Pentecost
PENTECOST
The fiftieth, a feast celebrated the fiftieth day after the sixteenth of Nisan, which was the second day of the feast of the Passover, Lev 25:15-16 . The Hebrews call it the “feast of weeks,” Exo 34:22, because it was kept seen weeks after the Passover. They then offered the first fruits of their wheat harvest, which at that time was completed, Deu 16:9-10 . These first fruits consisted in two loaves of leavened bread, of five pints of meal each, Lev 23:17 . Besides this offering, there were special sacrifices prescribed for this festival, Num 28:26-31 .The feast of Pentecost was instituted, first, to oblige the Israelites to repair to the temple of the Lord, and there acknowledge his dominion over their country and their labors, by offering to him the first fruits of all their harvests. Secondly, to commemorate, and to render thanks to God for the law given from Mount Sinai, on the fiftieth day after their coming out of Egypt. It was on the day of Pentecost, that the Holy Spirit as first poured out upon the apostles and the Christian church, Mal 2:1-3 . On this occasion, as on the Passover seven weeks before, Judaism was at the same time honored and gloriously superseded by Christianity. The paschal lamb gave place to “Christ our Passover;” and the Jewish feast in memory of the giving of the law, to the gift of the Holy Spirit for “every nation under heaven,” Mal 2:5 . This gift was for the whole period of the gospel dispensation; and the mighty effects then produced foreshow the yet greater works the Spirit will perform in answer to prayer.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Pentecost
So far as canonical Scripture is concerned, it is only in the NT that we meet with this name, and that in three places-Act 2:1; Act 20:15, 1Co 16:8. We also find it in Tob 2:1 : in the feast of Pentecost, which is the holy feast of the seven weeks; and in 2Ma 12:31 f.: the feast of weeks being close at hand. But after the feast called Pentecost In the last two instances the explanatory language reminds us that the term was comparatively new and came into use among the Greek-speaking Jews. Among Christian writers, Tertullian (c._ a.d. 200) apparently is the first to use it as the name of a Christian festival (de Idol. 14). He simply took it over from the Greek as already used in the LXX_ and NT.
1. The name Pentecost ( ).-It is hardly necessary to add sc. or , as the word had already hardened into a proper name. It was so used by St. Paul in 1Co 16:8 ( ). It is therefore an unnecessary refinement to translate it in the NT, with R. F. Weymouth, the Harvest Festival (The NT in Modern Speech3, London, 1909, ad loc.), or, still more cumbrously, with The 20th Century NT2, London, 1904, the Festival at the close of the Harvest. Pentecost was the feast of the fiftieth day. It is a colourless name, and, unlike Passover or Unleavened Bread and Tabernacles or Booths, it reveals nothing as to the nature of the festival itself. This is the case also with the Hebrew name, feast of weeks (ag shbuth), generally given to this festival (Exo 34:22, Deu 16:10). It is true, the feast is also termed the feast of harvest (Exo 23:16), and, further, Exo 34:22 adds of the firstfruits of wheat harvest; whilst, again, Num 28:26 calls it the day of firstfruits. At a very much later date the Jews gave to this festival the name of ag haaereth or aarta (Aram.), a term which in earlier times was applied to the concluding festivities of Passover and Tabernacles (Lev 23:36, Num 29:35, etc.; in EVV_ a solemn assembly). Apparently it applied to Pentecost as the feast which marked the conclusion of the harvest. The Gr. (a transliteration) betrayed Josephus into the error of supposing that this term itself meant Pentecost (Ant. III. x. 6). But the far more common name was the Feast of Weeks, and later still, the Feast of Pentecost. Under the latter name it still denotes both the Jewish and the Christian festival.
2. Origin.-The name Pentecost takes its origin from the very ancient custom of carefully counting the days from the second day of the Feast of Math according to the specific injunction of Lev 23:15 f., where the fifty days also are expressly mentioned. Although there has been much dispute as to the exact meaning of the morrow after the sabbath, it is generally agreed to treat the 16th Nisan as the day when the wave-sheaf of early barley was offered and as the day when they began to count the omer. So Jos. Ant. III. x. 5: on the second day of unleavened bread, which is the sixteenth day of the month. The term omer = (a) sheaf, and (b) a measure of about 51/10 pints (dry), though the identity of the term in the two senses is uncertain. This, in turn, has given rise to the question whether counting the omer refers to the sheaf or the measure. In the time of the Second Temple, it would seem that the meal rather than the corn-sheaf was the offering. Josephus (Ant. III. x. 5) is explicit on this point. Yet Leviticus 23 seems equally clear in intending a sheaf.
Be that as it may, in the Dispersion of Israel both the sheaf and the measure have long since ceased to have any significance; but the counting of the omer goes on still from Passover to Pentecost to the very eve of the feast (This is the forty-ninth day, making seven weeks of the Omer), and secures the regular observance of the feast. Every evening at prayers in the synagogue the counting duly takes place, with the addition of the formula: Blessed art Thou, O Lord, King of the universe, who hast sanctified us by Thy commandments, and hast given us command concerning the counting of the Omer. The brief ceremony closes with Psalms 67 and a prayer that the temple may be speedily rebuilt in our days, and, with still the backward look, there we will serve Thee with awe, as in the days of old, and as in ancient years.
Thus is retained a relic of a long-past day. When the Jews were a people settled in their own land, an agricultural people, it was a comparatively simple matter to keep the festival as the procession of the seasons went on year by year. The Feast of Math marked the opening of harvest with the early barley crop; the Feast of Weeks marked its close with the ingathering of the wheat; the Feast of Booths crowned the cycle with the gathering of the vintage and the fruits of the land (Lev 23:39) in general. The climatic conditions of Palestine made those seasons timely and appropriate. The counting of the omer was a quaint expedient for enabling the farmers to appear at the central sanctuary at the appointed time for the Feast of Weeks. The primitive proclamation of new moon, which the authorities announced by messengers, who went through the land as soon as the faint sickle was seen in the sky, could not be relied upon in this instance. Those who dwelt in the borders of the little land would be belated. But all could count from the morrow after the sabbath from the second day of Math, when the ceremony of waving the omer (of barley) took place. And all could arrange to appear on the appointed day at the end of seven weeks. But all this has long since become antiquated. The counting of the omer is entirely useless. Still the feast is celebrated in the synagogue for one day or two, but all that links it to the festival of the Pentateuch is the counting of the omer (though no omer has been waved), and such dim recollections of a harvest festival in Palestine as can be secured by dressing the synagogue with flowers.
Because the tokens of the actual observance of this feast are few and far between, some have argued a late origin for it. But the argumentum e silentio is always risky. What is settled and customary may go on for generations without remark. The Law at any rate was very explicit: Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles (Deu 16:16). As an intermediary festival, however, and one lasting originally only for one day, there was an inevitable tendency to make the Feast of Weeks less conspicuous than the other two. Passover marked the beginning of harvest; Tabernacles celebrated the very crown and consummation of the year, when all the fruits of the earth had at length been gathered in; but Pentecost was a brief pause of joy and thankfulness for the close of harvest proper and the gathered store of bread that strengtheneth mans heart.
This is seen especially in the dearth of commemorative matter associated with Pentecost. In connexion with Passover, e.g., in the course of time there gathered a considerable number of historical associations, not only with the Exodus, but with all sorts of other great happenings in Jewish history, with or without foundation. Afterwards, however, and at a late date, Pentecost was supplied with one notable historical association, and it became the festival at which the giving of the Law on Sinai was commemorated. The special lessons of the synagogue for Pentecost are all designed to glorify the Law. Once the connexion was made, Talmudic authorities had, by the use of ingenious methods of calculation, no difficulty in proving that this indeed was the very time when this august event took place (Exodus 19, 20). This association persists after Pentecost becomes a Christian festival, and provokes the contrast which Keble makes the basis of his hymn for Whitsunday in the Christian Year (London, 1904, p. 120). But see also long before this Jerome (Ep. lxxviii., ad Fabiolam [PL xxii.]).
In the few instances wherein we have historical reference to the Feast of Pentecost there is one noticeable thing: stress is laid on its being a time when crowds were gathered together at Jerusalem. Apparently in the 1st cent. a.d. the festival was well kept as a ag in accord with the ancient legislation. Josephus refers to it more than once (BJ_ II. iii. 1, VI. v. 3; Ant., III. x. 6, XIII. viii. 4, XIV. xiii. 4). In those days of growing distress and oncoming doom, indeed, he says that the adversaries of the Jews deliberately chose such times when crowds were gathered at Jerusalem to work them some mischief. The enemy waited for the coming of the multitude out of the country to Pentecost, a feast of ours so called: and when the day was come, many ten thousands of the people were gathered together, etc. (Ant. XIV. xiii. 4).
3. The reference in Acts 2.-Time notes are few and far between in Acts, so that all the more precious is this clear note of the day when so momentous and auspicious an event took place. At any rate, there is complete agreement with the repeated testimony of Josephus as to the crowds of people who were at Jerusalem for the festival. With nave hyperbole the author records the fact that there were at Jerusalem devout men from every nation under heaven (Act 2:5). Not that all these were necessarily visitors who had come up expressly for the feast. It reflects for one thing the cosmopolitan character of the resident population of the city. Not a few devout Jews who were of the Diaspora found their way at last to Jerusalem to spend the remainder of their days in the vicinity of the Temple with all its privileges, and at length be buried in the land of their fathers. Perhaps also some were not without wistful hopes that the Messiah would appear. At all events, (Act 2:5) suggests a more permanent residence than a mere sojourn. It is equally clear, however (Act 2:9, , and Act 2:10, ) that there was also a crowd of genuine visitors who had come to keep the festival.
The author even ventures upon an enumeration of the several provinces and regions whence they had come (Act 2:9-11). It does not seem clear that he had any principle to go on in this enumeration, save that roughly he begins in what must have been to him the Far East (Parthians and Medes) and ends with the West (sojourners from Rome), and then adds, a little inconsequently, Cretans and Arabians. It seems a little odd that Judaea should be named between Mesopotamia and Cappadocia, and gives rise to a question as to whether there has not been some misplacement or error in the name itself. If Jews and proselytes (Act 2:10) is a summarizing touch and the two types are mentioned as being found in all the regions just enumerated (J. V. Bartlet, The Century Bible, Acts, Edinburgh, 1901, ad loc.), it would be superfluous to mention that there were Jews in Judaea. J. A. Bengel (Gnomon Novi Test., ad loc.) says that (for Judaea ) Armeniam legit Augustinus: eaque inter Mesopotamiam Cappadociamque jacet, and rather inconclusively adds: sed vetustam sane Armeniorum linguam sub alia quadam gente hic nominata innui existimare licet. It does not appear what authority Augustine had for this, but it witnesses to early uncertainty.
It does not follow that St. Luke is to be understood as giving a careful specification of the regions represented, and it is of little moment whether we consider the list as an enumeration, not of languages but of provinces (Speakers Commentary, St. John and the Acts, London, 1880, p. 363), or with Bartlet (loc. cit.) say with equal assurance, the list is one of languages rather than geographical areas. For a comparison with Talmudic parallels see E. von Dobschtz, Zu der Vlkerliste Act 2:9-11, in ZWT_ x. [1902] 407-410.
Much has been said at one time and another as to the particular day of the week on which the Feast of Pentecost sensu eminenti fell. Did it really so happen that that day was the first day of the week? This depends on what day the 16th Nisan fell that year: and it is mixed up with the obscurity attending the day of our Lords death (see art._ Passover). It is after all a matter of inconsiderable importance. But we have the strong tradition that Jesus rose again on the first day of the week: and more than that, we have the undeniable fact that Sunday became the Christian weekly holy day on that very ground. That of itself makes Pentecost to fall on Sunday seven weeks later. We know as a matter of fact that the Christian Church in the course of time established this commemoration on the Lords Day as most fitting, whatever the actual day may have been, and we need not ask for more. In older Judaism Pentecost fell, like Passover, on all the days of the week as the case might be. A later usage has so far modified this as to avoid the observance of Pentecost on the third, fifth, or seventh days.
