A Passover Year

Symbolism in the Number Ten

Published on 11th Cheshvan (29/10/20). On 8th Cheshvan (26/10/20), I heard the LORD say:

 

“A Passover Year.”


I wanted to know from when to when. So, I asked the LORD, from Tabernacles to Tabernacles? [as this is the most recent appointed time we’ve just had] Or Passover to Passover?


“A Passover Year.”


I'd got the concept wrong. So, I asked when will it start? At that time I didn’t receive any definitive answer.


Two days passed, then last night I found a note I’d handwritten a few months ago when the LORD had spoken to me; it had fallen off my desk down beside my printer. On it I had written the words: “10 months of struggle.” I was amazed, because four days ago, on 4th Cheshvan (22/10/20) I woke up literally hearing the voice of the LORD aloud saying, like a wake-up call of final preparation and warning: “10 months!” Because I had lost the note He was preparing me again with exactly the same message He had spoken a few months before. Upon waking, I immediately wrote:


10 months for what LORD? War? [This 'war' feels messier, less conventiional than one side against another; more like lots of waves in water all smashing and impacting each other, more multi-dimensional, like spiritual war, in many avenues of battle and society. I got the distinct impression this also has a personal dimension of His ones 'warring' against spiritual darkness through His Word and His Holy Spirit.]


"Start or end?" [I was asking, is it 10 months to the start,  or to the end, from now?]


To which I simply heard Him say: “I’m all over you”. I saw it as "His covering of Light". To which He added “And Protection.” I felt incredibly safe, considering what I had just heard.


So, He had already given me the answer to how long this strange “Passover Year” would be, a few months before, but I had lost the piece of paper!


“10 months of struggle.”


So, it may not be a calendar year of Passover-ing but 10 months. Two questions arise from this: What does "struggle" mean and why ten months, not twelve?


I looked up struggle in the Scriptures. It occurs many times in English, using several different verbs in the Hebrew. But the one that struck me the most was:


“And He said, Your Name shall no more be called Jacob

But Israel

For you have struggled with God and with men

And have prevailed.”

(Genesis 32:18)

 

I wonder if this prophetic word is Israel-centric but will deeply affect all nations. I see a swirl with Israel always at the centre, which is reflected in His Scripture. Whether it will actually appear like this on the surface of events I don't know. But, the verb “struggle” in this verse about Jacob becoming Israel means: “to persist, exert oneself, persevere, contend, to have power like a prince.” As His ones, this is what we need to do by the power of His Word.

 

But why ten months for “A Passover Year” LORD? We are used to the concept of a Passover Night. But not a Passover for months! He is preparing His ones to Passover for “10 months.” There is a stillness, a hiddenness, a waiting, while God supernaturally works. And in that, maybe we struggle? But, why ten months and not twelve LORD? One for every commandment, to symbolise an entering into a time of deeper Biblical purifying?


“Look up ten in My Word.”


  • Ten is a symbolic length of testing: “So after he had lived in Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to Abram to be his wife.” (Genesis 16:3) Will we hold on to faith in His Promises through these next refining 10 months, or will we get frustrated and impatient, and try to make our own disastrous solution?

 

  • Ten is a number of the effect of grace: “Finally, Abraham said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak once more. Suppose ten are found there? And He answered, “On account of the ten, I will not destroy it.” (Genesis 18:32-33) In the end, God couldn’t find ten righteous people, so the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire. God sent His angels to deliver Lot, his wife and his two daughters. And only three of these survived in obedience and didn’t look back. Although Lot’s sons-in-law, who were betrothed to his daughter’s at the time, are mentioned, they didn’t escape either, because when Lot warned them that “the LORD is about to destroy the city!” they thought he was joking. (Genesis 19:14)



Look how Abraham pleads with the LORD: “Abraham stepped forward and said, “Will You really sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous ones in the city? Will You really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous ones who are there? Far be it from You to do such a thing - to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?” So the LORD replied, “If I find fifty righteous ones within the city of Sodom, on their account I will spare the whole place.” (Genesis 18:23-26)  This is the prayer the LORD is saying He is hearing and wants to hear for His righteous remnant. He will save you, He will see you trapped in your unrighteous cities and towns, businesses and communities. Call out to Him.


