Counting the Omer
As we enter the season called "the Counting of the Omer", we will look at both how this was practiced in ancient times at the Temple and the pictures we can see in it, which can be applied in our own lives even while we are in exile from the Land of Israel--and how this process can end our exile and restore YHWH's dwelling place. The authority for this practice comes from the following verses:
LEVITICUS 23
1. Then YHWH told Moshe,
2. "Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall inform them of the appointed times of YHWH, which you must proclaim--holy rehearsals. These are My appointed seasons:
3. "'Work is to be done six days, and in the seventh day [there is] a sabbath of desisting, a calling-forth [to be] set apart; you shall do no work at all. It is a sabbath for YHWH in all your dwellings.
The first appointed time when YHWH allows us to meet Him is the Sabbath, and we could therefore deduce that it is the most important; if we do not observe this one, we might as well read no further, for it is the key to understanding the rest.
4. "'These are YHWH's appointments--holy callings-forth that you shall
announce in their appointed seasons:
5. "'In the first month, on the fourteenth of the month, between the
evenings, is the Passover to YHWH.
This season is very strongly tied to agriculture. The first month is defined by the sighting of aviv barley--that which is at a stage in which it will be both ripe enough to harvest and dry enough to roast within about two weeks--by the new moon after the twelfth month of the previous year. If it is not found by that time, a thirteenth month is added to the calendar. Passover: specifically not the day or the meal (or a synonym for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, as it is often casually used today), but the slaughtering of a particular lamb. Between the evenings: the time after there is a noticeable difference marking the fact that day is waning and the time there is a noticeable transition from dusk to darkness, i.e., the lamb is slaughtered around sundown, near the end of the fourteenth, as it transitions into the fifteenth, since the lamb must be kept until the fourteenth before slaughtering it.
6. "'And the fifteenth of that month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread unto YHWH; you shall eat unleavened [bread] for seven days.
This week begins with the Passover seder as the sun sets on the 14th. You shall eat: a positive command which is just as important as the command not to eat anything leavened. To emphasize that, this time He does not even mention the part about eating no leaven, as in Ex. 12. It is little help to refrain from evil influences if we do not also partake of what is unleavened.
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9. Then YHWH spoke to Moshe, saying,
10. "Speak to the descendants of Israel, and you shall tell them, 'When you enter the Land which I am giving to you, and have reaped its harvest and brought in the initial omer of your harvest to the cohen,
Reaped its harvest: To sever the grain from the field (which Yahshua says represents the world)--the first of a series of procedures involved in making bread (something YHWH can use) out of many grains of wheat. (See below.) Omer: the dry equivalent of about 2.2 liters; it could be described as the measure of the seed resulting from one sheaf of grain, rather than the sheaf itself, as it is often translated. According to the Mishnah, 16 pounds of harvested grain, after being fully processed, produce, on average, 5 pounds of sifted flour. A khomer of seed is valued at 50 sheqels (27:16), and a khomer is 100 sheqels, so an omer is valued at ½ sheqel, the amount every soldier in Israel pays as a "ransom for his soul" (Ex. 30:13). An omer was also deemed by YHWH to be the appropriate measure of "manna" that an average person could eat in one day. (Ex. 16:16-18) So it symbolizes one person, and is thus a picture of bringing oneself to be turned over to YHWH for the process of becoming useful to His community.
11. "'then he shall wave the omer before YHWH so you will be accepted [favorably]; on the day after the sabbath the cohen shall wave it.
Sabbath: the next weekly sabbath that falls after the Passover, according to the Tzadduqim (Sadducees). The P'rushim (Pharisees) interpreted it as the "high sabbath", the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. But in that case it would be the Hebrew term "shabbaton". Nevertheless, the rabbinical reckoning has followed the Pharisaical.
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14. "'Now you may not eat bread, roasted grain, or fresh ears [of barley] until this very day, until you have brought the offering to your Elohim. [This is] a never-ending statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling-places.
