Leviticus 23:15-32

"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: 16 Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD. 17 Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the LORD. 18 And ye shall offer with the bread seven 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 savour unto the LORD. 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. 20 And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave offering before the LORD, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the LORD for the priest. 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: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations. 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, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the LORD your God. 23 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 24 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation. 25 Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD. 26 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 27 Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD. 28 And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God. 29 For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people. 30 And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people. 31 Ye shall do no manner of work: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. 32 It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath." —  Leviticus 23:15-32 KJV.

THE FEAST OF PENTECOST, 15-21.

15. From the morrow after the sabbath — There are two explanations of this sabbath. “The small minority” of writers, among whom Professor Murphy ranks himself, believe that the sabbath of the decalogue is intended, The majority, with whom we concur, understand it to be the day of holy convocation, the fifteenth of Nisan, irrespective of the day of the week on which it fell. Hence the morrow was the sixteenth. For this opinion we have the testimony of Josephus, (Antiquities, 3:10, 5,) and the fact that the passover was on a fixed day of the month in which the sabbath of the decalogue is movable. If the morrow after the sabbath was the sixteenth, and the day of holy convocation was on the fifteenth, as we infer from verses 6 and 7, the identity of these days is inevitable. Professor Murphy assumes without proof that the first day of verse 7 is different from the fifteenth of verse 6. That other days than the seventh are called sabbaths is proved by verse 32, and Leviticus 16:31, where the day of atonement is so styled. For additional arguments see Concluding Note, (2.) The Seventy, Josephus, Philo, and the Talmud, understand that the first passover day is called a sabbath, and that it is identical with the morrow after the passover in Joshua 5:11. See note. Seven sabbaths shall be complete — The Syriac version has seven weeks, in which the Seventy, Gesenius, Furst, and Kiel concur. The New Testament continues this translation in the Greek, in Matthew 28:1, and Mark 16:2.

 16. Morrow after the seventh sabbath — This is the morrow after the seventh week. Hence the feast beginning with this day was called the feast of weeks, until the use of the version of the Seventy had familiarized the Jews with the word πεντηκοστή, pentecost, fiftieth. It is called pentecost first in the Apocrypha, (Tobit 2:1,) and always in the New Testament. It is to be noticed that it was just fifty days after the exode that the law was given on Sinai. The Scriptures nowhere say that this feast is in commemoration of that important event. For the opinions of Jewish and Christian writers. see note on Acts 2:1. A new meat offering — This is mentioned before the burnt offering, to give prominence to the agricultural reference of this festival, significantly called “the firstfruits of the wheat-harvest.” Exodus 34:22.

17. Ye shall bring out… two wave loaves — The words out of your habitations do not imply that the offering is individual. Two wave loaves were required of the whole nation, and not of each family. The size of these loaves may be inferred from the fact that they consisted of six quarts of flour, and were leavened. Three ordinary loaves were required for a meal for one person. Luke 11:5. For the manner and significance of waving, see note on Leviticus 7:30. Fine flour — See note on Leviticus 2:1. With leaven — Leaven was prohibited only in fire offerings, (Leviticus 2:11,) and in the bread to be eaten during the passover week. Exodus 12:15. It was required in the peace offering. See note on Leviticus 7:13. Hence Amos, in his mention of leaven, does not ironically reproach the character of the sacrifices, but the senseless idols to which they were offered. Amos 4:5.

18. Seven lambs — For the significance of this number, see note on Leviticus 4:6. The ten victims for a burnt offering required in this feast is the maximum number in the great festivals, at the new moons, the great day of atonement, and the feast of trumpets. For the whole number annually slain for public offerings, see Concluding Note on chap. 1.

19. Kid of the goats — A better rendering is, a shaggy he-goat. The same word describes Esau as hairy, Genesis 27:11; the king of Grecia as a rough goat, Daniel 8:21; and is translated satyr in Isaiah 13:21, and devil in Leviticus 17:7. Its usual rendering in this book is goat. Sin offering — See notes on chaps. 4 and 5. Peace offerings — See notes on chaps. 3, and Leviticus 7:11-21.

20. The priest shall wave them — Only the peace offering was waved, the sin offering for the people was burned without the camp. Leviticus 4:21. “The passover represents death; the wave-sheaf and the wave-loaves symbolize life. The Messiah is Priest, King, and Prophet. As Priest, he is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. As King, he is the wave-sheaf, ‘the firstfruits from the dead.’ This has peculiar force when we remember that he rose on the first day of the week, and the very day of the wave-sheaf being offered. As Prophet, when the day of pentecost was fully come, he sent the promise of the Father, the Spirit of truth and of utterance upon the disciples, the full harvest of their waiting and praying, the bread of eternal life for their hungering souls. In this brief period of seven times seven days there is a typical epitome of the history of salvation.” — Murphy. Holy to the Lord — The offerings pronounced holy were the perquisites of the priests; those declared most holy must be eaten by them. See Concluding Note (1) on chap. 6.

