First month of the year and predictions

Nisan, the first month of the ecclesiastical year and for the Jews the seventh month (eighth, in leap year) of the civil year, it is the month were renewal is at the tip of the tongues. In the Torah it is called the month of the Aviv, referring to the month in which barley was ripe. But in the Book of Esther in the Tanakh and in the Christian Bible it is referred to as Nisan.

Jesus, being a Jew commemorated also the salvation of the Israelite firstborns during the Plague of the Firstborn.

According to standard biblical chronology, the Jewish people got its freedom after that tenth plague wrought upon Ancient Egypt. Jehovah had spoken to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt requiring them to remember the moment He was going to give them as part of the month which had to be the beginning of months. Being the first month of the year to the people of God.

Exo 12:1-2 The Scriptures 1998+  (1)  And יהוה  {Jehovah} spoke to Mosheh and to Aharon in the land of Mitsrayim, saying,  (2)  “This month is the beginning of months for you, it is the first month of the year for you.

For those who followed the orders of God there was no problem but for the others who did not listen to the Most High every firstborn in the Land of Mitzrayim (Ancient Egypt) got struck.

Exo 12:23-30 The Scriptures 1998+  (23)  “And  יהוה  {Jehovah} shall pass on to smite the Mitsrites, and shall see the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, and  יהוה  {Jehovah} shall pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you.  (24)  “And you shall guard this word as a law for you and your sons, forever.  (25)  “And it shall be, when you come to the land which  יהוה  {Jehovah} gives you, as He promised, that you shall guard this service.  (26)  “And it shall be, when your children say to you, ‘What does this service mean to you?’  (27)  then you shall say, ‘It is the Passover slaughtering of יהוה  {Jehovah} , who passed over the houses of the children of Yisra’ĕl in Mitsrayim when He smote the Mitsrites and delivered our households.’ ” And the people bowed their heads and did obeisance.  (28)  And the children of Yisra’ĕl went away and did so – as  יהוה  {Jehovah} had commanded Mosheh and Aharon, so they did.  (29)  And it came to be at midnight that  יהוה  {Jehovah} smote all the first-born in the land of Mitsrayim, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of livestock.  (30)  And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Mitsrites. And there was a great cry in Mitsrayim, for there was not a house where there was not a dead one.

The Old Moore’s Almanac which has been published in Ireland since the year 1764 makes every year predictions. You need only look back on the monthly predictions it projects to realise just how inaccurate it is – just a bit of a ‘break’ here and there. but it was very popular and still today people are fascinated with predictions. Strangely enough they may find a book full of predictions, but which is not so popular because it gives predictions but also a lot of warnings which seem to be frightening, because they demand an honouring of Somebody Who cannot be seen. Though that Book of books may present lots of predictions we can verify with what happened in the past and see that they came true.

The Bible not only makes predictions, its batting average is 100%. Usually when we read the prophecies from elsewhere we end up knowing that they really haven’t got a clue – just a good calculated guess here and there. Prophecy for us humans with a consistency and without generalisation, well, our track record is not good. We can travel in space but not into the future.

Today people got more frightened with ISIS and other fundamental groups terrorising whole populations and killing people like it are just flees to be done with. Lots of people wonder if there is hope in what is increasingly being seen as a hopeless world. They should come to see that the future is plain to God as is the past and that gives us security.

With the first month of the religious year of the People of God, not only the Israelites got liberated, but also for the gentiles was given hope by the one who was also called the son of David and son of Abraham. this time it was not just a year old male taken from the sheep or from the goats.

Exo 12:5-6 The Scriptures 1998+  (5)  ‘Let the lamb be a perfect one, a year old male. Take it from the sheep or from the goats.  (6)  ‘And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then all the assembly of the congregation of Yisra’ĕl shall kill it between the evenings.

The world got offered a new spotless lamb. That perfect one was born as the only begotten son of God and anointed by his heavenly Father. Not having spot or wrinkle or any of this sort, but that it might be set-apart and blameless, the 33 year old one gave himself for the sins of many. Herein we do have our hope. Isaiah had forecasted that a baby will be born who will be a sign in the world. Beyond any short term fulfilment of that sign it pointed to someone coming who will really fulfil the sign and in their coming to the world, start a train of events that will make a difference both in time and eternity.

