I was thinking about the various feasts of Israel and how amazing God’s timetable is concerning the rebirth of the nation and of Jerusalem; how the calculation of the dates coincided so perfectly with the prophecies in the Old Testament. Then I was thinking about the date of the rebirth of Israel–May 14, 1948. I wondered if there was any correspondence to any of the feasts back in 1948. I found an article that said that if you don’t add the extra leap month for that year, the rebirth of the nation actually lands on the eve of Shavuot!
The leap month was added to the Jewish calendar after the length of Earth’s year changed from its original 360 days to 365. This happened several hundred years before the Lord’s birth, and was done to keep the months and the feasts aligned with the agricultural seasons as the Lord intended. Ignoring the leap month in 1948 to make the rebirth of Israel coincide with Pentecost may look like a prophetic fulfillment, but it’s a “force fit”. In other words, it’s an attempt to make something look significant when it really isn’t. Leap months cannot just be ignored when it suits our purpose. In order to be a legitimate fulfillment you’d have to ignore all the leap months since the calendar was changed.