Shavuot in the Hebrew language
means, "Weeks".
Pentekoste, "Pentecost"
translated from Greek means,
"50 Days"
marking the passage of time
from Pesach, "Passover".
Spring flowers blooming in Jerusalem
"Pentecost, coming in late May or early June,
was likely a very beautiful day.
It doesn't rain much in Jerusalem and
indeed it's hard to find even a stray
cloud in the blue sky.
The Festival of Weeks, or Pentecost,
celebrated the early harvest of the spring,
and the major one of the fall to come.
It was a joyous occasion which drew
the Jewish people from all over Israel
and many foreign lands."
"The Spirit of Pentecost"
-Zola Levitt
A Shavuot Love Story
"And Ruth said, Urge me not to leave you
or to turn back from following you;
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."
Ruth 1:16
Boaz and Ruth
By Scottish artist James Faed
(1821-1911)
A young widow, and a woman of Moab,
Ruth refused to return to the
idolatrous land of her birth after the
death of her husband.
She chooses instead to accompany
her virtuous mother-in-law,
the widowed Jewess Naomi,
who returns to Israel, arriving in Bethlehem
at the beginning of the barley harvest.
Ruth finds protection from a
kinsman of Naomi's late husband,
a man named Boaz, who allows her to
safely glean in his fields so that she
and her mother-in-law have
enough food to eat.
Ruth's tender love and devotion to her
widowed mother-in-law and to the
God of Israel wins over Boaz's heart
and he later takes Ruth as his wife.
Their son, Obed, was the
father of Jesse, who became the
father of David, an ancestor of
the forthcoming Messiah.
The story of Ruth is a
beautiful illustration of how the
Kingdom of God would eventually pierce
the darkness of the heathen world
with the Light of the World,
Yeshua Ha'Mashiach.
"And I will ask the Father, and He will
give you another Comforter, that
He may remain with you forever."
John 14:16
The Miracle of Pentecost
Pentecost
El Greco
"And when the day of Pentecost had fully come,
they were all assembled together in one place,
When suddenly there came a sound from heaven
like the rushing of a violent tempest blast,
and it filled the whole house in which they were sitting.
And there appeared to them tongues resembling fire,
which were separated and distributed and which
settled on each one of them.
And they were all filled, diffused throughout their souls,
with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other
different, foreign languages (tongues) as the
Spirit kept giving them clear and loud expression
in each tongue the appropriate words.
Now there were then residing in Jerusalem Jews,
devout and God-fearing men in every country under heaven.
And when this sound was heard, the multitude came
together and they were astonished and bewildered
because each one heard them, the apostles,
speaking in his own particular dialect."
Acts 2:1-6
The miracle at Pentecost arrived on a Jewish holiday,
a time of God's holy convocation, when His
chosen people witnessed amazing signs and wonders
of His presence among them.
What began at the Temple of God in the
holy city of Jerusalem, and was designated for
the lost sheep of the house of Israel,
would one day sweep away the
mighty and idolatrous Roman Empire
into the dustbin of history.
"And I have other sheep besides these
that are not of this fold. I must bring and
impel those also; and they will listen
to My voice and heed My call,
and so there will be one flock
under one Shepherd."
John 10:16
The early followers of "The Way"
were all Jewish believers in Yeshua whom
often faced terrible persecution and death
in order to witness about Him in the Near East
in order to witness about Him in the Near East
and later, across the continent which would
one day become the nations of Europe,
one day become the nations of Europe,
eventually reaching the New World of America
and later across the Pacific Ocean to the lands of Asia.
and later across the Pacific Ocean to the lands of Asia.
Today, thanks to the super technology of
the 21st century, the Good News of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ has reached even
Gospel of Jesus Christ has reached even
those who, in the words of the psalmist,
dwell in "the uttermost parts of the earth".
dwell in "the uttermost parts of the earth".
Acts 1:8