4. Nature of the event.-Much more important is the question as to what was the nature of the event which makes this day for ever memorable to the Christian. We must carefully discriminate between the wonder-element of the story, the strange and symbolic accompaniments, and the extraordinary change which most certainly marked the behaviour of the apostles as well as that of the first believers in general. It is, indeed, not impossible that so memorable an event should have been signalized actually by such phenomena as a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind and tongues parting asunder, like as of fire, and that all should have begun to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Act 2:2-4). At the same time, it is impossible not to see a close parallel to the circumstances which had heralded the giving of the Law from Sinai, which, as we have seen, was commemorated at Pentecost. In the course of time Jewish midrash and legend had considerably heightened these conditions (Exo 19:16 ff.; cf. Heb 12:18 ff.) and had added such particulars as that at Sinai all nations had heard Gods voice in their own language and that voice could be heard as well by those farthest away as by those nearest the mount (see Midrash on Psa 68:11, and Philo, de Decalogo). The resemblance is close and could not well have been accidental. But whatever may be said as to the manner of the narrative, however much the writer may have drawn upon legendary matter in the setting of his story, the main thing is to remember that the underlying and undeniable experience is that which is of supreme importance. As C. von Weizscker says (Apostolic Age, Eng. tr._ i.2 [London, 1897] 50f.), the gift of prophecy finds expression, though in a peculiar form, in the narrative of the Pentecost miracle, which he has placed in the forefront of his history. The import of this event is revealed in the speech of Peter (Act 2:14 ff.). It was the fulfilment of Joels prophecy of the universal outpouring of the Spirit of God. Now this is certainly the historical part of the narrative. The members of the Church felt the presence of the new spirit so strongly, that they were confident of the fulfilment of Joess words in their own time. (On this and the whole subject of the glossolalia see art._ Tongues, Gift of.)
5. Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit.-Altogether too narrow and parochial a view has often been taken as to the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit. A literalism which proceeds on the assumption that we have exhaustive information as to these events, and that all things actually occurred as they are described, has found itself again and again in sore straits when it has come to explaining precisely what happened. Thus, on the strength of an editorial note in the Fourth Gospel (Joh 7:39)- -coupled with some of our Lords utterances reported in the same Gospel (e.g. Joh 16:7), it has yielded but a grudging acknowledgment of the Spirits presence and power in the world prior to this event. But we should gladly see in every gracious movement of thought and every outflowering of beauty, virtue, and goodness whenscever and wherescever displayed, whether before the Incarnation or subsequent thereto, the working and manifestation of the same Spirit of love and light and power. That is quite compatible with giving full weight to Pentecost as ushering in a special manifestation of Gods Spirit and an era which was to be peculiarly characterized by the activities and energies of that Spirit in revealing and deepening what is Christs ( ., Joh 16:14).
Among the Fathers, when they proceeded to explain the coming of the Holy Spirit as a new thing and in special connexion with Pentecost, there was a strong disposition to lay stress on the miraculous gifts and give them the chief place, an exegesis which later found too wide a vogue. Visibilia illa dona, quae initio nascentis ecclesiae excellenter viguerunt-so runs even Bezas note. Moreover, they too often limited the Spirits dower to the apostles and their successors, a line of interpretation which at once went in flat opposition to the plain sense of Scripture and helped the development of a sacerdotal and sacramental view of Orders. We meet with similar limitations still: The Holy Ghost came upon the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost (T. B. Strong, A Manual of Theology2, London, 1903, p. 325). But the whole assembly of believers, if anything is clear, shared in the enduement of power which Pentecost witnessed, as they waited all together in one place. (For ample quotations in support, see J. C. Hare, Mission of the Comforter4, London, 1877, Note H.)
Too much, indeed, may be made of such expressions as coming, or descent, of the Holy Spirit, as characterizing this day. It helps the perilous parcelling out of time and distinction of dispensations-the dispensations of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit-which has found favour with many. This has little to commend it, is artificial, and can only be taken as generally signifying the progressive development of religion among men. Nor was Pentecost the birthday of the Christian Church, as it is often called. Birthday is an awkward term to use in such a connexion, and can be accepted only as a rough mode of indicating the beginning of the Christian community. But there was a church of a sort already existing (see Acts 1). The movement, in truth, did not lend itself easily to dates, and refused to be subjected to the precision and exactitude which mark the inauguration of merely human societies and institutions. This holy gift was bestowed on a church already in existence. Pentecost was a day of power, a day on which the Spirit of God manifested himself through the disciples as a power for the conversion of others (A. C. McGiffert, A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897, p. 50).
6. Significance of Pentecost to the primitive Church.-The after course of events makes it clear that Pentecost was a turning-point of great significance in the career of the little community. The chief sign was power to give clear and bold testimony to the truth about Jesus Christ-a rich gift of prophetic grace. As they waited and prayed, and pondered the sayings of the Master, and searched the OT Scriptures, the Truth flashed upon them-the Truth that was the Spirits teaching therein, blending with the words and memory of the Master. Suddenly the darkness of their souls was illumined by the inshining of this light from heaven, their hearts were filled with joy, and in the new exultant confidence that came to them, they were clothed with power from on high (W. L. Walker, The Spirit and the Incarnation, Edinburgh, 1899, p. 67). Looking back from his then standpoint, the historian could not adequately account for the actually existing and widespread Church, save through some Divine enthusiasm kindled in mens hearts by God indwelling and working in them with power and love. What could symbolize that Breath of God more fittingly than the wind? What could more appropriately suggest the penetrative purifying power and grace than tongues like as of fire ( )? The miracle of Pentecost was that the little community should be transformed by the enduement of energy, illumination, and power, which is simply spoken of in the words: And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. That was a work of grace which was repeatedly experienced in the Apostolic Church (Act 4:31), and has been witnessed since again and again. It is the mysterious outburst of a Power which never wholly leaves the world, however lifeless it may at times appear. As A. B. Bruce remarks, the Christian believes in the Holy Ghost, and in His incessant struggle for the birth of a better world. He sees in the great crises of history His action as a mighty wind; in quiet times he traces His blessed presence and influence as a still, noiseless, yet vital air, the breath of human souls (Apologetics, Edinburgh, 1892, p. 69).
7. Pentecost as a Christian festival.-There is no sign whatever in the NT that the Church observed this season as a festival, or, as in the case of Passover, superimposed Christian associations on an ancient Hebrew feast. Epiphanius (4th cent.) interprets Act 20:16 as showing that St. Paul observed the feast, and either deliberately or loosely read into the text the verb (, , quoted in J. Bingham, Antiquities, XX. vi. 6). (Truly it is a substantially different thing to hasten to Jerusalem to keep Pentecost from hurrying to be at Jerusalem at Pentecost.) St. Paul had little enough to do with keeping festivals. Pentecost here appears as a mere note of time. Bengels note ad loc. is to the point: in festo, magni conventus: magna lucrifaciendi occasio.
The 2nd cent. passes (a period fraught with all sorts of problems for the Church historians), and in Tertullian we find Pentecost definitely referred to as a Christian feast, familiar and established (de Idol. 14): Non Dominicum diem, non Pentecosten, etiam si nossent, nobiscum communicassent; timerent enim ne Christiani viderentur. A few sentences later he speaks again of Pentecost not as one day but as a period-excerpe singulas solennitates nationum, et in ordinem exsere Pentecosten implere non poterunt (cf. also de Corona, 3). And from the time when the scheme of distinctive Christian festivals came to be developed it would appear that the whole fifty days elapsing between Easter and Pentecost were called by the latter name (Lat. Quinquagesima) and were regarded as a time of joy and happy commemoration (see R. Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, IV. xiii. 7-which fifty days were called Pentecost, though most commonly the last day of them which is Whitsunday be so called).
So anciently among the Jews the days of the Omer, as the period between Passover and Weeks was called, being a time of harvest operations, was a time of joy. It is food for thought, indeed, that the principal feasts of the Christian Church should be moulded on a system so parallel with that of the Jews. How strange, if indeed we have here a primitive reference to nature and the great yearly crises of springtime and harvest, in such climatic conditions as those of Palestine, that these should gather new associations sacred for the Jew, and again in turn gather very different associations rendering them sacred in Christian eyes!
Ultimately Pentecost was limited to the fiftieth day from Easter Day, though, still later, festivities tended to prolong themselves over the week following; hence Whitsuntide, suggesting an extended festivity rather than one day. As connected especially with that effusion of the Holy Spirit which marked the beginnings of the Churchs history, the festival was pre-eminently from the first a favourite time for baptisms (Tertullian, de Bapt. 19).
As in Passover, the Christian Church for the most part took over the name of the festival from the Jews. It was Pentecost for both. But just as Easter replaced Pascha in English and kindred languages, so Whitsunday replaced Pentecost in England through Norse influence. Before the Norman Conquest the season was always known in England as Pentecoste. The meaning of Whitsunday has been the subject of much controversy, but has been generally explained by a reference to the white garments of the newly-baptized. W. W. Skeat gives it decidedly as White Sunday, with this explanation (see An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, Oxford, 1910, s.v.).
Literature.-Besides the works quoted in the course of the article there may be mentioned G. T. Purves, art._ Pentecost in HDB_; I. Benzinger, art._ Pentecost in EBi_; art._ Festivals and Fasts [Christian], [Hebrew], [Jewish], in ERE_; O. Zckler, art._ Pfingsten in PRE_3; J. L. Magnus, art._ Pentecost in JE_; A. Edersheim, The Temple: its Ministry and Services as they were at the Time of Jesus Christ, London, n.d.; E. von Dobschtz, Ostern und Pfingsten, Leipzig, 1903; M. Friedlnder, The Jewish Religion, London, 1891.
J. S. Clemens.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
PENTECOST
A solemn festival of the Jews, so called, because it was celebrated fifty days after the feast of the passover, Lev 23:15. It corresponds with the Christians’ Whitsuntide, for which it is sometimes used.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
Pentecost
(Greek: pentecostes, fiftieth)
Feast which commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles, and takes its name from the fact that it comes nearly fifty days after Easter. It was a Jewish festival, and has been observed in the Christian Church since the days of the Apostles. It is often called Whitsunday (White Sunday) from the practise of giving solemn Baptism on that day in early centuries, the candidates being attired in white baptismal robes.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Pentecost
A feast of the universal Church which commemorates the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles, fifty days after the Resurrection of Christ, on the ancient Jewish festival called the “feast of weeks” or Pentecost (Exodus 34:22; Deuteronomy 16:10). Whitsunday is so called from the white garments which were worn by those who were baptised during the vigil; Pentecost (“Pfingsten” in German), is the Greek for “the fiftieth” (day after Easter).
Whitsunday, as a Christian feast, dates back to the first century, although there is no evidence that it was observed, as there is in the case of Easter; the passage in I Corinthians (16:8) probably refers to the Jewish feast. This is not surprising, for the feast, originally of only one day’s duration, fell on a Sunday; besides it was so closely bound up with Easter that it appears to be not much more than the termination of Paschal tide. That Whitsunday belongs to the Apostolic times is stated in the seventh of the (interpolated) fragments attributed to St. Irenæus. In Tertullian (De bapt., xix) the festival appears as already well established. The Gallic pilgrim gives a detailed account of the solemn manner in which it was observed at Jerusalem (“Peregrin. Silviæ”, ed. Geyer, iv). The Apostolic Constitutions (V, xx, 17) say that Pentecost lasts one week, but in the West it was not kept with an octave until at quite a late date. It appears from Berno of Reichenau (d. 1048) that it was a debatable point in his time whether Whitsunday ought to have an octave. At present it is of equal rank with Easter Sunday. During the vigil formerly the catechumens who remained from Easter were baptized, consequently the ceremonies on Saturday are similar to those on Holy Saturday.
The office of Pentecost has only one Nocturn during the entire week. At Terce the “Veni Creator” is sung instead of the usual hymn, because at the third hour the Holy Ghost descended. The Mass has a Sequence, “Veni Sancte Spiritus” the authorship of which by some is ascribed to King Robert of France. The colour of the vestments is red, symbolic of the love of the Holy Ghost or of the tongues of fire. Formerly the law courts did not sit during the entire week, and servile work was forbidden. A Council of Constance (1094) limited this prohibition to the first three days of the week. The Sabbath rest of Tuesday was abolished in 1771, and in many missionary territories also that of Monday; the latter was abrogated for the entire Church by Pius X in 1911. Still, as at Easter, the liturgical rank of Monday and Tuesday of Pentecost week is a Double of the First Class.
In Italy it was customary to scatter rose leaves from the ceiling of the churches to recall the miracle of the fiery tongues; hence in Sicily and elsewhere in Italy Whitsunday is called Pascha rosatum. The Italian name Pascha rossa comes from the red colours of the vestments used on Whitsunday. In France it was customary to blow trumpets during Divine service, to recall the sound of the mighty wind which accompanied the Descent of the Holy Ghost. In England the gentry amused themselves with horse races. The Whitsun Ales or merrymakings are almost wholly obsolete in England. At these ales the Whitsun plays were performed. At Vespers of Pentecost in the Oriental Churches the extraordinary service of genuflexion, accompanied by long poetical prayers and psalms, takes place. (Cf. Maltzew, “Fasten-und Blumen Triodion”, p. 898 where the entire Greco-Russian service is given; cf. also Baumstark, “Jacobit. Fest brevier”, p. 255.) On Pentecost the Russians carry flowers and green branches in their hands.
