Which Holidays to Keep: Yahweh's Feasts and a Story That Is Not Final

Scripture is quoted from the 1599 Geneva Bible with modernized spelling (words and word order unchanged), with the names Yahweh and Yashua restored throughout.

Every year the stores tell us which holidays matter. Christmas lights go up before Halloween is over, and plastic eggs show up in spring. But Scripture has its own calendar. Yahweh named his holidays himself, gave them dates, and called them "my feasts." This article walks through those feasts, how each one points to Yashua, and where Christmas and Easter really came from.

The Law still stands

Yashua settled this before anything else:

"Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets. I am not come to destroy them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say unto you, Till heaven, and earth perish, one jot or one tittle of the Law shall not scape, till all things be fulfilled." (Matthew 5:17–18)

The Torah was never done away with. The New Testament is the Law and the Prophets coming true. The feasts are a big part of that, because they are prophecies acted out on a calendar. Some have already been fulfilled in Yashua's first coming. Others are still waiting. Paul calls them "a shadow of things to come" (Colossians 2:17). A shadow means the real thing is on its way, and the story isn't over yet.

"These are my feasts"

Leviticus 23 lists them all in one place, and it opens by saying whose they are:

"Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, The feasts of Yahweh which ye shall call the holy assemblies, even these are my feasts." (Leviticus 23:2)

They aren't "the Jewish holidays." Yahweh calls them his. Over and over the chapter calls them "a law for ever in your generations" (Leviticus 23:14) and "an ordinance for ever in all your dwellings, throughout your generations" (Leviticus 23:21). Here they are in order.

1. The weekly Sabbath

The list starts with the seventh day. "Six days shall work be done, but in the seventh day shall be the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation" (Leviticus 23:3). Every other feast grows out of this weekly rest. (See our article The Sabbath Was Never Moved.)

Points to: the rest Yashua gives, and the rest still coming. "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of Yahweh" (Hebrews 4:9).

2. Passover (Pesach)

"In the first month, and in the fourteenth day of the month at evening shall be the Passover of Yahweh." (Leviticus 23:5)

In Egypt, the blood of a spotless lamb on the doorposts made death pass over the house. No bone of the lamb was to be broken: "neither shall ye break a bone thereof" (Exodus 12:46).

Fulfilled: Yashua died at Passover. John the Baptist called him "that Lamb of Yahweh, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). His legs weren't broken on the cross, "that the Scripture should be fulfilled, Not a bone of him shall be broken" (John 19:36). Paul wrote: "for Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us" (1 Corinthians 5:7).

3. Unleavened Bread (Matzot)

"And on the fifteenth day of this month shall be the feast of unleavened bread unto Yahweh: seven days ye shall eat unleavened bread." (Leviticus 23:6)

For seven days the leaven goes out of the house. In Scripture, leaven stands for sin that spreads.

Fulfilled: Yashua was without sin, and he was in the grave during this feast. Paul tells a mostly non-Jewish church how to keep it now:

"Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened: for Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither in the leaven of maliciousness and wickedness: but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." (1 Corinthians 5:7–8)

"Let us keep the feast." Paul didn't say the feast was over. He told the Corinthians how to keep it with the right heart.

4. Firstfruits

"and reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest unto the Priest, And he shall shake the sheaf before Yahweh, that it may be acceptable for you: the morrow after the Sabbath, the Priest shall shake it." (Leviticus 23:10–11)

The first sheaf of barley was waved before Yahweh as a promise that the whole harvest would follow.

Fulfilled: Yashua rose from the grave during the feast of Unleavened Bread, "the first day of the week" (Mark 16:2), which is "the morrow after the Sabbath." Paul says: "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and was made the first fruits of them that slept" (1 Corinthians 15:20). He was the first sheaf. The rest of the harvest is everyone who will be raised after him.

5. Weeks (Shavuot, Pentecost)

"Ye shall count also to you from the morrow after the Sabbath, even from the day that ye shall bring the sheaf of the shake offering, seven Sabbaths, they shall be complete." (Leviticus 23:15)

Fifty days after Firstfruits comes the feast of Weeks. The Greek name for it is Pentecost, meaning "fiftieth." The rabbis later connected it with the day the Law was given at Sinai (Posen Library, "Shavuot in Early Judaism").

Fulfilled: "And when the day of Pentecost was come, they were all with one accord in one place" (Acts 2:1). The disciples weren't starting a new holiday. They were in Jerusalem keeping Yahweh's feast, and that's when the Spirit came. At Sinai the Law was written on stone. At Pentecost it began to be written on hearts, just as Jeremiah promised: "I will put my Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts" (Jeremiah 31:33). When Israel sinned with the golden calf at Sinai, "there fell of the people the same day about three thousand men" (Exodus 32:28). At Pentecost, "the same day there were added to the Church about three thousand souls" (Acts 2:41).

