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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Leviticus 23:11

Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Leviticus 23:11

And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.

11. The ritual here set forth has no parallel elsewhere in the Pentateuch. Deu 26:2 prescribes that ‘the first of all the fruit of the ground’ shall be offered, but gives no direction as to any particular day. In Deu 16:9-10 the nature of the offering is left undetermined, and the date is seven weeks ‘from the time thou beginnest to put the sickle to the standing corn.’

shall wave ] See Appendix IV, pp. 183 ff.

the morrow after the sabbath ] For this vague expression see introd. note to ch. Driver ( LO T. 9 p. 55 note) says that it is understood traditionally of the 1st day of Maoth (unleavened bread); but this is an unusual sense of ‘sabbath.’ He considers it probable that in its original connexion the ‘sabbath’ meant here was the ordinary weekly sabbath which fell during the seven days of Maoth.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Verse 11. He shalt wave the sheaf] He shall move it to and fro before the people, and thereby call their attention to the work of Divine Providence, and excite their gratitude to God for preserving to them the kindly fruits of the earth. See Clarke on Ex 29:27, and Le 7:38 at end.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

To be accepted for you; that God may accept of you, and bless you in the rest of your harvest.

On the morrow after the sabbath, i.e. after the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, which was a sabbath, or day of rest, as appears from Lev 23:7, or upon the sixteenth day of the month. And this was the first of those fifty days, in the close whereof was the feast of pentecost, or Whitsuntide.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord,…. Or the omer of barley; this was done by the priest in the tabernacle and temple, where was the presence of God, and that before the handful of it was put upon the altar; which agitation or waving was, as Gersom says, towards the cast; it was moved to and fro, backwards and forwards, upwards and downwards, to make an acknowledgment to the Lord of heaven and earth, that the fruits of the earth and the plentiful harvest were of him, and to give him the praise and glory of it:

to be accepted for you; of the Lord, as a thanksgiving to him, for the harvest now ripe, and the appointed time of it, and the plenty thereof; and that the remainder might be sanctified and blessed to them, and they have leave to gather it in, which they had not till this was done:

on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it; not after the seventh day, but after the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, which was a sabbath, in which no servile work was to be done, Le 23:7; and so the Targum of Jonathan calls it the day after the first good day of the passover, which was the sixteenth of Nisan, as Josephus expressly says, in the place above referred to; and so it is generally understood by Jewish writers m the account given of this affair is this; the messengers of the sanhedrim went out (from Jerusalem over the brook Kidron to the fields near it) on the evening of the feast, (i.e. at the going out of the fifteenth) and at the beginning of the sixteenth of Nisan, and bound the standing corn in bundles, that so it might be the more easily reaped; and all the neighbouring cities gathered together there, that it might be reaped in great pomp; and when it was dark, one said to them, is the sun set? they said, yes. With this sickle (shall I reap?) they said, yes. In this basket (shall I put it?) they said, yes. If on a sabbath day, he said to them, On this sabbath day (shall I do it?) they said, yes n. These questions were put and answered three times; then they reaped it and put it into the baskets, and brought it to the court, where they parched it before the fire, to fulfil the commandment of parched corn; then they put it in mills for grinding beans, and took out of it a tenth part (of an ephah), which was sifted with eighteen sieves; then oil and frankincense were poured upon it, being mixed; and it was waved, and brought, and a handful taken and burnt, and the rest was eaten by the priests; and when they had offered the omer, they went out and found the streets of Jerusalem full of meal and parched corn o, there being now full liberty to reap what they would: now this sheaf of the firstfruits was typical of Christ; it being of barley, may denote the mean estate of Christ in his humiliation; and but one sheaf for all the people, may signify that Christ is the one Mediator, Saviour, and Redeemer: yet as a sheaf comprehends many stalks and grains, so Christ has a complication of blessings in him; yea, he had all his people representatively in him, when he was offered for the whole body of his mystical Israel, all the children of God scattered abroad; the manner of reaping it, by persons deputed by the sanhedrim on the eve of a festival of the passover, in the sight of much people, without Jerusalem, near Kidron, exactly agrees with the apprehending of Christ in the night near Kidron, by persons sent from the Jewish sanhedrim, and his suffering publicly without the gates of Jerusalem; it being brought to the priests in the court, and threshed, winnowed, dried, and parched by the fire, and ground in mills, may denote the various dolorous sufferings of Christ, by means of the priests and elders of the people; and oil and frankincense being put on it, may denote the acceptableness of his sacrifice to God; and the waving of it, his resurrection from the dead, which was on the very day this sheaf was waved; who is the firstfruits of them that sleep in him, and which sanctifies the whole body of them, and ensures their resurrection unto eternal life; see 1Co 15:20.

m Jarchi & Ben Gersom in loc. Jarchi in Misn. Succah, c. 3. sect. 12. n Misn. Menachot, c. 10. sect. 3, 4. o Ib. sect. 4, 5.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(11) And he shall wave the sheaf.Better, and he shall wave the omer. The priest mixed with the omer of meal a log of oil, put on a handful of frankincense (see Lev. 2:15), as on other meat-offerings, waved it, took a handful of it and caused it to ascend in smoke (see Lev. 2:16), and then consumed the residue in company with his fellow-priests. Immediately after this ceremony, bread, parched corn, green ears, &c, of the new crop were exposed for sale in the streets of Jerusalem, as, prior to the offering of the omer, no use whatever was allowed to be made of the new corn.