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KELNEER, Heortology (St. Louis, 1908); HAMPSON, Medii viæ kalendarium, I (London, 1841) 280 sqq.; BRAND-ELLIS, Popular Antiquities, I (London, 1813), 26 sqq.; NILLES, Kalendarium Manuale, II (Innsbruck, 1897), 370 sqq.
F.G. HOLWECK Transcribed by Wm Stuart French, Jr. Dedicated to Brenda Eileen Metcalfe French
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XVCopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Pentecost
(, scil. ), the second of the three great annual festivals on which all the males were required to appear before the Lord in the national sanctuary, the other two being the feasts of Passover and Tabernacles. It fell in due course on the sixth day of Sivan, and its rites, according to the Law, were restricted to a single day. The most important passages relating to it are Exo 23:16; Lev 23:15-22; Num 28:26-31; Deu 16:9-12; The following article treats of its observance from a Scriptural as well as Talmudical point of view. SEE FESTIVAL.
I. Name and its Signification.
1. This festival is called, , solemnitas hebdomadorum, the Festival of Weeks (Exo 34:22; Deu 16:10; Deu 16:16; 2Ch 8:13), because it was celebrated seven complete weeks, or fifty days, after the Passover (Lev 23:15-16).
2. For this reason it is also called in the Jewish writings , the feast of the fifty days (comp. Joseph. War, 2:3, 1), whence (Joseph. Ant. 3:10, 6; Tob 2:1; 2Ma 12:32; Act 2:1; Act 20:16; 1Co 16:8), the Latin Pentecoste, and our appellation Pentecost.
3. , the festival of the harvest (Exo 23:16), because it concluded the harvest of the later grains.
4. , dies prinitivorum, the day of first- fruits (Num 28:26), because the first loaves made from the new corn were then offered on the altar (Lev 23:17), for which reason Philo (Opp. 2:294) calls it .
5. It is also denominated in the postcanonical Jewish writings , the festival of conclusion (or assembly), i.e. of the Passover, or simply (comp. , [=, Chaldee] , , Joseph. Ant. 3:10, 6; Mishna, Bikkurim, 1:3, 7, 10; Rosh Ha-Shana, 1:2; Chagiga, 2:4), because it completed what the Passover commenced; and 6,
, the time of the giving of our law, because the Jews believe that on this day the revelation of the Decalogue took place.
II. The Time at which this Festival was celebrated. The time fixed for the celebration of Pentecost is the fiftieth day reckoning from the morrow after the Sabbath ( ) of the Passover (Lev 23:11; Lev 23:15-16.) The precise meaning, however, of the word in this connection, which determines the date for celebrating this festival, has been matter of dispute from time immemorial. The Boethusians () and the Sadducees in the time of the second Temple (Mishna, Menachoth, 10:3), and the Karaites since the 8th century of the Christian era (comp. Jehudah Hedessi, Eshkol Ha-Kopher, Alphab. p. 221-224; ibid. p. 85 b), took its literal and ordinary sense as denoting the seventh day of the week, or the Sabbath of creation), and maintained that the omer was offered on the day following that weekly Sabbath which might happen to fall within the seven days of the Passover, so that Pentecost would always be on the first day of the week. But against this it is urged
(a.) that Jos 5:11, where is used for th , shows that Lev 23:11 denotes the first day of Passover, which was to be a day of rest.
(b.) The definite article in Lev 23:11 refers to one of the preceding festival days.
(c.) The expression also used for the Day of Atonement (Lev 23:32), and the abstract is applied to the first and eighth days of Tabernacle Lev 23:39) and the Feast of Trumpets (Lev 23:24), as well as to week (Lev 23:15; Lev 25:8); hence this use of in the N.T. (Mar 16:2; Mar 16:9; Luk 18:12).
(d.) According to Lev 23:15 the seventh week, at the end of which Pentecost is to be celebrated, is to be reckoned from this Sabbath. Now, if this Sabbath were not fixed, but could happen on any one of the seven Passover days, possibly on the fifth or sixth day of the festival, the Passover would in ,the course of time be displaced from the fundamental position which it occupies in the order of the annual festivals.
(e.) The Sabbatic idea which underlies all the festivals, and which is scrupulously observed in all of them, shows that the reckoning could not have been left to the fifth or sixth day of the festival, but must have fixedly begun on the 16th of Nisan. Thus, each Sabbath comes after six even periods: 1. the Sabbath of days, after six days; 2. the Sabbath of months, after six months; 3. the Sabbath of years, after six years; 4. the Sabbath of Sabbatic years, after six Sabbatic years; 5. the Sabbath of festivals = the Day of Atonement, after six festivals, SEE JUBILEE, THE YEAR OF; hence the Sabbath of weeks, i.e. Pentecost, must also be at the end of six common weeks after Passover, which could be obtained only by reckoning from the 16th of Nisan, as this alone yields six common weeks; for the first week during which the counting goes on belongs to the feast of Passover, and is not common.
(f.) The Sept. ( ), Josephus ( , Ant. 3:10, 5, 6), Philo (Opp. 2:294), Onkelos ( ), and the synagogue have understood it in this way, and most Christian commentators espouse the traditional interpretation. SEE SABBATH. Still more objectionable is the hypothesis of Hitzig (Ostern und Pfingsten, Heidelberg, 1837), defended by Hupfeld (De primit. et vera festorum ap. Hebraeos ratione, 2:3 sq.), and Knobel (Die Bacher Exodus und Leviticus, Leipsic, 1857, p. 544), that the sacred or festival year of the Hebrews always began on the Sabbath, so that the 7th (i.e. the first day of Passover), the 14th (i.e. the last day of the festival), and the 21st of Nisan, were always Sabbath days; and that the omer was offered on the 22d day of the month, which was the morrow after the Sabbath terminating the festival, and from which the fifty days were reckoned (Hitzig, Hupfield), or that the omer was offered on the 8th of the month, which was also the morrow after the Sabbath, thus preventing it from being post festum (Knobel). It will be seen that this hypothesis, in order to obtain Sabbaths for the 14th and 21st days of the month as the beginning and termination of Passover, is always obliged to make the religious new year begin on a Sabbath day, and hence has to assume a stereotyped form of the Jewish year, which as a rule terminated with an incomplete week. Now this assumption
1. Is utterly at variance with the unsettled state of the Jewish calendar, which was constantly regulated by the appearance of the disk of the new moon, SEE NEW MOON, DAY OF THE;
2. It rudely disturbs the weekly division, which is based upon the works of creation, and which the Jews regarded with the utmost sanctity; and
3. It is inconceivable that the Mosaic law, which, as we have seen, regarded the Sabbatic division of time as so peculiarly sacred that it made it the basis of the whole cycle of festivals, would adopt a plan for fixing the time for celebrating the Passover whereby the last week of almost every expiring year is to be cut short, and the hebdomadal cycle, as well as the celebration of the Sabbath, interrupted (comp. Keil, On Lev 23:11).
It is therefore argued that the Jews, who during the second Temple kept Pentecost fifty days after the 16th of Nisan, rightly interpreted the injunction contained in Lev 23:15-22. The fiftieth day, or the feast of Pentecost, according to the Jewish canons, may fall on the 5th, 6th, or 7th of Sivan (), the third month of the year from the new moon of May to the new moon of June (Rosh Ha-Shana, 6 b; Sabbath, 87 b). The fifty days formally included the period of grain-harvest, commencing with the offering of the first sheaf of the barley-harvest in the Passover, and ending with that of the first two loaves which were made front the wheat-harvest, at this festival. It was the offering of these two loaves which was the distinguishing rite of the day of Pentecost. SEE WAVE-OFFERING.
III. The Manner in which this Festival was Celebrated. Not to confound the practices which obtained in the course of time, and which were called forth by the ever-shifting circumstances of the Jewish nation, we shall divide the description of the manner in which this festival was and still is celebrated into three sections.
1. The Pentateuchal Ordinances. The Mosaic enactments about the manner in which this festival is to be celebrated are as follows: On the day of Pentecost there is to be a holy convocation; no manner of work is to be done on this festival (Lev 23:21 : Num 28:26); all the able- bodied male members of the congregation, who are not legally precluded from it are to appear in the place of the national sanctuary, as on the Passover and Tabernacles (Exo 23:14; Exo 23:17; Exo 34:23), where a new meat-offering ( ) of the new Palestine crop (Lev 23:16; Num 28:26; Deu 16:10), consisting of two unleavened loaves, made respectively of the tenth of an ephah (=about 3.5 quarts) of the finest wheaten flour (Exo 34:18; Lev 23:17), is to be offered before the Lord as firstlings (, Exo 34:17), whence this festival derived its name, the day of firstlings ( , Num 28:26).
In the above prescription, the phrase Out of your habitations, (Lev 23:17), has been explained by the Jewish canons, which obtained during the time of the second Temple, as an ellipsis for (Num 15:2), the land of your habitations, i.e. Palestine (Menachoth, 77 b, with Mishna, Menachoth, 8:1); hence the rendering of Jonathan b. Uzziel’s reputed Chaldee paraphrase, , the Sept. , from your habitation, in the singular referring to Palestine; the remark ofRashi, , from where your habitations are, but not from any part outside the land, i.e. of Israel; Rashban (ad loc.) and Maimnonides (lad Ha – Chezaka, tilchoth Tamidin U-Mosaphin, 8:2), who rightly distinguish between as here used, and (Exo 12:20; Exo 35:3; Lev 3:17; Lev 7:26; Lev 23:3; Lev 23:14; Lev 23:21; Num 35:29), the former referring to injunctions which are binding in the land of Canaan, and the latter to commandments to be observed in every place, or wherever the Jews might reside; comp. Rashban on Lev 23:16. The rendering of the Vulgate (ex omnibus habitaculis vestris), therefore which is followed by Luther (aus alien eueren Wohnungen), inserting , is most arbitrary and unjustifiable. Inadmissible, too, is the opinion of Calvin, Osiander, George (Die altenjiud. Feste, p. 130, 273), etc., that two loaves were brought out of every house, or at least out of every town, based upon the plural ; or the view of Vaihinger (in Herzog’s Real-Encyklopdie, s.v. Pfingstfest, p. 479) and Keil (on Lev 23:17), that the plural is used in a singular sense, i.e. from one of your habitations (comp. Gen 8:4; Jdg 12:7; Neh 6:2; Ecc 10:1); and denotes that the two loaves are to be offered from the habitations of the Israelites, and not from those prepared for the sanctuary or from its treasury.
With the two loaves were to be offered as a burnt offering seven lambs of the first year and without blemish, one young bullock, and two lambs, with the usual meat and drink offerings; while a goat is to be offered as a sin- offering, and two lambs of the first year are to be offered as a thanksgiving or peace offering (Lev 23:18-20). The peace-offering, consisting of the two lambs with the two firstling loaves, are to be waved before the Lord by the priests. These are to be additions to the two loaves, and must not be confounded with the proper festival sacrifice appointed for Pentecost. which is given in Num 28:27, and which is to be a burnt- offering, consisting of two bullocks, one ram, and seven lambs. That these two passages are not contradictory, as is maintained by Knobel (Comment. on Lev 23:15-22), Vaihinger (in Herzog’s Real-Encyklop. s.v. Pfingstfest, p. 480), and others, but refer to two distinct sacrifices, viz. one to accompany the wave-loaves ( , Lev 23:18), and the other the properly appointed sacrifice for the festival (Num 28:27), is evident from the context and design of the enactments in the respective passages, as well as from the practice of the Jews in the Temple, where both prescriptions were obeyed.
