THE FEAST OF THE SECOND GREAT PENTECOST
Let no one, then, pass judgment on you in matters of
food or drink or with regard to a festival or new moons, or sabbath. These are
shadows of things to come; the reality belongs to Christ.
Colossians 2:16-17 (New American Bible Revised Edition)
The old covenant holy day of obligation, known as the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot in Hebrew), was called the Feast of Pentecost (from the Greek he pentekoste, meaning the fiftieth day) in Jesus's time. Yahweh established it in the covenant formation at Mt. Sinai before the sin of the Golden Calf.
At the beginning of the great adventure at the crossroads of salvation history known as the "Sinai Covenant," God ordained that the Israelites would assemble at God's holy altar to commemorate three of the seven annual feasts. At those assemblies, they would relive the themes of mercy and redemption as played out in the Exodus experience. The three "pilgrim feasts," in which every man of the covenant must present himself before Yahweh's holy altar of sacrifice, were designated in Exodus 23:14-17: Three times a year you will hold a festival in my honor. You will observe the feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you will eat unleavened bread, as I have commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt. No one will appear before me empty-handed. You will also observe the feast of Harvest, of the first-fruits of your labors in sowing the fields, and the feast of Ingathering, at the end of the year, once you have brought the fruits of your labors in from the field. Three times a year all your menfolk will appear before Lord Yahweh (NJB).1
The Feast of Unleavened Bread began at sundown on the day of the Passover commemoration on the 14th day of the first month of the liturgical year and lasted seven days. The Jewish day ended at sunset, and the next day began. The "feast of the Harvest" was the Feast of Seven Weeks, Shavuot, also known as the Feast of Weeks, or in Jesus's time, the Feast of Pentecost. The "Feast of Ingathering" at the end of the liturgical year was the Feast of Shelters (the Hebrew word Sukkoth, meaning "shelters," is also translated as "tabernacles" or "booths").
After the sin of the Golden Calf, the instructions for the pilgrim feasts were repeated as part of the covenant renewal in Exodus 34:18-23. In addition to the three pilgrim feasts, four more remembrance feasts were added to the annual feasts in Leviticus 23:5-44.2 The command to keep the pilgrim feasts as part of Israel's covenant obligations was so crucial that during Moses's last homily to the Israelites, before the covenant people's mission to take possession of the Promised Land, he repeated the pilgrim feast obligations (Dt 16:16-17).
According to the instructions for the pilgrim feast of Pentecost in Leviticus 23:15-21 and Numbers 28:26-31, after taking possession of the Promised Land, Israel was to commemorate the blessings of Yahweh to His covenant people by offering the first portion of the annual wheat harvest to God, in the richness of the land. It was also a celebration in which Israel, as a covenant community, was to relive, with thanksgiving, the birth of the covenant people as a nation and the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai. Finally, it was the day when God came down in holy fire on the mountain and took Israel to be His holy possession, a witness to the pagan nations of the earth, and to testify to the existence of the One True God.
During the United Monarchy, Israel's kings remained committed to the covenant obligation to observe the pilgrim feasts of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and the Feast of Shelters. In 2 Chronicles 8:13, Scripture records that King Solomon made the sacrifices for these feasts on the altar of the Jerusalem Temple. The annual pilgrim feasts were festivals of great joy, and despite the requirement that only men appear before Yahweh, whole families often made the journey to the beautiful Temple to fulfill their covenant obligation (Lk 2:41; Jn 7:2-4).3
In the designation of the dates for each holy feast day in Leviticus 23, only two of the seven annual feast days lack a specific celebration date. Passover was to be commemorated in the first month of the liturgical year on the 14th of Abib, with the Feast of Unleavened Bread lasting seven days from Abib 15th through the 21st. The Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hosannah), the feast which began the civil "new year," was to be celebrated annually on the 1st day of the seventh month, followed on the 10th by the Feast of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and then from the 15th to the 21st of the same month, Israel was to celebrate the Feast of Shelters (Sukkoth/Sukkot). God commanded that each annual feast be celebrated on a specific date, except for the Feast of Firstfruits and the Feast of Pentecost.
