[23] When you enter the land and plant various kinds of fruit trees, you are to regard its fruit as forbidden – for three years it will be forbidden to you and not eaten. [24] In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, for praising Adonai. [25] But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit, so that it will produce even more for you; I am Adonai your God. Leviticus 19:23-25
You may have looked at the title of this post, and then read the above scripture and be wondering why on earth I would talk about rabbit trails in the title, and the subject verse be about fruit trees. When I study for a post, more times than not, I pursue multiple avenues of thought, following where individual words or context takes me. I call these trains of thought “rabbit trails”. Sometimes I follow a single trail of thought, but others, there are multiple trails and I have to really sift through the information looking at it like a puzzle and how to piece them all together into a cohesive and concise post. This was one of those studies that took me down multiple trails and I was struggling on how to fit all the pieces together. I sat down with an index card and wrote the words “Rabbit Trails” at the top and began to list the different details I had picked up while studying these verses. As I looked at them, I thought to myself, “Self, why do you think that you have to follow the usual way of writing? Instead of doing what you always do and try to tie everything up by the end of the post with a pretty bow, just take your readers down each of those trails and let them see what you see.” So, I agreed with myself that doing that would make for an interesting post in itself, but also so that you would also get to see how my mind and spirit pursue these different trails that present themselves while I’m studying.
These verses in Leviticus are referred to as The Law of the First Fruits of Trees. When I started breaking down this verse, I started in the obvious place, which is looking at which Hebrew word for praise is used. I was amazed to discover that this is the only scripture, according to Strong’s, that utilizes this word for praise, hillulim. Strong’s defines hillulim as “an offering of praise or festival”. Taking a deeper look in the Ancient Hebrew Lexicon, hillulim has an entirely different definition. The AHL defines hillulim as “shining or the emitting of rays of light, shining brightly. KJV praise, merry”. This leads us to the first rabbit trail.
Rabbit Trail #1: Shine
The root of hillulim is another word meaning praise, halal. Halal is the word from which hallelujah was born. In the midst of several words and phrases in Strong’s, are three that take us back to the AHL. “To flash, radiate, shine.” When we look at the AHL it takes these three words into a deeper context. “To emit rays of light. Shine brightly. To shine or cause another to shine through one’s actions or words.”
Several years ago, The Newsboys released a song entitled, Shine. The chorus goes” Shine, make ‘em wonder what you’ve got, make them wish that they were not on the outside looking bored. Shine let it shine before all men. Let them see good works and then Let ‘em glorify the Lord. This is the command that Yeshua gave in Matthew 5:16, In the same way, let your light shine before people, so that they may see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven. The KJV uses the word glorify instead of praise, which in the Greek is the word doxazo. Its root is the word doxa which means “glory, splendor, brilliance, from the base meaning of the awesome light that radiates from God’s presence and is associated with his acts of power, honor, praise, speaking words of excellence and assigning highest status to God.” In other words, shine!
Rabbit Trail #2: Fruit
Fruit is produced by trees that are strongly rooted and get water and light. We are symbolized by trees in scripture. When we are rooted deep in Him and the Word, when we drink from the wells of living water, the wells of Yeshua, and we let His light shine upon and through us, we are going to produce fruit. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, self-control. Nothing in the Torah stands against such things. Galatians 5:22-23 When we live a life of praise, we cannot help but shine and we cannot help but be thankful in all things, allowing us to produce good fruit.
The word fruit in Hebrew is peri and does indeed mean produce and crops, but it also refers to the fruit of the lips in speech or praise. In Psalm 51:15 David said, Adonai, open my lips; then my mouth will praise you. In Psalm 63:3-5 David sang For your grace is better than life. My lips will worship you. Yes, I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. I am as satisfied as with rich food; my mouth praises you with joy on my lips. David knew the power of praise spoken from a broken and contrite heart. He offered the fruit of his lips, not just the burnt sacrifices at the temple. In Matthew 15, Yeshua has one of his many confrontations with the Pharisees and quoted Isaiah 29:13 saying, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from me. Their worship of me is useless because they teach man-made rules as if they were doctrines.” For us to have fruit of the lips, our praise has to come from a pure heart, not just empty words. We cannot praise Him in the church Sunday morning, then gossip in the workplace on Monday and expect to produce fruitful praise. However, when we produce the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, the fruit of our lips will show forth love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control.