Hence Josephus (Ant. 3:10, 6), in summing up the number of animal sacrifices on this festival, says that there were fourteen lambs, three young bullocks, and three goats; the number two, instead of three goats, being manifestly a transcriber’s error, as Vaihinger himself admits. When Vaihinger characterizes this statement of Josephus as one of the many exegetical and historical blunders of the Jewish historian, and maintains that it does not follow from Menachoth, 4:2, we can only say that 1. Josephus simply describes what he himself saw in the Temple, and what every ancient Jewish document on the same subject declares; 2. The third section of the very Mishna (Menachoth, 4:3) which Vaihinger quotes distinctly declares, The kind of sacrifice prescribed in Num 28:27 was offered in the wilderness, and the kind of sacrifice enjoined in Lev 23:18 was not offered in the wilderness; but when they [i.e. the Israelites] entered the Promised Land they sacrificed both kinds; see also the Gemara on this Mishna (Babylon Menachoth, 45 b), where the reasons are given more largely than in the Mishna why the former kind of sacrifice was not offered in the wilderness; and 3. Maimonides, who also summarizes the ancient canons on these two kinds of sacrifices for Pentecost, shows beyond the shadow of a doubt how these enactments were carried out in the second Temple. He says: On the fiftieth day, counting from the offering of the omer, is the feast of Pentecost and Azereth (). Now on this day additional sacrifices are offered, like the additional ones for new moon, SEE NEW MOON, THE FEAST OF, consisting of two bullocks, one ram, and seven lambs, ail of them being burnt-offerings, and of a goat as sin-offering. These are sacrifices ordered in Num 28:26-27; Num 28:30, and they constitute the addition for the day. Besides this addition, however, a new meat-offering of two loaves is also brought, and with the loaves are offered one bullock, two rams, and seven lambs, all burnt-offerings; a goat for a sin-offering, and two lambs for a peace-offering. These are the sacrifices ordered in Lev 23:18. Hence the sacrifice on this day exceeds the two daily sacrifices by three bullocks, three rams, fourteen lambs (all these twenty animals being a burnt-offering); two goats for a sin-offering, which are eaten; and two lambs for a peace-offering, which are not eaten (lad la- Chezaka, Hilchoth Tamidin U-Mosaphin, 8:1).
Besides the two loaves with their accompanying sacrifices, and the special festival sacrifices which were offered for the whole nation, each individual who came to the sanctuary was expected to bring, on this festival, as on Passover and the feast of Tabernacles, a free-will offering according to his circumstances (Deu 16:10-12), a portion of which was given to the priests and Levites, and the rest was eaten by the respective families, who invited the poor and strangers to share it. It would seem that the character of this festival partook of a more free and hospitable liberality than that of the Passover, which was rather of the kind that belongs to the mere family gathering. In this respect it resembled the feast of Tabernacles. The Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow were to be brought within its influence (Deu 16:11; Deu 16:14). The mention of the gleanings to be left in the fields at harvest for the poor and the stranger, in connection with Pentecost, may perhaps have a bearing on the liberality which belonged to the festival (Lev 23:22). At Pentecost (as at the Passover) the people were to be reminded of their bondage in Egypt, and they were especially admonished of their obligation to keep the divine law (Deu 16:12).
2. The Post-exilian Observance of this Festival. More minute is the information in the non-canonical documents about the preparation of the sacrifices and the observance of this festival in and before the time of Christ. The pilgrims went up to Jerusalem the day previous to the commencement of the festival, when they prepared everything necessary for its solemn observance; and the approach of the holy convocation was proclaimed in the evening by blasts of the trumpets. The altar of the burnt- sacrifice was cleansed in the first night-watch of the preparation-day, and the gates of the Temple, as well as those of the inner court, were opened immediately after midnight for the convenience of the priests, who resided in the city, and for the people, who filled the court before the cock crew, to have their burnt-sacrifices and thanksgiving offerings duly examined by the priests. When the time of sacrifice arrived, the daily morning sacrifice was first offered, then the festival sacrifices prescribed in Num 28:26-27; Num 28:30, while the Levites were chanting the Great Hallel (q.v.), in which the people joined; whereupon the congregation solemnly and heartily thanked God for the successful harvest, and the loaves of the new corn, with the accompanying sacrifices prescribed in Lev 23:18, were offered to the Lord. The two loaves for the wave-offering were prepared in the following manner: Three seahs of new wheat were brought into the court of the Temple; they were beaten and trodden like all meat-offerings, and ground into flour, two omers of which were sifted through twelve sieves, and the remainder was redeemed and eaten by any one.
The two omers of flour, of which the two loaves were made, were respectively obtained from a seah and a half… kneaded separately and baked separately. Like all meat-offerings, they were kneaded and prepared outside, but baked inside the Temple, and did not set aside the festival, much less the Sabbath, so that they were baked on the day preceding the festival. Hence, if the preparation-day ( ) happened to be on a Sabbath, the loaves were baked on Friday ( ), and eaten on the third day after they were baked, which was the feast day. They were leavened loaves according to the declaration of the law, and made as follows: The leaven was fetched from some other place, put into the omer, the omer filled with flour, which was leavened with the said leaven. The length of each loaf was seven hand-breadths; the breadth, four hand-breadths; and the height, four fingers (Maimonides, lad Ha-Chezaka, Hilchoth Tamidin U-Mosaphin, 8:3-10, with Mishna, Menachoth, 6:6, 7; 11:2; 4:9). The two loaves thus prepared were then offered as wave-offerings, with two lambs, constituting the peace-offering, in the following manner: The two lambs were brought into the Temple and waved together by the priest while yet alive, as it is written, And he shall wave them… a wave-offering’ (Lev 23:20); but if he waved each one separately, it was also valid, whereupon they were slain and flayed. The priest then took the breast and the shoulder of each one (comp. Lev 7:30; Lev 7:32), laid them down by the side of the two loaves, put both his hands under them, and waved them all together as if they were one, towards the east side the place of all wave offering doing it forwards and backwards, up and down; but it was also valid if he waved each separately. Hereupon he burned the fat of the two lambs, and the remainder of the flesh was eaten by the priests. As to the two loaves, the high-priest took one of them, and the second was divided among all the officiating priests (), and both of them were eaten up within the same day and half the following night, just as the flesh of the most holy things (Maimonides, lad Ita-Chezaka, Hilchoth Tamidin U-Mosaphin, 8:11. See Mishna, Menachoth, v. 6; Joseph. Ant. 3:10, 6; War, 6:5, 3). After the prescribed daily sacrifice, the festival and the harvest sacrifice were offered for the whole nation. Each individual brought the free-will offering, which formed the cheerful and hospitable meal of the family, and to which the Levite, the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger were invited. The festival in a minor degree continued for a whole week, during which time those who did not offer on the first day repaired their defects or negligence (Rosh Ha-Shana, 4 b). The offering of the first fruits also began at this time (Mishna, Bikkurim, 1:7, 10); and it was for this reason, as well as for the joyous semi-festival days which followed the day of Holy Convocation, that we find so large a concourse of Jews attending Pentecost (Acts 2; Joseph. Ant. 14:13, 14; 17:10, 2; far, 2:3, 1).
No occasional offering of first-fruits could be made in the Temple before Pentecost (Bikkurim, 1:3, 6). Hence probably the two loaves were designated the first of the first-fruits (Exo 23:19), although the offering of the omer had preceded them. The proper time for offering first- fruits was the interval between Pentecost and Tabernacles (Bikk. 1:6, 10; comp. Exo 23:16). SEE FIRST-FRUITS.
The connection between the omer and the two loaves of Pentecost appears never to have been lost sight of. The former was called by Philo, (De Sept. 21, v. 25; comp. De Decem Orac. 4:302, ed. Tauch.). He elsewhere mentions the festival of Pentecost with the same marked respect. He speaks of a peculiar feast kept by the Therapeutse as sc. (De Vit. Contemp. v. 334). The interval between the Passover and Pentecost was evidently regarded as a religious season. The custom has probably been handed down from ancient times, which is observed by the modern Jews, of keeping a regular computation of the fifty days by a formal observance, beginning with a short prayer on the evening of the day of the omer, and continued on each succeeding day by a solemn declaration of its number in the succession, at evening prayer, while the members of the family are standing with respectful attention (Buxtorf, Syn. Jud 1:20, p. 440). According to the most generally received interpretation of the word (Luk 6:1), the period was marked by a regularly designated succession of Sabbaths, similar to the several successions of Sundays in our own calendar. It is assumed that the day of the omer was called (in the Sept., Lev 23:11, ). The Sabbath which came next after it was termed ; the second, ; the third, ; and so onwards till Pentecost. This explanation was first proposed by Scaliger (De Emend. Temp. lib. 6, p. 527), and has been adopted by Frischmuth, Petavius, Casaubon, Lightfoot, Godwyn, Carpzov, and many others.
3. The Observance of this Festival to the Present Day. This festival, like all the feasts and fasts ordained or sanctioned in the Old Test., is annually and sacredly kept by the Jews to the present day on the 6th and 7th of Sivan, i.e. between the second half of May and the first half of June. Thus, although, according to the law, the observance of Pentecost lasted but a single day, the Jews in foreign countries, since the Captivity, have prolonged it to two days. They have treated the feast of Trumpets in the same way. The alteration appears to have been made to meet the possibility of an error in calculating the true day (Lightfoot, Exercit. Heb. Act 2:1; Reland, Antig. 4:4, 5; Selden, De Ann. Civ. c. vii). It is said by Bartenora and Maimonides that, while the Temple was standing, though the religious rites were confined to the day, the festivities and the bringing in of gifts continued through seven days (Notes to Chagiga, 2:4). As above noted, in accordance with the injunction in Lev 23:15-16, the Jews regularly count every evening the fifty days from the second day of Passover until Pentecost, and they recite a prayer over it, which is given in the article PASSOVER SEE PASSOVER . As the counting () of these fifty days, on the first of which the sickle was brought out for cutting the corn, and on the last of which it was laid up again because the harvest was entirely finished, is not only a connecting link between Passover and Pentecost, but may be regarded as preparatory for the feast of Pentecost, we must notice the events and practices connected therewith. Owing to a fearful plague which broke out on the second day of Passover or the first of Omer, and which, after raging thirty-two days, and carrying off between Gabath and Antiparos no less than 24,000 disciples of the celebrated R. Akiba, suddenly ceased on the 18th of Jiar, the second month, i.e. the thirty-third of Omer (Babylon Jebamoth, 62 b; Midrash Bereshith Rabba, Seder , sec. 61, p. 134, ed. Stettin, 1863), it was ordained that, in memory of this calamity, three days are to be kept as a time of mourning, during which no marriage is to take place, no enjoyments and pleasures are to be indulged in, nor even is the beard to be removed (Orach Chajim, Hilchoth Pesach, sec. 493); and that the thirty-third of Omer, on which the epidemic disappeared, is to be kept as a holiday, especially among the students, for which reason it is called the scholars’ feast. The reason which R. Jochanan ben-Nori assigns for regarding this period as a time of mourning i.e. that the wicked are punished in hell in these days, and that judgment is passed on the produce of the land is simply a modern cabalistic form given to an ancient usage.
The three days preceding the festival, on which, as we shall see hereafter, the Jews commemorate the giving of the law on Sinai, are called ( 8) the three days of separation and sanctification, because the Lord commanded Moses to set bounds around the mountain, and that the people should sanctify themselves three days prior to the giving of the law (Exo 19:12; Exo 19:14; Exo 19:23). On the preparation day ( ) the synagogues and the private houses are adorned with flowers and odoriferous herbs; the male members of the community purify themselves by immersion and confession of sins, put on their festive garments, and resort to the synagogue, where, after the evening prayer (), the hallowed nature of the festival is proclaimed by the cantor in the blessing pronounced over a cup of wine (), which is also done by every head of the family at home before the evening repast. After supper both the learned and the illiterate are either to go again into the synagogue or to congregate in private houses and read all night:
(a) The first three and the last three verses of every book in the Hebrew Scriptures, but some portions have to be read entire;
(b) the first and last Mishna of every tractate in the Talmud;
(c) the beginning and end of the book Jezirah;
(d) passages from the Sohar;
(e) the 613 commandments into which the Mosaic law is divided, SEE SCHOOL; and
(f) the Song of Songs.
The whole must be recited in thirteen divisions, so that the prayer Kadish () might be said between each division, and the letters of the word (the unity in the Deity) = 4+8+1 -13, be obtained (comp. Magen Abraham, Orach Chajim, sec. 494). The reason for this watching all night, given by R. Abraham, the author of the Magen Abraham, is as follows: When God was about to reveal his law to Israel, he had to wake them up from their sleep. Hence, to remove the sin of that sleep, the Jews are now to wake all night (comp. Brick, Rabbinische Ceremonial gebrduche [Breslau, 1837], p. 8-22, and the ritual for this night, entitled ). In the general festival service of the morning special prayers are inserted for this day, which set forth the glory of the Lawgiver and Israel, the glory of the Lord in creating the universe, etc., and in which the Decalogue is interwoven, the great Hallel is recited, Exo 19:1; Exo 20:26 is read as the lesson from the law, Num 18:26-31 as Maphtir, and Eze 1:1-28; Eze 3:12, as the lesson from the prophets, SEE HAPHTARAH; whereupon the Musajh is offered, and the priests, after having their hands washed by the Levites, pronounce chantingly the benediction (Num 6:23-27) on the congregation, who receive it with their heads covered by the fringed wrapper. SEE FRINGE. On the second evening they again resort to the synagogue, use the ritual for the festivals, in which are again inserted special prayers for this occasion, being chiefly on the greatness of God and the giving of the law and the Decalogue; the sanctification of the festival () is again pronounced, both by the praelector in the synagogue and the heads of families at home; and prayers different from those of the first day, also celebrating the giving of the law, are intermingled with the ordinary festival prayers; the Hallel is recited, as well as the book of Ruth; Deu 15:19 to Deu 16:17, with Num 28:26-31 is read as the lesson from the law; Habbakuk 2:20- 3:19, as the lesson from the prophets; the prayer is offered for depaited relatives; the Musaph Ritual is recited; the priests pronounce the benediction as on the former day; and the festival concludes after the afternoon service, as soon as the stars appear or darkness sets in. It must be remarked that milk and honey form an essential part of the meals during this festival, which is of a particularly joyous character, to symbolize the honey and milk which are under the tongue of the spouse (Son 4:11), by virtue of the law which the bridegroom gave her.
