Shavuot

This site was first built in French (see www.147thgeneration.net). The English translation was mainly done using « google translation ». We have tried to correct the result of this translation to avoid interpretation errors. However, it is likely that there are unsatisfactory translations, do not hesitate to communicate them to us for correction.
(for that click on this paragraph)

    Summary

On this site, we try to reconstruct the history of the Jews for 3 millennia, history in the classical sense, cultural and cohabitation with the peoples of the world. We do it generation by generation, or over 20 years. We start like this from the death of King Solomon until today (in fact until 2030 …). That’s a total of 147 generations, this number which is the basis of the name of our website is not just any number.

This is what we explain, among other things, on this page.

For this, we must be interested in the text of the bible and in particular the 5 books which constitute the Pentateuch, the most sacred books of Judaism. So we must be interested in the 3 pilgrimage festivals that are defined there, this number 3 is already to be taken into account to define the number 147.

One of them, the Feast of Weeks, often referred to as “Shavuot”, which justifies the title of this page. The feast of Shavuot commemorates the gift of Torah. As Rashi comments, « with those who are not here with us, this day » represents the future generations of the people of Israel. Those who were not yet in Sinai. At the same time, God enumerates 98 curses. These added to the 49 curses previously listed, that makes 147 …

Counting confirmed by Rashi: And  according to an explanation of the Midrash Aggada (Tan’houma): Why is the section « You stand up » to the curses (of the Ki Tavo section) juxtaposed? Because the children of Israel had heard one hundred curses minus two (hence 98) not counting the 49 curses that are in Torat Cohanim (Leviticus 26). Their faces were drained of their blood, so they turned pale and said, « Who can bear these curses? « .

This number of 49 is not a coincidence either, because in the enumeration of curses, it is well made case of the number 7 of which 49 is the square (49 = 7 × 7).

Forty-nine is the number of days that separate the festival of Pesach, which commemorates the coming out of Egypt, from the festival of Shavuot, which commemorates the gift of the Torah. This number of days is the subject of a count day after day in the Jewish tradition, it is the count of the Omer. Recall also that Shavuot and often translated into English by « Pentecost » word based on the root « fifty ». Christian Pentecost echoes this, since if Jewish « Pentecost » celebrates the gift of the Torah 50 days after leaving Egypt celebrated by the festival of Pesach. The Christian « Pentecost celebrates the arrival of the Holy Spirit fifty days after the Christian Passover. Christian Passover, by its very meaning, should coincide with the Jewish Passover as it was the case during primitive Christianity.

This is the number of days that the people of Israel wander in the wilderness until they find their way, until the law of God is entrusted to them. People of Israel finally constituted by the exit from Egypt, by the passage from the condition of slave to the condition of a free people and sovereign of its acts. Forty-nine days wandering in the wilderness, forty-nine days outside of divine blessing, forty-nine days of curses, forty-nine curses.

But the people of Israel must not just suffer a series of curses but three, or three times forty-nine, or one hundred and forty-seven curses. One hundred and forty-seven generations of curses. Three sets, because the people of Israel rebelled 3 times in the desert before accepting the divine covenant. In Rephidim, in the episode of the golden calf and in the return of the explorers to the promised land. Three faults which each would have justified the extermination.

Instead of exterminating his people 3 times, God prefers to subject them to 3 sets of curses. This leniency is justified because the people of Israel are not really responsible for the faults committed in the desert, but this is not explained on this site (this will perhaps be the subject of a future version of the site … )

One generation represents a period of twenty years (This is not demonstrated on this site, perhaps the subject of a future version …).

Thus, if each curse represents a generation of twenty years, the forty-nine curses of Leviticus represent approximately a millennium, the period between the death of Solomon (around 930 BC) and the destruction of the Second Temple (70 AD). In fact 50, because generation of years 50 AD to 70 AD includes the destruction of the second Temple.

The ninety-eight curses of Deuteronomy enacted by Moses in the absence of God correspond to the period of exile of the people of Israel (50 AD / 2030 AD) without the Temples. Period when the people of Israel could only see bitterly the absence of their God, or at least the absence of its manifestation.

But the suffering of the people of Israel is not in vain. For after these forty-seven generations of misfortune, God will remember his people. The prayers of Moses will not have been in vain. Moses prayed forty days each time his people deserved the extermination. Be three times. In total one hundred and twenty days, the same number as the years of Moses’ life. The thirty days of tears, of the mourning of Moses, are added to the one hundred and twenty days of prayer of Moses.

In total 150 days. One day per generation. Three millennia of suffering. Or almost because the one hundred and fifty generations include in addition to one hundred and forty-seven generations of curses, three generations during which God returns to his people listening to the prayer of Moses: Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; do not turn to the stubbornness of this people, to their wickedness, or to their sin. The three patriarchs will engender for the people of Israel and for the world three blessings of reconciliation with their God.

Three generations of blessing are added to the one hundred and forty-seven generations of curse, or a total of one hundred and fifty generations, or twenty years by generation, three thousand years. Let there be three generations of blessings which are added to the one hundred and forty-seven generations of curse, that is to say in total one hundred and fifty generations, or if we take twenty years per generation, three thousand years. The three generations of reconciliations are consecutive to all of the one hundred and forty-seven generations of curse.

The wanderings of the people of Israel since the death of Solomon are in the image of Jacob, his patriarch. Jacob lived one hundred and forty-seven years of suffering before experiencing rest. In the pain of Jacob’s wanderings, the last seventeen years have a special status. At the end of his life Jacob lives in the land of the sea. But the sadness of the exile is largely compensated because Jacob is finally reunited to the plenitude of his children, since he has just been reunited with Joseph. Similarly, in the one hundred and forty-seven generations of curses of the people of Israel, there are also seventeen generations who have a special status. Since the death of Solomon (about 930 BC) until the destruction of the first Temple (586 BC) 340 years have passed, that is seventeen generations.

