Shavuot: A Time of Harvest and Outpouring of the Holy Spirit

Shavuot or Pentecost as it is known in the Christian World is an important holiday.

There is little information on interpreting the Feast in the Torah where the Feast is enjoined in Leviticus 23. It is one of the national pilgrim festivals when men are to gather in Jerusalem. Rabbinic calculation, which is plausible, made Shavuot the time of the giving of the Covenant of the Ten Words (Ten Commandments) in Exodus 20. We do know that the season is the first great harvest of the year, and thanksgiving for this harvest fits the agricultural seasons of Israel’s three feasts, Passover the first of the fruit of trees, Shavuot the first major harvest and then Sukkot (Tabernacles) the final and great harvest in Autumn. The name Shavuot refers to the Feast being seven weeks after the Feast of First Fruits of Passover week or of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Pentecost calculates by days where the Feast is the 50th day after.

For followers of Yeshua, the really big event is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on this Holy Day on the 50th day after the resurrection of Yeshua. Peter quotes Joel 2:28 ff. He says, “This is that” and says that it is fulfilling the promise of Joel that God would pour out his Spirit on all flesh. There are two different approaches to the interpretation of fulfillment. Joel says that this is to happen before “the great and terrible Day of the LORD.” This is God’s final day of judgment at the end of this age before the coming of the Age to Come. Therefore many have believed that his text looks forward to a last days revival worldwide before the return of Yeshua. I agree with this view. The fulfillment in Acts 2 fits the pattern of the Gospels of the Kingdom of God having come in an “already not yet way.” The “not yet” of the outpouring at its greatest level is still future. The other interpretation that Joel 2:28 ff is past and not still future in any way I do not find convincing.

We still celebrate the harvest in Israel at Shavuot. As Messianic Jews we look back to the great outpouring of the Spirit on Jewish disciples of Yeshua in the first century, also look back on the great history of outpourings in revival, and finally look forward to a great worldwide outpouring before the return of Yeshua. And yes, we believe in a great outpouring of the Spirit in Israel.