THE LAW OF CHARITY, 22.

22. The corners of thy field — This provision for the poor was more ample than the Authorized Version shows. The borders of the field were to be left. How wide a border, was to be determined by the owner, thus affording scope for the exercise of his benevolent affections, or for the manifestation of avarice. In Deuteronomy 24:19, the overlooked sheaf is mercifully set apart for the needy gleaners. Thus the spirit of unselfish love, the very essence of Judaism and Christianity, was carefully enjoined upon the Israelites. The stranger — This term signifies about the same as our expression “naturalized foreigner,” inasmuch as it implies a certain political status in the country in which he resides. The civil rights of the stranger were not very accurately defined. That he was eligible to all civil offices except that of king we infer from Deuteronomy 17:15, on the principle that the prohibition of the greater is not a prohibition of the less. In Leviticus 25:23, Jehovah says to his people, “The land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.” This plainly implies that the stranger could not be a landowner. This fact will account for his poverty. The landless, as a class, must ever be on the borders of starvation. The origin of these “aliens to the covenant” is evident. They were the remnant of the Canaanites, “the mixed multitude” which accompanied Israel from Egypt, captives taken in war, political refugees, fugitive slaves, hired servants, and merchants. The census of them in Solomon’s time gave a return of one hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred males, about a tenth of the whole population. 2 Chronicles 2:17. They were required not to infringe any fundamental law of the State, such as relates to the sabbath, the hallowed Name, food during passover, marriage laws, worship of Moloch, and eating blood. They could offer sin offerings, and enjoy the blessings of the day of atonement. The enactments of the Mosaic law respecting resident aliens were conceived in a spirit of liberality which is not surpassed by any of the most enlightened Christian nations of modern times.

THE FEAST OF TRUMPETS, 23-25.

24. Seventh month — The beginning of this month must be signalized in order to accord with that symbolism of number which distinguishes the seventh day and the seventh year. Hence we have a sabbatical month as well as a sabbatical year. The seventh month closed the cycle of the annual festivals. It also contained the most important day of the year — the day of atonement — in which all the sins and uncleanness of the people were typically wiped away in the access of the high priest to the mercy-seat with the blood of atonement. This month also contained the feast of tabernacles, which commenced five days afterwards, affording an antepast of the blessedness of communion with Christ and his saints. The first day… a sabbath — This was a day of rest, a holy convocation, as also was the tenth. Neither was necessarily a decalogue sabbath, and one of them could not be, since they were ten days apart. A memorial of blowing of trumpets — Literally, a memorial of shouts of joy. According to Numbers 10:10, the straight trumpet was to be sounded in the day of gladness; but tradition says that the shophar, cornet, or crooked trumpet, was also used. See wood-cut Joshua 6:4. The latter produced a dull, far-reaching tone. There are various opinions respecting the significance of this trumpet-blast — as that it was designed to be an alarm-signal to call the people to prepare for the coming day of atonement, as we have intimation in Joel 2:15; or to emphasize the coming in of the sabbatical month; or to commemorate the giving of the law; or to re-echo the shout of the sons of God over the newborn world; or, as is the common opinion of Jews and Christians, to hail the beginning of the civil year, the feast of Tisri. In the year of jubilee it was the prelude to that glad sound which, on the day of atonement of the fiftieth year, announced the advent of “that great year of grace under the old covenant.” The rabbies fancied that on this new year’s day all men passed before God in judgment, as a flock of sheep pass, one by one, before their shepherd.

25. An offering — In addition to the daily sacrifices and the eleven victims which signalized every new moon, (Numbers 28:11-15,) ten other victims were offered — a repetition of the ordinary monthly offering, excepting one bullock. Numbers 29:1-6. Thus twenty-three animals were offered on this day.

DAY OF EXPIATIONS, 26-32.

27. A day of atonement — The Yom Kopher, as it is called by Jews to day, is fully described in chap. 16. It is mentioned here in order to make an exhaustive enumeration of the annual religious ceremonies and assemblies. There is added in verse 32 that the period during which they should afflict their souls, or fast, was twenty-four hours, from the evening of the ninth to the evening of the tenth day. The modern Jew, on the day of atonement, fasts from sunset to sunset.

29. He shall be cut off — He shall be destroyed. Impenitence is a capital offence. When persisted in beyond a certain point there is no expiation possible.

“There is a time, we know not when,
A point, we know not where,
That marks the destiny of men
For glory or despair.”