The less educated of the modern Jews regard the fifty days with strange superstition, and, it would seem, are always impatient for them to come to an end. During their continuance they have a dread of sudden death, of the effect of malaria, and of the influence of evil spirits over children. They relate with gross exaggeration the above-mentioned case of a great mortality which, during the first twenty-three days of the period, befell the pupils of Akiba, the great Mishnical doctor of the second century, at Jaffa. They do not ride, or drive, or go on the water, unless they are impelled by absolute necessity. They are careful not to whistle in the evening, lest it should bring ill-luck. They scrupulously put off marriages till Pentecost (Stauben, La Vie Juive en Alsace [Paris, 1860], p. 124; Mills, British Jews, p. 207).
IV. Origin and Import of this Festival. There is no clear notice in the Scriptures of any historical significance belonging to Pentecost. Yet, looking simply at the text of the Bible, there can be little doubt that Pentecost owes its origin entirely and exclusively to the harvest which terminated at this time. It is to be expected that, in common with other nations of antiquity who celebrated the ingathering of the corn by offering to the Deity, among other firstling offerings, the fine flour of wheat as (Eustath. Ad Iliad. 9:530; Athen. 3:80; Theocrit. 7:3), the Jews, as an agricultural people, would thankfully acknowledge the goodness of God in giving them the fruits of the earth, by offering to the Bountiful Giver of all good things the first-fruits of their harvest. That this was primarily the origin and import of Pentecost is most unquestionably indicated by its very names, e.g. the festival of () the cut-off corn, i.e. end of the harvest (Exo 23:16), which commenced on the morrow of the Passover, when the sickle was first brought into the field (Deu 16:9); and so intimately connected are the beginning of the harvest at Passover with the termination of it at this festival, that Pentecost was actually denominated, during the time of the second Temple, and is called in the Jewish literature to the present day, , the conclusion, or, , the termination of Passover. To the same effect is the name , the festival of weeks, which, as Bahr rightly remarks, would be a very strange and enigmatical designation of a festival, simply because of the intervening time between it and a preceding festival, if it did not stand in a fixed and essential relationship to this intervening time, and if in its nature it did not belong thereto, since the weeks themselves have nothing which could be the subject of a religious festival, except the harvest that took place in these weeks (Symbolik, 2:647). Being the culmination of Passover, and agrarian in its character, the pre-Mosaic celebration of this festival among the Jews will hardly be questioned; for it will not be supposed that the patriarchs, who in common with other nations were devoted to agriculture, would yet be behind these nations in not celebrating the harvest festival, to acknowledge the goodness of God in giving them the fruits of the earth, which obtained among the heathen nations to the remotest times. Indeed, the Book of Jubilees, as will be seen in the sequel, actually ascribes a pre-Mosaic existence to it. In incorporating this festival into the cycle of the canonical feasts, the Mosaic legislation, as usual, divested it of all idolatrous rites, consecrated it in an especial manner to him who filleth us with the finest of wheat (Psa 147:14), by enjoining the Hebrews to impart liberally to the needy from that which they have been permitted to reap, and to remember that they themselves were once needy and oppressed in Egypt, and were now in the possession of liberty and of the bounties of Providence (Deu 16:11-12). The Mosaic code, moreover, constituted it a member of the Hebrew family of festivals, by putting Pentecost on the sacred basis of seven, which, as we have seen, underlies the whole organism of the feasts.
But though the canonical Scriptures speak of Pentecost as simply a harvest festival, yet the non-canonical documents show, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the Jews, at least as early as the days of Christ, connected with it, and commemorated on the 6th of Sivan, the third month, the giving of the Decalogue. It is made out from Exodus 19 that the law was delivered on the fiftieth day after the deliverance from Egypt (Selden, De Jur. Nat. et Gent. 3:11). It has been conjectured that a connection between the event and the festival may possibly be hinted at in the reference to the observance of the law in Deu 16:12. But neither Philo nor Josephus has a word on the subject. Philo expressly states that it was at the feast of Trumpets that the giving of the law was commemorated (De Sept. c. 22). SEE TRUMPETS, FEAST OF.
There is, however, a tradition of a custom which Schottgen supposes to be at least as ancient as the apostolic times, that the night before Pentecost was a time especially appropriated for thanking God for the gift of the law (Hor. Hebr. ad Act 2:1). The Talmud declares that the rabbins propounded that the Decalogue was given to Israel on the 6th of Sivan (Sabbath, 86 b), and this is deduced from Exodus 19, for, according to tradition, Moses ascended the mountain on the 2d of Sivan, the third month (Exo 19:1-3); received the answer of the people on the Exo 19:7); reascended the mountain on the Exo 19:8); commanded the people to sanctify themselves three days, which were the 4th, 5th, and 6th (Exo 19:12; Exo 19:14; Exo 19:23); and on the third of these three days of sanctification, which was the sixth day of the month, delivered the Decalogue to them (Exo 19:10-11; Exo 19:15-16). This is the unanimous voice of Jewish tradition. It is given in the Mechilta on Exodus 19 (p. 83-90, ed. Wilna, 1844, SEE MIDRASH ); in the Chaldee paraphrase of Jonathan ben-Uzziel, which renders (Exo 19:16) by , and it came to pass on the third day, on the sixth of the month, i.e. Sivan; by Rashi (Comment. on Exo 19:1-16); and by Maimonides, who remarks: Pentecost is the day on which the law was given, and in order to magnify this day, the days are counted from the first festival (i.e. Passover) to it, just as one who is expecting the most faithful of his friends is accustomed to count the days and hours of his arrival; for this is the reason of counting the omer from the day of our Exodus from Egypt to the day of the giving of the law, which was the ultimate object of the exodus, as it is said, I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself.’ And because this great manifestation did not last more than one day, therefore we annually commemorate it only one day (More Nebochim, 3:43). To this effect is R. Jehudah (born circa 1086), in his celebrated work Cusari, 3:10; Nachmanides (born about 1195), in his commentary on the Pentateuch (Exo 19:1-25; Lev 23:17), and all the Jewish commentators, as well as the ritual for this festival. Even Abrabanel, who denies that the primary object in the institution of this festival was to celebrate the gift of the law, most emphatically declares that the Decalogue was given on Mount Sinai on Pentecost, as may be seen from the following remark: The law was not given with a design to this festival, so that it should commemorate the gift of the law, since the festival was not instituted to commemorate the giving of the law; as our divine law and the prophecy are their own witnesses, and did not require a day to be sanctified to commemorate them; but the design of the feast of weeks was to commence the wheat harvest. For just as the feast of Tabernacles was intended to finish the ingathering of the produce, so the festival of weeks was intended to begin the harvest, as it was the will of the Lord that at the commencement of the ingathering of the fruits which are the food of man, the first of which is the wheat, and which began to be cut on the feast of weeks, a festival should be celebrated to render praise to him who giveth food to all flesh; and that another festival should be celebrated at the end of the ingathering of the fruits. Still, there is no doubt that the law was given on the day of the feast of weeks, although this festival was not instituted to commemorate it (Commentary on the Pentateuch, Parshath , p. 211 a, ed. Hanau, 1710).
Those early fathers who were best acquainted with the Jewish tradition testify to the same thing, that the law was given on Pentecost, and that the Jews commemorate the event on this festival. It was therefore on this day, when the apostles, in common with their Jewish brethren, were assembled to commemorate the anniversary of the giving of the law from Sinai, and were engaged in the study of Holy Writ, in accordance with the custom of the day, that the Holy Spirit descended upon them, and sent them forth to proclaim the wonderful works of God, as revealed in the Gospel (Acts 2). Thus, St. Jerome tells us, Supputemus numerum, et inveniemus quinquagesimo die egressionis Israel ex AEgypto in vertice montis Sinay legem datam. Unde et Pentecostes celebratur solemnitas, et postea evangelii sacramentum in Spiritus Sancti descensione completur (Epist. ad Fabiolam, 12; in Opp. 1:1074, ed. Par. 1609). Similarly St. Augustine, Pentecosten etiaim, id est, a passione et resurrectione Domini, quinquagesimum diem celebramus, quo nobis Sanctum Spiritum Paracletum quem promiserat misit; quod futurum etiam per Judaeorum pascha significatum est, cum quinquagesimo die post celebrationem ovis occisee, Moyses digito Dei scriptam legem accepit in monte (Contra Faustzum, lib. 33, c. 12). Comp. also De Lyra, Comment. on Leviticus 23; Bishop Patrick on Erod. 19. It is very curious that the apocryphal Book of Jubilees, which was written in the first century before Christ, SEE JUBILEES, BOOK OF, should connect this festival, which was celebrated on the third month, with the third month of Noah’s leaving the ark, and maintain that it was ordained to be celebrated in this month, to renew annually the covenant which God made with this patriarch not to destroy the world again by a flood (ch. 6:57 sq.). Such an opinion would hardly have been hazarded by a Jew if it had not. been believed by many of his co-religionists that this festival had a pre-Mosaic existence. Since the destruction of Jerusalem, and the impossibility of giving prominence to that part of the festival which bears on the Palestinian harvest, the Jews have almost entirely made Pentecost to commemorate the giving of the law, and the only references they make in the ritual to the harvest, which was the primary object of its institution, is in the reading of the book of Ruth, wherein the harvest is described.
If the feast of Pentecost stood without an organic connection with any other rites, we should have no certain warrant in the Old Testament for regarding it as more than the divinely appointed solemn thanksgiving for the yearly supply of the most useful sort of food. Every reference to its meaning seems to bear immediately upon the completion of the grain harvest. It might have been a Gentile festival, having no proper reference to the election of the chosen race. It might have taken a place in the religion of any people who merely felt that it is God who gives rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, and who fills our hearts with food and gladness (Act 14:17). But it was, as we have seen, essentially linked to the Passover that festival which, above all others, expressed the fact of a race chosen and separated from other nations. It was not an insulated day. It stood as the culminating point of the Pentecostal season. If the offering of the omer was a supplication for the divine blessing on the harvest which was just commencing, and the offering of the two loaves was a thanksgiving for its completion, each rite was brought into a higher significance in consequence of the omer forming an integral part of the Passover. It was thus set forth that He who had delivered his people from Egypt, who had raised them from the condition of slaves to that of free men in immediate covenant with himself, was the same that was sustaining them with bread from year to year. The inspired teacher declared to God’s chosen one, He maketh peace in thy borders, he filleth thee with the finest of the wheat (Psa 147:14). If we thus regard the day of Pentecost as the solemn termination of the consecrated period, intended, as the seasons came round, to teach this lesson to the people, we may see the fitness of the name by which the Jews have mostly called it, , the concluding assembly.
As the two loaves were leavened, they could not be offered on the altar, like the unleavened sacrificial bread. Abrabanel (in Leviticus 23) has proposed a reason for their being leavened which seems hardly to admit of a doubt. He thinks that they were intended to represent the best produce of the earth in’ the actual condition in which it ministers to the support of human life. Thus they express, in the most significant manner, what is evidently the idea of the festival. We need not suppose that the grain harvest in the Holy Land was in all years precisely completed between the Passover and Pentecost. The period of seven weeks was evidently appointed in conformity with the Sabbatical number, which so frequently recurs in the arrangements of the Mosaic law. SEE FEASTS; SEE JUBILEE. Hence, probably, the prevailing use of the name, The Feast of Weeks, which might always have suggested the close religious connection in which the festival stood to the Passover.
It is not surprising that, without any direct authority in the O.T., the coincidence of the day on which the festival was observed with that on which the law appears to have been given to Moses, should have strongly impressed the minds of Christians in the early ages of the Church. The divine Providence had ordained that the Holy Spirit should come down in a special manner, to give spiritual life and unity to the Church, on that very same day in the year on which the law had been bestowed on the children of Israel which gave to them national life and unity. They must have seen that, as the possession of the law had completed the deliverance of the Hebrew race wrought by the hand of Moses, so the gift of the Spirit perfected the work of Christ in the establishment of his kingdom upon earth.
