Every Hebrew month has a Tribe, Constellation and Hebrew letter associated with it. These hold keys to our promises for that month and help us to pray in line with God’s timing and to get our lives into time with His specific appointed times.
Elul is known as the ‘sixth month’ in the Bible according to the Biblical Calendar and is the twelfth month on the civil calendar. 6 is the number of man and 12 is the number of government. The name of this month is never mentioned in the Bible. The Aramaic (language spoken during the time of Jesus) meaning of Elul is ‘to search’. This is the month to search ourselves to make sure we are ready to meet our Lord.
“Elul” has been interpreted as an acronym, with its Hebrew letters “Aleph,” “Lamed,” “Vav,” “Lamed” representing the words “Ani L’Dodi V’Dodi Li” (Song of Songs: 6:3). The words mean “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine,” where my “Beloved” is God, and “I” am the Jewish People. This month is all about relationships & restoring relationships; first with God and then with our fellow man.
- My friend Janice Sturkie wrote, ” Here is the full expression in these Hebrew letters: “I want to engage your mind, marry your thoughts and give birth to your dreams. I want to be held in your gaze (paneem al paneem – face to face), lifted with your breath and covered with your intention. I want to know your faith and your heart and from that knowing I want to bring us into Oneness.” (Beautiful!)
This month is called “the month of repentance”, “the month of mercy” and “the month of forgiveness”. This is a time of preparing your heart in preparation for the High Holidays (holy days) of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This month follows the months that were anniversaries of the sins of the Golden Calf, the sins of the spies, the anniversaries of the destruction of the 1st and 2nd Temples and precedes the month before the year changed to 5774 – Tishri 1. (September 4, 2013 at sundown)
This is a time for cleansing and historically is where we got our tradition of Fall housecleaning. Everything must be prepared to meet the King. (Rosh Chodesh Tishri is a time when Kings are crowned) We are to prepare our spiritual and natural houses for a visitation with the King Jesus. The steps of the cleansing are: (1) “Azivas Ha’Chet“, leaving the sins, first finding the sin by true heart seaching (2) “Charata“, regret and remorse for doing the sin, true repentance (3) “Vidduy” confessing the sin (4) “Kabala L’habo“, making a firm decision NOT to do the sin again.
The first day of the month of Elul, during which Jews begin to repent in earnest in anticipation of the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which begin on the first of Tishrei, the next month. Starting on Rosh Chodesh Elul, and continuing through the rest of the month, the shofar is blown daily in the synagogue, and Jews who follow to Sephardic traditions recite slichot, penitential prayers, every morning; Ashkenazic Jews do not begin reciting slichot until the week before Rosh Hashanah.
Teshuvah The Hebrew word ‘shuv’ means ‘turn’. Teshuvah means “to turn” or “to repent”. We are each to repent when we sin, “miss the mark”, of God’s standards, but this is a time of “national repentance”Teshuvah traditions: From the second day of Elul to the 28th day, the shofar is blown after morning services every weekday. The custom is for a wake-up to sleepers, designed to rouse us from our complacency. It is a call to repentance. The blast of the shofar is to be a very piercing sound.
Greetings in correspondence or audible is the blessing, “May your name be written”, referring to the Days of Awe that begin Rosh Hashanah (Feast of Trumpets) and ends on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) when the books in heaven are opened for God’s decisions regarding the coming year.
Also, Psalm 27 is read each day for 40 days.”The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?” (Light- soul; Salvation- spirit; Strength- body). The first day of Elul is the remembrance of when Moses went up Mt Sinai a second time to seek forgiveness for the Golden Calf incident. Reciting it daily is bringing them back to completely trusting Yahweh for their light, protection, substance, security, everything. Verse 14 ends with waiting, not getting ahead of Him or trusting in anything else. They will wait for His help in all things.
The King is in the Field! What does this mean? Elul is a time when the King would leave his throne and come into the field to meet his subjects, on their territory, just as they are. Nothing formal, no special pomp. When the Jewish people would ‘go up’ to Jerusalem 3 times a year to meet with God at His appointed times, these were ‘holy‘ days, the Feasts of the Lord when no work is permitted. This month is designated as the month that God has chosen to come and meet with His people in their ordinary, mundane lives. (It is easy for each of us to look and sound spiritual, but it is another thing to act as God would have us to act when no one is watching) Elul was the only month of the year that the King would come out smiling, meeting his people. All their work was for the King and at this time of closeness, they inspect their work closely to make sure it is ‘fit for a King’. (SELAH)
TRIBE- GAD Gad’s name means “a troop” and also “good fortune“, mazol tov. Gad’s goal is to be an overcomer. This is to be a month of answered prayers because they are coming from a clean heart. He also represents those who flits around in society, cannot settle down (gadabout). Gad’s tribe never settled into the Promised Land, but stayed on the east side of the Jordan River and were easy prey for the enemy, one of the first taken into captivity. The Lost Books say that he was a “shepherd and strong man but a murderer at heart.”