According to Jewish tradition, one day is broken down into six « watches » of four hours. Three watches for the day, three watches for the night: « Rabbi Eliezer says: The night consists of three watches, and over each and every watch, the Holy One, Blessed be He, sits and roars like a lion in pain over the destruction of the Temple. This imagery is derived from a reference in the Bible, as it is stated: “The Lord roars [yishag] from on high, from His holy dwelling He makes His voice heard. He roars mightily [shaog yishag] over His dwelling place, He cries out like those who tread grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth” (Jeremiah 25:30). The three instances of the root shin-alef-gimmel in this verse correspond to the three watches of the night. »

The three roars of God correspond to the three sets of forty-nine generations of curses. All these curses, about three millennia, correspond to the people of Israel at the night. The night because the people of Israel live apart from the splendor of their God. The day ended with the death of Solomon and the people of Israel look forward to the coming of dawn that corresponds to the last three generations, those corresponding to the blessings of Jacob, Isaac and Abraham.

One hundred and fifty generations, one hundred and fifty psalms.

The psalms of David are the image of the one hundred and fifty generations of the night that begins with the death of Solomon. Through Nathan’s vision that we have just taken up in the preceding quotation, David also had the revelation of the future of his people from generation to generation from the beginning of the night until dawn: « According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak to David. And the king David went in and sat before the Lord; and he said: « Who am I, O’ Lord God, and what is my house, that You have brought me thus far? As though this was yet too small a thing in Your eyes, O’ Lord God: but You also spoke of Your servant’s house from afar; now is this the manner of man, O’ Lord God? On this last verse Rashi brings the following comment: « Another explanation, You acted with me as with Adam, the first man to whom You had shown the generations that would be born of him. »

The reason David has the power to see the future of his people and the one for which the people of Israel have seriously sinned three times in the desert are not explained in this website. The only thing to remember is that the Jewish people have made mistakes three times and they do not bear the real responsibility, which is why God has consented three times not to annihilate it. The 147 curses that will befall the people of Israel as a “punishment” for these three faults will also be an essential course of initiation for the Jewish people to be constituted, hard but necessary. In the same way, if David could see the future of his people as a spectator without being able to act on it, it results from the same causes that are not explained on this site.

All that David discovers about the future of his people, he writes in his psalms. A psalm by generation.

This is the meaning of the festival of Shavuot, forty-nine days to wait in the darkness until dawn appears, that the light of the Torah comes to enlighten the Jewish people. The night of the people of Israel has three phases, three millennia. This is how to understand God’s definition of Shavuot’s feast. The Shavuot Feast, the Torah Giving Feast to the people of Israel, commemorates God’s final covenant with His people at the end of the one hundred and forty-seven generations of curses that will affect the people of Israel. 

The festival of Shavuot is the third pilgrimage festival. The other two Sukkot and Pesach symbolize the crossing of the desert of the people of Israel, a total of two times seven days while the Shavuot festival is celebrated a single day in the image of the new moon celebration (celebration of the new month) which symbolize the end of a cycle.

(The sheep is the animal that represents the people of Israel, we do not explain it on this site)

At the time of the Temple, during Pesach, seven sheep were sacrificed every day, making a total of forty-nine sheep. In the image of the forty-nine curses evoked in Leviticus, like the forty-nine generations of curse between the death of Solomon and the destruction of the second Temple. At the time of the Temple, during the festival of Sukkot, fourteen sheep were sacrificed every day, making a total of ninety-eight sheep. Like the ninety-eight curses evoked in Deuteronomy, like the ninety-eight generations of curse between the destruction of the Second Temple and the final redemption of the people of Israel. Redemption symbolized by the festival of Shavuot.

Talk

The pilgrimage festivals

God has introduced, for the Jews, three pilgrimage feasts that we can recall, as defined by Moses in Deuteronomy:

  • Three[1] times in the year, every one of your males shall appear before the Lord, your God, in the place He will choose: on the Festival of Matzoth and on the Festival of Weeks, and on the Festival of Sukkoth, and he shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed.

The Festival of Matzoth is classically called Pesach.

The Festival of Weeks is classically called Shavuot.

The Tent festival is classically called Sukkoth.

Shavuot

Let us first recall the principle of the Festival of Weeks that we will call Shavuot:

  • You[2] shall count seven weeks for yourself; from[the time] the sickle is first put to the standing crop, you shall begin to count seven weeks.
  • And you shall perform the Festival of Weeks to the Lord, your God, the donation you can afford to give, according to how the Lord, your God, shall bless you.
  • And you shall rejoice before the Lord, your God, -you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite who is within your cities, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are among you, in the place which the Lord, your God, will choose to establish His Name therein.
  • And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall keep and perform these statutes.

The festival of Shavuot commemorates the gift of the Torah, the covenant made between God and his people, the people of Israel. As Moses recalls before leaving the people of Israel to their destiny:

  • You[3]  are all standing this day before the Lord, your God the leaders of your tribes, your elders and your officers, every man of Israel,
  • your young children, your women, and your convert who is within your camp both your woodcutters and your water drawers,
  • that you may enter the covenant of the Lord, your God, and His oath, which the Lord, your God, is making with you this day,
  • in order to establish you this day as His people, and that He will be your God, as He spoke to you, and as He swore to your forefathers to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
  • But not only with you am I making this covenant and this oath,
  • but with those standing here with us today before the Lord, our God, and [also] with those who are not here with us, this day.

As Rashi comments, « with those who are not here with us, this day » represents the future generations of the people of Israel. Those who were not yet in Sinai.  [Tanchuma 3]

The covenant is therefore established with the generations of the desert, with all the generations that will follow those of the desert and in remembrance of the covenant made with the patriarchs of Israel: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. On this passage, Rashi also makes the following comment:

  • And [4]  according to an explanation of the Midrash Aggada (Tan’houma): Why is the section « You stand up » to the curses (of the Ki Tavo section) juxtaposed? Because the children of Israel had heard one hundred curses minus two (hence 98) not counting the 49 curses that are in Torat Cohanim (Leviticus 26). Their faces were drained of their blood, so they turned pale and said, « Who can bear these curses? « .