It may have been on this account that Pentecost was the last Jewish festival (so far as we know) which the apostle Paul was anxious to observe (Act 20:16; 1Co 16:8), and that Whitsuntide came to be the first annual festival instituted in the Christian Church (Hessey, Bampton Lectures, p. 88, 96). It was rightly regarded as the Church’s birthday, and the Pentecostal season, the period between it and Easter, bearing as it does such a clear analogy to the fifty days of the old law, thus became the ordinary time for the baptism of converts (Tertullian, De Bapt. c. 19; Jerome, in Zec 14:8). SEE PENTECOSTAL EFFUSION.
V. Literature. Mishna, Menachoth and Bikkurim; Joseph. Ant. 14:13, 4; 17:12. 2; War, 2:3, 1; faimonides, Iad Ha-Chezaka, Hilchoth Tamidin U- Mosaphin, c. 8; Abrabanel, Commentary on the Pentateuch, p. 211 (ed. Hanau, 1710); Meyer, De Fest. Heb 2:13; Bahr, Symbolik des Mosaischen Cultus, 2:619 sq., 645 sq.; Diedricli, in Ersch and Gruber’s Encyklopadie, s.v. Pfingsten, sec. iii, vol. xx, p. 418-431; The Jewish Ritual called Derach Ha-Chajim (Vienna, 1859), p. 253 b, sq.; The Ritual for the Cycle of Festivals, entitled () Machsor on ( ) the Festival of Weeks; Carpzov, App. Crit. 3:5; Reland, Antiq. 4:4; Lightfoot, Temple Service, sec. 3; Exercit. in Act 2:1; Spencer, De Leg. Heb. I, 9:2; III, 8:2; Hupfeld, De Fest. Heb. ii; Iken, De Duobus Panibus Pentecost. (Brem. 1729); Drusius, Notoe Majores in Lev 23:15; Lev 23:21 (Crit. Sac.); Otho, Lex. Rab. s.v. Festa; Buxtorf, Synagogal. Judenthum, c. 20. SEE FESTIVAL.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Pentecost
i.e., “fiftieth”, found only in the New Testament (Acts 2:1; 20:16; 1 Cor. 16:8). The festival so named is first spoken of in Ex. 23:16 as “the feast of harvest,” and again in Ex. 34:22 as “the day of the firstfruits” (Num. 28:26). From the sixteenth of the month of Nisan (the second day of the Passover), seven complete weeks, i.e., forty-nine days, were to be reckoned, and this feast was held on the fiftieth day. The manner in which it was to be kept is described in Lev. 23:15-19; Num. 28:27-29. Besides the sacrifices prescribed for the occasion, every one was to bring to the Lord his “tribute of a free-will offering” (Deut. 16:9-11). The purpose of this feast was to commemorate the completion of the grain harvest. Its distinguishing feature was the offering of “two leavened loaves” made from the new corn of the completed harvest, which, with two lambs, were waved before the Lord as a thank offering.
The day of Pentecost is noted in the Christian Church as the day on which the Spirit descended upon the apostles, and on which, under Peter’s preaching, so many thousands were converted in Jerusalem (Acts 2).
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Pentecost
(“fiftieth”.) (See FEASTS.) Exo 23:16; Exo 34:22; Num 28:26-31; Deu 16:9-14; Lev 23:15-22. The first sheaf offered at the Passover and the two leavened loaves at Pentecost marked the beginning and ending of the grain harvest, and sanctified the interval between as the whole harvest or Pentecostal season. The lesson to Israel was, “Jehovah maketh peace in thy borders, He filleth thee with the finest of the wheat” (Psa 147:14). Pentecost commemorated the giving of the law on Sinai (Exo 12:2; Exo 12:19), the 50th day after the Exodus, 50th from “the morrow after the sabbath” (i.e. the first day of holy convocation, 15th Nisan); the day after was more fit for cutting the sheaf, the 16th day. It was also the birthday of the Christian church (Act 2:1; Act 20:16; 1Co 16:8) through the Holy Spirit, who writes Christ’s new law on the heart. It was the last Jewish feast Paul observed, and the first which, as Whitsunday, Christians kept.
“The feast of weeks” (a week of weeks between Passover and Pentecost), “the day of firstfruits.” The sixth day of Sivan, lasting only one day; but the Jews in foreign countries have added a second day. Each of the two loaves was the tenth of an ephah (about three quarts and a half) of finest wheat flour. Waved Before Jehovah with a peace offering of the two lambs of the first year, and given to the priests. Seven lambs of the first year were sacrificed, one bullock and two rams as a burnt offering with meat and drink offering, and a kid sin offering. Each brought a free will offering. The Levite, stranger, fatherless, and widow were invited. As the Passover was a family gathering, Pentecost was a social feast. The people were reminded of their Egyptian bondage and of their duty to obey the law. The concourse at Pentecost was very great (Acts 2; Josephus Ant. 14:13, section 14, 17:10, section 2; B. J. 2:3, section 1). In Exo 23:16; Exo 23:19, “the first (i.e. chief) of the firstfruits” are the two wave loaves of Pentecost (Lev 23:17).
The omer offering at Passover was the prelude to the greater harvest offering at Pentecost, before which no other firstfruits could be offered. The interval between Pentecost and tabernacles was the time for offering firstfruits. The Jews called Pentecost “the concluding assembly of the Passover” (‘atsereth). If the last supper was on the legal day, the 14th Nisan, and the Sabbath of Jesus’ lying in the grave was the day of the omer, the Pentecost of Acts 2, 50 days after, must have been on the Jewish Saturday Sabbath. Others make the 13th that of the supper; 14th the crucifixion, the Passover day; 15th the day of Jesus’ sleep, the Saturday Sabbath, the holy convocation; our Sunday, first day, the omer day; 50th day from that would be Pentecost, on our Lord’s day. The tongues symbolized Christianity proclaimed by preaching; the antithesis to Babel’s confusion of tongues and gathering of peoples under one ambitious will. Jerusalem, the mount of the Lord, is the center of God’s spiritual kingdom of peace and righteousness; Babel, the center of Satan’s kingdom and of human rebellion, ignores God the true bond of union, and so is the city of confusion, in the low dead level of Shinar. As Babel’s sin disunited, so by the Spirit of God given on Pentecost believers are one, “keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:1-16).
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
PENTECOST
The word pentecost means fifty, and comes from the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It refers to the Israelite harvest festival that was held fifty days after Passover. In the Old Testament this festival is called the Feast of Harvest, the Feast of Firstfruits and the Feast of Weeks. In the New Testament it is called the Feast of Pentecost (Lev 23:5-6; Lev 23:15-16; Act 2:1; Act 20:16; 1Co 16:8; for details see FEASTS).
Pentecost is significant in the New Testament story because on that day the church was born. Christ the Passover lamb had been sacrificed; then, fifty days later, God poured out his Spirit on that small group of disciples who were the firstfruits of his new people, the church of Jesus Christ (Act 2:1-4; cf. 1Co 5:7). (Concerning the extraordinary happenings that day see BAPTISM WITH THE SPIRIT; TONGUES.)
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Pentecost
PENTECOST ( ) was one of the three great national festivals of Israel at which all the males of the people were required to present themselves every year before the Lord their God, with an offering according to their means (Exo 23:17; Exo 34:23, Deu 16:16-17, 2Ch 8:13). There is evidence that in the time of Christ multitudes assembled for the Feast of the Passover, the Feast of Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, not only from all parts of the Holy Land, but also from the Jewish communities scattered throughout the Roman Empire. The attendance at the Passover would probably be the largest, while the numbers at Pentecost would embrace more Jews from foreign countries, the season being more favourable for travel. All three feasts have (1) a basis in the agricultural life of Canaan, (2) a reference to the history of the nation, and (3) a spiritual and typical significance. Of the three, the Feast of the Passover came first in the natural year, signalizing the commencement of the barley harvest and the dedication of the first ripe sheaf by waving it before the Lord; commemorating the deliverance of the people from Egyptian bondage; and pointing forward, by the lamb without blemish sacrificed on the occasion, to the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. Of the series, the Feast of Tabernacles was the last, celebrating with great rejoicings the completion of harvest and vintage; commemorating, by the erection of booths in which the people dwelt for the week, the wanderings of their fathers in the wilderness on the way to settled life in Canaan; and having its antitype in the rest that remaineth for the people of God, or, better perhaps, in that great Harvest Home yet to come, when there shall be gathered before the throne a multitude which no man can number, out of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, clothed in white robes and with palms in their hands.
Between these two national festivals came Pentecost. As Passover signalized the commencement of the grain harvest, Pentecost marked its conclusion; and as Tabernacles was a great national thanksgiving for the completed vintage and fruit harvest of the year, Pentecost was a thanksgiving for the completed grain harvest.
1. Names.The actual word Pentecost does not occur in the canonical books of the OT, but it is found in Tob 2:1 and 2Ma 12:32. Neither does it occur in the Gospels, where the Feast itself is not mentioned. It occurs in NT three times outside the Gospels (Act 2:1; Act 20:16, and 1Co 16:6), and in these passages it is employed not as a numeral adjective, but as a substantive. The Feast is called Pentecost because it fell on the fiftieth day counted from Nisan 16, the day after the Passover Sabbath (or festival day), and fulfilled the ancient command: 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 (or weeks) shall be complete: even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days, and ye shall offer a new meal-oftering unto the Lord (Lev 23:15-16 cf. Deu 16:9). The names by which the Feast is known in the OT proper exhibit its basis in the agricultural life of the people. It is the Feast of Weeks, called from the seven weeks reckoned from the morrow after the Passover when they began to put the sickle to the corn (Exo 34:22, Deu 16:9-10, 2Ch 8:13); the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours which thou hast sowed in the field (Exo 23:16); the Day of First Fruits, a day of rest and holy convocation (Num 28:26, cf. Exo 23:16; Exo 34:22), although, like the other Feasts, it was actually of a weeks duration. By later Judaism it was styled Azereth (conclusion), which appears in Josephus as ; and Day of the Giving of the Law in commemoration of the revelation of the Divine Will to the people at Sinai (Hamburger, BE, Wochenfest; Edersheim, The Temple, p. 227).
2. Agricultural basis.The distinctive features of the ritual observed at Pentecost are those of a harvest thanksgiving. When barley harvest was begun at Passover time, the omer or sheaf was brought to the priest to he waved by him before the Lord; and this was followed by a burnt-offering of a he-lamb without blemish of the first year, with appropriate meat-and drink-offerings (Lev 23:10-14). When the grain harvest which had been proceeding through the following seven weeks reached its completion at Pentecost and the thanksgiving celebration for it took place, a larger offering was prescribed. Instead of the omer of barleywhether presented in the sheaf or, as would appear from later practice, threshed and parched and made into flourthere were now two wave-loaves of the finest wheaten flour to be brought by the people out of their habitations and offered as a new meal-offering unto the Lord. In contrast to the Passover bread, which was unleavened, these two loaves, forming the peculiar offering of the Day of Pentecost, were baken with leaven, which, as the Mishna informs us, was the case in all thank-offerings. These loaves are declared to be the firstfruits unto the Lord (Lev 23:16-17), and formed with the peace-offering of two lambs the public thank-offering of the nation to God for His goodness. Instead of the single lamb of the Passover, there were now to be presented as a burnt-offering seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams, with appropriate meat-and drink-offerings; whilst a kid of the goats was to be sacrificed as a sin-offering (Lev 23:18-19). It was in keeping with an occasion of national thanksgiving that freewill offerings were to be brought by the people, each as the Lord had prospered him: And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among yon. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt: and thou shalt observe and do these statutes (Deu 16:11-12). Although the festival proper, as we have seen, was confined to one day, it continued in a minor degree for a whole week, and was celebrated with gladness and rejoicing. All this made it peculiarly popular; and the season of the year being favourable, as we have seen, for travel, it seems from notices in Josephus, and from references in the Acts of the Apostles, to have been frequented by a large concourse of pilgrims from all the lands of the Jewish Dispersion. It is now the custom among the Jews to decorate the synagogue at Pentecost with trees and plants and flowers,a modern substitute for the harvest festival of former times (see Jewish Encyc., art. Pentecost; Rosenau, Jewish Ceremonial Institutions, p. 86).
