“. . . five, six, pick up sticks, . . .” Oh, sorry! I was remembering a children’s rhyme. The number six represents a nail or hook, and is associated with something white. Word Number Six has no correlation to the Commandments of Ex. 20 and De. 5, even traditionally. However, it does correlate with several other places in the Bible where YaHVaH tells us to observe the Feasts/Festivals.
The Sixth Word is: “And the Festival of Weeks you shall make to you with the first fruits of the wheat harvest and the Festival of the Ingathering (Harvest of apples and fruit) shall be the changing of the year” Exodus 34:22. These Feasts/Festivals are the number 2 and 3 of the commanded feasts. Exodus 23:16 repeats this with “And the Festival of Harvest of the first fruits of your labor which you sowed in the field, and the Festival of the Ingathering in the going out of the year, when you ingather from your work in the field.”
What are these Festivals? In the Hebrew of Exodus 34:22 they are Chag Shavuoth (Weeks) and Chag Ha’asiyph (Ingathering), and of Exodus 23:16 they are Chag Qatziyr (Harvest) and Chag Ha’asiyph (Ingathering). Shavuoth is celebrated in May, Sivan 6-12 on the Jewish/Hebrew calendar. This is obviously a first harvest of the wheat. Chag Shavuoth and Chag Qatsiyr are the same Feast/Festival, according to Deuteronomy 16:10.
Chag Ha’asiyph (Ingathering) is celebrated as Chag Sukkoth (Booths/Tabernacles) as the same Feast/Festival in accordance to Deuteronomy 16:13. This Feast/Festival is celebrated in September, Tishrei 15-21 on the Jewish/Hebrew calendar.
The names of the Feasts can be quite confusing as they seem to vary from Scripture to Scripture. Yet, they don’t really vary if you read each entire verse. Exodus 34:22, “. . . Festival of Weeks . . . with the wheat harvest . . .” and Festival of the Harvest are the same thing. Deuteronomy 16:13, “. . . Festival of Sukkoth . . . when you ingather (‘aseph) in from your level floor (garen) and from your wine vat (vigev).” Can you see the Festival of the Ingathering is the same thing. The ending of each verse corresponds with the previous name of the Feasts/Festivals in Exodus 23:16. Note, both the Sacred Name Bible and the Tanach translate (garen) as threshing floor, but the Hebrew word for threshing floor is ‘idar instead of garen. Garen can be used for a level floor where threshing is done, but in this instance, I believe it is speaking of a floor where fruit is stored.
Feast/Festival number one, Matzoth, was discussed in Number 3 chapter previously. Likewise, Commandment Six was discussed in the Number 5 chapter.
Observe the Feast/Festival of Shavuoth/Qatsiyr (Weeks/Harvest) and the Feast/Festival of Sukkoth/Asiyph (Booths/Ingathering) as commanded. More on this in the next chapter.
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