Rabbit Trail #3: Studies on fruit trees I never thought I’d do
I am not a big science person. It was never my favorite subject in school, in fact it was right behind math in the “do not like” category. Needless to say, as I’ve gotten older, and went through science classes with my own children, it was still right behind math in the “do not like category”. Recently, my brother opened a greenhouse and has really learned the is and outs of growing produce from seed as well as grafting trees and other planty things. He was sharing with us about grafting fruit trees and that a lot of the trees you buy from some place like Lowes are all grafted trees, that none of them have a base and root system for the actual tree for the type of fruit that they produce. The reason for this is because it takes three to four years for a tree to establish itself to be able to yield a strong crop. By grafting onto a tree that already has an established root system, that tree can produce more fruit in its first year in comparison to planting a non-grafted tree.
This brings me back to our verses. Verse 23 says, When you enter the land and plant various kinds of fruit trees, you are to regard its fruit as forbidden – for three years it will be forbidden to you and not eaten. When taking what my brother had told me and comparing it to this verse, it made sciency, biblical sense. Adonai, the original gardener didn’t just tell them to not eat of the trees within their first three years because He was being mean. Perhaps it had more to do with the growth cycle of the tree and its system. The KJV of this scripture uses the word uncircumcised, but when looking at the Hebrew, the word forbidden from the Complete Jewish Study Bible is a better fit with the word tsavah which its translation means “direct”. It is thusly defined as “To cause to turn, move, or point undeviatingly or to follow a straight course; give instructions or orders for a path to be taken.” This statement is a clear directive and path to be taken regarding planting crops Adonai’s way, which is always the best way.
Rabbit Trail #4: The number 3
When I first started looking at the numbers in the context of the years, three, four, and five, I initially was looking at the number four, or year four as the fruit was to be “holy for praising Adonai”. That of course made me stop to look at years three and five as well. It is with the number three that had to pause this study and say, “Adonai, you truly are amazing beyond words! The more You allow me to see, the more awestruck I really am.” I am going to share information on the number three from two different sources. The first is a book entitled Learning God’s Love Language by Chaim Bentorah. This is a book designed to teach how to do Hebrew word studies, something that I have been working on for my personal study as well as for the different posts I write. As I’ve shared before, Hebrew is an alpha-numeric language, meaning that each letter has a number value as well as a letter, and the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet is Gimmel ( ג) Chaim Bentorah states that “The word Gimmel itself means to nourish until completely ripe.” If you’re like me, you may have just said, “Wait, what??” and took a look back at the scripture about the third year concerning those fruit trees. Three years = to nourish until completely ripe. “The Gimmel has three parts to it, a head, body and foot. It is explained that the three parts represent bestows, grow, and sustains.” Sounds like what a tree does, doesn’t it? It is bestowed upon the land, it grows, and it sustains people with its fruit.
Now is the moment I get to quote one of my favorite rabbis, Jason Sobel and say, “But wait, there’s more!” I found more interesting information about our numbers at Hebrew Numbers 1-10 | GRACE in TORAH that takes this mode of thought to an even deeper level. The first paragraph about the number three at this site reads as follows, “Seeds, trees, fruit. Revelation, resurrection, gathering balance, equilibrium, pattern, counsel, witness, and strength. New life, sprouting, resurrection, fruitfulness, words of life (counsel), unity, the giving of the Torah and the Spirit, and the foundation of the Temple/House are all signified by the number three.” Did you do the double take with the first three words? I sure did, and then add in gathering balance and you come right back to the first part of the law of the first fruits of trees. This site goes on to say that one of the meanings from the pictograph is “to ripen”. Now let’s take this back to scripture and look at something that will make the number three even more amazing with what we have seen so far. God said, “Let the earth put forth grass, seed-producing plants, and fruit trees, each yielding its own kind of seed-bearing fruit, on the earth”; and that is how it was. The earth brought forth grass, plants each yielding its own kind of seed, and trees each producing its own kind of seed-bearing fruit; and God saw that it was good. So there was evening, and there was morning, a third day. Genesis 1:11-13
There is a lot of other information about the number three, Gimmel, that can be found at the sources mentioned above, but as we are focusing on specific scriptures, we will let those lie for another time.
