The Secret of the Menorah

Watercolor Painting by Eva Silva - June 2024

This is a menorah (Hebrew for lamp-stand). Few Christians know of its significance to them, so I’d like to share a little about it since today is Pentecost (which is Greek for fifty). On the Feast of Firstfruits (the day Jesus rose from the dead, we are to count fifty days or seven sabbaths to reach Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot in Hebrew).

The Menorah has seven branches reminding us of how important the prophetic number seven is. Have you ever wondered why there were so many laws that involved symbols and numbers in the Bible? Have you ever wondered why God said, REMEMBER the seventh day? It’s because all of these things serve as vital reminders to us, pointing us to Jesus and His return. These reminders are so important that the devil has done everything in his power to make us forget them, because he doesn’t want us to know God’s message, and he doesn’t want us to live in covenant with God through all the promises between Him and His own. So the devil made us forget the Sabbath, he replaced God’s holy days with manmade idolatrous ones, and he caused Christianity to believe God doesn’t care about laws and past covenants anymore.

Daniel 7:24,25 As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them; he shall be different from the former ones, and shall put down three kings. He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.

This is why I love the menorah so much. It stands as a reminder for the Sabbath, the Holy Days, the Covenants, and The Second Coming of Jesus. Satan can never take those reminders away from me again!

Seven Day Week and Seven Thousand Years

First, the menorah reminds us of the seven day week - six days of work and one day of rest. This pattern is believed to be a prophetic one. When God said in Genesis, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years,” many believe that God was referring to Jubilee years when He said 120. The Hebrew word used here for “year” (shâneh / shânâh) can also mean a revolution or division of time. God later commands His people to mark every jubilee year. 1 jubilee year is equal to fifty regular years. The world today is, according to the Jewish calendar, 5874 years old (but many believe it is closer to 6000 years old because of changes and disagreements between rabbis over the years). Whatever the case, if you multiply 1 jubilee year (50 years) by the number God said (50 x 120), you will get 6000 years exactly. I believe that God was setting a limit to how long the earth would abide. Almost no one lives to be 120 years, right? Saint Peter is likely referring to this when he says, “A thousand years is as one day to God.” Those 6000 years of man striving would then be followed by 1000 years of rest during Christ’s millennial kingdom, making the earth 7000 years old.

The Seven Feasts of God

The following feasts are the first four that God gave His people to remind us of Him and the coming Messiah. These first four feasts were perfectly fulfilled to the day by Jesus during His First Coming. The fact that they point to His FIRST Coming and happen in the FIRST half of the year is no accident.

Passover - Jesus died on the cross (on Passover He also taught His disciples how they can remember Passover in the future by taking the cup and the bread to commemorate the Passover Lamb (Himself) because after the Temple was destroyed no one could keep Passover properly - but remembering it would still be necessary).

Feast of Unleavened Bread - Jesus purged His house of sin (Jesus, the unleavened bread of life, was laid in the grave during this feast, treated like leaven - sin - and cast away. On this day God’s people are to purge all the physical and spiritual leaven - sin - from their homes as a reminder of what Jesus did. This way we start the year with a sober reminder).

Feast of Firstfruits - on this day Jesus rose from the dead in His new body (He was the firstfruit of the resurrection we look forward to when we too will be given new bodies).

Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) - on this day Jesus sent the promised Holy Spirit to His followers (it is no accident that this too was around the time God gave His law to His people; prophecy said that He would give His people a new spirit and write His laws that they had not kept on their hearts).

The next three feasts all happen in the SECOND half of the year, and they all point to the SECOND coming of our Messiah Jesus Christ. These feasts have yet to be fulfilled.

Feast of Trumpets - Jesus will return on the clouds after the last trumpet blasts. Since He fulfilled the first feasts to the day, we can expect He will do the same with these feasts and return in the second half of the year. Since our calendar has been so messed up, however, none of us know the exact day or hour of His return.

Day of Atonement - Jesus’s atonement will cover all who believed in Him and kept His Word, and He will judge the whole earth on this day

Feast of Booths - We will celebrate the marriage Feast of the Lamb with our Messiah during His thousand-year reign. The prophet Zachariah tells us that all mankind will be required to keep this feast and appear in Jerusalem or else be cursed.

Although we can’t keep these feasts as they were commanded since they need a physical temple (which was destroyed 70 years after Jesus’s resurrection), we can still remember their appointed times, which because of their prophet nature, is our responsibility as Christians to do. It is tragic that these things are not taught to us as they are God’s gifts and covenant to His people to remind us He’s coming back for us! They do not belong only to the Jews like most people think - this is a lie from the devil to make sure the blessings given through the remembrance of them don’t pass to us Christians who’ve been grafted into Israel.

I pray whenever you see a menorah you can be reminded of the seven days of our week and how they point to the seven thousand of our world and how God has given us seven holy days to remind us of His appearance to us in the flesh! There are far deeper speculations to what the menorah and its intricate design means, but I can only share this brief, imperfect overview right now! Thank you so much for reading this far and God bless! Wishing a happy Shavuot to those who remember it!