Passover (Pesach)

Christians celebrate Easter every year to remember Christ’s resurrection from the dead. However, the full story is much more incredible because of its precision in history and it connects Christianity to the Jews. It shows how Christ is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and how God’s hand is clearly in history. However, modern Christians have had the time of history and pagan traditions mixed in to distract from the fullness of God’s glory. Tradition also points to a “Good Friday” crucifixion and resurrection Sunday timeframe, which has never quite squared for me given scripture said Christ would be in the grave 3 days and 3 nights as a sign. This study will look first at the origin and keep with that Biblical origin of the moedim (appointed times), or feasts, and God’s Word will reveal some amazing insights of these spring moedim that started the Hebrew religous calendar thousands of years ago.

Also, the Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread and Feast of First Fruits are all within the same week and, as will be shown, all related foreshadows to a future ultimate fulfillment of Passover. As such they will all be covered on this one page in detail. So where does it all begin?

Pesach (Passover): The Exodus From Egypt

The story of Passover began with the people of Israel in the land of Egypt. The story began long before when Joseph, the son of Jacob (named Israel by God), is sold off to Egypt because of his brothers’ jealousy. While in Egypt, Joseph rose to become the most powerful man in Egypt after Pharaoh. His obedience in response to a vision of a coming seven-year famine led to his whole family moving to Egypt to weather out the famine.

After generations had past and a new Pharaoh ruled the land, the Israelites became enslaved and persecuted in Egypt. Fearing the loyalties of the Israelites in Egypt, the Pharaoh commanded all newborn Hebrew boys be killed. To save her baby boy, Moses mother set him adrift in the Nile river after which the Pharaoh’s daughter found and raised him. After a young Moses killed an Egyptian slave driver and learned of his lineage, he fled to the wilderness where he lived for some time until his encounter with the burning bush and God revealed to him the destiny he had to gather the Israelites from Egypt and take them to the Promised Land.

Through many plagues that befell on Egypt, the Pharaoh would not let the Israelites leave. It was the final plague that finally led the Pharaoh to let Moses lead the Israelites out of Egypt, even if only for a moment. This is when the first Passover took place, foreshadowing in many ways the offering of the Lamb of God.

This first month was called Abib and later Nisan. Abib is H24 and From an unused root meaning to be tender. It is used as “fresh, young barley ears, barley, month of ear-forming, of greening of crop, of growing green Abib.”

This passage speaks at the time of the seventh plague of hail that destroyed the barley crops. The third plague that followed was the death of the firstborn, in which Israel fled from Egypt. So Abib speaks not only to the original name of the month, but also the crop season of the time of the year, when the barley was yet green.

This will become important in the moedim of the wave sheaf offering, or firstfruits. This also ties the spring moedim to the spring grain harvest. As you will see in those studies, the fall moedim are tied to the fruit harvest. Given all the parables and symbology of the harvests in the foreshadows and fulfillment of prophecy, this connection is helpful to recognize, and when you see things like Revelation 14:14-20 and Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 it’s easier to see some possible tie-ins to the meanings behind the foreshadows.

So here is the order of days from the first Passover that God ordained from this time to be Israel’s first month of the year on the religious calendar.

Day of Preparation

Passover, the 14th of Abib/Nisan, was not a day in which no work could be performed, a Sabbath. However, the 15th of Abib/Nisan started the Feast of Unleavened Bread where the first and last days were a holy convocation where no work could be done, a high Sabbath. Therefore, the 14th of Abib/Nisan became known as the day of preparation in addition to Pesach, similar to any other day prior to a weekly Sabbath, because no work could be done during the Sabbath.

Pesach Seder (Feast of Unleavened Bread)

What is the significance of unleavened bread? God told the children of Israel that they were to remove all leaven from their houses to the extent of being cut off from Israel, stranger or native, if not observed.