Number of curses of Leviticus: 49.

Number of curses of Deuteronomy: 98.

In this website, the association between generation and curse of Leviticus or Deuteronomy is not made.

7 fois 7
49 trois fois

7 times 7 give 49, Three times 49 give 147.

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A total of 147 curses, three times forty-nine curses.

Or again, three times seven times seven.

The passage of Leviticus [5] where the first forty-nine curses are quoted begins with the blessings that God will bring to His people if they walk in His decrees and commandments.

But God also warns the people of Israel of the curses they have if they turn away from it.

After quoting the first seven curses and before enumerating the other curses, God warns:

  • And [6]  if, during these, you will not listen to Me, I will add another seven punishments for your sins:
49 rogne shutterstock_248500504

Seven times the number of seven curses already enumerated is forty-nine curses.

Throughout the enumeration of the forty-nine curses of Leviticus, God will repeat three times the risk of being punished sevenfold :

  • And [7]  if you treat Me as happenstance, and you do not wish to listen to Me, I will add seven punishments corresponding to your sins.
  • And [8] if, through these, you will still not be chastised [to return] to Me, and if you [continue to] treat Me happenstance / Then I too, will treat you as happenstance. I will again add seven punishments for your sins.
  • And [9] if, despite this, you still do not listen to Me, still treating Me as happenstance / I will treat you with a fury of happenstance, adding again seven [chastisements] for your sins.

The Omer

Forty-nine is the number of days that separate the festival of Pesach, which commemorates the coming out of Egypt, from the festival of Shavuot, which commemorates the gift of the Torah.

This number of days is the subject of a count day after day in the Jewish tradition, it is the count of the Omer.

Recall also that Shavuot and often translated into English by « Pentecost » word based on the root « fifty ». Christian Pentecost echoes this, since if Jewish « Pentecost » celebrates the gift of the Torah 50 days after leaving Egypt celebrated by the festival of Pesach. The Christian « Pentecost celebrates the arrival of the Holy Spirit fifty days after the Christian Passover. Christian Passover, by its very meaning, should coincide with the Jewish Passover as it was the case during primitive Christianity.

This is the number of days that the people of Israel wander in the wilderness until they find their way, until the law of God is entrusted to them. People of Israel finally constituted by the exit from Egypt, by the passage from the condition of slave to the condition of a free people and sovereign of its acts.

Forty-nine days wandering in the wilderness, forty-nine days outside of divine blessing, forty-nine days of curses, forty-nine curses.

The crossing of the desert.

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The people of Israel should not simply suffer a series of curses but three. Three times forty-nine, or one hundred and forty-seven curses. One hundred and forty-seven generations of curses.

Before analyzing these, let us first try to understand why God must inflict upon his people a period of purification that is so long and so painful.

In fact the people of Israel, before accepting the divine law, largely rebelled against their God. The crossing of the desert was a trial for the people of Israel, it was also a trial for God who had to restrain his anger not to exterminate the people he appropriated.

Upon leaving Egypt, the people of Israel had complained of not having water:

  • They [10] came to Marah, but they could not drink water from Marah because it was bitter; therefore, it was named Marah.
  • The people complained against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?
  • So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord instructed him concerning a piece of wood, which he cast into the water, and the water became sweet. There He gave them a statute and an ordinance, and there He tested them.

This episode did not bring about divine wrath but allowed a divine warning to the people of Israel:

  • And [11] He said, If you hearken to the voice of the Lord, your God, and you do what is proper in His eyes, and you listen closely to His commandments and observe all His statutes, all the sicknesses that I have visited upon Egypt I will not visit upon you, for I, the Lord, heal you

This warning is not enough to make the people of Israel confident in their God. Because after the event of Marah for the water came the complaint of the desert of Sine about the food:

  • The[12]  entire community of the children of Israel complained against Moses and against Aaron in the desert.
  • The children of Israel said to them, If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat, when we ate bread to our fill! For you have brought us out into this desert, to starve this entire congregation to death.

As for the complaint of the children of Israel concerning the water in Marah, the Lord answers the request of his people by offering them manna, not without renewing his warning:

  • So the Lord [13]  said to Moses, Behold! I am going to rain down for you bread from heaven, and the people shall go out and gather what is needed for the day, so that I can test them, whether or not they will follow My teaching.

However, when some Hebrews decide to look for manna on Sabbath despite the divine indications, God begins to lose patience with the lack of faith of his people:

  • It came [14] about that on the seventh day, [some] of the people went out to gather [manna], but they did not find [any].
  • The Lord said to Moses, How long will you refuse to observe My commandments and My teachings?

Rephidim.

The first (serious) rebellion took place at Rephidim.

Ignoring the warnings of the LORD in the first complaints to Marah and the desert of Sine, the people of Israel are again arrogant towards the LORD who brought them out of Egypt:

  • The [15] entire community of the children of Israel journeyed from the desert of Sin to their travels by the mandate of the Lord. They encamped in Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink.
  • So the people quarreled with Moses, and they said, Give us water that we may drink Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?
  • The people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses, and they said, Why have you brought us up from Egypt to make me and my children and my livestock die of thirst?
  • Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, What shall I do for this people? Just a little longer and they will stone me!

God will give water to the people of Israel, Moses listening to the divine instruction will strike the rock at Mount Horeb.

This new revolt of the people of Israel is not accompanied this time with the warning of the Lord, which is not a positive sign for the people of Israel. We will see in Deuteronomy that if there is no warning, it is because the Lord made the decision to exterminate the people of Israel. Decision that Moses thwarted.

The Golden calf.

Instead of destroying the people of Israel, God entrusts His commandments to Him. Despite this, the people of Israel, under the control of Aaron, will rebel again by edifying the golden calf.

