The
Wave Sheaf Offering
Once we have kept God’s Passover, the Night to be Much Observed and the
first Holy Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, we anticipate the second Holy
Day – the day we refer to as the Last day of Unleavened Bread.
But there a few more special days in there too.
There are some days in the year that God had purposely mentioned and
marked in His Word – days that are special, but not Holy Days, per se. We might even think of them as “semi-holy
days.”
The Passover Day – Abib 14 – is one of these. It is included in the listing of the Feasts
of the LORD in Leviticus 23; but it is not set aside as a Holy Day. It is not a Sabbath of rest. New Moon days might also perhaps be other
examples of this. They are not specified
as Holy Days in the Holy Day chapter – Leviticus 23; but were observed by God’s
people in both the Old and New Testament eras.
In this article I would like to discuss two other “semi-holy days” – days
that are mentioned in Leviticus 23; but are not actual Holy Days. These two days are Wave Sheaf Offering Sunday
and the Sabbath Day that precedes it.
We tend to talk about the Wave Sheaf Offering only on those somewhat controversial
“odd years” when the Last Day of Unleavened Bread falls on the weekly
Sabbath. However, I feel that it is
important to at least make mention of it every year. It is very important that we do not forget
its significance. Why mark all of the
other verses of Leviticus 23 every year; but not the ones that deal with the
Wave Sheaf Offering?
Let me begin by asking some questions.
My first question is this: For the many professing Christians, what
special day often falls around the time of the Passover and the Feast of
Unleavened Bread?
Easter, of course.
My second question is this: Should God’s people keep Easter?
The correct answer is: No, of course not! We all know that Easter is a left-over from
paganism, and that it is one of Satan’s counterfeit holidays – this one
attempting to replace God’s true Passover.
Just as a reminder, here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on
Easter:
The modern
English term Easter is speculated to have developed from the Old English
word ēastre or ēostre or eoaster, which itself
developed prior to 899AD. The name refers
to Eostur-Monath, a month of the Germanic calendar attested by Bede {a well-known English Catholic monk who lived from 672 to
735AD} as named after the goddess
Ēostre of Anglo-Saxon paganism.
Bede notes that Eostur-Monath was the equivalent to the month of April,
and that feasts held in her honour during Ēostur-Monath had died out by
the time of his writing, replaced with the Christian custom of Easter.
This Christian custom of Easter has been adapted to memorialize the
resurrection of
The
Sabbath preceding Wave Sheaf Offering Sunday
This brings me to my third question:
Should God’s people mark the day of
The answer to this question is not as obvious or as definite as the
first two.
In his teachings against the observance of Easter, Herbert W. Armstrong sometimes
said that God commands us to mark the death
of Jesus – not his resurrection. He said this in accordance with this
scripture:
For
as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s
death till He comes. (I Corinthians 11:26)
Although I hesitate to disagree with Mr. Armstrong, whose memory I
greatly respect and most of whose teachings I concur with, I believe that this
may not be one hundred percent totally accurate.
Yes, of course, the death of Jesus is
very important and certainly should
be marked each year on Passover night.
And we do.
But is His resurrection any less important and worthy of annual
note? God answers this question through
the apostle Paul:
For
if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by
His life. (Romans 5:10)
For this reason, the Sabbath that falls within the Feast of Unleavened
Bread is important and worthy of note.
Why is it important to mark this day?
Firstly, because it is specifically mentioned by God in the Feast
chapter – Leviticus 23. And secondly,
because it was the very day that
And
about the ninth hour
He was laid in the tomb of Joseph Arimathea sometime later – but definitely
shortly before sunset:
Now
behold, there was a man named
That Preparation Day was the daytime portion of Abib 14 and the “Sabbath”
mentioned here was the annual Sabbath of the First Day of Unleavened Bread –
Abib 15. Here is John’s parallel
account:
After
this,
We know that Jesus’ body lay in the tomb for three days and three nights
– seventy-two hours (compare Matthew 12:38-40 with Jonah 1:17). So, if He was laid in the tomb shortly before
sunset on the Wednesday afternoon of Abib 14, then He must have come out of the
tomb on the following Sabbath afternoon – Abib 17 – shortly before sunset.
This is why it is important for us to mark the Sabbath Day which falls
within the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Again, we are not told to mark it as an annual Holy Day; just to note it,
observe it and perhaps to ponder about what happened on this day.
Wave
Sheaf Offering Day
The following day – Wave Sheaf Offering Sunday – is also a special day
though again, not a Holy Day. No, not
because it happens to coincide with Easter Sunday on some years. Of course not!
One of the reasons it is special is because God marked it as such in His
Holy Day chapter – Leviticus 23. Let us
go there!