On the morrow after the sabbath.The interpretation of this phrase also constituted one of the differences between the Pharisees and the Sadducees during the second Temple. According to the Pharisees, the term sabbath here, as elsewhere (see Lev. 23:24; Lev. 23:32; Lev. 23:39), is not the weekly sabbath, but the next day, or the first day of the holy convocation, the first day of Passover, on which the Israelites had to abstain from all unnecessary work. It is the 16th of Nisan. The Sadducees, however, maintained that it is to be understood in its literal sense as denoting the weekly sab-bath in the Passover week, which might happen to fall within the seven days, and possibly the fifth or sixth day of the festival. But this is against the import of Lev. 23:15. Here the feast of Pentecost is to be reckoned from this sabbath, and if this sabbath might either be on the second or sixth day of the Passover, not only would the feast of Pentecost have no definite day, but the Passover itself would, in the course of time, be displaced from the fundamental position which it occupies in the order of the annual festivals. Hence the Pharisees, rightly regarding the word sabbath here as an alternative term for the day of holy convocation, took the morrow after the sabbath to denote Nisan 16. On the afternoon of this day, therefore, the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns of Jerusalem assembled together so that the reaping might take place amidst great tumult. As soon as it became dark, each of the reapers asked, Has the sun gone down? To which the people replied, Yes. They asked twice again, Has the sun gone down? to which the people each time replied, Yes. Each reaper then asked three times, Is this the scythe? to which the people each time replied Yes. Is this the box? they next asked three times. Yes, was again thrice the reply of the people. Is this the Sabbath? the reaper asked three times; and three times the people replied, Yes. Shall I cut? he asked three times; and three times the people replied, Yes. When cut it was laid in boxes, brought into the court of the Temple, threshed with canes and sticks, that the grains might not be crushed, and laid in a roast with holes, so that the fire might touch each grain. Thereupon it was spread in the court of the sanctuary for the wind to pass over it, and ground in a barley mill which left the hulls unground. The flour thus obtained was sifted through thirteen different sieves, each one finer than its predecessor. In this manner was the prescribed omer or tenth part got from the seah.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

11. The morrow after the sabbath After the first day of holy convocation. Hence the waving of the sheaf, according to Josephus, was on the sixteenth of Nisan.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Lev 23:11. On the morrow after the sabbath By the sabbath here, is to be understood, not the weekly sabbath, but the first day of unleavened bread, spoken of Lev 23:7 which is called the sabbath, or rest, because it was a festival, whereon they were to rest from all servile labour, as was usual on their weekly sabbath: and this is common, says Strabo, both to Greeks and Barbarians; to keep their holidays with a festival remission of their labours.

The Hebrew, says Dr. Beaumont, is morrow of the sabbath; meaning not the ordinary sabbath, but the sabbath of the passover, which was always the 15th of Nisan, or March, the first day of unleavened bread, called the feast, Num 28:17 on which days were sabbatisms; (Lev 23:24; Lev 23:32; Lev 23:39.) so the morrow after was always the 16th of Nisan.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Lev 23:11 And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.

Ver. 11. And he shall wave the sheaf. ] This signified that they and theirs were accepted of God through Christ.

On the morrow after the Sabbath. ] Here the Lord’s day was prefigured, saith one, therefore prescribed, and instituted of God. This shake day sheaf was a pregnant type of Christ’s rising again, the firstfruits from the dead. It was fulfilled in Christ’s resurrection, the day after the Sabbath. And because this Sabbath was chiefly meant of the Passover (which was a high Sabbath) it was a double Sabbath wherein Christ rested in the grave. The very next morning was Christ waved before the Lord, when, in the earthquake, he rose from the dead “the firstfruits of them that sleep,” and there hence entered the everlasting gates as a King of glory, Psa 24:7 which psalm is in the Greek called A psalm of David of the first day of the week.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

wave. See note on Exo 29:27.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Lev 9:21, Lev 10:14, Exo 29:24

Reciprocal: Exo 28:38 – accepted Lev 23:15 – General Num 6:20 – the priest shall Luk 6:1 – the second

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Lev 23:11. He shall wave the sheaf Or omer, rather. In the name of the whole congregation, it was lifted up toward heaven, as an acknowledgment to God for his goodness, and with prayer for his blessing upon all their ensuing harvest, which it, as it were, sanctified to them, and of which it gave them a comfortable use. For then we may eat our bread with joy, when God hath accepted our works. And thus should we always begin with God; begin our lives with him, begin every day with him, begin every work and business with him: Seek ye first the kingdom of God Reader, dost thou do this? The morrow after the sabbath After the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, which was a sabbath, or day of rest, as appears from Lev 23:7; or upon the sixteenth day of the month. And this was the first of those fifty days, in the close whereof was the feast of pentecost.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

23:11 And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the {d} sabbath the priest shall wave it.

(d) That is, the second sabbath of the Passover.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes