Helel and the Appointed Times

Think of the appointment book in a doctor’s office. Whoever holds it decides who sees the doctor, on what day, and at what hour. Someone who took that book away and wrote his own names in it would not have laid a hand on the doctor, and yet he would control every meeting the doctor had.

Leviticus 23 and Numbers 28 and 29 are God’s appointment book, and He calls every day in it “My appointed times.” A darker question follows. If these days matter so much to God, has anyone ever tried to take the book out of His hands?

Scripture names someone who tried.

A Song Over a King

Isaiah records his boast:

Isaiah 14:12-15 How you have fallen from heaven, shining one (Helel), son of the dawn! You are cut down to the earth, you who laid low the nations! And you said in your heart: "I will ascend to the heavens, above the stars of God I will raise my throne, and I will sit on the mountain of appointed time (moed מוֹעֵד mo-ade'), in the uttermost parts of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the cloud; I will make myself like the Most High (Elyon)." But you are brought down to Sheol, to the uttermost parts of the pit.

Many Christians learned to read these lines as the fall of Lucifer before the world began, and it is easy to see why, for the language reaches past any earthly palace to heaven, to the stars, and to the throne of God. But eight verses earlier, the chapter itself tells us whom the song is about:

Isaiah 14:4 that you shall take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say: How has the oppressor shabbatted, the insolent fury shabbatted!

The prophet calls it “this proverb against the king of Babylon.” Whatever power stood behind that king, the text names the king himself, and the song is a taunt over Babylon. It opens with a word that the YLV keeps from the Hebrew: the oppressor has “shabbatted.” The one who would not stop has been made to stop.

Now listen to what that king said in his heart. Five times he says “I will,” and in the middle of them stands this: “I will sit on the mountain of appointed time (moed).”

Mount Moed

English Bibles often render this phrase “the mount of assembly” or “the mount of the congregation,” and those are fair translations. In Hebrew, though, it is two short words, har moed (הַר־מוֹעֵד), Mount Moed. Moed (מוֹעֵד) is the word for an appointed time, a set meeting, and it first appears on the fourth day of creation:

Genesis 1:14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens, to divide between the day and between the night; and let them be for signs (ot) and for appointed times (moadim מוֹעֵד mo-ade'), and for days and years;

The sun and the moon were set in the sky “for signs (ot) and for appointed times (moadim).” Before there was an Israel, and before there was a temple, God set lights in the heavens to mark the appointed times. Then, at Sinai, He named those times:

Leviticus 23:2 Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them: The appointed times (moadim) of the LORD, which you shall proclaim them holy convocations (miqra-qodesh מִקְרָא־קֹדֶשׁ mik-raw'), these are My appointed times (moadim).

“These are My appointed times (moadim),” He says, and at each one there is to be a “holy convocation,” a miqra-qodesh (מִקְרָא־קֹדֶשׁ), a holy calling-together of His people.

What, then, is the mountain of moed? It is the mountain where those calling-togethers take place, the place where God meets His people at His appointed times. Scripture tells us which mountain that is:

Psalm 48:2-3 Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised, in the city of our God, the mountain of His holiness. Beautiful in elevation, the joy of all the earth, is mount Zion, the recesses of the north, the city of a great King.

The psalm sings of Mount Zion, “the recesses of the north, the city of a great King.” Set that beside the boast of the king of Babylon: “the mountain of appointed time (moed), in the uttermost parts of the north.” The YLV renders the phrase in two ways, but in Hebrew it is the same pair of words in both places, yarkete tsafon יַרְכְּתֵי צָפוֹן yer-ay-kaw'. Isaiah’s king is not dreaming of some vague height in the clouds. He has his eye on the very mountain the psalm celebrates, which is Zion, the place of the moed.

What “Like the Most High” Means

That changes how we hear the end of the boast: “I will make myself like the Most High (Elyon).”

How does a man make himself like God? He cannot do it by growing taller or by living longer. In this passage he does it by sitting where God sits and holding what God holds. The Most High set the times, chose the mountain, and calls His people together on His days. To seize the mountain of meeting and take charge of the appointed times is to put oneself in God’s place. That is the sin of Babylon, written in its own words.

Whoever takes the appointment book has no need to touch the doctor. He needs only to control when people come and whether they come at all. In the same way, Babylon had no need to tear God from His throne. It needed only to take His calendar.

What the Enemy Did

Isaiah records the ambition, and a psalm records the deed. Psalm 74 mourns a sanctuary set on fire (74:7), and it describes what the enemy did when at last he stood on that mountain:

Psalm 74:4 Your adversaries roared in the midst of your appointed place (moed); they set up their signs (ot) as signs (ot).

Psalm 74:7-8 They set your sanctuary on fire; to the ground they profaned the tabernacle (mishkan מִשְׁכָּן mish-kawn') of your name. They said in their heart, "Let us oppress them together"; they burned all the appointed places (moadim) of God in the land.

These lines need careful reading, because English hides the pattern. “Your appointed place (moed)” in verse 4 is a single Hebrew word, moadekha, meaning your moed. “All the appointed places (moadim) of God” in verse 8 is moadei El, the moadim of God. There is no separate Hebrew word for “place.” What the adversaries roared in, and what they burned, was the moed itself.

They also put something in its place: “they set up their signs (ot) as signs (ot).” That is the word from Genesis 1:14. God made the lights for signs and for appointed times; the enemy burned the moadim and set up his own signs in the very place of meeting.

The king of Isaiah 14 said in his heart, “I will sit on the mountain of appointed time.” The enemies of Psalm 74 “said in their heart, ‘Let us oppress them together.’” It was the same heart, aimed at the same target.

The Root Under the Opinion

Many sincere believers have been taught that keeping the Sabbath or the feasts of Leviticus 23 is legalism, and they hold that view out of love for grace, not out of hatred for God. As we saw in Chapter 20, the Bible distinguishes between teachers and sheep, and most of us inherited what we were taught.

Even so, an idea can have a root that the people who hold it never see. Any teaching that would do away with all of God’s moadim and set other days in their place is more than a human opinion. Its shape was written down long ago. It is the shape of Isaiah 14 and the deed of Psalm 74: to take the mountain, burn the meetings, and put up one’s own signs.

That is why these chapters about bulls and calendars are not trivia. The appointed times were never a side issue in Scripture. Again and again, it is the moed that the enemy aims at.

Yet one book of the Bible seems to say that God Himself took the feasts away. Lamentations says that the LORD “has caused to be forgotten in Zion appointed time (moed) and Shabbat.” If He did that, does it settle the question?