His symbol was of 3 tents because he never settled down. It is interesting that the Chinese symbol of the word “come” is those same 3 tents, but with cross in the middle tent. In Chinese the tent is a symbol of a man and the cross is a character representing completion or the number 10. ‘As Gad comes to the cross, he will overcome his old nature.’ (SELAH)
Jacob’s parting words to his son are recorded in Genesis 49:19, “Gad, a troop shall overcome him; but he shall overcome at last.” His worst enemy was himself. Isn’t that what God is trying to change in each of us right now during Teshuvah?
Moses prophetic word for Gad was recorded in Deuteronomy 33:20, “And of Gad he said, “Blessed is he that enlargeth Gad.” I believe we will each find a special blessing of our Lord when we help each other to overcome our personal weaknesses.
CONSTELLATION/MAZAL- VIRGO (Bethulah, The Virgin) Israel is God’s beloved, and the bride in Song of Songs says, “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine“; Jeremiah 31:21 reads, “Come back again, my virgin Israel, return to your cities here“. The Church is the Bride of Christ and must put away any idols that have taken His place in our hearts.
“The Promised Seed of the Woman” (Genesis 3:15) The brightest star in Virgo is Spica (Latin), which means ‘the branch’. The Hebrew word for this star is Tsemech (branch), but this word is only used for the Messiah.
LETTER- Yud (pronounced yode) The 10th letter in the Hebrew Aleph-Bet with the numerical value of 10. It is the smallest of the letter an the most used and being the smallest represents humility. Since Jesus upholds the world by the Word of His power (Heb 1:3), and Yod is part of every Hebrew letter (and therefore every Hebrew word), Yod is considered the starting point of the presence of God in all things – the ‘spark’ of the Spirit in everything. It is also a picture of humility. The pictograph is a arm or hand, suggesting reaching towards heaven, prayer or submission. This letter symbolizes order, provision and covenant possession, and carries the meaning of ‘creation’. (Hebrew4christians.com/grammar)
Yod also symbolizes work or a deed done. Psalm 119:73-80 tell us of the work of God’s hand in our lives. (Psalm 119 is divided up according to the Hebrew Aleph-Bet and each line of 73-80 begin with the letter Yod)
Yod is also the first letter of the divine name of Jehovah, YHWH (Yod Hey Vav Hey)
Historical Happenings in Elul
- 1- Moses went back up the mountain to intercede for the nation of Israel after the ‘golden calf’ incident, and when the tablets containing the 10 Commandments were broken. Now, he will receive the 2nd set of tablets that will be put into the Ark of the Tabernacle.
- 1- Jews began to return from captivity in Babylon (Haggai 1:1)
- 4, 1391- Massacre in Barcelona, Spain
- 5- Ezekiel’s vision (Ez 8:1)
- 5, 1915- In 1915, the Jewish Battalions of the British Royal Fusiliers was formed, consisting of Jewish volunteers from America, England, and Israel.
- 11, 1950- Operation Magic Carpet, which secretly airlifted 45,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel, was concluded. Many of the Jews had never before seen an airplane; they likened the ride to a fulfillment of the biblical verse, “And I bore you on eagles’ wings” (Exodus 19:4).
- 12, 1263- King James I of Aragon ordered a Church-sponsored censorship of Hebrew writings
- 17, 1935- Nazi Germany passed the Nuremberg laws, a set of racist policies directed primarily against Jews.
- 17- According to Jewish tradition, this is the day the 10 spies who gave the evil report died in a plague (Numbers 14:37)
- 18, 1952- Israel agreed to accept reparation payments from Germany for losses caused by the Nazis during World War II.
- 19, 1941- In 1941, Charles Lindbergh, who achieved fame by being the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, delivered an anti-Semitic speech on the radio.
- 20, 1942- The ghetto of Mir, Poland was liquidated by the Nazis.
- 22, 1939- During the Polish September Campaign, the Nazis occupied Krakow, Poland, a thriving Jewish community of 70,000 Jews. Jews were consigned to forced labor, and all Jews were required to wear identifying armbands. Synagogues were ordered closed and all their valuables turned over to Nazi authorities.
- 23, 2001- 9/11 attach on US World Trade Center in Manhattan by terrorists that had hijacked comercial airlines. This is the day that the war on terror came to America.
- 24, 2012, 9/11 attack on US Embassy in Benghazi
- 25 – This is the traditional day of the beginning of Creation
- 25- Elul 25- Nehemiah’s wall repairs were finished (Nehemiah 6:15) Learning a lesson from Nehemiah, May we finish repairs to relationships with God and man and leave no entry place for the enemy to break through.
- 26, 1972- Palestinian terrorists broke into the Olympic village in Munich, Germany, and held the Israeli Olympic team hostage with the demand that Israel release convicted Arab terrorists from jail. 11 Israeli athletes were murdered.
- 27, 1993- Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn, signaling the start of a peace process known as the Oslo Accords
- 29, 2000- Palestinian Arabs launched a campaign of terror which came to be known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada
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