Holiday Map

There is an amazing design to the holidays found on the Bible Calendar. Each holiday maps to both a New Month and a tribe. Knowing the map helps considerably with understanding the purpose of each holiday.

Holidays

Within this overall structure there are a series of dates called out in the text of the Bible as being special days, Holidays. At first glance the amount of text supplied in the Bible dealing with each holiday appears rather thin. There isn't, for example, a full set of month names used in the Bible. There isn't an explanation of, say, the 2nd months' new-month holiday. Nor, for example, are the sacred assemblies that surround unleavened bread well explained. What, for example, is the purpose of each of these assemblies? What is it that those assembled are to bring back to the attention of those gathered?

The answer to these sorts of questions comes from understanding a specific grid where Tribes are assigned to the various time intervals. That grid maps the tribes named in Revelation 7 to the various time lists. 3 such lists attract our attention here, they are:

• Tribes to Months where each month has a matched tribe.

• Tribes to Holidays where each holiday has matched tribe.

• Tribes to Hours where each hour has a matched tribe.

These matches provide keys to radically unlocking the purpose behind each month, each holiday and each hour of the day. Because the tribes also grid to other subject lists, like the 10 commandments and the Plagues on ancient Egypt, Jacob's blessings, Moses' blessings, the Apostles, and many other direct narratives, it is possible to develop an extensive grid that supplies considerable details about how each month, holiday and hour functions. With this understanding both the liturgical purpose of each time interval can be discovered as well as the prophetic significance behind events that are tied to certain times.

It is important to note that the list of Tribes, in the order needed for these various grids, is only given in clear text, in the right order, in Revelation chapter 7. By burying this key in this location the author of the Bible hid this master key from anyone who does not take the entire canon of scripture as a hole.

This means that Jewish use of the Bible, limited as it is to the Old Testament, cannot see the Tribe to Time map. At the other end of the spectrum, those who only use the New Testament, as do many Christian groups, do not have much text for understanding the tribes. This riddle, in general, requires use of the entire canon of scripture.

The Tribe to Time Grid

The following table shows off the 12 tribes as given in Revelation 7, then lists the matched months, matched holidays and the matched hours of the day. It is this grid that will attract our attention through the rest of this section of the website.

In the following table the month names given are listed by both month number and by tribe name. The intent is to imply a full set of month names from within this same grid. Our calendar app uses this convention. It is well worth memorizing.

Before going any further, the first questions arises. How do we know this is the right map?

There are 4 obvious details from across what is easily known from the tribes that match into the months.

Benjamin

The promise given by Jacob over Benjamin deals with plunder:

Now look at the holidays that land in the 12th month, listed in the previous table. The holiday of Purim, explained in the Book of Esther, happens across 2 days in the 12th month. These dates involve the giving of gifts and are seen in the Christian world even today with Christmas landing as it does in the 12th month.

The text for this holiday in Esther deals with plunder, which is in part the prophetic word spoken over Benjamin by Jacob.

In general sharing of plunder happens at the end of the year and is seen even to this day when accounts are settled at the end of the calendar or accounting year.

This is a match between Benjamin and the 12th month.

Simeon

Each of the months has a "New Month" holiday held in the first day of each month. This pattern holds for all months except the 7th month, where the general holiday of Trumpets lands on the 1st day of the 7th month. This will turn out to be Simeon's annual holiday, but it supplants Simeon's monthly holiday. This is in part because of Jacob's blessing over Simeon:

This promise given by Jacob will eventually be overcome by Levi in Moses' day when Levi is redeemed for having stood with Moses during the Calf Idol incident. Simeon has no such redemption, and remains without standing in the counsel.

This lack of standing is seen in the month map by having no New Month date dedicated to Simeon. It is supplanted by the holiday.

This is a match between Simeon and the 7th Month.

Manasseh

There is a general map between the 10 Commandments and the 12 Tribes of ancient Israel. That map assigns the prelude, having been brought out of Egypt to the tribe of Judah, the leader of the tribes, and it assigns the double "thou shall not" to 2 different tribes, bringing the entire list to 12.

In that list the commandment dealing with the Sabbath, or 7th day, is matched to the tribe of Manasseh. There is a unique literary structure to this commandment. Instead of strictly dealing with the 7th day, the text discusses working for 6 days, then resting on the 7th. The 6 days is an important literary device which reveals the 6th tribe in the master list of tribes. Here is the text for that commandment:

The Lost Tribe of Manasseh eventually became the United States and the way this commandment works out in the United States is the tendency to work, and not resting. The US has the fewest legal days off of any country in the developed world. Americans simply don't rest enough.

What is important for this discussion, though, are the 2 references to the 6 days that God worked ahead of the Sabbath. This isn't needed particularly for the commandment, but it is pointing at the 6th tribe, and thus the 6th month.

This is a match between Manasseh and the 6th Month.

Judah

When we worked out the kings reigns during the time of the Judean kings we showed the pattern of coronations taking place at the start of each calendar year. If a king did not reign to the first of a year his reign time was recorded, but he was not assigned a calendar year. This happened with 2 specific kings, Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin.

The pattern of assigning a king's reign to an entire year if he reigned at the first of the year is suggesting a Coronation Day at New Years day.

Coronation day belongs to 1 tribe, and 1 tribe only. The story is given in Jacob's blessing over Judah. Specifically, Jacob deals with the scepter, which is the visible right to rule. Whoever holds the scepter is the king. The following is that blessing:

This is not quite as strong as the earlier 3 examples. Only 1 example is really needed to show the alignment, but this gives another outworking of why we saw what we saw with kings reigns and years. Note this system of assigning whole years to kings reigns was used into very recent times. Many of the documents surrounding the founding of the United States of America are letters sent between the colonies and the crown back in England. The year of the king's reign is used to date those letters more than 2000 years after the time of the Judean Kings. They were still following the same pattern.

What we see here is the reason why. Judah, the holder of scepter promises, has his New Month holiday on the 1st day of the 1st month of the year. Coronations take place as part of the liturgical function of that holiday.

This is a match between Judah and the 1st Month.

There are many other stories, and much to explore dealing with these New Months, Holidays and Hours. What follows in this section are a series of articles going deeper into each specific case.

Use the menus at the top left of each page to select specific articles or use the next links in the footer (or header) to read more.