May 8th, 2007 by Greg England
So far we’ve looked at Sabbath, the foundation of resting in all that God has done … Passover, the grand feast of the Jews … and First Fruits, the conclusion to Passover. Today and tomorrow we consider Pentecost.
This feast is also known as the feast of weeks … feast of the harvest … and the feast of the 50th day. The law specifically stated: You shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks for Jehovah your God…. Rejoice before Jehovah your God…. Everybody shall rejoice: Your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your town, the strangers, orphans, and widows living among you (cf. De.16:9-12).
Even those who had very little were to celebrate Pentecost. It was the conclusion of First Fruits, which celebrated the harvest, whereas pentecost celebrated the food from the harvest. They would take two loaves of bread and wave them before God in a wave offering to say, "The harvest you gave us is now the bread we eat. Every meal we eat this winter will be an expression of praise to you, Yahweh."
At the heart of Pentecost was a unique offering, unlike any other offering. They would take flour and sift it twelve times into very fine flour, symbolic of the perfect life of Messiah to come, though at the time the Jews were not fully aware of this symbolism.
The flour was then mixed with olive oil, symbolic throughout biblical history as the Holy Spirit. The anointings of the priests with oil were symbolic of the Spirit of God coming over the person being anointed. The uniqueness of this feast was that on this day, and this day only, leaven was mixed into the offering. In stark contrast to the oil being symbolic of the Holy Spirit, leaven was symbolic of sin and corruption and specifically the sinfulness of man.
The result would be two raised loaves of bread. Oil was poured over the loaves and they were lifted in a wave offering to the Lord. This was all done about 9am (the third hour) on the feast of Pentecost and symbolized to the Jews that time when the perfect life of Messiah would be mixed with the imperfect lives of men and women. When divinity would become one with humanity.
Pentecost was also a celebration within a celebration, remembering the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. So each year Penetcost was the reminder of the old law as well as anticipation of the new, which would be ushered in by Messiah.
To be continued . . .
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Greg England
“So each year Penetcost was the reminder of the old law as well as anticipation of the new, which would be ushered in by Messiah.”
This makes the reading of Acts 1 and 2 so much more meaningful when you filter them through the above statement. Thanks for the perspective Bro.
“The harvest you gave us is now the bread we eat. Every meal we eat this winter will be an expression of praise to you, Yehweh.”
Sounds like a fitting way to give thanks for what we eat.
Thanks, Greg and Cecil and Randy for the thoughts on these things. I’m only sorry, Greg, that you’re not getting a lot more comments on this post and in this series because it is so excellent and educational. (Maybe the educational part is the part that’s throwing people off!
I, for one, am learning a whole lot I didn’t know before and am getting a whole lot out of it all, too.
Thanks! Dee
Good post. Pentecost is coming up in a little over 2 weeks…
Morning.
have been reading , and am leaning.
just not saying much these days!
I thank you for doing this, Greg!
[...] I’ll make use of them.If you want to get in the Pentecost mood, why don’t you take a look at Greg’s posts from a while back. He had some good things to say about the Jewish holidays. Till then, Merry [...]