The baby born in Bethlehem, grown up in Nazareth had walked up to Jerusalem, God’s city and was now ready to have him taken prisoner, flogged and killed. Nobody can do God anything, but man can do a lot of awful things to another man. So Jesus had all the reason to be afraid and even to go sweating blood and water, at one moment even doubting the future and crying to his heavenly Father why He the God of gods had left him, now when he was in his hour of death.

Isaiah and others had made predictions about that sign which would come. Predictions in Old Testament days often had a short range fulfilment which prepares our minds to accept a long-range and far more significant fulfilment of what has been promised. The predictions are often fulfilled a couple of times. There’s an immediate fulfilment, and there’s also a long-term fulfilment.

500 years after the time of Isaiah, and about 250 years before the time of Jesus Christ, 70 scholars met in Egypt with the aim of getting the Old Testament from the Hebrew into the Greek language. Coming to the verse about a young woman they saw more in this event than a child back then. They saw that a child would be ‘God with us’. Lots of people came to understand that God could only be with us when He would be here on earth. They forget that God is everywhere and always is present all over. Having the ‘Immanuel‘ or God with us does not mean that the child would be The God. Throughout times many were called ‘Immanuel‘ or ‘Emmanuel,’ also today, but for sure they are not God here on earth..
What got fulfilled at Bethlehem was that the promise first made in the Garden of Eden came into fulfilment. Jesus of Nazareth was the personification of that Word given by God (John 1:1). He was going to present God’s Word in the world and let enough people see Who the heavenly Father really is. He also wanted to have people to understand how important it is not to do our own will but to try to come to do God His Will, like Jesus all his lifetime tried to do God His will and not his.

It was God His will that there would come a saviour to bring an end to the curse of the fall, the sin of man. Now the time had come in the first month of the year. Spring was near, but now had to come a more important Spring. He had to be the Spring of life, the Source of life for many. That is what we are commemorating soon. The liberation of God’s people is the first thing we do have to remember, but secondly we do have to commemorate the evening that Jesus gathered in the upper room with his close disciples and dearest friends.

The coming days we should prepare for that holy moment when wine became a symbol for blood and bread the symbol for the life giving flesh of the promised one.

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Find also:

1. No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation
2. The radiance of God’s glory and the counsellor
3. Challenging claim 2 Inspired by God 1 Simple words
4. Challenging claim 4 Inspired by God 3 Self-consistent Word of God
5. Many Books, yet One
6. Eternal Word that tells everything
7. Bible in the first place #1/3
8. Why think that (5) … the Bible is the word of God
9. Creator and Blogger God 8 A Blog of a Book 2 Holy One making Scriptures Holy
10. Creator and Blogger God 9 A Blog of a Book 3 Blog about Prophecy
11. Creator and Blogger God 11 Old and New Blog 1 Aimed at one man
12. Miracles of revelation and of providence 1 Golden Thread and Revelation
13. Isaiah’s Book of the Messenger of Glad Tidings
14. Date Setting
15. Exodus 9: Liar Liar
16. Commemorating the escape from slavery
17. 1 -15 Nisan
18. A Holy week in remembrance of the Blood of life
19. High Holidays not only for Israel
20. OT prophesies and the NT fulfilment of them
21. About a man who changed history of humankind
22. How is it that Christ pleased God so perfectly?
23. A new exodus and offering of a Lamb
24. Ransom for all
25. Thoughts on Passover
26. Shabbat Pesach service reading 1/2
27. Shabbat Pesach service reading 2/2
28. This Passover maybe we can liberate ourselves
29. 14 Nisan a day to remember #1 Inception
30. 14 Nisan a day to remember #2 Time of Jesus
31. 14 Nisan a day to remember #3 Before the Passover-feast
32. 14 Nisan a day to remember #4 A Lamb slain
33. 14 Nisan a day to remember #5 The Day to celebrate
34. The Evolution Of Passover–Past To Present
35. Passover and Liberation Theology
36. Deliverance and establishment of a theocracy
37. The redemption of man by Christ Jesus
38. The day Jesus died
39. Impaled until death overtook him
40. Jesus is risen
41. Christ has indeed been raised from the dead
42. Risen With Him
43. To whom do we want to be enslaved

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