The instructions in Leviticus 23 concerning the Feast of Firstfruits dictated that the sacrificial offering of the first fruits of the barley harvest, along with the whole burnt sacrifice of a yearling lamb, together with a baked wheat cake and red wine libation, was to fall within the holy week of the first of the pilgrim feasts, the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Ex 23:14-15). Yahweh gave instructions to Moses concerning the Feast of Firstfruits after enumerating the requirements for the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread: Speak to the Israelites and say: "When you enter the country which I am giving you and reap the harvest there, you will bring the priest the first sheaf of your harvest, and he will present it to Yahweh with the gesture of offering for you to be acceptable. The priest will make this offering on the day after the Sabbath, and on the same day as you make this offering, you will offer Yahweh an unblemished lamb one year old as a burnt offering. The cereal offering for that day will be two-tenths of wheaten flour mixed with oil, as food burnt as a smell pleasing to Yahweh. The libation will be a quarter of a hin of wine. You will eat no bread, roasted ears of wheat or fresh produce before this day, before making the offering to your God. This is perpetual law for all your descendants, wherever you live" (Lev 23:10-11 NJB; underlining in the quotation is added for emphasis). The offering for the Feast of Firstfruits was to be presented on the day after the Saturday Sabbath during the week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread, indicating that this feast was always intended to fall on the same day of the week every year, on what we call Sunday, the first day of the week. It would be a perpetual sacrifice as long as the covenant with Yahweh endured. The command for a perpetual statute is found in Leviticus 23:14, 21, 31, and 41, and only applies to four of the seven feasts: Firstfruits, Pentecost, Atonement, and Shelters.
The date of the Feast of Pentecost, and the giving of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, was determined by counting fifty days from the celebration of the Feast of Firstfruits: From the day after the Sabbath, the day on which you bring the sheaf of offering, you will count seven full weeks. You will count fifty days, to the day after the seventh Sabbath... (Lev 23:15-16 NJB; underlining added for emphasis). The Feast of Pentecost was intended to fall on the same day each year. Its celebration would take place on the first day of the week, our Sunday, the day after the Jewish Saturday Sabbath. Counting seven weeks from the Feast of Firstfruits (Sunday to Sunday) until the fiftieth day (the ancients counted without the concept of a zero place-value, counting the first day in the sequence as day #1).4
Sometime after Jesus's Resurrection, the Pharisees changed the celebration day of this feast by reinterpreting Leviticus 23:11 to mean not the Saturday Sabbath of the holy week of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Instead, they said that the word "Sabbath" in Leviticus 23:11, where the passage indicated the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread on Abib the 15th, was to be commemorated as a "day of rest." Therefore, the date of the barley harvest offering, which was also a celebration in remembrance of the Exodus crossing of the Red Sea, was changed to the 16th day of Abib (later called the month of Nisan since the 6th century BC). The celebration date was changed to the day of the week that would change from year to year. Since the sacrifice of a Passover lamb or goat kid is no longer possible, modern Jews celebrate their Seder meal on the 15th of Abib/Nisan, and they refer to the entire seven days of what was the Feast of Unleavened Bread as "Passover."
The problem with the interpretation of Abib/Nisan the 16th as the Feast of Firstfruits is that the instruction for the seven annual feasts and their sacrifices in Leviticus chapter 23 lists the requirement of each feast to fall on a particular date in the month (according to the lunar calendar), except for the two feasts of Firstfruits and Weeks/Pentecost. If the intention was for the Feast of Firstfruits to always fall on the day after the 15th of Abib/Nisan, why didn't the passage in Leviticus 23:11 record the required date for this feast as Abib the 16th? Significantly, the feasts of Firstfruits and Pentecost are deliberately not given a specific date, so they fall each year on a particular day of the week "the first day of the week, our Sunday.
