Fred Coulter’s Passover (Ic)
Draft Ic
Chapter 5
Exodus 16 begins with an account of the journeying of the children of Israel from Elim to the Wilderness of Sin, where they murmured for want of bread, Exodus 16:1, when the Lord told Moses that he would rain bread from heaven for them.
The issues in this chapter is mainly about God providing food for the israelites while they were travelling to the Promised Land. The issues were the sixth day, where they were to gather twice the amount needed, for that day and the following Sabbath where no food would be provided.
Problems arose of course, hence the story. Those that gathered too much, except on the Preparation day, found their collection bred with worms or rotted. And those that went out on the Sabbath didn’t find any. The issue was never about how to define what evening (erev or ben ha arbayim) was, as Fred Coulter alleged.
Exodus 16:2 records the Lord took notice of their murmurings, which promise the Lord fulfilled in verse 4; and a description of the bread, and the name of it, are given, Exodus 16:13, and some instructions are delivered out concerning the quantity of it to be gathered, Exodus 16:16, the time of gathering and keeping it, Exodus 16:19, the gathering a double quantity on the sixth day for that day and the seventh day.
Go promised in Exodus 16:11 And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, 12 “I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel. Speak unto them, saying, ‘At evening (ben ha arbayim) ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”
The evening in verse 11 is ben ha arbayim and according to Fred Coulter in Chapter 3, is a very short period of time, “between sundown and dark, a period of about an hour or so.”
And Fred wrote: “Now it was AT SUNSET [Hebrew ba erev] a horde-of-quail came up and covered the camp…” (Ex. 16:13) Fred advocates erev is a transition of 3 to 5 minutes of one day to the next, perhaps half in the new day and the other half in the previous day.
The hilarious side is how could the Israelites eat the quails within the hour after it had just arrived at sunset? Yes, all the killing, cleaning and cooking within an hour after dark? The Jewish definition of ben ha’arbayim “between the two evenings” makes more sense. It is in between the first phase of erev when the sun had passed noon to the next phase of erev after sunset.
Lest we forget, let’s remember how the daily sacrifice was kept, which is performed every morning and evening: (Exodus 29:38-39; Numbers 28:4)
Exodus 29:38 Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year day by day continually.39 The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even (ben ha arbayim):
Numbers 28:4 The one lamb shalt thou offer in the morning, and the other lamb shalt thou offer at evening ( ben ha arbayim).
The Scriptures cannot be broken, and It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter (Proverbs 25:2). “Between the two evenings” is a period of time between the first phase of erev when the sun had passed noon to the next phase of erev following sunset.
Chapter 16 had the timeline of what happened during the sixth day, but Fred Coulter had misinterpreted as the time, the evening after sunset. he wrote: The account in Exodus 16 explicitly tells us that God promised to provide meat for the people at sunset. In Verse 13, we read that God fulfilled His promise at that exact time: “And it came to pass AT SUNSET [Hebrew ba erev, the sunset ending that Sabbath], that the quails came up and covered the camp…” Chapter 5
The story of the quail in Exodus 16 is that the Scriptures use erev and ben ha arbayim interchangeability. Everything makes sense when this is deemed as the daylight portion of the day for the Israelites to capture, cook and eat the quails.
Exodus 16:8 And Moses said, “This shall be when the Lord shall give you in the evening (erev) flesh to eat and in the morning bread to the full,
11 And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, 12 “I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel. Speak unto them, saying, ‘At evening (ben ha arbayim) ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God.’” 13 And it came to pass that at evening (erev) the quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay round about the host.
The gathering were to be done on the sixth day; Exodus 16:5 And it shall come to pass that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.” This same phase was used during the creation of man in Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening (erev) and the morning were the sixth day.
A full day as a 24-hour period. In Genesis 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. So the full evening (which makes up of two phases of erevs) is a 12-hour period. The first phase of erev starts at around 6 pm Thursday for the period until midnight. Then from midnight until noon is another 12-hour period which we call morning (bôqer). The sixth day continues with the second phase of erev, another 6-hour daylight evening. Altogether they totaled a 24-hour day.
The truth is so easy to understand if we use the Jewish definition of technical words. It’s their language, and the Sacred Text is written within the Jewish culture. They are the custodians of God’s oracles. What if they don’t believe? Nar, let every man be a liar and God be true, the Jews would still be the custodians (Roman 3:1-4).
Fred wrote further: “And our study of the account in Exodus 16 has demonstrated that the 15th day of the second month was the weekly Sabbath.” This is another sweeping statement; where could he prove that? On technical terms, without knowing Hebrew as a first language, he sounded like a Japanese, using google translation, trying to tell us how the British got their Magna Carta all wrong since it was established. He wants us to be convinced he is right. This is an exemplar of his analysis throughout.
Fred wrote: And since God Himself said that they would eat flesh during the time known as ben ha arbayim— ”between the two evenings,” or “between the setting-times”—we know without a doubt that ben ha arbayim IS THE TIME PERIOD THAT IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWS SUNSET.
Wow! If this is the case two lamb would be needed to be killed for the Passover during the Exodus; one, within the first 3-5 minutes at sunset for Deuteronomy 16:6 (ba erev) and the other within the next hour or so to satisfy Exodus 12:6 (ben ha arbayim).
But only one lamb were selected on the tenth of the first month (Exodus 12:3-5) for Passover. For these Israelites to sudden sacrifice two lambs, one during erev and the other during ben ha arbayim they would need to perform miracles.
Nar, it’s Fred Coulter who has a slight of hand, a touch from Simon Magus!
Joel Huan
The Mystery of Ephraim 