15. "'Then from the day after the Sabbath you must [begin] counting off for yourself seven complete Sabbaths--from the day you bring in the omer of the wave offering
16. "'until the day after the seventh sabbath. Count fifty days, then bring near to YHWH a fresh grain offering.
Passover is at the barley harvest; the fiftieth day, called Shavuot ("weeks", or Pentecost, Greek for "50"), is the firstfruits of the wheat harvest. Wheat can be much more refined than barley, which remains more coarse, no matter how long it is sifted. This season is about making oneself count for the Kingdom, and taking account of both where one fits in it and how well one is progressing toward fulfilling his calling:
17. "'You shall bring bread from out of your dwelling-places to be a wave offering--two loaves; they shall be of two-tenths [of an eyfah] of fine [wheat] flour. They shall be leavened and baked [as] firstfruits to YHWH.
These fifty days are not a time to relax, though there is one major celebration early in the count. This is a time to go to work. The barley farmers would be in an intense mode of knuckling down, because if the barley is not harvested, they could not tend to the wheat or spelt crops, which came hard on its heels. (Barley in America is of a different variety that grows later in the season.) This is a time to pay close attention to the fields around us--whether literal farms, or whatever "field" you may work in. Let it teach you. These days are a time to transform us into more refined people, so we can more easily be mingled into a unified "loaf" for YHWH to enjoy. To learn our place in the scope of things, let's take a close look at all the jobs that are involved in the process of making a loaf of bread and preparing it for this "wave offering":
(1) The first step is sowing or planting the seed. The same Hebrew term means "scattering". It was a common ancient practice to "broadcast" the seed from a bag hung over one's shoulder, but this should also catch our attention, because we are a people scattered over the whole earth, but longing to be re-planted in our native soil. Nothing can be reaped that was not first sown, nor will we reap something different than we planted. Everything we reap is what we have sown--whether with our attitudes, thoughts, actions, or priorities. We should not expect to get something out of the harvest that we did not put into it. There are many promises made to the "seed" of Avraham, Yitzhaq, and Yaaqov. When sown among the nations, what must eventually grow are Israelites. How do we prove this? By the fact that they bear Israelite fruit. This seed has lain dormant for centuries, seldom even showing up in the last generation, but because the season is right, finally it is springing forth. If we walk in Torah, Israelite seed can only produce Israelite fruit. YHWH said He would scatter both houses of Israel (Yirmeyahu/Jer. 31:27ff), yet would watch over us, and when enough growth is evident, replant us in the Land from which He took us. We would be scattered among the peoples, yet He said would remember Him while still in those far countries, and He would bring us back until there was no more room left there. (Z'kharyah 10:9ff) After Yahshua sent his students to look for the lost sheep of Israel, his brother Yaaqov address his letter overtly "to the twelve tribes of Israel that are scattered abroad." (James 1:1)
(2) Growing: There is a long season between sowing and reaping. The purpose of our exile into other lands (Yirmeyahu 16:12-19), as with a "time out" imposed upon children, is not merely punitive. It is so that we will think about what we did wrong and learn how to do better. Since we did not do well while we lived in the Land, we have to learn the hard way. The key to overcoming our exile is to grow, and to grow, we must know that we have inherited lies, but also know YHWH's power and His Name. To know, we must walk in Torah. As love for YHWH and for one another grows, we can outgrow our exile. When we have grown strong enough, like a plant, we will be dug up and transplanted back to where we belong.
(3) Reaping: This is separating the harvest from the field it grew in. The grain must be reaped or it cannot be used. Like our ancestor Avraham, we must leave circumstances and often families into which we were born. The grain is gathered into storehouses; the equivalent for us is Israelite communities, for how much bread can a single kernel make? Once we are gathered to one another, the real preparation begins. The church tends to view this as the final stage, but it is really only the beginning. The next steps shape us into what we need to be to be presented to YHWH.
