Ending Exile: A Meditation on Shavuot

*“Ruth Gleaning” by James Jacques Joseph Tissot.*

This article is part of a series on the holidays and calendar of the Hebrew Scriptures. You can read our other articles about biblical Jewish feasts here.

At the end of spring and the beginning of summer, seven weeks after Passover, is the feast of Shavuot. Customarily, families gather together, decorate the house with flowers, eat dairy treats such as blintzes or cheesecake, study the Torah, and give special attention to the book of Ruth.

The biblical descriptions and mandates of Shavuot—also known as the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, or the Festival of Reaping[1]—seem far removed from these modern observances, however. References to the holiday in Scripture focus exclusively on its agricultural aspects:

“You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the LORD your God blesses you. And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell there. You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.” [2]

Most holidays of the Jewish calendar are meant to be a reminder of an aspect of the Exodus. For example, Passover recalls Israel’s release from slavery, Sukkot brings to mind the wilderness wanderings, and so on. While the passage above on the Feast of Weeks commands the remembrance of slavery in Egypt, Shavuot is best known today for marking the giving of the law at Sinai. Strangely, however, no biblical account of the holiday ever makes an explicit connection to this event. How did Sinai become synonymous with Shavuot, and, more importantly, should Shavuot be considered a day to celebrate the revelation of God’s law, or should it be considered purely a harvest festival?

Jubilee Trumpets

The logic behind the rabbis’ associating Sinai with Shavuot begins with the command to “count” the time preceding the Feast of Weeks. From the day after Passover, 49 days are observed in a process called “Counting the sheaves” or “Siferat HaOmer.” [3] After completing this count, it is time for Shavuot.

RELATED // Read, “Jonah, Justice, and Mercy that Covers: A Meditation on Yom Kippur” to learn more about the Day of Atonement.

This multiplication of seven times seven days is not arbitrary numbers that happens to coincide with the ripening of wheat. There is another holiday that commands the counting of seven units of seven, where the counting of seven sabbaths is the means of ascertaining the time of celebration. That is the yovel (יובל), or the Jubilee year. To determine a Jubilee year, one counts out seven sabbatical years—that is, seven groups of seven years—and on the fiftieth year, a Jubilee is proclaimed.[4]

In a Jubilee year, not only is the land to remain unharvested, and its fruits available to all as it is in a sabbatical year, but two distinct commandments are made. First, servants are set free from their masters back to their families, or as Leviticus 25:10 says, “…and each of you shall return to his clan.” The second commandment is that all lands should return to the original owners. In Israel, the twelve tribes had specific portions of land, which was then allotted to clans within the tribe. Land might be sold (or rather, leased), but the land reverted to the back to its assigned family on the Jubilee year.

This grand reset that would happen once in a lifetime would begin a year of restoration, marked by the sounding of the Jubilee trumpet on the Day of Atonement.

Sinai: Redemption from Slavery

However, the first time yovel is mentioned in the Bible is not with the institutions and instructions regarding the Jubilee year. Instead, it first appears in Exodus in the story of Sinai, and here is where parallels with the Jubilee year and Shavuot become apparent.

After the people of Israel left Egypt, made their way across the Red Sea, received manna from heaven, drank water from the split rock, fought Amalek, and chose elders, they arrived at Mount Sinai and encamped at the foot of the mountain. Moses went up the mountain, where the LORD proposed to the people of Israel: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

When the people heard this proposal, they affirmed, “All that the LORD has spoken, we will do.” With this acceptance, the LORD instructed Moses to set boundaries for the people around the mountain in preparation for His appearance before Israel and the cutting of covenant that will take place three days later. The Israelites are strictly warned not to touch the mountain until a trumpet sounds. This is not just any trumpet, however. It is a ram’s horn—a shofar—a yovel (יובל). These same trumpets that were the markers of the start of the Jubilee (יובל) year were first heard when the LORD first revealed Himself at Sinai. [5]

So terrifying was the descent of the LORD to the peak of Sinai, with the overwhelming blast of the trumpet, thick clouds, thunder, and flames, that the people did not dare approach. Moses instead went and received the words of the covenant and brought them back to the people. Again the people consented: “All that the LORD has spoken, we will do.” So Moses built an altar and twelve pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. He sacrificed oxen to the LORD there and sprinkled half the blood on the altar, and half the blood on the people, saying, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

