500 years later on the very same day: God with fire and His Holy Spirit God wrote His law on human hearts as Jeremiah foretold:
Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was (note this) a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
At Sinai God took Israel to be His wife. God became Israel’s Husband. There is a reflection of this in the Jewish tradition of betrothal. When a couple are engaged to be married, they sign a covenant called a Ketuvah. In which they pledge themselves to each to remain pure until they are married.
If they break their promise of purity before they are married, they can lawfully be divorced. This is why Joseph intended to divorce Mary during that betrothal period as we read in Matthew 1:18
When Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet Isaiah: “BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,” which translated means, “GOD WITH US.” And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Yeshua.
On Pentecost the day the New Covenant was given the church was born. The church is the season we live in today. It is the time when Jews and Gentiles become betrothed to the Messiah.
When Israel committed adultery by worshipping idols God divorced her as we read in Jer. 3:6:
Then the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. I thought, ‘After she has done all these things she will return to Me’; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also.
But God never remarried and as Jeremiah wrote in what I just read in chapter 31. The New Covenant is God betrothing Himself to Israel once again after she is sanctified and purified. This happened on Shavuot/Pentecost.
Jews and Gentiles who come to Israel’s Messiah Yeshua become betrothed to the Lord and are to remain faithful to Him until our wedding day which will be at the Marriage supper of the Lamb right after He comes for His bride from heaven.
As Paul writes in 1 Thess. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
Revelation also includes The recognition that God’s Word is life-giving. Moses told Israel as they were about to enter the Promised Land these words:
See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. But if your heart turns away and you will not obey but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”
This of course literally happened we were removed from the Promised Land because of our infidelity. Some Christians believe we are free from the Law, but Yeshua said to His discples in Matthew 5:
“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
In the New Covenant, on Pentecost, revelation came through the Spirit (Acts 2), as the God’s Holy Spirit filled the disciples and enabled them to proclaim the mighty works of God in many tongues.
It was not just about knowing the Law of the Lord—but being filled with the living presence of the Word Himself.
3. The third key that occurred on the 50th day was Empowerment – Receiving Divine Ability to Fulfill God’s Purpose
Shavuot is not only about being set apart as holy or just receiving Revelation—it is also about being empowered to live it out. The Torah was not given just to be studied, but to shape a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6).
Empowerment is about divine enablement—not just knowing what is right but being filled with the Presence of God through His indwelling presence of God to walk in His Law.
We too must choose between life and death as Paul teaches in Gal. 5:
For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Messiah Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
In Acts 2, the Spirit of God came as fire, not only to dwell with the people but to abide in them, giving them power to:
- Proclaim the Good News that Messiah has come boldly
- Live transformed lives
- Fulfill the mission to bring God’s Law and Messiah to the nations
The shift from 49 to 50 is not merely numerical—it’s transformational. It marks the journey: From preparation to purpose from redemption on Passover to revelation and empowerment to keep God’s commands on Shavuot.
Whether at Sinai or in Jerusalem, Shavuot/Pentecost is a divine encounter that transforms God’s people. May we embrace sanctification, receive His revelation, and walk in the power of His indwelling Spirit.