6. Trumpets (Yom Teruah)

"In the seventh month, and in the first day of the month shall ye have a Sabbath, for the remembrance of blowing the trumpets, an holy convocation." (Leviticus 23:24)

Still to come: The spring feasts were fulfilled at Yashua's first coming, and the fall feasts point to his return. Paul: "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall blow, and the dead shall be raised up incorruptible, and we shall be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:52). And: "For Yashua himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trumpet of Yahweh" (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

7. The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)

"The tenth also of this seventh month shall be a day of reconciliation: it shall be an holy convocation unto you, and ye shall humble your souls" (Leviticus 23:27)

Once a year the high priest went into the Most Holy Place with blood, "For that day shall the Priest make an atonement for you to cleanse you: ye shall be clean from all your sins before Yahweh" (Leviticus 16:30).

Fulfilled and still coming: Hebrews says Yashua went in as our High Priest, "Neither by the blood of goats and calves: but by his own blood entered he in once unto the holy place, and obtained eternal redemption for us" (Hebrews 9:12). Then it looks ahead: "unto them that look for him, shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation" (Hebrews 9:28). The atonement is paid. The day when the whole nation sees it is still ahead.

8. Tabernacles (Sukkot) and the Eighth Day

"In the fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be for seven days the feast of Tabernacles unto Yahweh." (Leviticus 23:34)

For a week, Israel lived in booths to remember the wilderness, when Yahweh lived among them in a tent. It's followed by "the eighth day," a "solemn assembly" (Leviticus 23:36).

Fulfilled and still coming: John says the Word "was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). The Greek word for "dwelt" is skēnoō, to live in a tent or tabernacle (Strong's G4637). The full fulfillment is at the end of the Book: "Behold, the Tabernacle of Yahweh is with men, and he will dwell with them" (Revelation 21:3). And the prophets say the nations will keep this feast in the Kingdom:

"But it shall come to pass that every one that is left of all the nations, which came against Jerusalem, shall go up from year to year to worship the King Yahweh of hosts, and to keep the feast of Tabernacles." (Zechariah 14:16)

If the nations will keep Tabernacles when Yashua reigns, it was never abolished.

Yashua and the apostles kept them

Yashua grew up keeping the feasts: "Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year, at the feast of the Passover" (Luke 2:41). As a man he kept them too. At Tabernacles, "as soon as his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast" (John 7:10), and "in the last and great day of the feast," he stood up and said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (John 7:37). Before the cross he told his disciples, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you, before I suffer" (Luke 22:15).

The apostles kept them after the cross. Paul's travels are dated by the feasts. "We sailed forth from Philippi, after the days of unleavened bread" (Acts 20:6). "He hasted to be, if he could possible, at Jerusalem, at the day of Pentecost" (Acts 20:16). Writing to a Gentile church he said, "I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost" (1 Corinthians 16:8).

Church history backs this up. Around 190 AD, Bishop Polycrates of Ephesus wrote to the bishop of Rome that the apostle John, Philip, and Polycarp, a disciple of John, "observed the fourteenth day of the passover according to the Gospel, deviating in no respect" (Eusebius, Church History 5.24). Rome wanted a Sunday festival, and the churches of Asia refused.

About Colossians 2:16

"Let no man therefore condemn you in meat and drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, Which are but a shadow of things to come" (Colossians 2:16–17). People often read this as "the feasts don't matter anymore." Read it closely. Paul says not to let anyone condemn believers for keeping these days. The people doing the judging were pushing "Touch not, Taste not, Handle not" rules "after the commandments and doctrines of men" (Colossians 2:21–22). And Paul says the feasts are a shadow of things to come, which means they still point forward. Trumpets, Atonement and Tabernacles are still waiting to be fulfilled.

Where Christmas and Easter came from

None of this means people who keep Christmas or Easter love Yashua any less. Most of them were raised with these days and never asked where they came from. But Yahweh did give a warning about borrowing other nations' worship:

"Beware, lest thou be taken in a snare after them, after that they be destroyed before thee, and lest thou ask after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods, that I may do so likewise?" (Deuteronomy 12:30)

"Therefore whatsoever I command you, take heed you do it: thou shalt put nothing thereto, nor take ought therefrom." (Deuteronomy 12:32)

Christmas

The Bible never gives the date of Yashua's birth and never commands a celebration of it. Andrew McGowan, a historian at Yale Divinity School, notes that writers like Irenaeus and Tertullian never mention one, and that the earliest record of December 25 as the birthday is a Roman almanac from the mid-300s (Biblical Archaeology Society, "How December 25 Became Christmas").