Again, God will once again want to exterminate his people:

  • And the Lord [16] said to Moses: « Go, descend, for your people that you have brought up from the land of Egypt have acted corruptly.
  • They have quickly turned away from the path that I have commanded them; they have made themselves a molten calf! And they have prostrated themselves before it, slaughtered sacrifices to it, and said: ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who have brought you up from the land of Egypt.’ « 
  • And the Lord said to Moses: « I have seen this people and behold! they are a stiff necked people.
  • Now leave Me alone, and My anger will be kindled against them so that I will annihilate them, and I will make you into a great nation. »

Moses dissuades God again.

Moses’ argument [17] is effective and God refrains from destroying his people at least immediately.

Explorers

On the return of the explorers, the new failure of the people of Israel, fearing to enter the promised land, again provoked divine wrath:

  • The Lord [18] said to Moses, « How long will this people provoke Me? How much longer will they not believe in Me after all the signs I have performed in their midst?
  • I will strike them with a plague and annihilate them; then I will make you into a nation, greater and stronger than they. »

Review.

Moses records in Deuteronomy all the acts of rebellion of the people of Israel:

  • You [19] shall know that, not because of your righteousness, the Lord, your God, gives you this land to possess it; for you are a stiffnecked people.
  • Remember do not forget, how you angered the Lord, your God, in the desert; from the day that you went out of the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebelling against the Lord.
  • At Horeb, you angered the Lord, and the Lord was incensed with you to destroy you.
  • When I ascended the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water;
  • and the Lord gave me two stone tablets, inscribed by the finger of God, and on them was [inscribed] according to all the words that the Lord spoke with you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.
  • And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.
  • And the Lord said to me, « Arise, descend quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt have become corrupt; they have quickly deviated from the way which I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten image. »
  • And the Lord spoke to me [further], saying, « I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people.
  • Leave Me alone, and I will destroy them and obliterate their name from beneath the heavens, and I will make you into a nation mightier and more numerous than they. »
  • So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were on my two hands.
  • And I saw, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord, your God; you had made yourselves a molten calf; you had deviated quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you.
  • So I grasped the two tablets, cast them out of my two hands, and shattered them before your eyes.
  • And I fell down before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sins you had committed, by doing evil in the eyes of the Lord to anger Him.
  • For I was frightened of the wrath and the fury that the Lord was angry with you to destroy you, and the Lord hearkened to me also at that time.
  • And with Aaron, the Lord was very furious, to destroy him; so I prayed also for Aaron at that time.
  •  And I took your sin the calf, which you had made, and I burned it with fire, and I crushed it, grinding it well, until it was fine dust, and I cast its dust into the brook that descends from the mountain.
  • And at Tav’erah, and at Massah, and at Kivroth Hata’avah, you provoked the Lord to anger.
  • And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, « Go up and possess the land I have given you, » you defied the word of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him, nor did you obey Him.
  • You have been rebelling against the Lord since the day I became acquainted with you.
  • So I fell down before the Lord the forty days and the forty nights that I had fallen down; because the Lord had said to destroy you.
  •  And I prayed to the Lord and said, « O Lord God, do not destroy Your people and Your inheritance, which You have redeemed in Your greatness, and which You have brought out of Egypt with mighty hand.
  • Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; do not turn to the stubbornness of this people, to their wickedness, or to their sin.
  • Lest [the people of] the land from which you brought us out will say, ‘Because of the Lord’s inability to bring them to the land about which He spoke to them, and because of His hatred toward them, He has brought them out to slay them in the desert.’
  • But they are Your people and Your inheritance, which You brought out with Your great strength and with Your outstretched arm. »

Whenever God has not directly punished the people for their faults, it corresponds to a will of extermination.

Three times:

  • When the people of Israel quarreled at Rephidim to obtain water (which Moses recalls by « At Horeb, you angered the Lord« ),
  • When the people of Israel, led by Aaron, erected the Golden calf (which Moses refers to as  » you had sinned against the Lord, your God; you had made yourselves a molten calf »)
  • When the people of Israel were afraid to return to the promised land when the explorers returned (what Moses evokes by « And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, « Go up and possess the land I have given you, » you defied the word of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him, nor did you obey Him.»)

In addition to this will of extermination associated with these three major faults, a strong symbolism is attached to the facts that are related to it.

When the people quarrel with Rephidim to get water, after getting this water he was immediately attacked by Amalek [20] . Amalek is the symbol of the forces of this world who want the extermination of the people of Israel.

When Aaron erects the golden calf, Moses destroys it [21] before breaking the Tables of the Law, the two tables of testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.

After the refusal of the people of Israel to enter the promised land following the return of the explorers, the people of Israel will be denied access to the land of Edom [22] . Edom is the symbol of the lands of exile of the people of Israel.

A curse, a generation.

One generation represents a period of twenty years. This will not be shown on this website.

Thus, if each curse represents a generation of twenty years, the forty-nine curses of Leviticus represent approximately a millennium, the period between the death of Solomon (around 930 BC) and the destruction of the Second Temple (70 AD). In fact 50, because generation of years 50 AD to 70 AD includes the destruction of the second Temple.

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In the same way, the ninety-eight curses of Deuteronomy represent approximately a period of two millennia which has passed since the generation of the destruction of the Second Temple (50 AD) to our time (year 2030).

Leviticus is associated with the laws governing temple service. The forty-nine curses of Leviticus correspond to curses in the presence of the tabernacle, which corresponds well to the period 930 BC to 50 AD. These curses correspond to God’s extermination will for the fault of the golden calf.

The punishment is the destruction of the two tables of the law by Moses. This corresponds to the destruction of the two Temples. Moses preferred to sacrifice the Temples rather than the people of Israel. If the choice of Moses seems heavy, he avoids the extermination of the people of Israel.

Deuteronomy is the repetition of the law enacted by Moses contrary to the first enumeration made in the other books of the Torah which is made by God.

