Passover On The 14th or 15th? (IIc)
Draft IIc
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 alleges.
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 12 is ben ha arbayim and according to Fred Coulter, 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 truth is, at “evening” (ben ha arbayim) ye shall eat flesh. At ben ha arbayim, the flesh arrived during the first evening, or during the time “after noon” but before nightfall. The bread arrived earlier, in the morning.The Hebrew phase ben ha arbayim has been used 11 times in the Bible but it has never been used for the beginning of a Sabbath, weekly or annual, or a beginning of a day in which case erev (which would be the second evening) is used. Actually “between the two evenings” is an idiom meaning “between the beginnings of the two evenings.” It is always right “after noon . . .til nightfall.”
The question is how could the Israelites eat the quails within the hour and a half after it had just arrived after dark? And here is Fred’s definition:“Between the time that the sun is below the horizon, no longer visible, and total darkness.” Yes, all the killing, cleaning and cooking within such a time constraint after dark?
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 at its zenith 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
On a full moon night, it might be easy to catch a couple of quails, but what if there is no moonlight, cloudy and the sun had set, dark? Remember this catching were to be done six days a week for some 40 years in the wilderness. Fires were not easy to light and there were no torches in those days. They would be globbing in the dark. Many might get injuries bitten by desert snakes, kicking rocks or even fallen off cliffs chasing after these quails. In modern days we would need a lot of paramedics and ambulance ready. Such scenario just doesn’t make sense. But Fred Coulter has an amazing theory to prove. He is forcing his preconceived image into the Bible.
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 erev 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 (ba-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. On the sixth day, the preparation, the first phase of erev starts at around 6 pm Thursday for 6-hour period until midnight. Then from midnight until noon is another 12-hour period which we call morning (boqer). The sixth day continues with the second phase of erev, from noon to sunset, which is another 6-hour of 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, it’s their Sacred Text, it’s written within the Jewish culture. They are the custodians of God’s oracles, we shouldn’t make a habit of stigmatizing them. 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). Ben ha arbayim is the time “after noon and until nightfall.”
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? Time could have passed as indicated in Exodus 16:5 And it shall come to pass that on the sixth day . . .
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.
The chronological events that are recorded in Exodus 16 clearly define ben ha arbayim— “between the two evenings,” or “between the setting times”— as the time period that immediately FOLLOWS sunset, or ba erev.
Wow! If this is the case where 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, let me remind Fred of what he wrote earlier in Chapter One: “In order to justify doctrinal beliefs that are not taught in the Bible, many writers and preachers have twisted and distorted the Scriptures to fit their own private interpretations. Whole churches have been subverted by arguments and disputes over words which have not been profitable but have been damaging to faith!”
It’s Fred Coulter who has “twisted and distorted the Scriptures to fit their own private interpretations.”
Joel Huan
The Mystery of Ephraim 