Today's Reading is Numbers 28-30...
My thoughts on today's reading...
Repetition is the mother of learning... maybe you've heard that phrase before... it's true that many times the more we repeat something the more likely we are to remember it. We might wonder why the Lord has to repeat all the details about the various offerings and feasts that His people were to keep, but it is for the very reason that they were often so forgetful that He does repeat it. I'm going to attach a picture of the Jewish Calendar and how the feasts fit in. Obviously as prescribed, their were daily offerings, sabbath offerings, monthly offerings and then the offerings for various feasts. It's a lot to keep track of. Note that the Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar, but the number of days per month can be 29-30 days, and there are 12 months, but instead of a leap year where one day is added, their average year was 354 days, so their leap year added a extra 30 day month. They have about 7 leap years in a 19 year cycle. Confused... I would be too, but remember we are used to our calendar system, so this one sounds pretty random to us.
Chapter 20 reveals the importance of keeping vows you make, and adds provisions for vows that women make, as they are determined as valid if their father (if they are unmarried) or their husband doesn't cancel the vow but allows it to stand. I know this sounds pretty dated to us, but you have to remember that in their culture, the father or husband was supposed to look out for the best welfare, so they would have seen this as a form of protection and looking out for the best interest of those under their responsibility.
By the way, Adar II in the picture below is the leap month, and in the case of this year 2024 is a year that month is included so unlike most years when Passover is the week of Easter, for the Jews Passover isn't until April 22, after our celebration of Easter.
- I think I would need someone standing by constantly reminding me and I would probably still mess up. And we do still mess up even when we know.
- Yeah, since they didn't really do much writing down and didn't have planners, they would probably have developed some sort of routine... and probably remembered more things than we do!