Each year, the day following the weekly Sabbath which falls within the
Feast of Unleavened Bread is a very special day.
Prior to the New King James Version’s Wave Sheaf Offering section in
Leviticus 23:9-14, the Nelson publishers’ have added an unscriptural sub-heading:
“The Feast of Firstfruits.” But again,
the Wave Sheaf Offering day is not really one of God’s Holy Days per se. It is not – and never was – a true “Feast”
Day and so is wrongly termed by the Nelson publishers.
Although some special sacrifices and offerings were commanded for the
Wave Sheaf Offering day, there is no command for a holy convocation, as there
were for the seven major Holy Days:
And
the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of
The
Timing
When was this sheaf-waving to take place? Continuing in verse 11:
… on
the day {Hebrew “mochorath” – the King James Version renders
the word as “morrow”} after the Sabbath
the priest shall wave it. And you shall
offer on that day, when you wave the sheaf, a male lamb of the first year,
without blemish, as a burnt offering to the LORD. Its grain offering shall be two-tenths of an
ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the LORD, for a
sweet aroma; and its drink offering shall be of wine, one-fourth of a hin. You shall eat neither bread nor parched grain
nor fresh grain until the same day that you have brought an offering to your
God; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your
dwellings…. (Verses 11-14)
Some scholars believe that the Israelites may have performed two
wavings:
The first one shortly after the sunset that ended the weekly Sabbath and which
began “the morrow after the Sabbath” at which time the “raw” un-threshed
wave-sheaf was initially cut from the crop.
This would be on the Saturday evening, just after sunset.
The second one during the day-time portion of “the morrow after the Sabbath” – i.e.
on Wave Sheaf Sunday – after the sheaf had been threshed and winnowed into an
omer-sized bowl of grain.
Continuing in verse 15 of Leviticus 23, God tells us how to count from
the Wave Sheaf day to the Feast of Shavuot – the Feast of Weeks – the Feast of
“Count-Fifty” – the Feast of Pentecost:
And
you shall count for yourselves from the day {morrow} 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 {morrow}
after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the
LORD. (Leviticus 23:15-16)
Many Jews claim that the first “Sabbath” mentioned in verse 15 is not the weekly Sabbath, but rather, is the annual Sabbath of the First Day of Unleavened Bread.
If we were to do as these Jews tell us, and we were to count fifty days
from the day after the First day of Unleavened Bread – i.e. Abib 16 – then
Pentecost would always fall on the same date of the sacred calendar every year
– i.e. Sivan 6. And that is when most
Jews erroneously keep it. Here is an
excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Shavuot:
Shavuot (or Shavuos – literally "weeks") is a Jewish holiday
that occurs on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan (late May or early
June). Shavuot commemorates the
anniversary of the day God gave the Torah to Moses and the Israelites at Mount
Sinai. It is one of the Shalosh
Regalim, the three biblical pilgrimage festivals. It marks the conclusion of the counting of the omer.
But why even bother “counting the omer”? Why count from the Wave Sheaf Offering day at all if God wants Pentecost to be kept
on Sivan 6 every year? Why would God
set Shavuot/Pentecost on a specific day of a specific month, just like the
other six holy days; but, unlike them, make us count to it? And for no apparent reason? If God really wanted us to keep Pentecost on
a fixed day of a fixed month, why didn’t He just say (as He did with the other
Holy Days): “On the sixth day of the third month (Sivan), you shall offer a new grain offering to the LORD”?
But He didn’t! He commanded us to
count!
Without taking the time and space to go into all the fine detail
disproving the mainstream Jews’ view, it just does not make grammatical or
mathematical sense – neither in Hebrew nor in English – when compared with the “counting
scriptures” in Leviticus 23. For
example, I challenge you to reconcile a Sivan 6 Pentecost with the necessary fifty
days and seven weekly Sabbaths following
a First Day of Unleavened Bread that falls on, say, a Tuesday.
The Sabbath mentioned in Leviticus 23:11 and 15 must be a weekly Sabbath! It is the only logical explanation as to why God wants us to count fifty!
For the calculation of the Feast of Pentecost, the LORD is making a change
from that for the other Holy Days. He is
changing it from just picking a specific day of a specific month – as He
does with all the other Holy Days… to counting from a specific day of
the week – counting fifty days (inclusive) from the morrow (Sunday) after a
specific weekly Sabbath.
So which weekly Sabbath is it?
Although God does not tell us specifically, we must use our “little grey
cells” in addition to the Holy Spirit He has given us to reason and work it out
logically from the placement of the command – i.e. after the instructions
regarding the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Hence, the weekly Sabbath in question is the one that falls within the seven-day Feast of Unleavened
Bread.
