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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Leviticus 23:4 - 23:14
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The Passover and the offering which Followed It
v. 4. These are the feasts of the Lord, in the narrower sense, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons. This instruction was carried out with strict literalness in after-years, the exact date of the new moon in each month being fixed by the elders of the Jews and announced with great solemnity.
v. 5. In the fourteenth day of the first month, of the month Abib, or Nisan, with which the church-year began, at even, is the Lord's Passover. Cf Exo_12:6-20.
v. 6. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread unto the Lord; seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. Although at a later period the two festivals were considered as one, for all practical purposes, and often identified, yet the distinction was observed, and careful writers did not neglect to refer to it, Mar_14:1.
v. 7. In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation, a solemn assembly for purposes of worship; ye shall do no servile work therein. On this day all business and work was strictly suspended, as on a most solemn Sabbath.
v. 8. But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord seven days, although these days were not closed to the ordinary work in the house, in the shop, and on the farm. In the seventh day is an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work therein, as on the first day. of the annual festivals, the Passover, with the Feast of Unleavened Bread connected with it, came first in the cycle of the church-year, first in the great historic event it commemorated, first in its obligation, and first in its spiritual and typical significance.
v. 9. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
v. 10. Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, When ye come in to the land which I give unto you, for it was only at that time that this special instruction was to come into force, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest, a sheaf of barley, which ripens in Palestine in April;
v. 11. and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, by which the gift was sanctified to Jehovah, who then designated it for the use of the priests, to be accepted for you; on the morrow after the Sabbath, after the first day of the holy convocation, on the sixteenth of Nisan, the priest shall wave it.
v. 12. and ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he-lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Lord. As Israel, by the offering of the sheaf of first-fruits, consecrated the entire new harvest and the daily bread depending upon this harvest to the Lord and confessed that its maintenance depended upon the divine goodness, so, by the burnt offering, the people declared their unworthiness of the Lord's goodness and their need of His mercy.
v. 13. And the meat-offering thereof, to accompany the burnt offering, shall be two-tenth deals (somewhat over five quarts) of fine flour, wheaten flour, mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savor; and the drink-offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin, a trifle more than a quart.
v. 14. And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, roasted at the fire, nor green ears, of the new harvest, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your god; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings, in the land of Canaan, as long as the Levitical priesthood endured. The use of the new grain for food in any form whatever before the ceremony of waving on the sixteenth of Nisan was absolutely forbidden. All our possessions, all the members of our bodies, should be consecrated to the Lord for diligence in good works.