"Tetrad" of Four Lunar Eclipses on Jewish Feast Days in the Past

Thanks Morguefile.com 

We've been talking about the tetrad of four lunar eclipses that are occurring on major Jewish Feast Days—Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles—in both 2014 and 2015. The first of these will occur early morning tomorrow, April 15^th.

While I knew this lunar eclipse was scheduled for April 15^th, what I didn't know was would it be early morning hours April 15 or the evening or April 15? 

This I knew for sure: the Jewish "day" begins at sundown of what we in the west consider the previous evening. So I was wondering if the eclipse might actually be on what we here in the United States would think of as the night of April 14^th which begins the Jewish Passover.

Silly me. I should have known if the scientists say the eclipse is on the 15^th, then it is on 15^th (after midnight). And since the Passover ends at sundown on April 15^th, then it couldn't be the evening (after dark) of the 15^th and still be on Passover. Hey, I'm learning here too.

I found the precise information of when this lunar eclipse will occur and when we'll be able to see it here in the United States and the entire Western Hemisphere in this article from CBSNews.com: "Lunar eclipse could doom NASA's LADEE moon orbiter." According to this article, "The total phase will last 78 minutes, beginning at 3:06 a.m. EDT and ending at 4:24 a.m. EDT." (Tweet that!)

Thanks to www.Morguefile.com

You might be wondering just how rare is this schedule of four lunar eclipses occurring on Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles two years in a row? (Tweet that!) While it really is quite rare, this is not the first time even in recent history that this has occurred.

Four lunar eclipses also fell on Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles three times in the last five hundred and twenty-five years or so. What's interesting is that very significant events occurred in Israel during those same years. (Tweet that!)

1967 – 1968

Most recently, this same tetrad of lunar eclipses on Passover and Tabernacles occurred in 1967 and '68. The first lunar eclipse fell on April 24, 1967, on Passover. In June, Arabs nations were gathering to attack Israel, but Israel preempted their attack beginning June 4, 1967, fought on three different fronts, and won decisive victories on each. During these six days, Israel more than doubled in size and also seized the Old City of Jerusalem. You can read more about the Six-Day War in this "This Day in History" article on History.com: "June 11, 1967: Six-Day War ends."

1949 – 1950

Another tetrad with eclipses on Passover and Tabernacles occurred in 1949 and 1950. Adolf Hitler and his Nazis tried to annihilate the Jews in the Holocaust during World War II, which the United States was involved in from 1941 – 1945. But the unexpected result was that Adolph Hitler was dead while Israel came back to life. For the first time in over 2,000 years, Israel once again became a nation on May 14, 1948. The first Israeli government took office on January 25, 1949 and in the coming months Israel signed truce agreements with Egypt (on February 24), Lebanon (on March 23), Jordan (on April 3), and Syria (on July 20).*

The first lunar eclipse of that tetrad occurred on Passover on April 13, 1949.

1493 – 1494

Most Americans know that Columbus set sail on his infamous journey to the New World, America, in 1492. What does this time have to do with Israel? This time is almost as important in Jewish history as in American history. On March 30, 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain signed a decree ordering the Jews to leave by August if they refused to convert to Catholicism. The Jews were stripped of their wealth and their home.*

Columbus sailed in August 1492. The first of the four lunar eclipses occurred on Passover on April 2, 1493.

Christopher Columbus recorded this infamous edict in his diary:

In the same month in which their Majesties [Ferdinand and Isabella] issued the edict that all Jews should be driven out of the kingdom and its territories, in the same month they gave me the order to undertake with sufficient men my expedition of discovery to the Indies.

FourBlood moons: Something is about to Change by John Hagee (Worthy Publishing, 2013), page 187.

*I learned this information from Pastor John Hagee's book Four Book Moons: Something is about to Change, which I recommend. His book includes a lot of additional fascinating details.

32 – 33 A.D.

Mark Biltz, the man from whom I learned about the Feasts of the LORD and the lunar eclipses, recently said he had traced another tetrad to the years of Jesus Christ's crucifixion.

Please take time to get up early and go out and see the lunar eclipse in the early morning hours tomorrow.

In the next post I'll talk about why I don't think anything "big" is actually going to happen tomorrow. We'll see if I'm right soon enough.

Special Note:

In anticipation of the first of the four lunar eclipses occurring in the early morning hours tomorrow, we're discussing information important to understanding their significance. If you missed some of the posts, here is the schedule we covered in recent days. (Tweet that!) I'm sure you know someone who would be interested in these prophetic times. Please invite your friends or your entire church to join us:

• Day 10, April 9: The Moon as a Sign and the Prophesied Blood Red Moons
• Day 9, April 10: How the Jewish Calendar Works
• Day 8, April 11: The Prophetic Significance of the Feasts of the LORD
• Day 7, April 12: What Causes the Moon to Turn Red Like Blood?
• Day 6, April 14: "Tetrad" of Four Lunar Eclipses on Jewish Feast Days in the Past
• Tomorrow, Day 5, April 15: The First Lunar Eclipse on Passover 2014 (and why I don't expect anything to happen that day.)