So many lunar Sabbath people repeat the claim that NO wheat can be ready in the 3rd month on the luni-solar calendar. Many lunar Sabbath keepers use the testimony of Nehemiah Gordon to say this year in 2016, should’ve began in Gregorian April, because Nehemiah said that, although there were some first fruits, in his opinion, there were not enough to begin the year (even though he was checking the fields weeks before the appointed time of the waving of the sheaf, and even though the scriptures do not require barley to be ready for harvest to begin the year).
If you are reading this, if you are not aware of who Nehemiah Gordon is, you should be warned right now that he is a leader in the Karaite Jewish movement, it’s a sect of Jews that do not believe Yahusha is the Messiah. He has converted many believers into unbelievers with his Anti-Messiah teachings on Torah and Hebrew. He’s a spiritual descendant of the Jewish religious leaders Yahusha told us to beware the leaven of. Don’t be deceived.
The same lunar Sabbath keepers who go along with Nehemiah’s teaching and direction on using the barley and FVC to begin the year, not all, but many, will swear up and down that it’s not possible to have ANY wheat ready for harvest in the 3rd month, that you must count 7 Sabbaths plus another 50 days, because it takes 100 days AT LEAST for wheat to mature. One man, popular in the lunar Sabbath crowd, so much believes that, he emailed me saying Jubilees 15:1 was a lie, he said it was not possible for Abraham to celebrate the Feast of First Fruits in the 3rd month because the wheat would not have been ready yet. That’s pretty bold of him to call the witness of the Book of Jubilees a liar like that. I’ve found several videos testifying it is possible, and common.
My studies on it have found that, in general, it takes up to 100 days for the MAJORITY of the wheat to be ready, but that there are first fruits that come ready much earlier, which is why they are called first fruits, go figure. Also, wheat sown the previous winter is typically harvested much earlier in the Summer than wheat sown in what many call “Spring”, or after Winter, early Summer. Most Saturday Sabbath keepers observe Pentecost on the 5th or 6th of their 3rd month, while some lunar Sabbath keepers observe it on the 9th. However, there are those also, who say the wheat harvest doesn’t begin for another 50 days past this date.
What did I find? When is wheat ready for harvest? See the videos below:
Kansas harvest May 28, 2012. Notice they are harvesting the whole field at the end of May, not just the first fruits. The whole field looks ready for harvest. They are using combines, which means this is ripe wheat.
Wheat harvested May 1, 2009, in Pakistan.
Wheat harvested in June 1, 2012, in Oklahoma. Keep in mind, Kansas and Oklahoma are farther away from the equator than Israel and Egypt.
Egypt, May 5, 2016
http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/sisi-gives-signal-wheat-harvest-sahl-baraka-project
Again, these videos are displaying ENTIRE fields of ready wheat being harvested, not just the first fruits. If we are seeing Kansas and Oklahoma, which are at higher latitudes than Israel, harvesting entire fields in late May/early June, when should we expect the FIRST fruits would be harvested in Israel, which is closer to the equator?
Some say the only way wheat can be ready that early is if it is genetically modified. I searched and searched, and have not been able to find evidence of GMO crops being ready much earlier than those that are non-GMO. There were some hybrid, not GMO, species that were ready earlier than other species, but hybrids have been used by farmers in various places for thousands of years. I found that GMO wheat was designed to increase resistance to pests, weeds, drought, chemicals, etc…but not to bring an earlier harvest, that’s determined more by variety and environmental conditions such as light, moisture, heat, etc…I did find, however, reports that there is a practice among NON-ORGANIC farmers to try to quicken and increase the yield at the end of the harvest season. Because farmers don’t own small farms anymore, they don’t harvest by hand with a sickle, as various parts of the field become ripe, harvesting throughout the harvest season, beginning with the first fruits, and because now they farm huge parcels all at once with their combines, the Non-Organic farmers have been using a practice of drowning the wheat in Round-Up 7-10 days before much of the field is ripe.