49 deux fois

The ninety-eight curses of Deuteronomy enacted by Moses in the absence of God correspond to the period of exile of the people of Israel (50 AD / 2030 AD) without the Temples. Period when the people of Israel could only see bitterly the absence of their God, or at least the absence of its manifestation.

These ninety-eight curses correspond to the faults of Israel at Rephidim and the return of the explorers.

These mistakes were followed, one by the intervention of Amalek and the other by the refusal of Edom that the people of Israel dwell on his land.

This is in the image of the exile of the people of Israel since the destruction of the second Temple: the people of Israel is constantly at the mercy of new enemies wanting to destroy it and is judged every time undesirable on each land that he crosses before every time to seek his salvation elsewhere without being able to settle permanently.

The end of curses.

God has preferred to leave his people at the mercy of the attacks and harassment of other peoples rather than destroying them himself.

But the suffering of the people of Israel is not in vain.

For after these forty-seven generations of misfortune, God will remember his people. The prayers of Moses will not have been in vain. Moses prayed forty days each time his people deserved the extermination. Be three times. In total one hundred and twenty days, the same number as the years of Moses’ life:

  • Moses [23] was one hundred and twenty years old when he died. His eye had not dimmed, nor had he lost his [natural] freshness.
  • And the sons of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab for thirty days, and the days of weeping over the mourning for Moses came to an end.

The thirty days of tears, of the mourning of Moses, are added to the one hundred and twenty days of prayer of Moses. In total 150 days. One day per generation.

Three millennia of suffering. Or almost because the one hundred and fifty generations include in addition to one hundred and forty-seven generations of curses, three generations during which God returns to his people listening to the prayer of Moses:

  • Remember [24] your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; do not turn to the stubbornness of this people, to their wickedness, or to their sin.

Sin is the golden calf.

The, it is the merit of Jacob is recalled to cancel the extermination related to this fault.

Wickedness is the fault of Rephidim where Moses feared for his life:

  • Moses [25] cried out to the Lord, saying, What shall I do for this people? Just a little longer and they will stone me!

There it is the merits of Isaac that are called in support to avoid the threat of extermination.

The stubbornness is that of the people of Israel not to trust their God when he refuses to enter the promised land after the return of the explorers.

There it is the merit of Abraham who must save the people of Israel from extermination.

The three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had already been mentioned by God when He finished enumerating the forty-nine curses of Leviticus:

  • And because [26] of their iniquity, those of you who survive will rot away in the lands of your enemies; moreover, they will rot away because the iniquities of their fathers are still within them.
  • They will then confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers their betrayal that they dealt Me, and that they also treated Me as happenstance.
  • Then I too, will treat them as happenstance and bring them [back while] in the land of their enemies. If then, their clogged heart becomes humbled, then, [their sufferings] will gain appeasement for their iniquity,
  • and I will remember My covenant [with] Jacob, and also My covenant [with] Isaac, and also My covenant [with] Abraham I will remember. And I will remember the Land,

The three patriarchs will engender for the people of Israel and for the world three blessings of reconciliation with their God.

Three generations of blessing are added to the one hundred and forty-seven generations of curse, or a total of one hundred and fifty generations, or twenty years by generation, three thousand years.

The three generations of reconciliations are consecutive to all of the one hundred and forty-seven generations of curse.

it would be inappropriate to associate a generation of reconciliation at each end of a cycle of forty-nine generations of curses before plunging into a new cycle of forty-nine generations of curse.

Reconciliation can only be initialized after completion of all curses.

The years of Jacob’s life.

The wanderings of the people of Israel since the death of Solomon are in the image of Jacob, his patriarch.

Jacob lived one hundred and forty-seven years of suffering before experiencing rest.

So when Joseph comes to present Jacob his father to Pharaoh, this one complains of his life made of suffering:

1024px-Jacob_-_Joseph
  • So Joseph [27] brought his father Jacob and stood him before Pharaoh, and Jacob greeted Pharaoh.
  • And Pharaoh said to Jacob, « How many are the days of the years of your life? »
  • And Jacob said to Pharaoh, « The days of the years of my sojournings are one hundred thirty years. The days of the years of my life have been few and miserable, and they have not reached the days of the years of the lives of my forefathers in the days of their sojournings. »

Indeed the wanderings of the people of Israel will have been painful as the years of Jacob, while for the fathers of Jacob, the suffering is mitigated.

For Isaac, father of Jacob and Esau, he can console himself for the fate of the descendants of the latter, assimilated to the people of the West, Christianity.

For Abraham, the consolation comes both from the fate reserved for the people from Esau but also from the people of Ishmael, the East, Islam.

For the years of Jacob’s life are like the wanderings of the people of Israel:

  • And Jacob [28] lived in the land of Egypt for seventeen years, and Jacob’s days, the years of his life, were a hundred and forty seven years.

One hundred and forty-seven years of unhappy life for Jacob, one hundred and forty-seven generations of curses for the people of Israel.

In the pain of Jacob’s wanderings, the last seventeen years have a special status.

At the end of his life Jacob lives in the land of the sea. But the sadness of the exile is largely compensated because Jacob is finally reunited to the plenitude of his children, since he has just been reunited with Joseph.

Similarly, in the one hundred and forty-seven generations of curses of the people of Israel, there are also seventeen generations who have a special status. Since the death of Solomon (about 930 BC) until the destruction of the first Temple (586 BC) 340 years have passed, that is seventeen generations.

Seventeen generations during which the people of Israel have sinned. Seventeen generations during which the people of Israel receive with each generation its share of curses. But seventeen generations during which God dwells in the heart of the Temple, the first Temple, among the people of Israel.

1024px-Jerusalem_temple4

After the destruction of the First Temple, during the one hundred and thirty generations of remaining curses, this will not happen again. Even when the Temple is rebuilt, God will not come to establish his residence there again.

As Jacob at the end of his life joined his fathers Isaac and Abraham, the people of Israel at the end of their one hundred and forty-seven generations of curses will finally reach their God through three generations of blessings.