After being sprinkled with the blood of the covenant, Moses and the seventy appointed elders of Israel ascended the mountain. There they beheld God and feasted with Him.[6]

A year or so later, when the time came to leave the wilderness at Sinai, Moses again assembled seventy elders outside the Tabernacle where the LORD’s presence resided. The LORD took some of His Holy Spirit in Moses and poured it on the seventy elders who subsequently began to prophesy. Joshua, Moses’ assistant, objected to others operating in the power of the Holy Spirit as Moses did, but Moses rebuked him, saying, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit in them!” [7]

All Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years after having been gathered as a nation and family, released and redeemed from slavery—the first commandment of Jubilee. When they reached the borders of the promised land, Moses then told the people of the blessings and the curses of the law of the covenant made at Sinai and renewed in Moab.[8]

The blessings of keeping the covenant, though many, could conceivably be summed up in these two blessings: “Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground.” [9] The LORD would bless and keep Israel to keep the promises made to their father Abraham, that he would be a father of multitudes and possess the land of Israel as an inheritance forever.[10]

However, the breaking of the covenant at Sinai also had associated curses, curses on the fruit of the womb and the fruit of the ground. Breakdown of the family, loss of the land, slavery, and ultimately exile would mark disobedience and rejection of the LORD’s law—a sort of anti-Jubilee. With these words that laid the choice of life and death, freedom and slavery, Jubilee and anti-Jubilee at the feet of Israel, Moses read the law one last time. He then commissioned Joshua to lead after him, sung a final prophetic song, blessed the tribes, died, and was gathered to his fathers.[11]

Jericho: Restoration of Inheritance

Though Sinai marked the people of Israel as free, they did not yet possess the land promised to them, and the second of the Jubilee commandments was unrealized. But as Joshua assumed command of the children of Israel after the death of Moses, another significant Jubilee occurrence happened in the form of the conquest of Jericho.

After Moses had died, and Joshua sent out two spies into the land of Canaan. As these spies searched out the city of Jericho, they stayed in the house of a prostitute named Rahab. When word reached the king of Jericho that there were Israelite spies in the city, he sent men to capture them, but Rahab hid the spies and sent their pursuers off on a wild goose chase. Rahab explained to the spies that she had heard all that the LORD had done in bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt and their conquests east of the Jordan. She asked the spies to swear by the name of the LORD that they would spare her and her father’s house from the destruction that she knows is coming. The Israelite spies agreed, escaped, and returned to Joshua with the report: “Truly, the LORD has given all the land into our hands.” [12]

With this news, all Israel crossed the Jordan River on dry ground in an echo of the first Exodus and arrived outside Jericho’s gates.[13]

The LORD then gave the instructions for the conquest of the city. For the first six days, the Israelite warriors would march around the city once a day. In front of the warriors would be a procession of seven priests holding seven yovel (יובל) trumpets, walking before the Ark of the Covenant. On the seventh day, however, the warriors, Ark, and trumpet-wielding priests should circle Jericho seven times. The priests should sound a blast on the yovel trumpets, and in response, the people should shout. With that, the walls of the city of Jericho will come tumbling down.

Joshua saw that Israel followed the rather extraordinary instructions of the LORD, and just as the LORD had said, the walls of the city came tumbling down at the yovel trumpet’s blast and the people’s shout. The warriors of Israel climbed over the walls and quickly took the city, sparing only Rahab and her family, who afterwards lived among the people of Israel.[14]

Just as the Israelites circled Jericho seven times seven and blasted the yovel trumpets at the end, so the Jubilee year is seven times seven sabbatical years with a yovel trumpet at the end. Sinai and Jericho together, as two Jubilee events, kept the two distinct commandments of Jubilee. At Sinai, slaves were freed and returned to their families. At Jericho, they began the return to the land that was their inheritance.

Jericho was burned, and Joshua laid a curse on anyone who tried to rebuild it. It was a firstfruits offering, such as the kind offered on Shavuot. For though the LORD would deliver the promised land to the people of Israel just as He has said, this sacrifice was a reminder of what God had spoken at Sinai: “All the earth is mine.” [15]

RELATED // Read “Trumpets, Remembrance, and the Sign of the Son of Man” to learn more about the Feast of Trumpets. — **RELATED //** Read “Trumpets, Remembrance, and the Sign of the Son of Man” to learn more about the Feast of Trumpets.