It would seem that leaven is used both to describe the growing kingdom of God in terms of how leaven causes the bread to grow. In terms of men, it is what we add in our hearts that is not of God. For the Israelites leaving Egypt, it was all the practices they had been living in with the Egyptians, the false gods and religious practices. The symbology of removing the leaven was leaving nothing but God spiritually and putting any influence that would bring that leaven back in away from the people so they could become a peculiar people that would through history keep God’s commandments, failing as we all do. Instead of living in deception and lies, living in sincerity and truth.

The day after Passover then is the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. However, on the 14th they were also to eat unleavened bread so these feast days are very intertwined and considered the same feast even though they were Biblically distinct.

Wave Sheaf (Firstfruits)

There has been some confusion regarding when the firstfruits was to be done. The Pharisees believed it to be after the high Sabbath, on the first day of Unleavened Bread, so firstfruits would always follow on the 16th of Abib/Nisan. The Sadducees believed it to be after the weekly Sabbath, thus having firstfruits fall on different days of the month depending on the days of the week the feasts would fall on each year. Aside from Numbers 28:26 stating the day of firstfruits would be "after your weeks," meaning weekly Sabbath, I believe the answer to this comes in the final of the spring feast days.

Shavuot (Feast of Weeks)

Leviticus 23:15 picks up right after the previous verses describing the Wave Sheaf offering, which were to be held after the Sabbath. The passage above explicitly states to count from the Wave Sheaf offering (after the Sabbath) 50 days. This would be after 7 Sabbaths have been completed. There are no Sabbaths but the weekly Sabbath in that time frame so the only way this could be kept having Shavuot on a day after the Sabbath was if the Wave Sheaf offering occurred after a weekly Sabbath.

In Deuteronomy we see the same seven weeks from firstfruits with a command to rejoice before the Lord and remember their bondage in Egypt and deliverance from that bondage. This is a good place to see the secondary dimension these feasts should be looked at, their fulfillment.

The Foreshadow Fulfilled: Crucifixion of the Lamb of God

Understanding the origins of the spring feasts and their meaning to the children of Israel, now comes an amazing look at what they foreshadowed in great detail. I will lay out the fulfillments and how these conclusions were arrived at.

Triumphal Entry

Note that it was on the 10th of Abib/Nisan that each man in the house, according to the house of their fathers, was to get a lamb for a house. This lamb was to be without blemish or broken bones. After aquiring the lamb, they had to keep it for 3-4 days and during that time inspect it to ensure it remained unblemished and unharmed prior to the killing of it.

Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-44, and John 12:12-19 all depict the triumphal entry where Yeshua rides on a donkey to Jerusalem and then enters the temple.

The Olivet Discourse must have taken place on the evening of 11 Abib/Nisan. Noting that each day starts at dusk and counting back from the evening of 13 Abib/Nisan, we end up at the evening of 11 Abib/Nisan at which time Yeshua said after two days is the feast of Passover and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.

Now, starting at the triumphal entry, let’s follow the description of the days that followed in the Gospel accounts. First we look at the end of the account of the triumphal entry, assuming the 10th of Abib/Nisan.

10 Abib/Nisan - Triumphal Entry

The Cursed Fig Tree

In Matthew’s account, Matthew 21:12-17, the fig tree is cursed and dried up on the same day, the morning after the triumphal entry. However in Mark’s account, Mark 11:12-14, the cursing of the fruit and the whithering of it, Mark 11:19-21, is the next day. This also seems to place the events Matthew places the day after the triumphal entry on the second day after the truimphal entry in Mark. It may be that Matthew merged the story into one account while Mark showed that it happened over two days.

The other accounts of confronting leadership in the temple somewhat match between Matthew, Mark and Luke, withsome accounts left out or shortened. When speaking of the leadership asking Yeshua by what authority He teaches, Luke says, “And it came to pass, that on one of those days, as he taught the people in the temple, and preached the gospel.”

The teaching of the end of the age by Yeshua on the Mount of Olives seems to be on the evening after Yeshua is confronted in the temple. Below I’ve laid out the Gospel accounts as they appear to read, but I think the clarity on the fig tree causes events to appear on separate days. It could also be that some of these confrontations occurred on more than just that day as Yeshua went to the temple daily teaching.