Three generations of blessings corresponding to the blessings of the fathers of the people of Israel, Jacob, Isaac and Abraham. That’s a hundred and fifty generations in total. Three millennia.

Three thousand years is half the duration of the real world which has a theoretical total duration of six thousand years following the classical religious computation.

The three watches of the Night.

According to Jewish tradition, one day is broken down into six « watches » of four hours.

Three watches for the day, three watches for the night:

  • Rabbi[31] Eliezer says: The night consists of three watches, and over each and every watch, the Holy One, Blessed be He, sits and roars like a lion in pain over the destruction of the Temple. This imagery is derived from a reference in the Bible, as it is stated: “The Lord roars [yishag] from on high, from His holy dwelling He makes His voice heard. He roars mightily [shaog yishag] over His dwelling place, He cries out like those who tread grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth” (Jeremiah 25:30). The three instances of the root shin-alef-gimmel in this verse correspond to the three watches of the night.

The three roars of God correspond to the three sets of forty-nine generations of curses.

All these curses, about three millennia, correspond to the people of Israel at the night.

The night because the people of Israel live apart from the splendor of their God. The day ended with the death of Solomon and the people of Israel look forward to the coming of dawn that corresponds to the last three generations, those corresponding to the blessings of Jacob, Isaac and Abraham.

One hundred and fifty generations, one hundred and fifty psalms.

The psalms are the image of the night of the people of Israel. The last three Psalms are in the image of the blessings of Jacob, Isaac and Abraham. They represent the end of the night, the dawn.

The night begins when Solomon dies.

Solomon has gone. however the curses could not be initialized during his lifetime because of the promise made to David his father:

1024px-King_Solomon_on_the_south_portal_of_the_cathedral_of_Strasbourg
  • And even from the day [32] that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. And the Lord has told you that the Lord will make for you a house.
  • When your days are finished and you shall lie with your forefathers, then I will raise up your seed that shall proceed from your body after you, and I will establish his kingdom.
  • He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
  • I will be to him a father, and he shall be to Me a son; so that when he goes astray I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the sons of Adam.
  • But My mercy shall not depart from him as I withdrew it from Saul, whom I removed from before you.
  • And your house and your kingdom shall be confirmed forever before you; your throne shall be established forever. »
  • According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak to David.

The visions of David.

The psalms of David are the image of the one hundred and fifty generations of the night that begins with the death of Solomon. Through Nathan’s vision that we have just taken up in the preceding quotation, David also had the revelation of the future of his people from generation to generation from the beginning of the night until dawn:

  • According [33] to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak to David.
  • And the king David went in and sat before the Lord; and he said: « Who am I, O’ Lord God, and what is my house, that You have brought me thus far?
  • As though this was yet too small a thing in Your eyes, O’ Lord God: but You also spoke of Your servant’s house from afar; now is this the manner of man, O’ Lord God?

On this last verse Rashi brings the following comment:

  • Another explanation, You acted with me as with Adam, the first man to whom You had shown the generations that would be born of him.

Already Jacob had been able to predict to these children what fate awaited them:

  • Jacob [34] called for his sons and said, « Gather and I will tell you what will happen to you at the end of days.» (Jacob goes on to indicate to each of his sons an adapted forecast in a deliberately evasive form so as not to say too much about it.)

The psalms of David.

The reason David has the power to see the future of his people and the one for which the people of Israel have seriously sinned three times in the desert are not explained in this website.

The only thing to remember is that the Jewish people have made mistakes three times and they do not bear the real responsibility, which is why God has consented three times not to annihilate it.

The 147 curses that will befall the people of Israel as a « punishment » for these three faults will also be an essential course of initiation for the Jewish people to be constituted, hard but necessary.

In the same way, if David could see the future of his people as a spectator without being able to act on it, it results from the same causes that are not explained on this site.

All that David discovers about the future of his people, he writes in his psalms. A psalm by generation.

The guarantee of the final intervention of the Lord brings a little light to the terrible night of three millennia that the people of Israel will have to undergo while waiting for the dawn:

  • And these [35] are the last words of David; the saying of David the son of Jesse, and the saying of the man raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, And the sweet singer of Israel.
  • The spirit of the Lord spoke in me, And His word was upon my tongue.
  • The God of Israel said, concerning me spoke the Rock of Israel; ‘A ruler over men shall be the righteous (man), he that rules in the fear of God.
  • And as the light of the morning (when) the sun shines; a morning without clouds, more than the light that follows the rain that falls upon the grass of the earth.
  • For my house is not so with God. For an everlasting covenant has He made with me, fully set forth and heeded for all my salvation and all the desire [is before Him], for He will not sprout forth [another on the throne].

Waiting for dawn.

This is the meaning of the festival of Shavuot, forty-nine days to wait in the darkness until dawn appears, that the light of the Torah comes to enlighten the Jewish people.

The night of the people of Israel has three phases, three millennia. This is how to understand God’s definition of Shavuot’s feast:

  • These are [36] the Lord’s appointed [holy days], holy occasions, which you shall designate in their appointed time:
  • In the first month, on the fourteenth of the month, in the afternoon, [you shall sacrifice] the Passover offering to the Lord.
  • And on the fifteenth day of that month is the Festival of Unleavened Cakes to the Lord; you shall eat unleavened cakes for a seven day period.
  • On the first day, there shall be a holy occasion for you; you shall not perform any work of labor.
  • (…)
  • And you shall count for yourselves, from the morrow of the rest day from the day you bring the omer as a wave offering seven weeks; they shall be complete.
  • You shall count until the day after the seventh week, [namely,] the fiftieth day, [on which] you shall bring a new meal offering to the Lord.

The Shavuot Feast, the Torah Giving Feast to the people of Israel, commemorates God’s final covenant with His people at the end of the one hundred and forty-seven generations of curses that will affect the people of Israel. The festival of Shavuot is the third pilgrimage festival. The other two Sukkot and Pesach symbolize the crossing of the desert of the people of Israel, a total of two times seven days while the Shavuot festival is celebrated a single day in the image of the new moon celebration (celebration of the new month) which symbolize the end of a cycle.