A Covenant-Keeping Bride

Perhaps the associations of counting to seven times seven and the yovel trumpets are sufficient, even glorious, causes to treat Shavuot as a sort of annual Jubilee and explains the centrality of Sinai in Shavuot celebrations.

But one other story also features prominently in the tapestry of Shavuot, and that is the story of Ruth. But why should Ruth’s story be included?

The most straightforward and most obvious answer is that Ruth takes place during the season leading up to Shavuot, when the barley and wheat were being harvested and threshed. But is the seasonality of the story enough to make it a compelling part of the Shavuot celebration? Or are there perhaps deeper reasons for Ruth’s inclusion?

Ruth begins in the era when the Judges ruled Israel and famine in the land that drives a family from Bethlehem—ironically meaning, “house of bread,”—across the Jordan into Moab, reversing the trek of the Israelite conquest a generation or so before. Soon after entering Moab, the father of the family died, leaving the mother, Naomi, and her two sons Mahlon (a name meaning “sickness”) and Chilion (a name meaning “destruction”). These two men took Moabite wives and lived for ten years more years in Moab before following their father in death and leaving no children.

Naomi, widowed and without the protection and support of her sons, decided that she should return to Bethlehem, as she has heard that “the LORD remembered to give bread to His people.” [16] She released her daughters-in-law Ruth and Orpah from accompanying her, blessed them, and sent them back to their mothers’ houses. They both refused, insisting that they return with Naomi to her land and her family. But Naomi reasoned with them: “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the LORD has gone out against me.” [17] Naomi referred to the legal process in Israel known as the Levirate marriage, as set out in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, in which the brother of a man who has died without children is encouraged to marry the widow bear a child in his brother’s name. This is so that “his name may not be blotted out of Israel.” [18] Naomi cannot provide husbands for her daughters-in-law to protect, provide, and perpetuate her first sons’ legacy, so she sadly sends them away.

The tension set up in the opening chapter of Ruth seems to be that of an anti-Jubilee. The fruit of the land and the fruit of the womb are both barren. The children of Israel are forced into exile outside of the promised land. Two sons die without perpetuating their name and continuing their inheritance in Israel—disastrous!

Amid these tragic circumstances, however, there is a flicker of hope. Though Orpah sadly kisses her mother-in-law Naomi goodbye and returns to her people and her gods, Ruth clings to Naomi and refuses to leave her. “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you,” declares Ruth. “For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” [19] Just as the people of Israel accepted the LORD as their God at Sinai, so Ruth declared her allegiance to the God of Israel. Her faithfulness to her mother-in-law and her determination to find a kinsman-redeemer who, through a Levirate marriage, could save her late husband’s name and inheritance from obliteration demonstrated her kindness to both the living and the dead.

When Naomi and Ruth returned to Bethlehem, their arrival caused quite a stir. Ruth determined to provide as best she could for her mother-in-law and searched for a field in which to glean grain.[20] By seeming “coincidence,” she came to a field of a relative of her late husband, a man named Boaz.

From the first mention, Boaz is portrayed as a worthy man, a “gibbor chayil” whose kindness and generosity exceed the law’s instructions for taking care of the poor and needy.[21] Indeed, if Ebenezer Scrooge at the end of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol could be described as “knowing how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge,” then surely Boaz kept Shavuot well if any man alive possessed the knowledge. He noticed the hard-working Ruth in his fields, and when he connected her with the faithful Moabite daughter-in-law of his relative, his respect and care only increased. Perhaps this worthy woman, this “eishet chayil,” reminded Boaz a bit of his mother Rahab, that Canaanite woman who feared the God of Israel and who bound herself to the people of Israel at the conquest of Jericho.[22]

In any case, Boaz approached Ruth, addressed her as “daughter,” and assured her of his protection and provision. “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before,” he said. “The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” [23] Ruth, overwhelmed by his generosity that included her with the members of his household, bowed to the ground and thanked him for his comfort and acceptance.

Ruth returned that night to her mother-in-law with far more food than would be expected from typical gleaning. Naomi immediately realized that Ruth had been favorably treated in the fields and asked her where she had worked. When Boaz is named, Naomi reacted with joyful praise because she can see that the Lord’s kindness has not forsaken “the living or the dead.” [24] Boaz is a redeemer, a “goel” (גואל) whose responsibilities included restoring the rights and land of his near relative, purchasing back a relative that had been sold into slavery, and marrying his relative’s widow and having a son by her to ensure the continuation of his relative’s name.[25] A Jubilee for Naomi’s family seemed to be drawing near.

