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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Leviticus 23:15 - 23:22
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The Feast of Weeks
v. 15. And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the sixteenth of Nisan, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering; seven Sabbaths, or weeks, shall be complete.
v. 16. Even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye number fifty days, and ye shall offer anew meat-offering unto the Lord, one prepared from the grain of the new harvest.
v. 17. Ye shall bring out of your habitations, not from the Temple revenues, this being an extra offering, two wave-loaves of two-tenth deals (a little more than five quarts), bread like that used for daily food. They shall be of fine flour, of wheaten flour; they shall be baken with leaven, as the bread was always prepared in the homes; they are the first-fruits unto the Lord.
v. 18. And ye shall offer with the breads even lambs without blemish of the first year and one young bullock and two rams; they shall be for a burnt offering unto the Lord, with their meat-offering and their drink-offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savor unto the Lord.
v. 19. Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin-offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace-offerings. "The sin-offering was to excite the feeling and consciousness of sin on the part of the congregation of Israel, that, whilst eating their daily leavened bread, they might not serve the leaven of their old nature, but seek and implore from the Lord, their God, the forgiveness and cleansing away of their sin. " (Keil. )
v. 20. And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the first-fruits for a wave-offering before the Lord, the name being derived from the movement of the body and of the arms which accompanied the presentation to the Lord, with the two lambs; they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. Thus the character of the festival, as one of joyful gratitude for God's goodness and mercy, was emphasized.
v. 21. And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day that it may be an holy convocation unto you; ye shall do no servile work therein, as on the first and the last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread; it shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
v. 22. And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, in mowing to the very border of the land, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest, the stalks and ears that dropped out in harvesting; thou shalt leave them unto the poor and to the stranger. I am the Lord, your God. To celebrate a festival of thanksgiving to the Lord for the blessings of His goodness and at the same time to ignore the needs of the poor is a combination which will hardly meet with the approval of the Lord,