At the time of the Temple, during Pesach, seven sheep were sacrificed every day [37] , making a total of forty-nine sheep. In the image of the forty-nine curses evoked in Leviticus, like the forty-nine generations of curse between the death of Solomon and the destruction of the second Temple.

At the time of the Temple, during the festival of Sukkot, fourteen sheep were sacrificed every day [38] , making a total of ninety-eight sheep. Like the ninety-eight curses evoked in Deuteronomy, like the ninety-eight generations of curse between the destruction of the Second Temple and the final redemption of the people of Israel.

Redemption symbolized by the festival of Shavuot.

Recall that the sheep is the animal that represents the people of Israel.

And it is in the sense of a relationship of trust between the people of Israel and his God that Maimonides describes this holiday. A long period of waiting for which the people of Israel do not doubt the outcome:

  • The feast [39]  of Weeks (Shavuot) is the anniversary of the Revelation on Mount Sinai. In order to raise the importance of this day, we count days that pass since the preceding festival, just as one expect his most intimate friend on a certain day counts the days end even the hours. This is the reason why we count the days that pass since the offering of the Omer, between the anniversary of our departure from Egypt (Pesach) and the anniversary of the Lawgiving (Shavuot). The latter was the aim and object of the exodus from Egypt, and thus God said, « I brought you into myself » (Exodus, chapter 19, verse 4)

To face the curses that will overwhelm him for a hundred and forty-seven generations, during the night, until the expectation of redemption, the dawn; the people of Israel must be patient.

This we can also guess in a text that is part of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In the text entitled: « The Sage to the Sons of Dawn » [40] :

  • … And now listen, [O wise men], and hear, O you with knowledge, hear. And men of understanding, ln[crease mighjt, and modesty, you who search judgement. [You who] kn[ow the way], increase strength, and men of truth, pursu[e righteousness], and you who love kindness, increase humility … appointed time which … you will understand the end of the ages and you will gaze at ancient things to know …

The Sons of Dawn is the people of Israel who go through the night and wait for dawn for its redemption.

The beginning of the night.

These people, who are attached to their God and their precepts, must remain humble in the crossing of the night, which represents the one hundred and forty-seven generations of curses that were indirectly predicted in the Pentateuch and which David has enumerated in his psalms.

It is only at dawn that the people of Israel, who have regained its fullness, can then understand the meaning of past trials.

The writing of the Dead Sea Scrolls is contemporary or earlier than a few generations of the life of Jesus.

If we accept the idea that this text, extracted from the Dead Sea Scrolls, provides for the night of the people of Israel, that is to say the flow of one hundred and forty-seven generations of curse before the Dawn appears, before the redemption of the people of Israel, so that means that in Jesus’ day it was part of the foreseeable future.

To go in this direction, let us recall a passage from the Gospels:

  • « Just  [41] as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.
  • People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
  • “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.
  • But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
  •  “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.

If this passage in the Christian religion is associated with the Last Judgment, it is interesting to recall the following passage relating to the history of Solomon:

  • Judah [42] and Israel (were) many, as the sand which (is) by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and rejoicing.

This period when we ate and drank was the apogee of the people of Israel, the end of the day, the moment when the light of day is often the most majestic.

But this sunset majestic as it may be announcing the fall of the night. The people of Israel do not feel the night come and take advantage of the present moment without sensing the coming decline like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah before God comes to destroy them.

Three kings, three mistakes.

God had reproached the people of Israel for three types of mistake, sin (the golden calf), wickedness (when the people of Israel ask Moses for water threateningly), and stubbornness (when the explorers are reluctant to take possession of the land of Israel). The people of Israel had asked to have a King despite the warnings of Samuel.

The first King, Saul stubbornly refused to leave the power to David.

Second King David was wicked in sending Uriah’s death to freely appropriate his wife Bathsheba.

The third king, Solomon sinned by devoting himself to idolatry.

The people of Israel had desired to have kings to represent them, these kings reproduced the faults of the people of Israel in the desert for which God wanted to punish the people of Israel for extermination.

The reproduction of these faults will thus naturally confirm and trigger the planned punishment, three times the extermination of the people of Israel. Or rather, three times forty-nine generations of curses through the intervention of Moses. One hundred and forty-seven generations of curses in all.

Does Jesus, when quoting the passage just mentioned, also think of the fate of the people of Israel and the suffering of the one hundred and forty-seven generations? For this we can quote the conclusion that follows this previous quote:

  • And [43] the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.
  • And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones (Israel people), who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?
  • I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Reconciliation between Jacob and Esau.

Female menstruation is associated with lunar cycles, which means if we equate a female cycle with a generation that a period of twelve years is the equivalent of one hundred forty-eight lunar cycles of 148 menses.

A period of twelve years, especially if it is punctuated in some way by the female cycles is the image of the hundred and forty-seven generations of the night of Israel plus the first generation of dawn, the first of three generations of redemption.

It is from this angle that we must interpret the following passage from the Gospels:

Dehodencq_Le_Christ_ressuscite_la_fille_de_Jaïre
  • While [47] he was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.”
  • Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.
  • Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak.
  • She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”
  • Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
  • When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes,
  • he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him.
  • After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up.
  • News of this spread through all that region.

We can complete the excerpt we have just quoted from this story by complementary elements of the two other versions of the other Gospels relating this event:

  • Jesus came from the other side of the Sea of Tiberias, that is to say from the pagan shore. The quoted text is in Galilee, on the Jewish side.
  • The sick woman finds it difficult to reach the garment (corresponds to the Jewish command of the Tsitsith) in the midst of the crowd of faithful around Jesus.
  • The sick woman has met many doctors beforehand without success. Even his illness has worsened.
  • The notable is called Jairos and is head of the Synagogue (or at least one of the important members),
  • The notable’s daughter is about twelve years old,The notable’s daughter is about twelve years old,
  • To order the child of twelve years to wake up, the version of Mark takes the expression Aramaic (the language, close to the Hebrew, spoken in the land of Israel at the time) « Thalitha Qoum (get up ) « .

