(Taken from The Seven Feasts of Israel by Zola
Levitt)
Unto Us a Child is Born
There are seven Jewish Holy Days described in Leviticus
Chapter 23: The feast of Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits,
Pentecost, Rosh Hashanah (Feast of Trumpets), Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and
Feast of Tabernacles.
Prophetically, the first three occur in the first month
of the Jewish calendar corresponding to the time of the crucifixion of Jesus
Christ. They find their fulfilment in the death, burial and resurrection
of Jesus.
Pentecost occurs 50 days after the Feast of Firstfruits
and prophetically signifies the empowering of believers by the Holy Spirit for
evangelism and witness. In the Jewish calendar Rosh Hashanah occurs on 1
Tishri, which is the first day of the 7th month, and signifies the day the
trumpet shall sound, which to a Jew means the heavens will be opened.
Ten days later, Yom Kippur is observed. Five days
later, on 15 Tishri, the Feast of Tabernacles is celebrated.
There is an incredible parallel between these seven
feasts and the gestation period of a human baby. The following revelation
shows that the Bible had to be written by God as man had no knowledge of or
scientific understanding of gynaecology and obstetrics 3500 years ago.
Psalm 139 v 13 – 14: "For thou hast possessed
my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise
thee: for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works,
and that my soul knoweth right well."
Zola Levitt discovered this connection between the feasts
and development of a baby in the womb, quite by accident. He had been
asked to write a book about the birth process for doctors to give their
patients when they fell pregnant. He invited a physician, Dr. Margaret
Mathison, to help with the research. She gave him a detailed description
of how a baby forms and grows in the womb.
The first feast, the Passover, represents the appearance
of the egg ready to be fertilised; and the planting of the seed is the second
feast - Unleavened Bread (the burial of
Jesus) the fertilisation process.
The firstfruits festival is next, but it does not occur
at the same time every year, which the previous 2 feast days do. This
feast is observed on the Sunday during the week of Unleavened Bread. It
could be the day after or a week later. Dr. Mathison remarked that the
next stage of the process was a bit indeterminate. The fertilized egg
travels down the fallopian tube at its own speed. It may take anywhere
from two to six days before it implants.
Two to six days! How incredible Zola Levitt
thought, that it should be timed so perfectly with Firstfruits – the Spring
planting. Implantation is the correct medical term for the moment when
the fertilised egg arrives safely at its destination in the womb and begins its
miraculous growth.
From now till Pentecost, the next feast, is a long
wait. So does some special event in
human development occur before then? Dr. Mathison put it this way: “Well,
of course, we have a slowly developing embryo here for a long time. It
goes through stages, but there is really no dramatic change until it becomes an
actual foetus.” She showed Zola a chart picturing an embryo becoming a
foetus.
Next to her drawing were the words ‘fifty days’.
Zola asked if the fiftieth day was important. She replied that up to the
fiftieth day you would not know if you were having a duck or a cocker spaniel,
but at the fiftieth day it becomes a human foetus.
No wonder the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 139 v 14 – 17:
"I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made … My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in
secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine
eyes did see mine substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my
members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there
were none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God, how
great is the sum of them!”
Only God could design the embryonic growth of a human
child and then build His Holy Feast days around its development. From this
point the foetus’ progress is somewhat general, with nothing momentous
happening until the first day of the 7th month, when the baby’s hearing is
fully developed.
The baby can then distinguish sounds e.g. he can
hear a trumpet, so it is not surprising that this is the feast of Rosh
Hashanah, the feast of trumpets, followed 10 days later on the 10th day of the
seventh month, the Day of Atonement.
The doctor stated that the important changes are in the
blood. It is necessary for the foetal blood which carried the mother’s
oxygen through the baby’s system to change in such a way that the baby can
carry the oxygen that it will begin to breathe at birth.
Technically, the haemoglobin of the blood has to change
from that of the foetus to that of a self-respirating human being. The foetus does not breathe, but rather
depends on the oxygen obtained through its mother’s blood circulation, and the
textbooks say that the change happens in the second week of the seventh month,
precisely on the tenth day!
On the Day of Atonement, the 10th day of the 7th month,
the high priest, according to Mosaic Law, takes the blood of sacrificed lambs
into the Holy of Holies and presents it as an atonement for the sins of
Israel. Leviticus 17 says:
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have
given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is
the blood that maketh atonement for the soul.”
The blood acceptable – just as in the baby the blood is
made acceptable to sustaining life after birth!
The baby is not yet ready to be born, there is one more
development yet to occur which beautifully coincides with the fifteenth day of
the seventh month on which the Feast of Tabernacles is celebrated.
Dr. Mathison said, "That’s when the lungs are
developed, and as long as they can get their little lungs going, they can
survive if they are born early. If they are born before the lungs can
breathe air, they will struggle to live. The tabernacle is the house of
the Spirit, just as the lungs are the tabernacle of the breath. God blew
air into Adam’s lungs to make him a living soul, and Jesus breathed the Holy
Spirit upon His disciples so that they may be born again!
This is the miracle of life and true proof that we are
not some random evolutional soup. We have a Creator, a Father, who made us in
His own image, with love and kindness. If evolution were true the birth of
Jesus could never occur. Our bodies are so intricate that there has to be
divine design.
Prayer: Father God You do all things well! Thank You for
the care Jesus took in making all things. Let us be good stewards of Your
creation and especially of our own selves because we are fearfully and
wonderfully made. In Jesus' name. Amen.