11 Abib/Nisan - Confronting/Confounding Leadership

As mentioned above, this is where Mark seems to deviate in describing the fig tree first cursed on the morning of 11 Abib/Nisan and then seen whithered on the morning of 12 Abib/Nisan. Mark’s account has the events Matthew described happening the day after the triumphal entry, happening 2 days after it. Luke’s accounts of these distinctive events is not included with any kind of description of days passing so I included in both accounts.

12 Abib/Nisan

If the account of Matthew is accurate, then on 10 Abib/Nisan, when the Passover lambs were being selected, Yeshua presented Himself to His Father’s house, the temple, as a Lamb for a house for the coming Passover. Exodus 12:3

If the account of Mark is accurate, then Yeshua presented Himself on 9 Abib/Nisan.

There may be some distinction I’m not aware of such as Yeshua stating after 2 days is Passover counting that day. Or Mark’s account detailing the several days for the fig tree that Matthew compressed into a topical story doesn’t actually place the other events on a second day after the triumphal entry.

Regardless, the days following the triumphal entry, just as the Passover lamb was checked for any blemishes, the Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees tried to find fault in the Lamb of God and were unable to find any blemish. And even the Gentiles were unable to find fault in Him.

Pesach (Passover) Fulfilled

Yeshua is the bread of life, John 6:32-66, and it is this symbolic expression of breaking the unleavened bread at the last supper where we are told to do it in rememberance of Him.

Wine is also commonly used symbolically to denote blood, Revelation 17:1-6 | Isaiah 63:1-6 | Revelation 14:17-20, and it is only by the shedding of blood that there is forgiveness of sins and freedom from bondage. Hebrews 9:1-28. So too in the start of Passover was the blood of a male lamb placed on the door of the house so that death would not take the first born. Yeshua is the door through which we must pass to be saved from the judgment. John 10:1-18

And so around the time the Passover lamb was being slaughtered across Judea, Yeshua began the memorial communion with His disciples symbolizing the eating of the Passover Lamb and remembering the sacrifice made in blood to cover our sins and redeem us to God.

Keep in mind that each day starts at dusk and not midnight, so the last supper was a Passover meal on preparation day. Following the Passover meal, Yeshua and the disciples went again to the Mount of Olives where Yeshua prayed in anguish as the disciples fell asleep, unaware of the anguish of the Messiah at what was to come. Matthew 26:36-46 | Mark 14:32-42 | Luke 22:39-46

It was this night of 14 Abib/Nisan that Judas brought the soldiers to arrest Yeshua. Matthew 26:47-56 | Mark 14:43-50 | Luke 22:47-53 | John 18:1-11

That morning, Yeshua goes before Pilate and Herod. Matthew 27:11-26 | Mark 15:1-15 | Luke 23:1-25 | John 18:28-40

During this time Yeshua is beaten, mocked and given the crown of thorns. Matthew 27:27-32 | Mark 15:16-21 | Luke 23:26-32 | John 19:1-15

Yeshua is crucified at Golgotha (place of the skull) and what was intended for mocking, was true in what Pilate had written on His cross, Yeshua of Nazareth, king of the Jews. When He gave up His spirit in the 9th hour (3 pm), there is a great earthquake, the rocks rent in two, the temple veil was ripped in two. Matthew 27:33-56 | Mark 15:22-41 | Luke 23:33-49 | John 19:16-37

Darkening of the Sun

Because the first day of Unleavened Bread, a high Sabbath, was approaching, they needed to put Yeshua’s body in the tomb before sundown, which started 15 Abib/Nisan. Joseph of Arimathaea, a disciple of Yeshua, got permission to take the body, wrapped it and placed it in his own unused tomb that was nearby. Matthew 27:57-61 | Mark 15:42-47 | Luke 23:50-56 | John 19:38-42

Feast of Unleavened Bread

Recall that the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (15 Abib/Nisan) is a high Sabbath and so the previous day, Passover (14 Abib/Nisan), was also called preparation day. This is where I believe a lot of confusion comes in leading to the idea that Passover and the crucifixion were on Friday and the resurrection was on Sunday. There’s no real way to get 3 days and 3 nights in the grave that way. The answer lies in understanding that 15 Abib/Nisan is a Sabbath day regardless what day of the week it falls on and the day before, 14 Abib/Nisan, is also preparation day. This doesn’t lock it to a Friday as it does when assuming the Sabbath is referring to the weekly Sabbath.

