Ascension Day Notes
Thank you Deborah so much for your added insights and
links for further study on Ruth and the barley harvest. I, too, have seen
the verse:
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So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to glean
unto the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest; and dwelt with
her mother in law. |
And what struck me about the book in its entirety is
that this is the only verse that speaks of wheat. The whole book is about
the barley, and she turns up at midnight
when he was “winnowing” BARLEY. No mention of wheat. Wheat harvest follows
close upon the barley harvest, the firstfruits
of wheat being offered at Pentecost, and then the wheat is harvested during
the “hot, dry, summer months”, the distress of the season that brings the
wheat to mature. Barley is “winnowed”, or thrown up in the air to remove
the chaff (wrong doctrine), and thus the barley type of God’s people are
more easily led by the “wind” (Holy Spirit), into right doctrine, whereas
wheat has to be beaten and pounded by the tool “tribulum”
(tribulation) to “beat out” the wrong doctrine,,,,thus
the long, hot summer. There is a “joyous” harvest of the fields that are
white to harvest, shared by the sower (Jesus) and the reapers (the deciples
and workers), and there is the painful harvest of the wheat and tares.
The above verse is confusing, then, in that
there is a suggestion that Ruth stayed with the maidens in Boaz’s field
throughout both harvests? But, the story ends with the marriage taking
place while he slept next to the heaps of barley that He had just winnowed.
And that His heart was “merry”, which suggests that joyful harvest of which
our Lord spoke
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Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then
cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look
on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. |
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And he that reapeth
receiveth wages, and gathereth
fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth
and he that reapeth may rejoice together. |
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And herein is that saying true, One soweth,
and another reapeth. |
This joyous reaping is also noted in the book of Ruth:
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And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said
unto the reapers, The LORD be with you. And they answered
him, The LORD bless thee. |
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Then said Boaz unto his servant
that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this? |
So Boaz had reapers whom he “blessed”, and as Deborah
pointed out, this set of reapers had a “boss”…the Holy Spirit.
The reapers for the wheat are angels, at the “end of
the age”, i.e., judgment years.
I cannot find any Greek references to those little words
“and of wheat harvest”, or whether it means that Ruth gleaned in his field
“until” wheat harvest which we know directly follows the barley harvest,
beginning at Pentecost. Rather, the books says that her gleaning ended
at the time of the finished barley harvest, and Boaz sent her home with
six measures of barley, no mention of any wheat yet. Furthermore, wheat
could not be harvested or eaten or used until that wheat firstfruits
was offered.
Standing back from all of this, rather than
trying to sift for gnats, I will try to gather my more general thoughts
(and for this really need that winnowing fork…..) because as each feast
comes and goes, as you Doves may know, I get right into that particular
feast and see His coming in each one LOL, but boy do I learn in the process,
which is also good. The other day, I read what CAPS had to say about the
number “40”, and it brought to mind all the forties that are mentioned in
the Bible, and we know that there are forty days from the firstfruits
offering until Ascension Day. And also that this would be the forty days
that the barley ripens after the firstfruits of
barley had been offered, or the risen Lord, who was the firstfruits
of “many sons” to come (I think, therefore, barley, like Him who went before
us), and Paul said there was an order to the resurrections, and these would
follow in the order of the various harvests.
Forty. Goliath taunted Israel
for “forty days” before David slew him. I have looked but cannot find
a “season” for this episode, but this is the event that started off the
“judgment” of Saul, and the replacement of Saul as king. (I like the mention
of “five” smooth stones,,,the number of grace here……)
Jonah said judgment would fall to Nineveh
“after forty days”.
Isaac was forty when he was married, Esau was
forty when he was married, Moses was forty when he was married. Forty
seems to be a marriage number, and indeed we have been through 40 jubilees
of church age, and the risen Lord would be forty years old in His after-resurrection
age.
Noah’s ark was “lifted up” after forty days
of rain.
Moses was in the mount a couple of times for forty days,
during which he didn’t eat or drink, as was our Lord in the wilderness during
His temptation. Jesus said the children of the bridegroom would “fast”
when the bridegroom was gone, which pictures this forty-day fasting period
(forty jubilees) The spies searched out the land for forty days. Saul
and David and Solomon all ruled for forty years.