Rome had its own December festivals. Encyclopaedia Britannica says Saturnalia, "the most popular of Roman festivals," began on December 17 and grew to seven days, with work suspended, a mock king, candles and gifts. It adds that "the influence of the Saturnalia upon the celebrations of Christmas and the New Year has been direct" (Britannica, "Saturnalia"). In 274 AD, Emperor Aurelian set up a feast for the birth of Sol Invictus, the "Unconquered Sun," on December 25 (McGowan).

Where scholars disagree: McGowan argues that the date itself may not have been copied from pagans. Some early Christians calculated it by assuming Yashua was conceived on the date they believed he died, March 25, which puts his birth nine months later on December 25. He agrees, though, that many of the holiday's trappings "do reflect pagan customs borrowed much later." So the honest picture is this. The date's origin is debated, but the season's customs clearly came from Rome and northern Europe, not from Scripture.

Jeremiah describes the nations cutting a tree from the forest, decking it "with silver, and with gold," and fastening it "with nails, and hammers, that it fall not" (Jeremiah 10:3–4). To be fair, Jeremiah was describing a carved idol, not a Christmas tree. But the command at the start of that passage applies either way: "Learn not the way of the heathen" (Jeremiah 10:2).

Easter

The resurrection is real, and it's the center of our hope. The question is the holiday built around it. The earliest believers remembered Yashua's death at Passover, on the 14th of Nisan, the date Yahweh set. Britannica explains that Christians in Asia Minor kept it on that date "regardless of the day of the week," while Rome moved it to a Sunday. In 325 the Council of Nicaea fixed Easter to "the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox" (Britannica, "Easter"). Emperor Constantine's letter announcing the decision told the churches, "Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd" (Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.18). The goal was to cut the feast loose from Yahweh's calendar.

Where scholars disagree: You'll often hear that "Easter" comes from Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess. That claim doesn't hold up. The words only sound alike in English, and the name came into English through Germanic languages, not Babylonian. In the 700s the English monk Bede tied the name to Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess. Britannica says even that is disputed and that many scholars now trace the word to a Latin phrase for Easter week (Britannica, "Easter"). Either way, the Bible's name for the feast was Passover. Greek and Latin still call it Pascha, "Passover," and the French Pâques comes from that word (Britannica).

Ezekiel saw two things in Yahweh's own Temple that Yahweh called abominations. One was "women mourning for Tammuz" (Ezekiel 8:14), a pagan god. The other was men "with their backs toward the Temple of Yahweh, and their faces toward the East, and they worshipped the sun, toward the East" (Ezekiel 8:16). Yashua warned about people who "lay the commandment of Yahweh apart, and observe the tradition of men" (Mark 7:8).

The feast calendar, 2026–2027

Bible days run from sunset to sunset, so each feast begins at sundown the evening before the date shown. The dates follow the standard Hebrew calendar as published by Hebcal, using the single-day schedule kept in Israel. Groups that go by the sighted new moon or the barley harvest may land a day or more off, or occasionally a month. For Firstfruits and Pentecost, Jewish tradition counts from the day after the first day of Unleavened Bread. Others have long read "the morrow after the Sabbath" as the day after the weekly Sabbath, which puts both on a Sunday (Posen Library). Both dates are shown.

How to start

You don't have to do it all at once. Start with the weekly Sabbath. Next spring, put Passover on the calendar. Read Exodus 12 and Luke 22 with your family, eat unleavened bread for the week, and clean the leaven out of your house and your heart. In the fall, blow a shofar on Trumpets, fast and pray on the Day of Atonement, and build a booth in the backyard for Tabernacles. Kids will remember that a lot longer than a pile of wrapping paper.

Yahweh's feasts tell the whole story of salvation: the Lamb, the sinless life, the resurrection, the Spirit, the trumpet, the atonement, and Yahweh living with his people forever. Four of them have already been fulfilled, and the rest are still coming. The story is not final yet.

Sources

• Andrew McGowan, "How December 25 Became Christmas," Bible Review (Dec. 2002), Biblical Archaeology Society: biblicalarchaeology.org
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Saturnalia": britannica.com
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Easter" (Hans J. Hillerbrand, E. P. Sanders): britannica.com
• Eusebius, Church History 5.24 (letter of Polycrates): newadvent.org
• Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.18 (Constantine's letter after Nicaea): newadvent.org
• Posen Library, "Shavuot in Early Judaism": posenlibrary.com
• Strong's Greek G4637, skēnoō: blueletterbible.org
• Hebcal, Jewish holidays 2026–2027 (Israel schedule): hebcal.com