Rabbit Trail #5: The number 4
In the first post in the Praise Collection, This Time I Will Praise Adonai, I talked about Jacob and Leah’s son Judah, their fourth born son whom Yeshua would be a descendant of and that his name means “praise”. In our study verses it says, In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, for praising Adonai. Again, we are seeing the word praise tied to the number four. Looking again at Hebrew Numbers 1-10 Grace in Torah and what they have to say about the number four, we see this. “Authority, government, rule, dominion, calendar, time, creation, kingdom, fullness, giving of the Torah (Law) and Holy Spirit. The most holy Name of G-d has four Hebrew letters (yohd, heh, vav, heh – YHWH). Judah was the fourth born son and has the scepter of rule. Pictures completeness much like seven.” The Hebrew letter that correlates with the numeric value of four is Dalet (ד), which symbolizes a door, a path, to knock and portal to heaven among other descriptions. It was on the fourth day of creation that the sun and moon were created, bringing us back and tying us into our first rabbit trail “shine” as the word praise in this verse means to shine, and in order to shine, we have to have His light.
Rabbit Trail #6: The number 5
Again, let’s look at the above sources for information about the number five, which is the Hebrew letter Hey (ה). Let’s start with Learning God’s Love Language by Chaim Bentorah.
Bentorah states that the primary meanings of the letter Hey are:
1. God and mankind exist in the moment
2. God’s presence
3. The gentleness of God
4. The broken letter showing God’s act of restoration through His Son Jesus Christ
5. Pay close attention to the specific
6. God’s still small voice
In our study verse, the fifth year was the year that the people were able to eat the fruit and that it would produce even more for them. Keeping that in mind, let us look at what Hebrew Numbers 1-10 says about the number five.
Five is indicative of being filled, prepared, and empowered to go forth on whatever mission YHWH has given one to do. Five books of Moses completes YHWH’s instructions to His people.
Five is associated with prayers and being anointed, as both the incense and the anointing oil had five ingredients. This indicates that anointment and prayer are POWERFUL. Both define and declare YHWH’s authority, gifts, callings, favor, direction, purpose, and will.
Breath, air, Spirit, behold
As I have soaked all of this information from all of these rabbit trails in, I noticed how like everything else from cover to cover, these verses point towards Yeshua. Let me show you how this final rabbit trail ties all of the rest of them together.
Rabbit Trail #7: Completion
Three years it was forbidden to eat of the trees. Three days Yeshua lay in the tomb.
The fourth year the fruit was holy as praise to Adonai. What would be considered the fourth day after the crucifixion, was the Festival of Firstfruits, a Jewish holy day that was celebrated the first day after the Sabbath after Passover. Yeshua is the firstfruits of the resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15:21-23 reads, For since death came through a man, also the resurrection of the dead has come through a man. For just as in connection with Adam all die, so in connection with the Messiah all will be made alive. But each in his own order: The Messiah is the firstfruits; then those who belong to the Messiah, at the time of his coming. According to the Complete Jewish Study Bible, “The festival of Firstfuits celebrated the first day of the barley harvest and as the people carried their praise offerings of the harvest, the priest would lead a praise service with music, the Hallel psalms and dance. When they reached the temple, the priest would take the barley sheaves, lift some into the air and wave it in every direction. This acknowledged God’s provision and sovereignty over all the earth.” Yeshua was the holy offering of the firstfruits on the fourth day, just as the fruit of the trees in the fourth year in Leviticus. He is also the door, the Dalet in which we have access to the Father.
The fifth year the people were allowed to eat of the fruit and that it would produce even more. The early church was born on during the festival of Shavu’ot or Pentecost, and we are all familiar with the story of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Ruach HaKodesh. The apostles were filled, anointed, and empowered to go out and preach the Good News. That first day around three thousand were saved and accepted Yeshua as savior, talk about producing even more!
I want to shine with my praise. I want to see the harvest of “even more” in my life. Above all, I want the world to know that Yeshua, the firstfruits of praise is the door and the path to eternal life.
I hope that this adventure down the rabbit trails of study has been as enlightening for you as it was for me as I pursued them. As I chase after Him and the treasures of His Word, He is always faithful to show me beautiful and wondrous things I have never seen before. Such as three verses tucked in away the book of Leviticus that I never could have dreamed held such richness and life. My hope for you is that in your own pursuits and studies that you too are shown the beauty of His Word and that it comes alive to you like never before.
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