Note also that the Hebrew calendar is a lunar calendar where the first of the month of Abib/Nisan was a new moon and the 15th is a full moon. With the benefit of math and science letting us calculate the stable celestial clock God created, we can roll back time and see exactly when the 15th of Abib/Nisan is. More to come on that later.

What is important is sticking with the Hebrew dusk to dusk “days” and tracking the days of Abib/Nisan. The first day of Unleavened Bread was 15 Abib/Nisan.

A 72-hour period would end sometime before dusk on 17 Abib/Nisan as Yeshua was placed in the tomb before dusk so it wouldn’t fall on Sabbath. Three full nights and days would mean a resurrection either at the very end of 17 Abib/Nisan or just after dusk on 18 Abib/Nisan. Regardless of the details of this time, scripture snaps the day of the week to our counting of the days of the month.

The Feast of Unleavened bread only specifies the first and eighth day as Sabbaths, which would correlate to 15 and 21 Abib/Nisan respectively. Yeshua was resurrected sometime in the transition from 17 to 18 Abib/Nisan and the Bible tells us that Mary Magdalene, the other Mary and some other women discover the empty tomb just before dawn on the day after Sabbath, on the first day of the week, which would mean it was Sunday.

Now we can take that information and count back the days of Abib/Nisan to know the following:

Now that we know the days of the Hebrew month matched to the days of the week according to scripture, we can take the piece that will help us determine what year this could have occurred in by rolling back the heavenly clock and find what years between 26 and 34 AD only two years match the days of the week from scripture, and that is 27 AD and 30 AD. Looking at lunar phases, the full moon in 27 AD fell just after dusk starting 14 Abib/Nisan, a day before the 15th. On 30 AD a full moon fell on 15 Abib/Nisan about 3 hours and 45 minutes after dusk. As you can see from the chart below, only one year appears to line up, 30 AD.

I used Rosetta Calendar, Phases of the Moon, and timeanddate.com to get sunrise and sunset in Jerusalem approximated from this time of year now, not intended to be 100% accurate, just give an idea of the time of day.

One other point on the days of the week, throughout history several counts of time have been static. A day has been a day and for most people in the context of scripture have seven of those days in a week. The Julian calendar counts days and while it had to be updated to account for variances when attempting to translate that day count to the number of them in solar years, they are still a sequential count of days going back. Therefore, we are able to take a Julian day number from today, subtract that from any other Julian day number and divide by seven. If it is a whole number, then we know the modern day of the week matches that of the ancient Julian day subtracted from it. If it is not a whole number, then it’s not the same day of the week.

I bring this up because there are some variances I found in various studies on this topic regarding what days of the week some of these dates fell on. I feel this is a very basic test to verify an ancient day of the week of a Julian day count from a day of the week you know positively right now, on top of other tools like the Julian Day and Civil Calendar Calculator and the previously mentioned Rosetta Calendar Calculator.

Other Connections to 30 AD

It was around 19 BC when Herod began his project to build it back up and expand it. 46 years later would land in 28 AD and John 2 speaks of the first Passover mentioned in Yeshua’s ministry. There are three Passovers mentioned in scripture tied to His ministry:

So when the Jews reacted to Yeshua’s prophecy of His resurrection of the body, they provided an historical connection point that ties Passover 28 AD to Christ’s first Passover following His baptism the previous year.

Wave Sheaf (Firstfruits) Fulfilled

As stated previously, there was a divide between the Sadducees and the Pharisees as to when the wave sheaf offering should be observed. In 30 AD, the Pharisees would have had it on the Friday after the high Sabbath of the 15th of Nisan. This would not fit with Leviticus 23:15-22 in that it would have been more than 50 days from that Friday plus seven Sabbaths.