But another question arises. Is
the weekly Sabbath the correct “anchor day” that must fall within the Feast of
Unleavened Bread? Or is it, as many of
the Church of God groups claim – “the morrow after the Sabbath” – the Sunday – that
must fall within the Feast of Unleavened Bread?
Again, we must use our “little grey cells”!
If these groups are correct, then why didn’t God just specify the count
to start on “the first day of the week” rather than on “the morrow after the
Sabbath”? Why did He even mention “the
Sabbath” at all? The very mention of the
Sabbath makes it plain that the weekly Sabbath is the anchor day.
Please don’t misunderstand. I’m
not saying that the count must be started from the weekly Sabbath rather than from
the Sunday. What I am saying is that it
is the Sabbath that must fall within the Feast of Unleavened Bread – not the morrow
– not the Sunday.
In most years both will fall within the Feast of Unleavened Bread; but
very occasionally, the Sabbath will fall within the Feast of Unleavened Bread
and the morrow – the Sunday – will not.
Verse 16 makes it even clearer:
Count
fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new
grain offering to the LORD. (Leviticus
23:16)
God gives us two ways of counting to Pentecost. The first is to count fifty days. The second is to count seven weekly Sabbaths.
It may also be significant that, in Leviticus 23, the only days that are
given the Hebrew term “shabbath” (Strong’s 7676) are the weekly Sabbath and the
Day of Atonement. Three other Holy Days
are given the term “shabbathown” (Strong’s 7677): e.g. The Feast of Trumpets
(verse 24), the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day (verse 39).
Why is the Wave Sheaf Offering Day so important?
So, if the Sabbath within the Feast of Unleavened Bread is important
because it is the day of Christ’s resurrection, why is “the morrow” – the Wave
Sheaf offering day – important for us to mark, note, ponder and remember?
The answer is because the morrow – the Sunday – was the important day
that Jesus returned to His Father’s throne in heaven and presented His “blood
offering” to his Father. In this, the
Wave Sheaf Offering Day is inextricably coupled with the Day of Atonement:
But
into the second part {the physical Most
Holy Place} the high priest went alone
once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the
people’s sins committed in ignorance… but Christ came as High Priest of the
good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with
hands, that is, not of this creation.
Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood {that was shed on Passover Day} He entered the Most Holy Place {the “true” one in heaven} once for all, having obtained eternal redemption… For
Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the
true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not
that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy
Place every year with blood of another.
(Hebrews 9:7, 11-12, 24-25)
It was on the Day of Atonement each year that the Aaronite high priest
went through the second veil and into the Most Holy Place of the physical
temple to present a blood offering. But
it was on the Wave Sheaf Offering Day of the year of His crucifixion and
resurrection that Jesus – the High Priest of the Melchizedek priesthood – went
into the true Most Holy Place in
heaven and presented His blood
offering to His Father.
We do not have any details of that special visit. We know that He certainly did make the trip,
by comparing two events of that Wave Sheaf Offering Sunday – one earlier in the
day and one later:
Jesus
said to her, "Mary!" She
turned and said to Him, "Rabboni!" (which is to say, Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to me (KJV: Touch me
not) for I have not yet ascended
to my Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my
Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.’" (John 20:16-17)
Please notice this last phrase in which Jesus told Mary to go to His
brethren (likely both His physical brothers and His disciples) and to tell them
that He was ascending to his Father – probably implying that He was going to heaven
right away – as soon as He had finished talking with Mary.
Late that afternoon, He met and dined with two of the disciples on the
road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). Then, as
that first day of the week – that Wave Sheaf Offering Day – was drawing to its
close (John
Now
as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said
to them, "Peace to you." But
they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit. And He said to them, "Why are you
troubled? And why do doubts arise in
your hearts? Behold My hands and My
feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not
have flesh and bones as you see I have."
When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. (Luke
24:36-40)
We know for sure that Jesus must
have returned to his Father by this time.
Why? Because He told Mary earlier
in the day not to touch Him – because He had not yet ascended to the Father. He then told her that He would ascend to His
Father. Then He allowed – nay commanded
– His frightened disciples to “handle” Him.
Did you ever wonder what Jesus said to his Father when He arrived in
heaven on that momentous occasion? We
don’t know. But perhaps He may have
repeated one of these phrases:
It is
finished. (John 19:30)
I
have glorified you on the earth. I have
finished the work which you have given me to do. (John 17:4)
In conclusion then, we can be confident that the Wave Sheaf Offering Day
and the Sabbath Day that precedes it are not irrelevant afterthoughts to the
Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread season.
Rather, they are highly significant, symbolic and very special days.
John Plunkett
The
March 26, 2016