“David answered Y’honatan, ‘Look, tomorrow is Rosh-Hodesh, and I ought to be dining with the king. Instead, let me go and hide myself in the countryside until evening of the third day.'”-1 Samuel 20:5
So David and Jonathan have come up with a plan to expose King Saul’s true intentions towards David.
The next day was to be ROSH HODESH.
This is the first day of the new month (the new moon).
At the King’s court, a festive meal was to be held where all the top royalty would be present.
The idea was that David would NOT attend this dinner and Jonathan would carefully observe how Saul responded to his absence.
Now, I’m going to take a radical departure from my usual teaching style and end this post right here with a quiz question.
Based on the Torah, what is wrong with how Rosh Hodesh is being observed here?
There are two reasons.
Let’s see if you can get at least one of them right.
Heck, I’ll make it easy for you by pointing you to the spots in the Torah where you can find God’s instructions on the matter.
That would be Numbers 10 and Numbers 28.
Now if you’re a gentile believer, I can almost guarantee you won’t have a clue.
That last statement is probably an understatement.
Let me rephrase that.
If you’re a gentile believer, I know for a fact you have no idea.
Unless by some freak chance, you attended Shabbat school from a young age.
I’m a gentile believer and I had no clue either.
I had to study this stuff because I certainly wasn’t gonna get this knowledge in any average Christian church.
So let’s see what you come up with.
See you tomorrow!
Well, being Jewish and a believer, and a constant student of the Bible, I have an advantage.
I knew that what was missing was any reference to the sacrifices to be made at the temple, which at that time didn’t exist and would have been made at the Tent of Meeting, which was in Shiloh.
But, and I don’t know for certain about this, if any of the different animal sacrifices were to be considered a Thanksgiving sacrifice, then the dinner would have to have been held at Shiloh, for the meat of the Thanksgiving sacrifice must be eaten in a holy place, which would have been just outside of the Tent of Meeting, and definitely NOT at the palace of the king.
There is also no statement as to the blowing of the silver trumpets, but to be honest, I had to look that part up to remember it. 🙂
I praise Yah that am a gentle believer but I can decipher 5 anomalies from the ceremony – I wrote this down before looking up;
1.wrong place
2.wrong people(only select few nobles)
3.no sacrifice
4. No trumpet
5. Three days ceremony?
Of course I can be wrong. 😊Looking forward to your subsequent posts.
Shabbat Shalom.
Great job George. Some of your answers demonstrate a strong understanding of the Torah.