Levitico 23:15 Commento

Hitherto the levitical law had been chiefly conversant about holy persons, holy things, and holy places; in this chapter we have the institution of holy times, many of which had been mentioned occasionally before, but here they are all put together, only the new moons are not mentioned. All the rest of the feasts of the Lord are, I. The weekly feast of the sabbath (Lev 23:3). II. The yearly feasts, 1. The passover, and the feast of unleavened bread (Lev 23:4-8), to which was annexed the offering of the sheaf of firstfruits (Lev 23:9-14). 2. Pentecost (Lev 23:15-22). 3. The solemnities of the seventh month. The feast of trumpets on the first day (Lev 23:23-25), the day of atonement on the tenth day (Lev 23:26-32), and the feast of tabernacles on the fifteenth (Lev 23:33, etc.).

Here is the institution of the feast of pentecost, or weeks, as it is called (Deu 16:9), because it was observed fifty days, or seven weeks, after the passover. It is also called the feast of harvest, Exo 23:16. For as the presenting of the sheaf of first-fruits was an introduction to the harvest, and gave them liberty to put in the sickle, so they solemnized the finishing of their corn-harvest at this feast. 1. Then they offered a handful of ears of barley, now they offered two loaves of wheaten bread, Lev 23:17. This was leavened. At the passover they ate unleavened bread, because it was in remembrance of the bread they ate when they came out of Egypt, which was unleavened; but now at pentecost it was leavened, because it was an acknowledgment of God's goodness to them in their ordinary food, which was leavened. 2. With that sheaf of first-fruits they offered only one lamb for a burnt-offering, but with these loaves of first-fruits they offered seven lambs, two rams, and one bullock, all for a burnt-offering, so giving glory to God, as the Lord of their land and the Lord of their harvest, by whose favour they lived and to whose praise they ought to live. They offered likewise a kid for a sin-offering, so taking shame to themselves as unworthy of the bread they ate, and imploring pardon for their sins, by which they had forfeited their harvest-mercies, and which they had been guilty of in the receiving of them. And lastly, two lambs for a sacrifice of peace-offerings, to beg a blessing upon the corn they had gathered in, which would be neither sure nor sweet to them without that blessing, Hag 1:9. These were the only peace-offerings that were offered on the behalf of the whole congregation, and they were reckoned most holy offerings, whereas other peace-offerings were but holy. All these offerings are here appointed, Lev 23:18-20. 3. That one day was to be kept with a holy convocation, Lev 23:21. It was one of the days on which all Israel was to meet God and one another, at the place which the Lord should choose. Some suggest that whereas seven days were to make up the feast of unleavened bread there was only one day appointed for the feast of pentecost, because this was a busy time of the year with them, and God allowed them speedily to return to their work in the country. This annual feast was instituted in remembrance of the giving of the law upon mount Sinai, the fiftieth day after they came out of Egypt. That was the feast which they were told in Egypt must be observed to God in the wilderness, as a memorial of which ever after they kept this feast. But the period and perfection of this feast was the pouring out of the Spirit upon the apostles on the day of this feast (Act 2:1), in which the law of faith was given, fifty days after Christ our passover was sacrificed for us. And on that day (as bishop Patrick well expresses it) the apostles, having themselves received the first-fruits of the Spirit, begat three thousand souls, through the word of truth, and presented them, as the first-fruits of the Christian church, to God and the Lamb. To the institution of the feast of pentecost is annexed a repetition of that law which we had before (Lev 19:9), by which they were required to leave the gleanings of their fields, and the corn that grew on the ends of the butts, for the poor, Lev 23:22. Probably it comes in here as a thing which the priests must take occasion to remind the people of, when they brought their first-fruits, intimating to them that to obey even in this small matter was better than sacrifice, and that, unless they were obedient, their offerings should not be accepted. It also taught them that the joy of harvest should express itself in charity to the poor, who must have their due out of what we have, as well as God his. Those that are truly sensible of the mercy they receive from God will without grudging show mercy to the poor.

INTRODUCTION TO LEVITICUS 23 In this chapter an account is given of the several holy days, times, and seasons, appointed by God, under the general names of feasts and holy convocations; and first of the sabbath, Lev 23:1; then of the passover and feast of unleavened bread, Lev 23:5; to which is annexed the sheaf of the firstfruits, Lev 23:9; after that of the feast of weeks or pentecost, Lev 23:15; and of the feast of trumpets, Lev 23:23; and of the day of atonement, Lev 23:26; and of the feast of tabernacles, Lev 23:33.