In 30 AD, the Sadducees view of it being observed after the weekly Sabbath would have it fall on Sunday the 18th of Nisan. This fits perfectly with the Shavuot of seven Sabbaths and 50 days. Ironically, The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection and it was on the observance they held to that the resurrection was proven and that the tomb was found empty!

This passage both ties beautifully to the fulfillment of the wave sheaf offering (firstfruits), but also plays a part in defining the first resurrection.

Shavuot (Feast of Weeks)

Tied to the wave sheaf offering is Shavuot, what Christians call Pentecost based on scripture from Greek pentecostē, “50th day.” This was the same 50th day from the Sunday of the resurrection, 7 Sabbaths apart.

This is the day the Holy Spirit came upon the church, the time Yeshua told them to wait for.

Timing of the Crucifixion

What is really amazing is that the combination of scripture and the orderly creation of the heavens and our ability through science to rewind the clock, we can pinpoint the day of the crucifixion and tie it to the framework of the feasts that were fulfilled!

In the establishment of the first Passover, or Pesach, there were many foreshadows to the ultimate sacrifice of Yeshua on the cross for the remission of sins for all who believe and obey.

One of the first things that stands out is “In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house” and “lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year.” Yeshua presented Himself as the Lamb of God to the earthly house of God on selection day and lived a perfect life and was without blemish, the only begotten son of God. He proved it over the next couple days answering the questions of the Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees who were left dumb and their pride pricked.

This lamb was sacrificed on the 14th of Nissan, the same day that Christ was crucified almost 2,000 years later.

The blood of the sacrificed lamb was spread on the top and sides of the doorposts and any house marked by the blood of the lamb was passed over by the angel of death. Likewise, when we are covered by the blood of the Lamb of God through faith, we will not experience the second death. Furthermore, Christ is the only door through which we enter into communion with the Father in eternity and only because of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God that covers our sins. John 10:7-11

For those houses that did not have the blood of the lamb on the doorways, the firstborn of the house was taken just as the firstborn of God was given. Those houses that followed God’s instructions and symbolized the offering of Christ on the cross had their firstborn spared, covered by the sacrifice of the firstborn of God to come. Romans 3:21-26, 1 John 2:1-6, 1 John 4:7-11

They were told to eat the flesh of the lamb that night just as Yeshua symbolized the eating of His flesh at the last supper with the breaking of bread with the disciples. Furthermore, Yeshua is also known as the bread of life. John 6:32-58

There is a clear connection between the Passover remembered by Israel according to God’s Word and the crucifixion of Yeshua remembered by the Christian community in communion. However there seems to be a disconnect in recognizing the original Passover’s connection to the sacrifice of Yeshua that is likely very much a part of Jewish Messianic believers remembrance of these events. I believe it is always beneficial to recognize the larger picture and see the plan of God in its larger scale, to see how some of the perceived oddities of the Old Testament shed light on the future fulfillments they foreshadowed.

It should also be recognized that it was this series of spring moedim that were fulfilled in 30 AD at Christ's first parousia, or coming. This was not a coming and going quickly, but a presence during the whole time of His ministry for the purpose of coming as the suffering servant.

When Yeshua started His ministry, He stopped reading verse 2 just before the day of vengeance of our God and said, “this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” I believe that the spring and fall moedim foreshadow and mirror the first presence of Christ to bring in the kingdom of God in the spring of 30 AD, and His second presence will bring the day of vengeance of our God in the future when Yeshua returns in glory to judge the earth. What does this say about the fall moedim?

Parallels to the Spring Feast Days

10 Abib/Nisan: Crossing the Jordan River

Another interesting event occurred on 10 Abib/Nisan prior to this when Israel entered the Promised Land.