I find it beautiful that just before this holy and intimate negotiation between Abraham and God, God discusses with His two angels: “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” Is He really debating whether to tell him? Then He says: “Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and through him all the nations of the earth will be blessed. For I have chosen him, so that he will command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, in order that he LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has promised.” Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great. Because their sin is so grievous, I will go down to see if their actions fully justify the outcry that has reached Me. If not, I will find out.” (Genesis 18:17-21) There is a direct correlation between God’s blessings and promises to the righteous and His Holy Judgment on sinful cities. The two themes are interwoven verse by verse.


  • Ten was the number of the bridal dowry for Isaac’s future wife Rebekah (camels and weight of gold shekels in her bracelets. Rebekah’s name in Hebrew (רִבְקָה) means “stall”, literally a place where calves are protected and well-fed. And where the Bridegroom Messiah was born in human form: “Now may it happen that the girl to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who responds, ‘Drink, and I will water your [ten] camels as well’ - let her be the one You have appointed for Your servant Isaac. By this I will know that You have shown kindness to my master.” During these ten months the LORD is looking for His future bride in her response.

 

  • In Genesis 45, when ten of his brothers came to Egypt, Joseph sent back ten male donkeys and ten female donkeys loaded with goods and food for his father Israel (who was Jacob after his “struggle”) and little brother Benjamin, still in the Holy Land. Do not forget to provide for My Israel while you are in Passover-ing under My Protective Blood in Egypt.

 

  • Ten is the number of His Commandments given on Mount Sinai, for which Yeshua’s Blood atones for us. Indeed, in the Jewish world, on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) the High Priest and the people prostrate themselves ten times before the Holy God, in recognition of our failure to keep each of the ten commandments and God's Complete Atonement for us.

 

  • Ten in Hebrew is written as the letter Yod (י): As the smallest letter it symbolises humility before God. When Jacob’s name was changed to Israel the only letter which the two names had in had in common was the letter yod. There were ten “plagues” on Egypt, and conversely a tenth is given to God as holy in the concept of the tithe. There are ten generations from Adam to Noah, a symbol of supernatural deliverance from a wicked world in the Ark. And there were ten generations from Noah to Abraham, this establisher of the Jewish nation-people-land.

 

  • “10 months of struggle.” So, what would it mean to stay in the heart-posture of Passover through ten months, not one night?

 

When I looked back in my journal to Yom Kippur - the day of atonement - I found this word from the LORD, for me to give out at the right time. It has stayed with me ever since. I think it is the answer to the above question, from both the perspective of God and His people (humility) and Egypt (pride and evil):


“You cannot overcome the demonic with reason – ONLY MY WORD AND MY HOLY SPIRIT.

You cannot overcome Me with your reasoning.

You cannot overcome Me with your demonic.”

 

 



Suggested further reflection with the LORD in His Word:

How does He want to purify us?

How do we depend on ourselves rather than His Supernatural deliverance?

What was happening outside during Passover Night?

How would it feel to endure ten months of Passover?

How do we stay still and calm and holy in the LORD during that?

How do we pray?

What do we focus on and how do we spend our time?

What happened after the Passover?

How were the Israelites ready?

What lay ahead of them?

What lay behind them?

What ALONE saved them all the way through Passover?

Was it light or dark outside, spiritually speaking?

How must have Passover affected their relationship with God?

Who’s Blood Alone saves us? Are we depending on anything else, even just a little?

What does it actually mean to apply His Blood over our lives and homes, children, plans and provisions? Is it something we only say, or is it something we become?

How do we separate and prepare ourselves for a Wedding? (Esther etc) What does this mean in practice?

Where are we not under His Blood? What does He word say will happen to any part that is not inside Him in His Blood? (Passover instructions etc).

 

I can’t tell you exactly what the LORD will speak to you through this word. His instructions and convictions will be yours alone with Him. That is what He wants – you to be His alone, to spend extended time alone with Him, in order to “leave Egypt and all the bondage you have been oppressed into and all the Egypt you have become attachd to, even in dysfunctional slavery” through life in this world. Struggle with Him, He says, within your homes, having applied His Atoning Life Saving Blood on your doors, your spiritual gateways, your loved ones and yourself, and stay in Him hidden from His Judgement. O righteous, humble ones, that depend on Him alone for your salvation, you are about to witness the God of Israel mightily humble your slave owners without, and any last thoughts of self-righteousness within, and show Himself as the God of Israel, the Holy One. Only the righteous in Him will recognise this for what it is.


Note added on 31/10/20: Today, two days after this word was published, a New National Lockdown was announced to start on 4th November 2020. For another prophetic word relating directly to this, published exactly seven days before today's annoucement, please click here


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