Spring Feasts Past and their Meaning

3. (Lev 23 v 6–8) The feast of Unleav­ened Bread.

And on the fif­teenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleav­ened Bread to the Lord; seven days you must eat unleav­ened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy con­vo­ca­tion; you shall do no cus­tom­ary work on it. But you shall offer an offer­ing made by fire to the Lord for seven days. The sev­enth day shall be a holy con­vo­ca­tion; you shall do no cus­tom­ary work on it.

a. The Feast of Unleav­ened Bread to the Lord: The feast of unleav­ened bread was a week-long cel­e­bra­tion the week imme­di­ately fol­low­ing Passover (from Nisan 15 to Nisan 21). This feast showed the purity Israel was to walk in (illus­trated by eat­ing only bread with­out leaven, a type of sin) after the blood-deliverance of Passover.

4. ( Lev 23 v 9–12) The Feast of First Fruits

And the LORD spoke to Moses, say­ing, “Speak to the peo­ple of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land that I give you and reap its har­vest, you shall bring the sheaf (omer) of the first (reshit) of your har­vest (katzir) to the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sab­bath the priest shall wave it. And on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb a year old with­out blem­ish as a burnt offer­ing to the LORD.’ (Lev. 23:9–12)

In other words, on this day the priest would wave a sheaf (omer) of green bar­ley before the LORD as a sym­bolic ges­ture of ded­i­cat­ing the com­ing har­vest to Him.

Then you shall bring a sheaf of the First Fruits of your har­vest to the priest: The day fol­low­ing Passover’s Sab­bath was a time to give the First Fruits of the har­vest to God. The idea was to ded­i­cate the first ripened stalks of grain to God, in antic­i­pa­tion of a greater har­vest to come.. “The First Fruits at Passover would be bar­ley, which ripens in the warmer areas as early as March.” (Harris)

5. (Lev 23 v 15–21) The Feast of Pen­te­cost (also called the Feast of Weeks).

And you shall count for your­selves from the day after the Sab­bath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offer­ing: seven Sab­baths shall be com­pleted. Count fifty days to the day after the sev­enth Sab­bath; then you shall offer a new grain offer­ing to the Lord. You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the First Fruits to the Lord. And you shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year, with­out blem­ish, one young bull, and two rams. They shall be as a burnt offer­ing to the Lord, with their grain offer­ing and their drink offer­ings, an offer­ing made by fire for a sweet aroma to the Lord. Then you shall sac­ri­fice one kid of the goats as a sin offer­ing, and two male lambs of the first year as a sac­ri­fice of a peace offer­ing. The priest shall wave them with the bread of the First Fruits as a wave offer­ing before the Lord, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. And you shall pro­claim on the same day that it is a holy con­vo­ca­tion to you. You shall do no cus­tom­ary work on it. It shall be a statute for­ever in all your dwellings through­out your generations.

Count fifty days to the day after the sev­enth Sab­bath; then you shall offer a new grain offer­ing to the Lord: Fifty days after the feast of First Fruits, at the com­ple­tion of the wheat har­vest, Israel was to cel­e­brate the feast of Pen­te­cost by bring­ing a new grain offer­ing to the Lord; and by wav­ing two loaves of leav­ened bread unto the Lord.

Glean­ing — (22) Gen­eros­ity to the poor and stranger – When you reap the har­vest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the cor­ners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any glean­ing from your har­vest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the Lord your God.

You shall not wholly reap the cor­ners of your field when you reap: This repeats the com­mand of Leviti­cus 19:9–10; this was a law to pro­vide a means for the poor and the stranger to eat by work­ing for them­selves and glean­ing what was left behind. This was an appro­pri­ate reminder right after the law con­cern­ing the har­vest Feast of Pentecost.

6. (Lev 23 v 23–25) The Feast of Trum­pets (Rosh Hashanah).

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, say­ing, “Speak to the chil­dren of Israel, say­ing: ‘In the sev­enth month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath-rest, a memo­r­ial of blow­ing of trum­pets, a holy con­vo­ca­tion. You shall do no cus­tom­ary work on it; and you shall offer an offer­ing made by fire to the Lord.’”

a. A memo­r­ial of blow­ing of trum­pets, a holy con­vo­ca­tion: On the first day of the month Tishri on the Jew­ish cer­e­mo­nial cal­en­dar, the feast of trum­pets was held; trum­pets were blown to gather together God’s peo­ple for a holy convocation.