3. Historical reference.Whilst the notices in the OT, mainly in the Pentateuch, regard Pentecost simply as a harvest festival, it came to be regarded among the. later Jews as commemorating the giving of the Law at Sinai. The Book of Jubilees, in the 1st cent. a.d. (Schrer, GJV [Note: JV Geschichte des Jdischen Volkes.] 3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] iii. 277), makes the Feast of Weeks as old as Noah, and associates it further with the later Patriarchs. Josephus and Philo do not mention the giving of the Law among the associations of the Feast, yet many authorities, like Edersheim (loc. cit.) and Ginsburg (Kittos Cyclopdia, Pentecost), hold it to be certain that the Jews as early as the time of Christ commemorated the giving of the Law at Pentecost. With this was incorporated the legend of the Law being delivered in seventy languages, the number of the nations of the earth, and therefore meant for all the families of mankind. (See Spitta, Apostclgeschichte, pp. 27, 28.)
4. Antitypical significanceGiving of the Holy Spirit.As the Passover has its antitype in the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world, Pentecost has its antitype in the shedding down of the Holy Spirit, by whom the Law is written upon fleshy tables of the heart, and the bonds of intercourse between God and man are re-knit in a spiritual and enduring communion. St. Paul describes the Pentecostal gift as the first-fruits of the Spirit (Rom 8:23), in accordance with the purpose of the day. Of this momentous event we have the record in Acts 2. If in Jewish tradition the first Pentecost after the great deliverance from Egypt was, through the giving of the Law, the birthday of Judaism, in Christian history the first Pentecost after the true Passover Lamb had been slain was, through the outpouring of the Spirit, the birthday of the Church. The presence and working of the Spirit within the Church form the distinctive characteristic of Christianity. Gracious and beneficent as was the presence of the Master with His disciples, it was better, so He Himself declared, that He should go away (Joh 16:7), and that in His stead the Paraclete, with His threefold conviction for the world, should come (Joh 16:8-11). Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, said Jesus to the Eleven and them that were gathered with them as He was about to ascend up into heaven; but tarry ye in the city till ye be endued with power from on high (Luk 24:49). Then, as the Evangelist records, He led them out until they were over against Bethany; and while His hands were lifted up in blessing, He parted from them, and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually in the temple, blessing God (Luk 24:52-53).
The Temple was the chief resort of the disciples, during the period of tarrying which their Master had enjoined; but they continued also to frequent the Upper Room, now hallowed to them by its memories of the Lord (Act 1:13 f.), continuing steadfastly in prayer, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. And so they waited and prayed; and, lest anything should be lacking to their readiness for the promised blessing, they filled up, by the questionable arbitrament of the lot, the place in the number of the Twelve rendered vacant by the fall of Judas. It was now the eve of the second return of the Resurrection-day since the Lord had ascended, and the city was crowded and astir with the pilgrim bands which had come up to Jerusalem for the great annual harvest thanksgiving. No doubt they had counted the days; and they may well have divined that on Pentecost, the fiftieth day since their Lord had suffered as the Passover Lamb, their expectations would be fulfilled (Baumgarten, Apostolic History, i. p. 41).
The day of Pentecost was now come, and at an early hour the disciples, filled with anticipations awakened by the day, were all together in one place. That this place was the Temple seems natural, considering the occasion. It is a fair inference from the passage in St. Luke already quoted (Luk 24:52-53), and it harmonizes with the statement that the multitude came together (Act 2:6) when the descent of the Spirit became known abroad. It is said that the sound heard from heaven filled all the house ( ) where they were sitting,an exaggerated form of expression if only a private dwelling is meant, whereas house is the regular designation of the Temple in the LXX Septuagint and in Josephus. Hallowed as the Upper Room had become by the institution of the Last Supper and the fellowship the disciples had there enjoyed with the Risen Lord, there was a significance beyond even that in the Temple, which had been so long the earthly dwelling-place of Jehovah, now being the place of the inauguration of the dispensation in which the believing soul is to be the temple and dwelling-place of the Spirit.
To those praying disciples, and to the Church of which they were the representatives, came on that eventful day the fulfilment of the promise of the Father. Suddenly a sound from heaven as of a mighty rushing wind fell upon the ears of the expectant band, and filled all the house where they were sitting. It does not appear that there was an actual wind, but only the sound of it pervading all parts of the house. Then, as they looked around, they beheld tongues like as of fire distributing themselves through the building, and alighting each upon a disciples head. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit is the supreme and enduring blessing of Pentecost. It is the central fact of this remarkable narrative. Side by side with the Incarnation, and the Atonement, and the Resurrection, and the Ascension of the Lord, stands the Mission of the Comforter in the gospel scheme. As the Mosaic dispensation was inaugurated with miracles and supernatural signs, it was meet that the dispensation which replaced it should likewise be ushered in with miraculous manifestations.
These manifestations must be briefly noticed. Wind and fire are elemental emblems of the Spirit occurring from time to time in the OT. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire (Mat 3:11) was the Baptists prediction concerning the Messiah, now clearly fulfilled. The wind bloweth where it listeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit (Joh 3:8), was the Lords own shadowing forth of the Sprits power to Nicodemus.
To the miraculous associations of Pentecost belong the tongues with which the Apostles spake. Not unknown tongues, however, nor such ecstatic utterances as became familiar afterwards at Corinth and in the early Church, but tongues in which the strangers from distant countries, who had come to Jerusalem for the Feast, at once recognized their own speech, and heard the mighty works of God proclaimed. That the gift of tongues was a permanent endowment of the Apostles for their great work of proclaiming redemption to all the kindred of mankind, cannot be maintained. There is no proof that any of the Apostles of whose labours we have a record in the Acts was thus saved the trouble of acquiring foreign tongues, and supplied with the linguistic qualifications necessary for ministering to people of other races than their own. In fact, within the Roman world of that day such tongues were by no means indispensable. The Roman world, whithersoever the Apostles went on their missionary journeys, was to all intents and purposes of one speech, and they could make themselves understood in Greek in almost every ordinary case. It was only when they travelled to the far East, or to the bounds of the West, or away up the Nile, that their message required another tongue. The Jews who had come to the Feast at Jerusalem, or perhaps, as was the case with some, were sojourners in the Holy City, from out of every nation under heaven, recognized at once the vernacular of the several peoples among whom they were scatteredthe tongue of Parthia, of Mesopotamia, of Phrygia, of Egypt, of Arabiaon the lips of one or other of the Apostles; but Greek was yet the lingua franca by which they could almost everywhere make themselves understood. The tongues served the immediate purpose on this historic occasion of conveying to the assembled multitudes the great facts of the completed redemption, in familiar speech, yet with unwonted impressiveness and solemnity. But they were, over and above this, a supernatural sign, not only affording a striking proof at the moment of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit with the Apostles, but also furnishing a symbol of the universality of the new faith, and pointing forward to the proclamation of the glad tidings of great joy to all the families of mankind. Thus the legend of the giving of the Law in seventy languages on Mt. Sinai was matched by the fact of the tongues at Pentecost; and the preaching of the gospel, first in all the lands of the Jewish Dispersion and then in all the earth, was emphatically shown forth.
5. Abiding significance.The gift of tongues which marked the effusion of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was only one of several extraordinary gifts bestowed at first upon the Church by the Ascended Lord. These gifts continued through the Apostolic Age, and were not only varied in their character, but wholly distinct from the ordinary quickening, sanctifying, and ministerial gifts which abide in the Church through all her history. They have passed away, and though in an Edward Irving and other saintly and gifted souls some of them may seem for a little while to reappear, it is His gifts of quickening, sanctifying, and enabling that are the abiding blessing of the Holy Spirit to the Church, and that perpetuate the grace of Pentecost. The permanent blessing is not for a few, but for all believers. The Spirit had at the Creation brooded over the face of the deep; He had moved holy men to utter the oracles of God; He had rested upon anointed kings, like Saul and David; and He had dwelt without measure in the Incarnate Son of God. Now the blessing was to be for all. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, is the fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel (Joe 2:28-29). It is the realization also of our Lords promise (Joh 7:37-39). And St. Peter in his discourse to the multitudes on the day of Pentecost confirms the universality of the gift (Act 2:38-39).
Whilst the experience of the disciples on the day of Pentecost shows the universality of the gift, it also attests the working of a new power of spiritual quickening and transformation. The Apostles themselves were transformed into new men. By the baptism of fire they were made courageous and brave; their eyes were opened to see the spirituality of Christs Kingdom; and they were filled with a great enthusiasm for the salvation of men through the preaching of the crucified Christ. And such was the power of the Spirit accompanying St. Peters words, that the multitude who had assembled to see and to hear were pricked to the heart, and cried, Men and brethren, what shall we do? And with three thousand souls added to the little band of Apostles and believers, a Church was born in a day. With great power gave the apostles witness, and that power was the gift of the Holy Ghost. Under the working of the Pentecostal gift a new spirit of love takes possession of them that believe, a new fellowship is established, a new service and varied ministry instituted. Throughout the course of the Churchs history it has been the mission of the Comforter to convince the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; to glorify Christ to His believing people; to lead the Church into all truth, and to show her things to come; to sanctify them that believe; and to bestow grace upon all who serve in any ministry according to the requirement of the office which they fill. It is His mission still; and the great hope of the Church and of the world lies in the renewal of Pentecost, with its breath of refreshing and its tongue of fire, in each successive age.
Literature,Besides the works mentioned above, see the Comm. on Acts 2, the articles Pentecost. Feasts, Pfingstfest, Wochenfest in the Encyclopaedias and Bible Dictionaries; Benzingers Heb. Arch.; Mackies Bible Manners and Customs; Farrar, St. Paul, i. 83104; Expositor, i. i. [1875], 393408; William Arthur, The Tongue of Fire.
T. Nicol.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Pentecost
The day of Pentecost was so first called after our Lord’s ascension. Before that period the church called it “the feast of weeks,” (Exo 34:22) and it was one of those three great feasts in which all the males were require to appear before the Lord. The word Pentecost means the fiftieth, being fifty days from the Passover. The feast itself was appointed perhaps with a double view; first, to commemorate the giving of the law on mount Sinai, which was on the fiftieth day after the children of Israel had left Egypt; and, secondly, and for which it was enjoined as a feast, to testify that Israel’s Lord was the rightful owner of all Israel’s property, and they as tenants holding those possessions during the pleasure of their almighty landlord, and thus they were called upon cheerfully to pay their high rent in offering to him the first fruits of all their increase.
This festival in the ancient church was very highly celebrated, as we may plainly perceive from the multitude that came from all parts, to trade on those occasions, on the day of Pentecost, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles. (Act 2:1-47) How far religious duties occupied the minds of the children of Israel, in those dark ages, is not very easy to determine.
The modern Jews of the present hour, holding by tradition the festival as chiefly referring to the giving of the law on mount Sinai, of which they are very tenacious, and not knowing that it is the ministration of condemnation, they celebrate this festival for two days with great attention. They adorn both the synagogue and their own houses with flowers, and make it altogether a time of festivity. In the religious parts of their services on those occasions, it is said that they read in the Scriptures of Moses what relates to the feast of weeks, and conclude their ceremonies in mutual good wishes for the prosperity of each other and their nation.
What a vast superiority hath the true believer in Jesus in celebrating our Pentecost! This blessed festival in the church of Christ is wholly spiritual. Contemplating the first open descent of God the Holy Ghost as the first fruits of the Lord Jesus’s gifts to his people in his return to glory, when he had finished redemption-work upon earth, we are taught to hail the coming of the Holy Ghost as the most blessed of all evidences, concerning the truth as it is in Jesus. And when the soul of a real believer in Christ is truly regenerated, and enabled by divine teaching to enter into a real heartfelt enjoyment of what is contained in the doctrine of the descent of God the Holy Ghost upon the church, then this only festival becomes to every individual believer a renewed Pentecost indeed.
As the proper apprehension of this subject is truly interesting, I shall beg permission from the reader to dwell yet somewhat more particularly upon it.
If we attend to what the word of God hath graciously revealed in, reference to the sacred purposes of JEHOVAH in redemption, we may discover that as all the three divine persons of the GODHEAD have been and are engaged in the accomplishment of the work, so the Scriptures point out the special office of each. In the Old Testament we find God the Father proclaiming to the church the coming of his dear Son. In the New Testament we have that promise realized, and God the Son accomplishing the whole purposes, of salvation. And after his ascension and return to glory we have the visible manifestation of God the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, to carry on and render effectual the great purposes of redemption in the hearts of the people by his almighty grace and power. So that there is a beautiful order in the design and execution of the work itself, as well as grace and mercy in the dispensation.