The Karaites, a sect of Judaism claiming descent from the Sadducees, have continued celebrating the Feast of the Firstfruits annually on a Sunday. However, they are the only Jews who continue to celebrate the Feast of Firstfruits.5 Both Orthodox and Reform Jews count Pentecost as fifty days from the 16th of Abib rather than seven full weeks from the first day of the week (Sunday) of the holy week of Unleavened Bread. They also do not list the first fruits of the barley harvest as a liturgical feast, even though that feast, like the others, has required blood sacrifices and grain and wine offerings unique to its celebration and commanded to be a perpetual observance: This is to be a perpetual law for all your descendants, wherever you live (Lev 23:14). In celebrating the Feast of Firstfruits, the Karaites insist that they continue the ancient traditions of this "feast of remembrance" in commemorating the crossing of the Red Sea in the Exodus experience and the first offering of the annual barley harvest of the Promised Land. They continue to celebrate this feast, as their ancestors did, on the day after the first Sabbath of the holy week of the feast of Unleavened Bread, celebrating the Feast of Firstfruits always on a Sunday. They also celebrate Pentecost on a Sunday fifty days later, just as it was commanded in Leviticus 23:11, counting Firstfruits as day #1, just as the ancients counted.
The change in the long tradition of celebrating the feasts of Firstfruits and Pentecost on a Sunday is documented in the writings of the Jewish priest and historian Yoshef ben Matthias (AD 37-100). Known to history by his adopted Roman name Flavius Josephus, the works of this first-century AD Jewish historian and member of the old covenant priesthood are the principal source for the history of the Jews from the time of Greek Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes (175-163 BC) to the fall of Masada at the end of the First Jewish Revolt in AD 73. Josephus was a descendant of the Hasmoneans, the ruling family of Judah before the Roman conquest, and was educated to be a high priest of Yahweh in the Jerusalem Temple. Joining the sect of the Pharisees at age nineteen, he was in a unique position to understand the religious rites of the Old Covenant Jews. In his history of the Jews, Josephus wrote concerning the Feast of Pentecost. His testimony offers evidence that the festival of Pentecost used to fall on a Sunday, the day next to the Jewish Sabbath, which was Saturday, but at some point, the day of the feast was changed: And truly he did not speak falsely in saying so; for the festival, which we call Pentecost, did then fall out to be the next day to the Sabbath (Antiquities of the Jews 13.8.4 [252], underlining added for emphasis). Flavius Josephus's statement that the day of the celebration of the Feast of Pentecost was initially celebrated on a Sunday by inference also indicates that the change included the day for the celebration of the Feast of Firstfruits.
Why would the Pharisees find it necessary to change the day of the week on which these two feasts fell? The dramatic events of the year AD 30 provide the answer. During the week-long feast of Unleavened Bread, in the spring of AD 30, Jesus gave up His life on a Roman cross during the daytime sacrificial services of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev 23:7; Num 28:17-24), the sacred meal of the Passover victim having been eaten the night before in the meal Christians call "the Last Supper." The Gospels record that it was "preparation day" for the Sabbath on Friday when Jesus died (Mat 27:62; Mk 15:42; Lk 23:54; Jn 19:31). Immediately after giving up His spirit, Jesus descended to the abode of the dead to preach the Gospel of salvation, liberating those souls who believed in Him (1 Pet 3:18-19; 4:6). Jesus "rested" from His work in the tomb on the Saturday Sabbath, as God the Father had rested on the seventh day of the old creation. Three days after His crucifixion (as the ancients counted), Jesus arose from the dead on the first day of the week (Matt 28:1), on the day after the Saturday Sabbath "on a Sunday. It was on the first day after the Sabbath of the holy week of the feasts of Passover/Unleavened Bread, on the day designated as the Feast of Firstfruits (Lev 23:11). He arose on the annual feast that celebrated the giving of the first fruits of the barley harvest and commemorated the crossing over of the Red Sea by the children of Israel, as they passed from a life of slavery and death to new life as children of God. Just as the Israelites had "crossed over" from bondage to slavery and death to renewed life in the miracle of the Red Sea crossing (Ex 14:21-22), Jesus, as the "first fruits" of the Father, had "crossed over" the barrier of sin from death to eternal life. Sunday was also the first day of the old Creation event, with Saturday being the seventh day when God "rested" (Gen 2:2).
