Leviticus 23:15

And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) Ye shall count . . . from the morrow after the sabbath.—That is, from the day following the first day of holy convocation, which was a rest day. As this was the fifteenth of Nisan, the counting began from the sixteenth (see Leviticus 23:11), the day on which the omer of the first-fruits was presented to the Lord.

Seven sabbaths shall be complete.—Better, seven weeks shall be complete. That is, seven entire weeks, making forty-nine days. The expression sabbath denotes here a week, hence the parallel passage substitutes the word week, viz., “seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee” (Deuteronomy 16:9), The same usage is to be found in the New Testament. Thus the passage rendered in the Authorised version, “the first day of the week,” is “the first day of the sabbath” (Matthew 28:1); and “I fast twice in the week” (Luke 18:12), is, “I fast twice in the sabbath.” In accordance with the injunction here given, the Jews to the present day begin to count the forty-nine days at the conclusion of the evening service on the second day of Passover, and pronounce the following blessing every evening of the forty-nine days: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast sanctified us with thy commandments, and hast enjoined us to count the omer. This is the first day of the omer. May it please thee, O Lord our God, and the God of our fathers, to rebuild the sanctuary speedily in our days, and give us our portion in thy Law.

Benson Commentary

Leviticus 23:15-16. From the morrow — From the sixteenth day of the month, and the second day of the feast of unleavened bread, inclusively; seven sabbaths shall be complete — Namely, forty-nine days; unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath — Which made just fifty days; whence this feast, from a Greek word, πεντηκοστη, pentecoste, which signifies the fifteenth day, was called pentecost. Ye shall offer a new meat (or flower) offering — Another first-fruit-offering, made of wheat, which was then ripe.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:15-22 The feast of Weeks was held in remembrance of the giving of the law, fifty days after the departure from Egypt; and looked forward to the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, fifty days after Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. On that day the apostles presented the first-fruits of the Christian church to God. To the institution of the feast of Pentecost, is added a repetition of that law, by which they were required to leave the gleanings of their fields. Those who are truly sensible of the mercy they received from God, will show mercy to the poor without grudging.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The morrow after the sabbath - See Leviticus 23:11 note.

Seven sabbaths - More properly, seven weeks (compare Deuteronomy 16:9). The word Sabbath, in the language of the New Testament as well as the Old, is used for "week" (Leviticus 25:8; Matthew 28:1; Luke 18:12, etc.).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Le 23:15-22. Feast of Pentecost.

15. 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.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

From the morrow after the sabbath, i.e. from the sixteenth day of the month, and the second day of the feast of unleavened bread inclusively. See on Leviticus 23:11.

Seven sabbaths, i.e. weeks, which are so called, by a synecdoche, from the chief day of it, both here and Luke 18:12 Acts 20:7 1 Corinthians 16:2.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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, Leviticus 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.

Geneva Study Bible

And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the {g} sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:

(g) That is, the seventh day after the first sabbath of the Passover.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. the morrow after the sabbath] See on Leviticus 23:11.

15–22. The Feast of Weeks (mainly H). Cp. Exodus 34:22; Deuteronomy 16:10.

The name is taken from the seven weeks, which, as the average duration of harvest time, separated this feast from that of unleavened bread.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 15-21. - The Feast of Pentecost lasted but one day. From the morrow after the sabbath - that is, from the second day of Unleavened Bread - the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths, i.e., weeks, were to be counted, making forty-nine days, and on the day following the completion of the seventh sabbath (meaning here the seventh week), the festival was to be held, whence its later name of Pentecost, or Fiftieth-day Feast. It would have fallen about the beginning of June - a season of the year which would have made the journey to Jerusalem easy. The characteristic offering of the day was that of two wave loaves of two tenth deals... of fine flour... baken with leaven. These loaves were regarded as the firstfruits unto the Lord of the wheat harvest, although the greater part of the crop had now been reaped and housed. They were to be leavened and brought out of your habitations; that is, they were to consist of such bread as was ordinarily used in daily life. They were made out of ears of wheat selected and cut like the barley in the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and then threshed and ground in the temple court. Each loaf contained an omer of flour, amounting to about five pints, and would therefore have weighed about five pounds. With these were offered two lambs, which were waved before the Lord by being led backwards and forwards before the tabernacle or the temple, and then the loaves were waved also, but they were not placed upon the altar, as they were leavened. The twentieth verse, which is somewhat obscure in the Authorized Version, should be punctuated as follows. And the priest shall wave them (the two lambs) with the bread of the firstfruits (the two loaves) for a wave offering before the Lord; with the two lambs they (the loaves) shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. The other sacrifices to be offered on this day are described in the text as seven lambs,... one young bullock, and two rams... for a burnt offering unto the Lord, with their meat offering, and their drink offerings,... and one kid of the goats for a sin offering. In the Book of Numbers (Numbers 28:27) they are stated to be "seven lambs," "two young bullocks," "one ram," with meat and drink offerings, and "one kid of the goats." Seeing that in Leviticus one young bullock and two rams are commanded, and in Numbers "two young bullocks and one ram," it is reasonable to suppose that a copyist's error has found its way into one or the other text. The feast was to be kept as a day of holy convocation, and no servile work was to be done upon it. The number of sacrifices offered by individuals who had come to Jerusalem caused the festivity to be in practice continued for several days subsequent to the festival itself. Leviticus 23:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The law for the special observance of the feast of Harvest (Exodus 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 (Numbers 28:26) or feast of Weeks (Exodus 34:22; Deuteronomy 16:10) was to be celebrated. From this reckoning the feast received the name of Pentecost (ἡ πεντηκοστή, Acts 2:1). That שׁבּתות (Leviticus 23:15) signifies weeks, like שׁבעות in Deuteronomy 16:9, and τὰ σάββατα in the Gospels (e.g., Matthew 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" (Leviticus 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 (Leviticus 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 (Exodus 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 (Leviticus 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.