Let’s review the Appointed Times. 🗓️

Chapter 15 – which I totally skipped in order to info-dump on Ch.14 – is a recap on keeping the years of Shmita and Jubilee. If you didn’t read my post for Leviticus 25 about the Year of Jubilee, you might want to find that one. It explains that we are currently in a year of Jubilee through Passover 2026 and what kinds of things we might expect to happen in this or any other year of Shmita or Jubilee.

(By the way – the next Jubilee will be in the year 2075, which – according to the Dead Sea Scroll calendar – will be the first Jubilee of the 7th Millennium and could very well be the time of the establishment of Jesus’ Kingdom on earth. So – kinda a big deal.)

Most Bibles call these the “feasts” or “festivals.” I prefer “festivals” or “appointed times” because the Hebrew word chag (khag, kinda like “cog” but with a bit more throat-clearing), it isn’t a food-related word. It’s more like this:

Let’s have some Paleo-Hebrew fun today, shall we? First, the Hebrew words behind feast/festival:

When I was a kid, sometimes the church would break out in something we called a “Jericho March.” Everyone would walk or kinda dance and clap around the interior perimeter of the sanctuary while the music played. It was a circular sacred procession. It was celebratory. Its name would indicate that it may have begun as a kind of spiritual warfare – like the children of Israel marching around the city of Jericho until the walls fell down. I have no idea what its true origins are amongst Pentecostals but it’s very similar to our Jewish brethren dancing the Hora. Let’s look a little deeper…

Chagag is spelled Chet, Gimmel, Gimmel.

Just for funzies, look at the Original Hebrew pictograph, then scroll back up and look at the Jewish guys dancing. Similar?

So we have Chet – a wall or outside.

Gimmel – lift (up), walk, able.

Let’s put together a Chet and 2 Gimmels.

Might it be a wall of walking-walking?

Go back up and look at the pictures again.

I mean… it makes sense, right?

Another idea might be outside lift up walk. That’s basically describing a “Jericho March.” You go around the outside edge of the room and lift-up-your-feet-walk (otherwise known as dancing).

Interesting isn’t it that THIS is the Word that God chooses to describe His appointed times to meet with His people?

Three times per year all the men of Israel (and presumably their families if at all possible) are to meet with Yahweh in sacred, celebratory procession.

They bring their food offerings and eat together once in the spring, once in summer and once in the fall. I know we’ve gone over this but it bears repeating:

SPRING – Passover / Unleavened Bread / and Firstfruits. Jesus fulfilled these in person on the exact days. He was crucified, buried, and resurrected. Yahweh was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, (2 Corinthians. 5:19).

Side note – Psalm 22, the crucifixion psalm, describes being “compassed” by “Bulls of Bashan.” The Hebrew word is cabab (saw-bob) and it means to revolve. It’s like there was some kind of invisible circular procession going on at the cross. And you’ve probably learned enough about the area of Bashan by now to realize its ties to the giants. There is something supernatural happening here.

SUMMER – Weeks (Pentecost). This lone festival in summer was fulfilled in Acts 2 – on the very day. Just as Israel was celebrating the giving of the Law on Sinai where God appeared in flaming fire, the 120 in the upper room received the law written on their hearts by the finger of God. The Lord descended on each of their “peaks” with flaming fire. Yahweh met with His people in person again through the Holy Spirit.

FALL – Trumpets / Day of Atonement / Tabernacles. We should probably be prepared for Jesus to fulfill these festivals in person, if the past is any indicator. The Lord will once again meet with His people at the appointed time, and on the very days. Maybe we will dance in a circle around Jesus.

The chapter ends with a warning that might seem out of place at first glance:

“You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah pole beside the altar of Yahweh your God that you make for yourselves. And you shall not set up for yourselves a stone pillar, a thing that Yahweh your God hates.”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭16‬:‭21‬-‭22‬ ‭LEB‬‬

Here is a descendant of an Asherah pole:

The May Pole has deeply pagan origins. My search algorithm is gonna be so messed up now. Ugh. Most of the pictures of Maypole celebrations are from Wiccan, Pagan, and Druid websites. One was called – I kid you not – “HoldMyBroom.” 🙄

Let’s not mince words. A Fertility pole is a phallic symbol. It’s an erect male organ. Traditionally, little girls and young women dance around it (in a circle). They wrap the pole with their ribbons.

And yes, that is suggesting what you think it’s suggesting.

A sacred pillar is basically the same thing, just perhaps a little more pointed in its meaning.

There aren’t many things in the Bible where it says explicitly that God “hates” it. This is one of them.

Think back to Genesis 6 and the rebel Sons of God deciding to hijack the human race and create their own peoples by having sex with human women.

All this pagan and occult stuff generally has a very old and deep connection to that – like a reenactment, similar to how communion reenacts the last supper. And just as there is grace and connection and even power in the shared reenactment meal, I suspect that there is also demonic connection and power in their perverted reenactments.

So… Yahweh is NOT like the other gods whose worship is hyper-sexualized and mystical. God’s people meet with Him in His way, at His times, on His terms.

Obelisks and May poles are also used (today) in occult magic rituals – but that is a whole rabbit burrow from which we might never return it is so vast. And it’s also not edifying. I’m not convinced that Christians need to know every nook and cranny of darkness. Let’s know enough to not be ignorant of Satan’s devices (2 Cor. 2:11), but not so much that we know more about that than the Word of God.

Beware of fascination with the realm of evil. Don’t kid yourself that you’re just being informed so you can fight the Devil. To quote the great theologian Saint Ackbaricus from long ago in a galaxy far far away…

Tread very carefully and you better have a prayer life so potent that you routinely pray miracles into being and you better have eight strong saints keeping you accountable with absolutely ZERO things you keep hidden from them.

And at any rate- Jesus already fought Satan and WON. Our job is to walk in that victory and resist the enemy, not to redo what Jesus has already done.

One final thing. I noticed that some translations have the image/pillar as a “memorial stone.” And it’s true that the same Hebrew word is used for the stone that Jacob set up at Bethel and the 12 memorial stones that Moses set up at Sinai. But there must be something different about the type addressed here because the LORD never corrected Jacob or Moses (or others) for that kind of memorial stone.

Moses is going to unpack some of these pagan practices a bit more in the next couple chapters. See you there.