The Feast of Firstfruits was also the only one of the seven annual remembrance feasts that required the blood sacrifice of a single unblemished male lamb, offered with an unleavened wheat cake and red wine—a foreshadowing of the Eucharist.6 On the Feast of Firstfruits, Jesus conquered sin and death through His resurrection, offering all who believed in Him the promise of eternal life in Heaven. Jesus was the "Firstfruits" of the resurrected dead, as St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:20-23: In fact, however, Christ has been raised from the dead, as the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep. As it was by one man that death came, so through one man has come the resurrection of the dead. Just as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be brought to life; but all of them in their proper order: Christ the first-fruits, and next, at his coming, those who belong to him (NJB).
God commanded that the Feast of Pentecost be celebrated fifty days after the Feast of Firstfruits, which counted as day #1 in the count (Lev 23:15-16). After the Resurrection, Jesus taught the Church for forty days until His Ascension (Acts 1:3). Before His Ascension, Jesus instructed the Apostles and disciples to return to Jerusalem and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist told the people, I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who comes after me is more powerful than ... He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire (John 3:11). And at His Ascension, Jesus said, John baptized with water but, not many days from now, you are going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). The Apostles and the disciples were obedient to Jesus's command. They returned to Jerusalem and, together with the Virgin Mary, prayed as one community for ten days, until fifty days after the Feast of Firstfruits, on the Sunday of the Jewish feast of Pentecost, which commemorated the birth of the old covenant Church at Mt. Sinai (Acts 1:14).
On the Feast of Pentecost, AD 30, God the Holy Spirit baptized the New Covenant people of God: When Pentecost day came round, they had all met together, when suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of a violent wind which filled the entire house in which they were sitting; and there appeared to them tongues as of fire; these separated and came to rest on the head of each of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak different languages as the Spirit gave them power to express themselves (Acts 2:1-4). On the holy feast commemorating God's descent in fire upon Mt. Sinai to call Israel to become His covenant family, God the Holy Spirit descended with fire to take possession of the faithful remnant of the New Israel, called to become the New Covenant people of God. Since this was a pilgrimage feast, there were Jews from across the Roman Empire in Jerusalem: Now there were devout men living in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven, and at this sound they all assembled, and each one was bewildered to hear these men speaking in his own language. They were amazed and astonished. Surely,' they said, all these men speaking are Galileans? How does it happen that each of us hears them in his own native language? (Acts 2:5-8 NJB).
The New Israel of the New Covenant Church wasn't limited to one ethnic group, as the Sinai Covenant Church was limited to the twelve tribes of Israel, ten of which had been lost and scattered among the Gentile nations since the 8th century BC (2 Kng 17:5-6). Instead, the New Covenant family of God was to encompass all the nations of the earth "calling the ten lost tribes and all humanity back into a universal family "an extended family who hadn't existed since the dispersal of humanity's children in the sin of the Tower of Babel, when their tongues became confused. The people were scattered across the face of the earth (Gen 11:1-9). Now, in the birth of the New Covenant Church, the rupture caused by the dispersal of the human family is mended. The Holy Spirit now calls all people into a covenant union with the One True God, and all will speak one language "the language of the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ.
Consider the perfection of God's plan that the new "Day of the Lord" set aside for worship in the New Covenant was the first day of the week. It was the first day of the old creation (Genesis 1:1; 2:1-2), which now signified the first day of a new creation in Jesus the Redeemer-Messiah, the Christ: Then the one sitting on the throne spoke. Look, I am making the whole of creation new' (Rev 21:5 NJB).