And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath,.... Not the seventh day sabbath in the passover week, nor the whole feast of unleavened bread, but the first day of it, which was an holy convocation, a sabbath in which no servile work was to be done, Lev 23:7; and it was from the day after this, even the sixteenth of Nisan, that the following count was to be made; so the Targum of Jonathan, after the first feast day of the passover: and Josephus (s) is very clear in it, that Pentecost, or the feast of weeks, was the fiftieth day from the sixteenth of Nisan, when the above offerings were made: from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; which plainly points out the express day from whence the count was to begin, even on the day when the sheaf of the firstfruits of the barley harvest was offered: seven sabbaths shall be complete; or seven weeks, that is, forty nine days; and hence, Jarchi says, we learn that the count began from the evening, or otherwise the weeks would not be complete; and Gersom thinks the day in which the sheaf was offered is included in the days counted; for the count began from the day after the first of the passover, and lo, seven days are seven weeks of days, which make forty nine days. (s) Antiqu. l. 3. c. 10. sect. 6.

The feast of the Lord, Lev 23:1, Lev 23:2. The Sabbath, Lev 23:3. The passover and unleavened bread, Lev 23:4-8. The feast of first-fruits, Lev 23:9-14. The feast of pentecost, Lev 23:15-21. Gleanings to be left for the poor, Lev 23:22. The feast of trumpets, Lev 23:23-25. The great day of atonement, Lev 23:26-32. The feast of tabernacles, Lev 23:33-44.

Ye shall count unto you - seven Sabbaths - That is, from the sixteenth of the first month to the sixth of the third month. These seven weeks, called here Sabbaths, were to be complete, i. e., the forty-nine days must be finished, and the next day, the fiftieth, is what, from the Septuagint, we call pentecost. See the note on Luk 6:1.

OF SUNDRY FEASTS. (Lev 23:1-4) Speak unto the children of Israel, . . . concerning the feasts of the Lord--literally, "the times of assembling, or solemnities" (Isa 33:20); and this is a preferable rendering, applicable to all sacred seasons mentioned in this chapter, even the day of atonement, which was observed as a fast. They were appointed by the direct authority of God and announced by a public proclamation, which is called "the joyful sound" (Psa 89:15). Those "holy convocations" were evidences of divine wisdom, and eminently subservient to the maintenance and diffusion of religious knowledge and piety.

FEAST OF PENTECOST. (Lev 23:15-22) ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath--that is, after the first day of the passover week, which was observed as a Sabbath.

This chapter does not contain a "calendar of feasts," or a summary and completion of the directions previously given in a scattered form concerning the festal times of Israel, but simply a list of those festal days and periods of the year at which holy meetings were to be held. This is most clearly stated in the heading (Lev 23:2): "the festal times of Jehovah, which ye shall call out as holy meetings, these are they, My feasts," i.e., those which are to be regarded as My feasts, sanctified to Me. The festal seasons and days were called "feasts of Jehovah," times appointed and fixed by Jehovah (see Gen 1:14), not because the feasts belonged to fixed times regulated by the course of the moon (Knobel), but because Jehovah had appointed them as days, or times, which were to be sanctified to Him. Hence the expression is not only used with reference to the Sabbath, the new moon, and the other yearly feasts; but in Num 28:2 and Num 29:39 it is extended so as to include the times of the daily morning and evening sacrifice. (On the "holy convocation" see Exo 12:16.)

The law for the special observance of the feast of Harvest (Exo 23:16) is added here without any fresh introductory formula, to show at the very outset the close connection between the two feasts. Seven whole weeks, or fifty days, were to be reckoned from the day of the offering of the sheaf, and then the day of first-fruits (Num 28:26) or feast of Weeks (Exo 34:22; Deu 16:10) was to be celebrated. From this reckoning the feast received the name of Pentecost (ἡ πεντηκοστή, Act 2:1). That שׁבּתות (Lev 23:15) signifies weeks, like שׁבעות in Deu 16:9, and τὰ σάββατα in the Gospels (e.g., Mat 28:1), is evident from the predicate תּמימת, "complete," which would be quite unsuitable if Sabbath-days were intended, as a long period might be reckoned by half weeks instead of whole, but certainly not by half Sabbath-days. Consequently "the morrow after the seventh Sabbath" (Lev 23:16) is the day after the seventh week, not after the seventh Sabbath. On this day, i.e., fifty days after the first day of Mazzoth, Israel was to offer a new meat-offering to the Lord, i.e., made of the fruit of the new harvest (Lev 26:10), "wave-loaves" from its dwellings, two of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour baked leavened, like the bread which served for their daily food, "as first-fruits unto the Lord," and of the wheat-harvest (Exo 34:22), which fell in the second half of May and the first weeks of June (Robinson, Palestine), and therefore was finished as a whole by the feast of Weeks. The loaves differed from all the other meat-offerings, being made of leavened dough, because in them their daily bread was offered to the Lord, who had blessed the harvest, as a thank-offering for His blessing. They were therefore only given to the Lord symbolically by waving, and were then to belong to the priests (Lev 23:20). The injunction "out of your habitations" is not to be understood, as Calvin and others suppose, as signifying that every householder was to present two such loaves; it simply expresses the idea, that they were to be loaves made for the daily food of a household, and not prepared expressly for holy purposes.