Surprisingly, however, Boaz did not exercise his right of redemption. He continued to provide for Ruth by supplying ample gleanings, and Ruth continued to live with her mother-in-law. Naomi decided that the time had come to force Boaz’s hand and instructed Ruth to quietly approach Boaz and lie at his feet as he rested on the threshing floor of his barn after a winnowing harvest celebration.

When Boaz awoke with a start that night, he realized a woman was lying at his feet, and he asked blearily, “Who are you?”

“I am Ruth, your servant,” she answered. Then, referring back to Boaz’s first blessing for taking refuge under the wings of the Lord, she made a bold proposal, “Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.”

Boaz replied to her with another delighted blessing: “May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. You have made this last kindness greater than the first in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman.” He then explained why he had not exercised his rights before, saying, “And now it is true that I am a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I. Remain tonight, and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then, as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning.” [26]

The following day at the town gate, Boaz met the nearer redeemer who had the right of first refusal. Boaz didn’t mention Ruth initially but instead offered the nearer redeemer the opportunity to redeem a field that belonged to Naomi’s late husband. At first, the man was interested, but then when he learned that to acquire the field, he must also acquire Ruth to redeem her late husband’s legacy, he refused, leaving Boaz to redeem the land and marry Ruth.

The land returns to its original owner, and the family returns to their clan. Ruth and Naomi are lifted from poverty, and the fruit of the land and the fruit of the womb are blessed. Ruth bears a son to perpetuate her late husband’s inheritance, and her love and faithfulness to Naomi make her of more worth than seven sons.[27] This is Jubilee, indeed.

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The Year of the Lord’s Favor

The era of the judges ruling Israel soon passed away, and Ruth’s great-grandson, David, ascended the throne of Israel. David was a man after God’s own heart, and the LORD made a covenant with him that He would establish a descendent of David’s as ruler of an everlasting kingdom.[28]

But not many generations after David’s golden rule, the curses of the covenant at Sinai fell upon the rebellious people, and the nation split. The northern kingdom of Israel was defeated and exiled by the Assyrians in 721 BC, followed by the southern kingdom of Judah’s exile by Babylon a couple of generations later in 598 BC. The exiles despaired: how would the Lord keep his promise to Abraham about his descendants and his promised land? How would God keep his covenant with David, that Israel would be established as an eternal kingdom ruled by a son of David? How could the people of Israel be redeemed from this cycle of breaking the Sinai covenant law and being expelled from the land of their inheritance?

Several hundred years after the Persians allowed the exiles of Judah to return and rebuild the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem, Jesus—the son of David and the son of Abraham, the son of Ruth and the son of Rahab[29]— walked to the Jordan River where his cousin was ministering to crowds through preaching and a baptism of repentance. This cousin, John, had once been questioned on whether or not he was the Messiah, the promised son of David, and he answered, “I baptize you with water, but He who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” [30] Jesus approached John and asked him to baptize Him, but John objected, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus answered, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” So John baptized Jesus, and the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and rested on him. A voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” [31]

In the power of the Spirit, Jesus returned to Galilee, teaching at the synagogues and astounding His listeners. When Jesus came to Nazareth, the town where He had been raised, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and the scroll of Isaiah was handed to Him. He unrolled the scroll and read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” With that, He rolled up the scroll and gave it back, saying, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” [32] This was nothing less than a declaration of Jubilee, a proclamation that redemption was drawing near.

I Know that My Redeemer Lives

Jesus continued to minister and preach across the region for a few years. On the feast of Passover, He and His disciples went up to Jerusalem to keep the festival. Throughout dinner, and on a later walk, Jesus gave His disciples a farewell message that they did not quite understand. He spoke of the blood of the new covenant and of the advantages of the Helper that Jesus would send to the disciples in His absence. “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” [33]

Shortly after this discourse, Jesus is arrested, tried, crucified, died, and buried. The disciples sunk into despair. They believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the son of David, who would rule the restored kingdom of Israel forever and gather the lost northern tribes from their centuries-long exile. Where was the promise of the Jubilee that He had announced in the synagogue in Nazareth? All seemed lost.