The command in Leviticus 23:9-21, establishing the first day of the week as the day of celebration for the feasts of Firstfruits and Pentecost, was part of God's plan for the redemption of humanity. Orthodox 1st-century AD Jews did not miss Christ's fulfillment of these feasts. As St. James, the first Christian bishop of Jerusalem, told St. Paul: You see, brother, how thousands of Jews have now become believers, all of them staunch upholders of the Law (Acts 21:20b). As St. Paul wrote: Then never let anyone criticize you for what you eat or drink, or about observance of annual festivals, New Moons or Sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what was coming: the reality is the body of Christ (Colossians 2:16 NJB, underlining added for emphasis). The prescribed celebration of these feasts on the first day of the week was a foreshadowing of God's plan that Jesus Christ would be resurrected from the dead on the Feast of Firstfruits, on a Sunday, and the birth of the New Covenant Church would also fall fifty days later on the Sunday of the Feast of the Second Great Pentecost when God again revealed Himself to His holy covenant people.
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THE ANNUAL FEAST OF SHAVUOT (PENTECOST) Yahweh said to Moses, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: These are my appointed feasts, the appointed feasts of Yahweh, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies."Leviticus 23:1-2 Designated a pilgrim feast (Ex 23:14-17; 34:18-23; Dt 16:16-17; 2 Chr 8:13), and classified as a "remembrance" sacrifice: Then never let anyone criticize you for what you eat or drink, or about observance of annual festivals, New Moons or Sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what was coming: the reality is the body of Christ. Colossians 2:16 NJB |
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| Type of feast | Pilgrim feast of the remembrances feast days; compulsory attendance with compulsory and voluntary sacrifices. Known as the Feast of Weeks, Shavuot (Hag Hashavuot in Hebrew), also known as the feast of the harvest (Hag Hakatzir, also spelled Chag ha-Kotsir); in the 1st century AD, known as Pentecost, meaning 50th day in Greek. |
| Scripture references | Ex 23:16; 24:22; 34:22; Lev 23:15-21; Num 28:26-31; Dt 16:9-12, 16-17; 2 Chr 8:13; Act 2:1-15; 20:16; 1 Cor 16:8 |
| Time of year | Israelite month of Sivan = May/June; 7 weeks and a day = 50 days after the feast celebrating the first fruits of the barley harvest, which fell on the first day after the first Sabbath of the week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread. This requirement stipulated that the feast was always on a Sunday until sometime after the 1st century AD, when the Jews changed it to rotate to a different day each year. However, the Jewish Karaites still celebrate the Feast of Shavuot (Pentecost) on a Sunday, 50 days after Firstfruits. |
| Description | Old Testament = A sacred assembly of the community of Israel. Celebrated as a festival of joy in remembering the origin of Israel as the chosen covenant people of Yahweh, 50 days after leaving Egypt and crossing the Red Sea. This feast expressed Israel's thankfulness for the Lord's blessings in the birth of the old covenant Church, the giving of the Law at Sinai, and the blessing of the wheat harvest. |
| Requirements | Mandatory and voluntary offerings, including the first fruits of the wheat harvest. Every man of the covenant over age 13 was required to attend this pilgrim feast. Every family was to bring an offering of newly harvested wheat and two loaves of bread made with wheat flour and leavened as an offering to the Lord. As a community, the covenant people must offer seven unblemished lambs less than a year old, a bullock, and two rams, with a grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil for each sacrifice and an accompanying wine libation as a whole burnt offering on Yahweh's Altar. In addition, a goat must be offered as a sin sacrifice and two lambs as a communion sacrifice. The priests were to eat the people's two lambs of the communion sacrifice in a sacred meal in the Holy Place. |
| New Covenant Connection | During the celebration of this feast at 9 AM (the 3rd-hour Jewish time) at the beginning of the morning liturgical worship service in AD 30, fifty days after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and ten days after His Ascension, the Holy Spirit filled and indwelled the Apostles and disciples assembled in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. This miracle signaled the birth of the new Israel of the New Covenant Church. In the early Church, Pentecost was part of the liturgical year, which extended for fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday. Today, this period is considered Eastertide in the liturgical calendar, with Ordinary time beginning the day after Pentecost. |
Michal Hunt Copyright © On the Feast of Divine Mercy, 2008
Footnotes:
1. New Jerusalem Bible. See
the same command repeated in Exodus 34:18-24, 2 Chronicles 8:13, and
Deuteronomy 16:16
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2. The seven annual feasts
were: Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Pentecost, Feast of Trumpets,
Feast of Atonement, and Feast of Shelters (Tabernacles).