Easter or Ishtar? by Al Perez

The word Easter appears once in the King James version of the Bible. Herod has put Peter in prison, “intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people” (Acts 12:4). Yet in the original Greek text the word is not Easter, but Pesach, that is Passover. So why was the name changed? Please read on, and remember Exodus 34:14; For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous G-d.

“Asherah” the Greek form of this word from the Septuagint is “Astarte,” who is the Babylonian goddess of the sea, sea being symbolic of people, and consort of the god El. She was the mother of several gods, including Ba’al, the Babylonian god of the sun. These deities were soon adopted by the Canaanites when they named these female deities the Asherah or Asherim. These deities were made of wood carved from a type of evergreen tree, or often they were set up in Canaanite homes as full trees cut down from a forest. The Asherim normally were highly acknowledged during two specific occasions. First and foremost, they were the fertility gods of the spring equinox, when the days and nights were approximately the same in length, signifying the beginning of living things growing for the summer season. A very common practice in the Canaanite religion was performed on the first Sunday of the equinox. The families would face east to await the rising of the sun, which was the chief symbol of the sun god, Ba’al. Later on during the day, the children of the Canaanite parents would often go and hunt for eggs, which were symbolic of sex, fertility and new life. It was believed that these eggs came from rabbits, which in the pagan world were symbolic of lust, sexual prowess and reproduction. The Canaanites, however, were not the only ones who worshiped rabbits as deities. The Egyptians and the Persians (Babylon) also held rabbits in high esteem because they believed that rabbits first came from the divine Phoenix birds, who once ruled the ancient skies until they were attacked by other gods in a power struggle. When they were struck down, they reincarnated into rabbits, but kept the ability to produce eggs like the ancient birds to show their origins.

Other stories concerning the egg rose later in the Middle Ages by the Anglo-Saxons, where they believed the origin of the Universe had the earth being hatched out of an enormous egg. Decorating eggs came about to honor their pagan gods and were often presented as gifts to other families to bring them fertility and sexual success during the coming year. And secondly, they were highly worshiped and celebrated during the winter solstice. As according to Jeremiah 10:1-5; Isaiah 40:19-20; 41:7 and 44:9-20, the pagans would go out into the forest and do one of two things. Either they chopped down a tree and carved a female deity out of it, or they would simply bring the tree into the house and decorate it with gold and silver ornaments symbolizing the sun and the moon while nailing a stand on the bottom so it would not totter or tip over.

Out of this practice came many other variations of these pagan festivals until the Roman Catholic Church adopted the Asherah worship and named it EASTER around 155 A.D. According to the CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, Easter was named after a pagan goddess of the Anglo-Saxons named Eostre, the goddess of the dawn. A great controversy arose between the Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church in 325 A.D. on whether to celebrate Easter on Sundays or on whatever day the Jewish Passover fell upon. Unfortunately, the Greeks lost a lot of followers and the Catholics contended that keeping Easter on Sundays would stimulate the practices of both the Christian world and the pagan worshipers. Note that the word CATHOLIC means “universal” or “one world” in thought, concept and practice. Hence, since the original practice of Asherah worship we now have in our time the celebration of Easter, a counterfeit holiday to the true Christian festival of the Passover which was instituted in the Bible and completed in the New Testament when Christ died on the cross as our Passover Lamb.

“...For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.”

Biblically, as mentioned above, the original name of the holiday we celebrate as Easter today is the Feast of Firstfruits. I don’t think it would hurt to go back to the roots of our faith and recognize the Hebrew origins that were the foreshadows of ultimate fulfillment in Christ.

It offers a much stronger meaning and gives glory to God, who picked out a peculiar people through which He would bring that ultimate salvation. We are grafted onto the root, which is Christ, and He recognized the feast days for what they were, His holy plan acted out by His people for thousands of years to foretell of Him.

Now in the fulfillment of that plan, we remember His resurrection on firstfruits. I don’t take issue with celebrating this on Sunday since that’s the day it occurred on in 30 AD. I do think it would be advantageous for the bride of Christ to remember all the spring feasts, their origins, and their fulfillments.