(4) Threshing: Little wonder that most want to stop with reaping, because who wants to be threshed? It sounds like "thrashing"--because it is! The Hebrew word for "teach" means "to prod or poke with a stick". But the purpose of threshing (applying pressure to grain, whether by beating it, grinding it with stones, running over it with wagon wheels, or letting heavy animals trample it) is to loosen the shells and separate the grain from the chaff--the stalks and husks, which at this
stage are useless. The stalk is what attached us to the field we came
out of, and we certainly do not want it to be an ingredient in the bread.
Most of what we bring in from the field--doctrines, moralities, priorities
we picked up along the way--is no longer useful once we have grown
enough to be studying the Torah. The omer is to be filled only with
kernels, and each kernel has a husk which must be removed, because
too often we use them t hide from one another. We cannot be part of the
bread if we hang onto the hull. Be honest and "account for yourself":
What am I still attached to that is useless to the Kingdom?" Allow your brothers and sisters to help loosen your "kernel", because, after all, it is people who do these jobs. Each of us is responsible to help one another through these processes. This is a great honor, but it requires trustworthiness. We are taking what protects people into our hands; whatever we learn about them must be used only to help them, never to harm them. Yeshayahu/Isa. 28:27 speaks of different ways different grains are threshed, and the same holds true for people. Some require a heavy hand; others need to be shown hospitality and made to feel at home before they will open up enough to have the useless things removed. It is often the job of teachers to reveal to Israel what is useful and what is useless.
(5) Winnowing: With a fork that looks much like a
rake, one throws the grain high up into the air to
expose it to the wind (ruakh, which also means
"spirit"), which will blow away the lightweight
materials and let what is heavier (Heb., kaved or
important, authoritative) come back to us. It
works best on a hilltop, for the ruakh can seldom
do its job well on the ground. This is elevating
one another and letting what is useless be blown
away. Now we have only the kernels and no chaff.
(6) Parching: As we are separated from the lighter elements, the heat is now turned up. Once we are taught people who have been elevated, we can be exposed to things we never would have considered before. It would be useless to parch a single kernel, so we are all parched together. No one has to go through it alone. This is not burning the grain! It is a careful process of removing moisture from the kernels. It was usually done in a metal pipe with holes in it to provide an even temperature. This makes the grain lighter still--and this time it is the individual kernels being made lighter. We no longer give as much weight to "me and mine" and consider what is best for one another and the whole. It is difficult to give up our individual rights unless we are all in it together.
(7) Crushing: This is even scarier. In ancient times, all bread was
"stone ground". At archaeological sites, many millstones have been
found. The grains are crushed between two stones--a picture of the
two stone tablets of the Torah. Far from being destroyed, the kernels
are made fully useable this way. Now we are all part of one flour--a
people with the same purpose. No longer can a bird come along and
steal a kernel away, for there is no way to identify the parts of one
kernel when they are mingled. As we obey the Torah and love YHWH and one another, we become inseparable.
(8) Sifting: In Second-Temple times the wheat for this offering was put through 13 sieves, each one finer than the previous. 13 is the numerical value of the Hebrew word ekhad (one, unified). The closer we get together, the more refined we become. Those who are crushed with us are our true neighbors.
(9) Testing: The Temple treasurer would plunge his arms into a container of this flour, and it needed to be so fine that no flour could be seen on his arms. If any adhered to his flesh, it all had to go back through the sifter. It was thus not someone else's problem; until all of us are sufficiently refined, none of us can become the bread. It is everyone's responsibility.
(10) Baking: The leavened loaves of bread are now presented to YHWH as firstfruits of the wheat. They are leavened because they have been fully permeated with the Kingdom (Mat. 13:33), not with sin (as leaven represents during the Feast of Unleavened Bread). There are two loaves, represented both houses of Israel which were once scattered, but are now being brought back.
This is the season to prepare for that, so let us prepare.