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3. It has been estimated that
in the 1st century AD, the population of Jerusalem would swell to
hold from 2 to 3 million worshippers. Flavius Josephus recorded three million
attendees at the Feast of Passover/Unleavened Bread in AD 65 (The Wars of
the Jews 2.14.3 [280]) and that the number of lambs and kids slain during
the feast of Passover a year later was 256,500, with one lamb for every 10 to
20 people: So these high priests, upon the coming of their feast which is
called the Passover, when they slay their sacrifices, from the ninth hour till
the eleventh, but so that a company not less than ten belong to every sacrifice
(for it is not lawful for them to feast singly by themselves), and many of us
are twenty in a company, found the number of sacrifices was two hundred and
fifty-six thousand, five hundred; which, upon the allowance of no more than ten
that feast together, amounts to two million seven hundred thousand and two
hundred persons that were pure and holy (The Wars of the Jews 6.83 [423-426]).
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4. The ancient Israelites and
the 1st century AD Jews, like most ancient peoples, did not have the
concept of a zero place-value, and therefore the first of any sequence was
counted as number 1. Therefore, it is written in Scripture that Jesus was in
the tomb for three days, from Friday to Sunday, rather than two days as we
would count; see Christianity and the Roman Empire, Ralph Novak, page 282.
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5. This sect of Judaism calls
itself the Karaim, which means "adherents to Mikra." Mikra is the Hebrew
word for the Bible. The Karaites rejected Rabbinic Judaism, an attempt to
reinvent the old covenant faith after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70,
when sacrifices could no longer be offered, and the rites of the Sinai Covenant
were no longer observed. Instead, the Karaites claim to be descendants of
Sadducees who formed the legitimate priesthood; they reject rabbinic law introduced
by the Pharisees and deny the authority of the Talmud (The Jewish Book of
Why, volume I, pages 37-39).
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6. The Feast of Firstfruits
was the only annual remembrance feast that required the exclusive blood
sacrifice of a single, unblemished male lamb. The Passover sacrifice required thousands
of yearling males from the flock, either a kid or a lamb: On the tenth day
of this month each man must take an animal from the flock for his family: one
animal for each household (Ex 12:3; also see Dt 16:2). The Feast of Unleavened
Bread required the blood sacrifice of two young bulls, a ram, seven yearling
lambs and a goat offered in sacrifice every day for seven days. The Feast of
Trumpets required a young bull, one ram, seven yearling lambs, and a goat. The
Feast of Atonement required the blood sacrifice of a young bull, two male
goats, seven yearling lambs, and a ram. The Feast of Shelters required the
blood sacrifice of seventy bulls over 8 days. For 7 days, two rams, fourteen
lambs, and a goat were offered daily; on the 8th day, a ram, seven
lambs, and a goat were offered in sacrifice. The only other class of blood
sacrifice that required (exclusively) an unblemished male lamb was the whole
burnt offering offered twice daily for the covenant community known as the Tamid.
For Scripture on blood sacrifice of the Tamid and the annual feasts, see
Ex 23:26-32; 29:38-42;
Lev 16:1-34; 23:3-44;
Num 28:1-39;
Dt 16:1-16.
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