As the number of days between the resurrection
of our Lord, and until the barley harvest, is forty days, and as so often
in the scriptures we can see the “telescoping” of types, we can see that
the church age would be forty jubilees (years), and that the number of “days”
to harvest would be forty? In the book of Ruth it says that she came into
the land “at the beginning of barley harvest”, picturing the beginning of
this church age, from the “firstfruits” of that
harvest (the beginning of the barley harvest).
Add to this, that the Song of Solomon so beautifully
pictures “early spring” for the taking away of the Schulamite
bride. Not “late spring”, or “early summer”, but early spring, when the
“blossoms” appear. Blossoms (fruit trees) appear in the very early spring,
the first flowers we see, being on trees and bushes which are fruit-bearing.
Later come the flowers of the earth.
Now, summer is a season that often suggests
a time of trial, not a real pleasant time in the scriptures. Let’s look
at some of these verses, and remember, it is the long, hot dry spell that
brings the wheat to maturity…….This is why the Israelites prayed for the
former and the latter rain, because their summers with “without rain”, and
they knew they needed these two seasonal rains to bring in the year’s crops.
Summer was a foreboding time of heat and drought all throughout the mideast,
yet by the blessing of God through the autumn and spring rains, the crops
would pull through this long hot spell.
This “heaviness” of Spirit is often quoted in the Bible,
like when Jonah had to shelter under the heat of the day, picturing the
depression of those in the hot summer time of tribulation.
Ps
32:4
For day and
night thy
hand was
heavy upon
me: my moisture
is turned
into the drought
of summer. Selah.
Isa 18:6
They shall
be left together
unto the fowls of
the mountains,
and to the beasts
of the earth:
and the fowls shall
summer upon them, and all the beasts
of the earth shall
winter
upon them.
Jer 8:20
The harvest
is past, the
summer is ended,
and we are not saved.
Jer 48:32
O vine of
Sibmah, I will
weep for
thee with the weeping
of Jazer: thy plants
are gone over the
sea, they
reach even
to the sea of
Jazer: the spoiler
is fallen
upon thy summer fruits
and upon thy vintage.
Da 2:35
Then was
the iron, the
clay, the
brass,
the silver,
and the gold, broken
to pieces
together,
and became
like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried
them away, that no place was
found for
them: and the stone that
smote the
image became
a great mountain,
and filled
the whole earth.
Am
3:15
And I will
smite the
winter
house with
the summer house;
and the houses
of ivory shall
perish,
and the great houses
shall have an end, saith
the LORD.
Am
8:2
And he said, Amos, what
seest
thou? And I said, A
basket
of summer fruit.
Then said the
LORD unto
me, The end is
come upon
my people
of Israel;
I will not again pass by
them any more.
Mic 7:1
Woe is
me! for I am as when they have gathered
the summer fruits,
as the grapegleanings
of the vintage:
there is no cluster
to eat: my
soul desired
the firstripe fruit.
Now, Jesus Himself, said
that “summer” was coming when we saw the tender branch of the fig tree emerging,
and that it was then, when “summer was near”, that “I am at the door” (for
the Philadelphians). He didn’t say that it would BE summer, but that summer
was “near”, or coming. Summer is the end of the age harvest, the wheat
and the summer fruits. Now, not to niggle,
but I have to go back to the Song of Solomon, when the “blossoms” appear.
Right now, I have blossoms in my neighborhood, but not “summer” flowers.
That is why I am looking first to the May 5th date this year,
rather than the June 4th date for Ascension Day……..to me, June
4th is “late” spring or “early summer”, and the blossoms have
well and truly gone from the trees here by that time. Pentecost, the full
fifty days from the feast of Firstfruits, would
be this year for us, May 15, and by the Jewish calendar June 14.
So, if our Ascension Day
of May 5 comes and goes (woe unto me, for the harvest is gone and we are
not saved), lol then I will set my
mind to working on Pentecost,,,,for there, too, is a real “feast” of types to
work through, which picture our Lord and His harvests, although then we
would have to begin to consider ourselves “wheat”. (then I would find
some really “good” things to say about the “wheat” and fancy myself to be
the “firstfruits” of this crop?) The mind reels
with the possibilities………… :--)
And, if the May dates come
and go I will certainly be a “heap” of barley AND wheat on the threshing
floor of Boaz, but hey, gang – there is always June, yes, that’s it,,,,,,,June
! Ever with the hope of His coming,,,,for we certainly look for Him in faith do we not?
May He bless us all, and give us a “A” for effort if we don’t get it right……
Your loving sister in Christ…..Arlene