Counting the Omer and the Restoration of Israel

Tikkun Global

Jerusalem, Israel

In Leviticus 23:15-16 and Deuteronomy 16:9-12, God instructed Israel to count off the seven weeks after Passover leading to Pentecost (Shavuot). It is called counting the “Omer” – the wheat ripening unto springtime harvest.

It was also during this exact season two thousand years ago that the resurrected Yeshua shared with His disciples for 40 days about the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). Luke, the author of Acts, summarizes for us these 40 days of teaching and dialogue with that famous question from the disciples, “Lord, are you now at this time going to RESTORE the Kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). Yeshua’s teaching about the Kingdom had everything to do with the Davidic, Messianic restoration of Israel. The emphasis of the disciples’ question was about timing, not whether God was still planning to “restore the Kingdom to Israel.” We know this because of Yeshua’s response, “it is not for you to know the times and seasons” (Acts 1:7).

Amazingly (but not coincidentally) here in modern day Israel, these weeks are filled with prophetic indicators of restoration and timing; of how God has been present in the miraculous, modern-day restoration, preservation, and prosperity of His covenant nation. May these 6 indicators serve to sharpen our expectation as we come to the end of the Omer, on the 49th day, Shavuot/Pentecost and the celebration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Six Prophetic Signs You Should Know 

1. Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). On the 14th day of the Omer, the nation of Israel officially mourns the six million Jews killed by the Nazis. It also commemorates the Jewish resistance to the Nazis that began with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. There are many things in the life of Israel that parallel the life of Yeshua. The Holocaust was like a national “crucifixion,” which ended in 1945. Just as He rose from the dead on the third day, three years later Israel experienced a national “resurrection,” as the newly independent State of Israel was declared in 1948. 

2. Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day). On the 21th day of counting, we remember the fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism who paid with their lives to defend the State of Israel. As on Yom Hashoah, air-raid sirens are sounded throughout the country at an appointed time during the day, and everyone stops what they are doing to pay tribute to these heroes.

3. Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day). On the 22nd day of counting the Omer, immediately following the somber remembrances of Memorial Day, we celebrate the rebirth of Israel. This is the day, according to the Jewish calendar, when Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion officially proclaimed the establishing of the independent country of Israel on May 14, 1948. Today, Israelis celebrate with much joy, picnics, outings, fireworks, fly-bys of military jets, etc. 

4. Yom Herzl (Birthday of the “National Prophet, Theodore Herzl). On the 25th day of the Omer, we remember this remarkable man. Herzl was a Hungarian Jewish journalist for whom assimilation into European high society was life’s highest goal—that is, until he witnessed several major antisemitic events in the 1880s and early 1890s.  These events took place not just in “backward” Eastern Europe/Russia, but also in the supposedly liberal, progressive, enlightened West. These experiences convinced Herzel of the urgent necessity for the Jewish people to have their own country—and so he became the prophet and founder of the modern Zionist movement. His book, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), became the constitution for a generation of Zionist pioneers who laid the groundwork and infrastructure for the re-birth of the State of Israel. His story, and the speed at which doors opened for him (aided by many early “Christian Zionists”) to the halls of power in Europe and Istanbul, is an inspiration for how God can use one man to change history. 

5. Lag B'Omer (the 34th of the Omer). Just in case we forget during these heady times that this restoration of Israel is not yet the full, Messianic restoration prophesied in the Scriptures, we have this very “un-holy-day.” The day commemorates two things: 1) the yahrtzeit (memorial of the death) of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who was one of the founders of Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah, around 120-160 AD.  2) Around the same time, and beginning immediately after Passover, 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s students died of plague, and the plague supposedly ceased on the 33-34th day of the Omer.  Most scholars believe that this is a mythical story to explain the death of a huge number of Rabbi Akiva’s disciples during the Bar Kochba revolt against Rome, 133-136 AD.  Rabbi Akiva is considered to be one of the great “founders” of post 2nd Temple, Rabbinic Judaism. He anointed and declared the military chieftan, Simon Bar Kochba, to the be the promised Messiah who would deliver Israel. Because of Akiva’s influence, huge numbers of able-bodied Jewish men followed Bar Kochba into the revolt and ultimate disaster. This historical, Rabbinic debacle is part of the reason that Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men refuse to serve in the IDF today.  The fact of Rabbi Akiva’s terrible mis-judgement has been buried under the carpet of Rabbinic mythology.  

   
   

   On this day, bonfires are lit around the country, and hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews visit the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai on Mt. Meron in northern Israel. Their hope is to receive some spiritual, “sparks” of power from the atmosphere around this very dead rabbi’s grave.

   
   

   Culturally and spiritually, it feels like a kind of Jewish Halloween, a celebration and worship of the dead. It is a potent reminder of how lost our people are without Yeshua, and how the Rabbis, in the absence of the Holy Spirit, have had to fill the void with pagan, quasi-Jewish/biblical spirituality. The day is full of references to false Messiahs and the anti-Christ, and should serve as a warning to Christians around the world today who are naively drawn to Rabbinic teachings through the wrong kind of Hebrew/Jewish roots teaching. Tragically, in 2022, during lag b'Omer, 45 men and boys were crushed to death in a chaotic stampede on Mt. Meron. 

6. Yom Yerushalaim (Jerusalem Day) falls on the 44th day of the Omer. On this last celebration before Shavuot, we commemorate the reunification of Jerusalem during the Six Day War in 1967. Yeshua prophesied that Jerusalem would be “trampled underfoot by the gentiles until the times of the gentiles are fulfilled” (Luke 21:24). On this day in 1967, biblical Jerusalem (today’s Old City) was returned to Jewish control for the first time in 2100 years. It happened approximately, or even on the very calendar day (according to the biblical/Jewish calendar) that Yeshua ascended to heaven from the Mt. of Olives in Jerusalem (Acts 1:9-11). This timing is no coincidence, but a sign of His soon return as the conquering King of Kings who will rule the nations from this city. Israelis come up to the capital from all over the country, to celebrate the day with many concerts and parades throughout the city. 

This year, 2026, we are in the midst of the Iranian war, cease fire, and war in Lebanon.  Only God knows what will happen during this year’s Omer. 

Let’s keep watch!