Then, on the third day after His death, Jesus rose from the dead. He appeared to many of His disciples, and for forty days during the counting of the omer, He taught them about the kingdom of God and instructed them to stay in Jerusalem. “For just as John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” [34]

When the day came for Jesus to ascend to heaven so that He could send the Helper to His disciples, they asked Him one final question: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Jesus answered them, “It is not for you to know the times or the 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 all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” With that, Jesus ascended, and a cloud took Him out of their sight.[35]

The disciples remained in Jerusalem, just as Jesus had commanded them, and on the day of Shavuot, they were all gathered together in one place. There came a sound from heaven like a mighty rushing wind. Just as fire marked the presence of God at Sinai, so tongues of fires appeared and rested on each one of them. Just as the Spirit of God had been poured out on the elders at the Tabernacle and they prophesied, so the Spirit of God was poured out on the disciples, and they spoke in tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Just as the walls shook in Jericho, so the walls of this building in Jerusalem shook with that mighty, rushing wind. John had prophesied correctly: Jesus had baptized His followers with the Holy Spirit and with fire and had chosen to do it on the most appropriate day of Shavuot. And just as Jesus had said, the Holy Spirit empowered Peter to bear witness of His Messiahship to the pilgrim crowds gathered in Jerusalem, and 3000 souls were added to their number that very day, a mighty first fruits offering.[36]

The Earth is the LORD’s and the Fullness Thereof

These Spirit-filled believers continued bearing witness in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Soon, however, a strange event occurred. The Holy Spirit fell on a Gentile man and his family as Peter preached the good news of Jesus Christ to them.[37] As Gentiles began to accept Jesus as the Messiah of Israel and were being baptized in the Spirit in greater numbers, the apostles called a council in Jerusalem to decide how to treat these believers. How could those outside of Israel partake of promises of Israel regarding its families and its land? Should they be made part of the covenant with Abraham through circumcision and pledge along with Israel at Sinai to follow all of the law?

Peter and James made an argument against such a practice. Gentiles called by the name of the Lord, such as Rahab and Ruth, are found throughout the Scriptures, and the law given at Sinai provides for their inclusion in Israel’s national life. Instead, these Gentile believers should be treated as resident aliens or “ger,” (גֵּר)—not subject to the whole law given to Israel, but only to the regulations specifically for foreigners residing in Israel.[38] The council agreed and sent the ruling to believers throughout the region.[39]

Indeed, if the Spirit is to be understood as a “guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it,” [40] as later explained by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, then Gentile fellow heirs fulfill the words of the prophet Ezekiel about the distribution of Abraham’s inheritance in the age to come. “So you shall divide this land among you according to the tribes of Israel. You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the sojourners (גֵּר) who reside among you and have had children among you. They shall be to you as native-born children of Israel. With you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe the sojourner resides, there you shall assign him his inheritance, declares the Lord God.” [41]

So, by the sealing of the Holy Spirit, both Jew and Gentile, native Israelites and resident aliens, have a guarantee of a future inheritance, just as the prophets foretold. But how would this inheritance in the prophesied kingdom be realized? And when would Jesus return to gather the exiled tribes back to Israel and restore the land promised to Abraham to the descendants of Abraham? The disciples’ last question to Jesus, “Is it now when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” lingered in the air, betraying their intense longing for the final Jubilee that would bring an ingathering of all twelve tribes of Israel to Zion from among the Gentiles and the end of exile.

All of creation joins in that longing for the revealing of the Sons of God, the final gathering of His family. “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” [42] All of Israel longs to be regathered from exile, reunited, and ruled by the son of David: “Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land. And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. And one king shall be king over them all, and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms. They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.” [43]

How boundless is the loving kindness, how endless the faithfulness of our God! The inheritance promised to Abraham, Moses, and David—both to their families and to their land—could not be accomplished by the righteousness of Israel. The deadly cocktail of flesh and law brought them into continual alienation from their God, from each other, and from the land. So God Himself devised a plan: a new covenant cut in His own flesh would save from sin. When this new covenant is fulfilled, those sprinkled in the blood of the ultimate Passover lamb will make a way for the law of God indwell His people, and they will no longer have any desire to rebel against His rule or betray His family. No longer will the curses of the law given at Sinai be felt, and all the tribes of Israel will dwell securely in the land promised to their fathers, ruled by one king: the Messiah Jesus. Gentiles who bound themselves to the people and God of Israel will likewise have an inheritance, as testified to them by their baptism with the Holy Spirit and the lives of Rahab and Ruth. This family of God will enjoy perpetual fellowship with their God, complete freedom from slavery, and will live in the land of their forefathers with no one to make them afraid.