Blood of Christ and the Ark of the Covenant

There is another element of the crucifixion presented by Ron Wyatt some time ago that, while it cannot be absolutely proven, and relies completely on his own witness, holds some amazing connections between the Old Testament practices, their fulfillments at the crucifixion and the over-arching design of God. While I cannot absolutely verify these stories, the meaning behind them is very compelling and worth at least hearing about.

Ron Wyatt made many amazing archeological discoveries and thankfully filmed most of them. I’ve gathered many of these videos here and highly recommend checking them out. Noah’s Ark, the Red Sea chariot wheels, Sodom and Gomorrah and his discoveries around Golgotha in Jerusalem. The discovery I would like to present here relates to the crucifixion on Passover, Jewish ceremony and the events surrounding the Babylonian captivity at the turn of the 6th century BC.

Prior to the Babylonian captivity, once a year on Yom Kippur, the high priest would enter the holy of holies in the temple in Jerusalem to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. Leviticus 16:11-17 The design of the temple and the Ark of the Covenant were given to Moses after the Exodus (Exodus 25) and part of the rituals performed by Israel as foreshadows of what was to come to pass. That sacrifice and sprinkling of blood was not to take away sins, but rather a remembrance of the sins by Israel and a foreshadow of the one sacrifice of Christ offered once for all. Hebrews 10:1-13 This annual ritual was repeated year after year by Israel until the judgment of God on Israel in the Babylonian captivity.

The whereabouts of the Ark of the Covenant became a mystery at the destruction of the temple on the 9th of Av 518 BC. It is not believed that the Babylonians took it because it is conspicuously missing from the detailed lists of the looted treasures taken back to Babylon. According to some sources, Josiah, one of the final kings to reign in the First Temple period, learned of the impending invasion of the Babylonians and hid the Ark. While the location has remained shrouded in mystery, Ron Wyatt claimed to have discovered its location with some amazing prophetic correlations.

Ron said that in digging around the site of Golgotha, where the road led into the Sheep Gate, he discovered square holes cut into the rock next to a wall of rock out of which notches were cut out. He believed that this was the location where crucifixions took place around the time of Roman rule over Jerusalem as an example for all those entering Jerusalem on those roads of the punishments given for those that disobeyed the laws.

After further excavating, Ron says that he later went in to explore the caves with a worker one day. This worker suddenly came hurriedly out of a tunnel without saying a word and Ron never heard from him again. When Ron went into the place this man came out of, he said that is where he discovered the Ark of the Covenant, some 20 feet below the location he had found the square holes bored into the rock above.

Ron says that he saw the cracks in the rock where the square notch was and also above the location he found the Ark of the Covenant and believes that the mixture of blood and water from Christ at His death on Passover flowed down the cracks where the rocks were rent and sprinkled onto the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant, fulfilling the symbolic sprinkling of the sacrifice done by the high priest annually - this time one and for all sins. It was also at this time that the veil of separation in the holy of holies was rent in two showing the sacrifice of Christ for our sins was acceptable and removing the separation of God and man for those who would accept the sacrifice offered for our salvation.

Passover (Pesach): Connecting Christians to Israel

Pesach (Passover): The Exodus From Egypt

Day of Preparation

Pesach Seder (Feast of Unleavened Bread)

Wave Sheaf (Firstfruits)

Shavuot (Feast of Weeks)

The Foreshadow Fulfilled: Crucifixion of the Lamb of God

Triumphal Entry

10 Abib/Nisan - Triumphal Entry

The Cursed Fig Tree

11 Abib/Nisan - Confronting/Confounding Leadership

12 Abib/Nisan

Pesach (Passover) Fulfilled

Darkening of the Sun

Feast of Unleavened Bread

Other Connections to 30 AD

Wave Sheaf (Firstfruits) Fulfilled

Shavuot (Feast of Weeks)

Timing of the Crucifixion

Parallels to the Spring Feast Days

10 Abib/Nisan: Crossing the Jordan River

Easter or Ishtar? by Al Perez

Blood of Christ and the Ark of the Covenant