If we try to gather all these symbols, we can comment on this episode in this way:

After crossing the pagan lands (symbolized by the other side of the lake), Christianity returns to its Jewish sources (the Jewish shore of the lake), some enlightened faithful will return to the original faith symbolized by the Tsitsith of Jesus complies to Jewish law and divine commandments. This will put an end to the one hundred and forty-seven generations of curses suffered by the Jewish people, but also by the hijacked effect of all the peoples of the world. Those who were deprived of the support of the nation of priests (the people of Israel) were subjected to barbarism and bloodshed. Effusions of blood symbolized by the haemorrhaging of the sick woman, are one hundred and forty-seven menses, one hundred and forty-seven generations. At the one hundred and forty-eighth menstrual period, she is cured, she wakes up. In the same way, the nations who thought that the Jewish people was a fossil people, a dead people, like the daughter of Jairos, will see at the same time the awakening of the Jewish people.

They will realize then that the Jewish people were not dead but simply dormant by the time that the one hundred and forty-seven generations of curses, like the age of the daughter of Jairus (twelve years), were passed. The resurrection of the Jewish people will then be done without compromise on the law of Moses in the image of both the Tsitsith of Jesus who seals the reconciliation. This is reinforced by the use of Aramaic, when Jesus addresses the daughter of Jairos: it does not impose another language, it does not impose new precepts. So Esau and Jacob will meet again.

Thus at dawn, at the end of 147 generations of the night, Christianity, symbol of Esau, will be reconciled with the Judaism symbol of Jacob.

[1] Devarim – Deuteronomy – Chapter 16, verse 16

[2] Devarim – Deuteronomy – Chapter 16, verses 9 to 12.

[3] Devarim – Deuteronomy – Chapter 29, verses 9 to 14

[4] Commentary of Rashi on Deuteronomy, Chapter 29, verse 12

[5] See Beginning of Leviticus Chapter 26

[6] Leviticus Chapter 26, verse 18

[7] Leviticus Chapter 26, verse 21

[8] Leviticus Chapter 26, verses 23 and 24

[9] Leviticus Chapter 26, verses 27 and 28

[10] Shemot – Exodus – Chapter 15, verses 23 to 25

[11] Shemot – Exodus – Chapter 15, verse 26

[12] Shemot – Exodus – Chapter 16, verses 2 and 3

[13] Shemot – Exodus – Chapter 16, verse 4

[14] Shemot – Exodus – Chapter 16, verses 27 and 28

[15] Shemot – Exodus – Chapter 17, verses 1 to 4

[16] Shemot – Exodus – Chapter 32, verses 7 to 10

[17] See Shemot – Exodus – Chapter 32, verses 11 to 14

[18] Bamidbar – Numbers – Chapter 14, verses 11 and 12

[19] Devarim – Deuteronomy – Chapter 9, verses 6 to 29

[20] See Shemot – Exodus – Chapter 17, verse 8

[21] See Shemot – Exodus – Chapter 32 and end of the chapter 31

[22] See Shemot – Exodus – Chapter 20

[23] Devarim – Deuteronomy – Chapter 34, verses 7 and 8

[24] Devarim – Deuteronomy – Chapter 9, verse 27 (the full speech of Moses from which was extracted this verse has just been quoted completely)

[25] Shemot – Exodus – Chapter 17, verse 4

[26] Vayikra – Leviticus – Chapter 26, verses 39 to 42

[27] Bereishit – Genesis – Chapter 47, verses 7 to 9

[28] Bereishit – Genesis – Chapter 47, verse 28

[31] TALMUD, BERAKHOT 1, 3a (included a quote of Jeremiah 25:30). Translation got form website: https://www.sefaria.org/

[32]  Shmuel II – II Samuel – Chapter 7, verses 11 to 17

[33] Shmuel II – II Samuel – Chapter 7, verses 17 to 19 (following the previous quote)

[34] Bereishit – Genesis – Chapter 49, verse 1 (the predictions follow in verses 2 to 27)

[35] Shmuel II – II Samuel – Chapter 23, verses 1 to 5

[36] Vayikra – Leviticus – Chapter 23, verses 4 to 7 then 15 and 16

[37] See Bamidbar – Numbers – Chapter 28, verses 16 to 25

[38] See Bamidbar – Numbers – Chapter 29, verses 12 to 34

[39] Moses Maimonides, « The Guide for perplexed » , Part Three, Chapter 43 : « Eight class : Sabbat and Festivals ». (translation from M. Friedlander, EP Dutton and Company, 1904)

[40] The Dead Sea Scrolls, reference: 4Q298, the quoted excerpt is part of fragment 1 / Column 3, parts in square brackets indicate pieces of non-legible (reconstructed) text. Translation got from: https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-Uy_BZ_QGsaLiJ4Zs/The%20Dead%20Sea%20Scrolls%20%5BComplete%20English%20Translation%5D_djvu.txt

[41] Gospel according to Luke, Chapter 17 verses 26 to 30 (a similar passage appears in the Gospel according to Matthew, Chapter 24, verses 37 to 39) – (translation from https://www.biblestudytools.com)

[42]  Melachim I – I Kings – Chapter 4, verse 20

[43] Gospel according to Luke , Chapter 18 verses 6 to 8 – (translation from https://www.biblestudytools.com)

[47] Gospel according to Matthew, Chapter 9, verses 18 to 26 (translation from https://www.biblestudytools.com). We find this story also in Gospel according to Mark (see Chapter 5, verses 21 to 43) and in Gospel according to Luke (see Chapter 8 verses 40 to 56). From these last two versions, we then complete the quote from Matthew.