So let us celebrate this feast of first fruit harvest, and joyfully recall that revelation of the law at Sinai, for our God will bring both harvest and law to its proper culmination—an end to sin, death, and the brutal cycle of exile—the ultimate Jubilee.

Amen. Maranatha.

Devon Phillips is just a pilgrim longing for the Day of the revealing of the sons of God and the redemption of our bodies. Meanwhile, she is privileged to serve in the Middle East with Frontier Alliance International and contributes regularly to THE WIRE. She can be reached at devon@faimission.org.

[1] Shavuot is called the “Feast of Weeks” because it is the culmination of a process known as “counting the omer.” From the day after Passover, 49 days—that is, seven weeks—are tabulated. The 50th day is Shavuot, a word that means “weeks” in Hebrew. Pentecost means “fiftieth” in Greek and is used for the Feast of Weeks in Greek. Reaping is an integral aspect of this agricultural holiday. See Jeremiah 5:24, Isaiah 9:3.

[2] Deuteronomy 16:9–11

[3] The passage in Deuteronomy 16:9–11 and the passage in Leviticus 23:15-22 refer to the count of the omer, that is, the sheaves of the harvest offered to the Lord, for fifty days. The wording of when the count should begin is a little vague and has caused controversy. The key phrase that confuses is the instruction that the omer count should start the day after the Sabbath. The Sadducees believed that the Sabbath meant the literal weekly Sabbath and so began the count of the omer on the first Sunday of Passover. The Pharisees, however, believed that “the day after the Shabbat” didn’t refer to the weekly Sabbath, but instead to the day after Passover, as work is restricted on Passover, just as it is on the Sabbath. This view seems to be reflected in the Israelites actions in Joshua 5:11-12, and now Shavuot always occurs on Sivan 6, 49 days after the Passover on Nisan 15.

[4] Leviticus 25:8-22

[5] See Exodus 19

[6] See Exodus 24

[7] Numbers 11:24-30

[8] See Deuteronomy 28, 29

[9] Deuteronomy 28:4

[10] See Genesis 15

[11] See Deuteronomy 31-34

[12] See Joshua 2

[13] Joshua 3:17

[14] See Joshua 6

[15] Exodus 19:5

[16] Ruth 1:6

[17] Ruth 1:11-13

[18] Deuteronomy 25:6

[19] Ruth 1:16-18

[20] Ruth 2:2

[21] Many laws governed the treatment of widows and sojourners in the land of Israel, but none required the landowners to protect and provide for the oppressed as generously as Boaz does for Ruth.

[22] Ruth 4:18-22; Matthew 1:1-6

[23] Ruth 2:11-12

[24] Ruth 2:20

[25] Leviticus 25:23-55

[26] Ruth 3:1-13

[27] Ruth 4:13-15

[28] 2 Samuel 7:8-17

[29] Matthew 1:1-17

[30] Luke 3:16-17

[31] Matthew 3:13-17

[32] Luke 4:16-21

[33] John 16:6-15

[34] Acts 1:4-5

[35] Acts 1:6-8

[36] Acts 2:1-41

[37] Acts 4:34-47

[38] Leviticus has only a few regulations for ger living in the land of Israel that correspond exactly with the ruling of the Jerusalem council. See Leviticus 17:8-10, 18:6-23.

[39] Acts 15:1-35

[40] Ephesians 1:11-14

[41] Ezekiel 47:21-22

[42] Romans 8:23

[43] Ezekiel 37:21-23

Further Reading:

Apocalyptic Gospel. “Acts 2, Part 1: The Gift of the Spirit and the Hope of Israel.” “Acts 2, Part 2: Peter, Pentecost, and Joel 2.” “Acts 2, Part 3: Psalm 16 and Psalm 110.”

Bejon, James. “Towards a Theology of Jubilee.” “Ruth, Boaz, and the Redemption of the Past.”

Chapman, Cynthia. “The Substance of Kinship: How Ruth the Moabite Became a Daughter in Judah.”

Coolman, Holly. “Christological Torah.”

Fohrman, David. Aleph Beta. “Shavuot.”

Nanos, Mark. “The Myth of the ‘Law-Free’ Paul Standing between Christians and Jews.”