The Round-Up kills the plant early, and the plant releases more seed before it dies, so this allows them to get a bigger harvest, and earlier, so that there is more of a uniform harvest of ready wheat. So although this practice does cause the wheat to be ready earlier, NOT by several weeks or months. I read this practice is also used with Barley, and I’ve not found GMO barley to be ready much earlier than Non-GMO and wild barley. Again, depends more on variety and environmental factors. Note that this practice of drenching the crops in Round-Up is done after the first fruits of the wheat are already ripe, but before the majority of the rest of the field is ready, so that it can all be harvested at once. The first fruits are ripening at their normal time.
Some claim that “winter” wheat does not count as a first fruit to be offered for the Feast of Weeks, because it is sown in winter of the previous year. Not so, wheat is wheat, and first fruits are first fruits, and all must be offered to YHUH as wheat first fruits, whether sown the previous winter or not. What matters is when it bore fruit and was harvested. When did the “winter” wheat get harvested? In SUMMER! I know, some people claim May and early June are not called Summer, but Spring. Tell that to YHUH. If you look in a concordance, you will find there is not any season, in the Hebrew, called Spring or Fall, in the scriptures. There is no mention of “Spring” or “Fall” Feasts, as we’ve been taught. There are only 2 seasons named in scripture – Summer and Winter.
“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Genesis 8:22
Yours is the day, Yours also is the night; You have prepared the light and the sun. You have established all the boundaries of the earth; You have made summer and winter. Psalm 74:16-17
And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. Zech 14:8
According to scripture, and the concordance, Summer is the time of year when fruits are gathered, which includes the barley, wheat, olives, grapes, dates, figs, nuts, etc…There is no such thing in scripture as “Spring” fruits. They are ALL Summer fruits. There is no “Spring” harvest, they are all Summer harvests. The Summer extends from the harvest after Passover and Unleavened Bread – the first fruits of the barley harvest, until the end of the wheat harvest, which is wrapped up so that the grains are threshed and everything is stored up for winter in time for Sukkot. Now, in northern places, such as Montana, outside the land, they are still harvesting wheat as late as September, October, and on rare occasions, even as late as November. So, if it’s not Winter, it’s Summer, and all of those Summer months make up the Summer harvest season. May is Summer, according to scripture. So why do some translations mention Spring and Fall? The translators are translating certain terms, such as, seedtime and harvest, the return of the year and the end of the year, or early rains and latter rains, as Spring and Fall.
It’s possible that YHUH has caused things to not to come about in the proper season in recent years (because of man’s sin against Torah), we know, even in Israel, the people have not been keeping His commandments.
Joshua 3:15 says the Jordan is supposed to overflow its banks every year throughout the harvest season, and it’s been reported for years that this is not the case anymore. I did find out, though, that the time the flooding used to begin is in late February. That makes sense, because the water in the Jordan comes from the snow melting from Mount Hermon and the Anti-Lebanon mountain range, and February is when temperatures begin to warm as the sun approaches the equator, preparing to cross in March. I’ve noticed, wherever I have lived in the Northern Hemisphere, that there is a noticeable increase in temperature and precipitation in February. Here in Alaska, our snow and ice was melting off in that month. The Kenai river was full to the crest by late February from the snow melting and the run-off starting to come from the mountain-tops and glaciers. We still had a snow-fall or two in early March, but it didn’t stick around long, it was gone within a few days. By late March our snow turned to hail, sleet, and then rain. In April we didn’t get much precipitation, but what we did get was rain.
All this to say, I’m seeing an earlier starting point in the year than some claim, when considering the testimonies of all of the witnesses in scripture, and in His creation, and I’m seeing the first fruits of the wheat harvest ready in time for the Feast of Weeks in the middle of the 3rd Month, as the scriptures call for, as early as what Gregory called, mid-May.
Shalum
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