The day of Pentecost therefore opens with the manifestation of the Holy Ghost in his sevenfold gifts and graces. Hitherto the kingdom of grace had been supplied with the occasional effusions of the Spirit on the church, as the sacred purposes of JEHOVAH’S will required. “The Holy Ghost, it is said, was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.” (Joh 7:39) But now that the Son of God hath finished the whole of his ministry upon earth, and is returned to glory, the Holy Ghost comes down in a fulness of blessings, and to him is committed the whole efficiency of the work, as the Almighty Minister in the church, to render the whole effectual; and to this agree the words of the prophets: Isa 44:3-5; Joe 2:28, etc. Act 2:14-34.
I beg to add one observation more on this view of our Christian Pentecost, namely, what a confirmation it gives to all the interesting doctrines of our most holy faith. The promise of God the Father in the Old Testament, and the promise of God the Son in the New Testament, both taught the church to be on the look-out for the coming of the Holy Ghost. And as the glorious period drew nigh when this Almighty Spirit would come and dwell in the hearts of his redeemed, the promises concerning him became more clear and pointed. The Lord Jesus, in his farewell sermon, when instituting his holy Supper as the standing memorial of his death, most particularly described his person, character, and offices. (See Joh 14:1-31 Joh 15:1-27 and Joh 16:1-33) And again, in the very moment of his departure, he reminded his disciples of the near approach of this blessed guest. “Behold (said Jesus) I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high.” (Luk 24:49) And still farther he added at the same parting interview, “John (said Jesus) truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” (Act 1:5) And agreeably to this promise, the Holy Ghost actually came down ten days after, on the day of Pentecost when those events took place which are recorded in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. (Act 2:1-47)
Now from hence the following just and evident conclusion is unavoidable, and must follow: If Christ had not been God, how could he have had power and authority to have sent the Holy Ghost? If Christ had not completed salvation, and finished the work the Father gave him to do, how would his promise have been fulfilled in the gift of the Spirit? If Christ had not ascended, how would the Holy Ghost have descended in exact conformity to what he had said? Can any thing upon earth be more palpable and plain in confirmation of all the great truths of our holy faith, that when the Holy Ghost came down, Jesus was gone up, and God the Father confirmed the perfect approbation he had several times from heaven by a voice given of his dear Son, that he was well pleased in him, by sending down, according to Christ’s promise, the Holy Ghost? The Lord Jesus had told his disciples before his departure, that it was expedient for them he should go away. “For (said Jesus) if I go not away, the Comforter will not come; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” (Joh 16:7) He did depart, and the Holy Ghost came. What an evidence to all the other glorious testimonies of his mission! And I must contend for it, as for one of the plainest matters of fact the world was ever called to judge upon, that in the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, we have as palpable a seal to the truth of the gospel as we have to any one of the most common events in the circumstances of human life; yea, the subject will warrant my going farther, and to say, that in the heart of every individual sinner whom “the Lord hath made willing in the day of his power,” that soul is a living evidence of the descent of the Holy Ghost. And surely it is by these evidences now, in the present awful day of infidelity, and a Christ-despising generation, the Lord is bringing forth proofs to the doctrine of his dear Son. The Lord speaks in every one of them in terms similar to the words by the prophet: “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen.” (Isa 43:10)
I have greatly swollen this article beyond my first intention, yet I cannot take leave of it without adding a short observation, just to remark how needful it must be in every follower of the ever-blessed Jesus to examine in his own heart for the evidence of his Pentecost mercy, whether that holy Spirit hath witnessed in his spirit to “the truth as it is in Jesus?”Blessed is the man that can testify to the Spirit’s work in his own heart in all the offices, characters, and gifts of God the Holy Ghost. When we know him as Jesus described him, the Spirit of truth to guide into all truth; the Witness to our spirits that we are the children of God; the Glorifier of Jesus; the Comforter of the soul; the Spirit of grace, of supplication, and prayer; the Helper of our infirmities; the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge in the revelation of Christ Jesus in a word, the great and sovereign minister in the church and heart of all his people, from the first quickenings of grace, until grace be consummated in eternal glory. Oh, for the blessed earnest of the Holy Ghost thus to testify to his own impressions on the soul, whereby believers are “sealed unto the day of redemption!” (Eph 4:30)
Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures
Pentecost
pente-kost.
1. In the Old Testament:
As the name indicates (, pentekoste), this second of the great Jewish national festivals was observed on the 50th day, or 7 weeks, from the Paschal Feast, and therefore in the Old Testament it was called the feast of weeks. It is but once mentioned in the historical books of the Old Testament (2Ch 8:12, 2Ch 8:13), from which reference it is plain, however, that the people of Israel, in Solomon’s day, were perfectly familiar with it: offering according to the commandment of Moses, on the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the set feasts, three times in the year, even in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles. The requirements of the three great festivals were then well understood at this time, and their authority was founded in the Mosaic Law and unquestioned. The festival and its ritual were minutely described in this Law. Every male in Israel was on that day required to appear before the Lord at the sanctuary (Exo 34:22, Exo 34:23). It was the first of the two agrarian festivals of Israel and signified the completion of the barley-harvest (Lev 23:15, Lev 23:16; Deu 16:9, Deu 16:10), which had begun at the time of the waving of the first ripe sheaf of the first-fruits (Lev 23:11). Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks, therefore fell on the 50th day after this occurrence. The wheat was then also nearly everywhere harvested (Exo 23:16; Exo 34:22; Num 28:26), and the general character of the festival was that of a harvest-home celebration. The day was observed as a Sabbath day, all labor was suspended, and the people appeared before Yahweh to express their gratitude (Lev 23:21; Num 28:26). The central feature of the day was the presentation of two loaves of leavened, salted bread unto the Lord (Lev 23:17, Lev 23:20; Exo 34:22; Num 28:26; Deu 16:10). The size of each loaf was fixed by law. It must contain the tenth of an ephah, about three quarts and a half, of the finest wheat flour of the new harvest (Lev 23:17). Later Jewish writers are very minute in their description of the preparation of these two loaves (Josephus, Ant., III, x, 6). According to the Mishna (Menahoth, xi. 4), the length of the loaf was 7 handbreadths, its width 4, its depth 7 fingers. Lev 23:18 describes the additional sacrifices required on this occasion. It was a festival of good cheer, a day of joy. Free-will offerings were to be made to the Lord (Deu 16:10), and it was to be marked by a liberal spirit toward the Levite, the stranger, and orphans and widows (Deu 16:11, Deu 16:14). Perhaps the command against gleaning harvest-fields has a bearing on this custom (Lev 23:22).
The Old Testament does not give it the historical significance which later Jewish writers have ascribed to it. The Israelites were admonished to remember their bondage on that day and to reconsecrate themselves to the Lord (Deu 16:12), but it does not yet commemorate the giving of the Law at Sinai or the birth of the national existence, in the Old Testament conception (Ex 19). Philo, Josephus, and the earlier Talmud are all ignorant of this new meaning which was given to the day in later Jewish history. It originated with the great Jewish rabbi Maimonides and has been copied by Christian writers. And thus a view of the Jewish Pentecost has been originated, which is wholly foreign to the scope of the ancient institution.
2. In the New Testament:
The old Jewish festival obtained a new significance, for the Christian church, by the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Joh 16:7, Joh 16:13). The incidents of that memorable day, in the history of Christianity, are told in a marvelously vivid and dramatic way in the Acts of the Apostles. The old rendering of sumplerousthai (Act 2:1) by was fully come was taken by Lightfoot (Hor. Heb.) to signify that the Christian Pentecost did not coincide with the Jewish, just as Christ’s last meal with His disciples was considered not to have coincided with the Jewish Passover, on Nisan 14. The bearing of the one on the other is obvious; they stand and fall together. the Revised Version (British and American) translates the obnoxious word simply was now come. Meyer, in his commentary on the Acts, treats this question at length. The tradition of the ancient church placed the first Christian Pentecost on a Sunday. According to John, the Passover that year occurred on Friday, Nisan 14 (Joh 18:28). But according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Passover that year occurred on Thursday, Nisan 14, and hence, Pentecost fell on Saturday. The Karaites explained the shabbath of Lev 23:15 as pointing to the Sabbath of the paschal week and therefore always celebrated Pentecost on Sunday. But it is very uncertain whether the custom existed in Christ’s day, and moreover it would be impossible to prove that the disciples followed this custom, if it could be proved to have existed. Meyer follows the Johannic reckoning and openly states that the other evangelists made a mistake in their reckoning. No off-hand decision is possible, and it is but candid to admit that here we are confronted with one of the knottiest problems in the harmonizing of the Gospels. See CHRONOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
The occurrences of the first pentecostal day after the resurrection of Christ set it apart as a Christian festival and invested it, together with the commemoration of the resurrection, with a new meaning. We will not enter here upon a discussion of the significance of the events of the pentecostal day described in Acts 2. That is discussed in the article under TONGUES (which see). The Lutherans, in their endeavor to prove the inherent power of the Word, claim that the effects then exhibited were due to the divine power inherent in the words of Christ; and that they had resisted that power up to the day of Pentecost and then yielded to its influence. This is well described as an incredible hypothesis (Hodge, Systematic Theology, III, 484). The Holy Spirit descended in answer to the explicit promise of the glorified Lord, and the disciples had been prayerfully waiting for its fulfillment (Act 1:4, Act 1:14). The Spirit came upon them as a power from on high. God the Holy Spirit proved on Pentecost His personal existence, and the intellects, the hearts, the lives of the apostles were on that day miraculously changed. By that day they were fitted for the arduous work that lay before them. There is some difference of opinion as to what is the significance of Pentecost for the church as an institution. The almost universal opinion among theologians and exegetes is this: that Pentecost marks the rounding of the Christian church as an institution. This day is said to mark the dividing line between the ministry of the Lord and the ministry of the Spirit. The later Dutch theologians have advanced the idea that the origin of the church, as an institution, is to be found in the establishment of the apostolate, in the selection of the Twelve. Dr. A. Kuyper holds that the church as an institution was founded when the Master selected the Twelve, and that these men were qualified for their calling by the power of the Holy Spirit. He distinguishes between the institution and the constitution of the church. Dr. H. Bavinck says: Christ gathers a church about Himself, rules it directly so long as He is on the earth, and appoints twelve apostles who later on will be His witnesses. The institution of the apostolate is an especially strong proof of the institutionary character which Christ gave to His church on the earth (Geref. Dogm., IV, 64).
Whatever we may think of this matter, the fact remains that Pentecost completely changed the apostles, and that the enduement with the Holy Spirit enabled them to become witnesses of the resurrection of Christ as the fundamental fact in historic Christianity, and to extend the church according to Christ’s commandment. Jerome has an especially elegant passage in which Pentecost is compared with the beginning of the Jewish national life on Mt. Sinai (Ad Tabiol, section 7): There is Sinai, here Sion; there the trembling mountain, here the trembling house; there the flaming mountain, here the flaming tongues; there the noisy thunderings, here the sounds of many tongues; there the clangor of the ramshorn, here the notes of the gospel-trumpet. This vivid passage shows the close analogy between the Jewish and Christian Pentecost.
3. Later Christian Observance:
In the post-apostolic Christian church Pentecost belonged to the so-called Semestre Domini, as distinct from the Semestre Ecclesiae the church festivals properly so called. As yet there was no trace of Christmas, which began to appear about 360 AD. Easter, the beginning of the pentecostal period, closed the Quadragesima, or Lent, the entire period of which had been marked by self-denial and humiliation. On the contrary, the entire pentecostal period, the so-called Quinquagesima, was marked by joyfulness, daily communion, absence of fasts, standing in prayer, etc. Ascension Day, the 40th day of the period, ushered in the climax of this joyfulness, which burst forth in its fullest volume on Pentecost. It was highly esteemed by the Fathers. Chrysostom calls it the metropolis of the festivals (De Pentec., Hom. ii); Gregory of Nazianzen calls it the day of the Spirit (De Pentec., Orat. 44). All the Fathers sound its praises. For they fully understood, with the church of the ages, that on that day the dispensation of the Spirit was begun, a dispensation of greater privileges and of a broader horizon and of greater power than had hitherto been vouchsafed to the church of the living God. The festival Octaves, which, in accordance with the Jewish custom, devoted a whole week to the celebration of the festival, from the 8th century, gave place to a two days’ festival, a custom still preserved by the Roman church and such Protestant bodies as follow the ecclesiastical year. The habit of dressing in white and of seeking baptism on Pentecost gave it the name Whitsunday, by which it is popularly known all over the world.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Pentecost
Pentecost, the name (signifying fiftieth) given in the New Testament to the Feast of Weeks, or of Ingathering, which was celebrated on the fiftieth day from the festival of unleavened bread, or the Passover; or seven weeks from the 16th day of Nisan. It was a festival of thanks for the harvest, and commenced immediately after the Passover [FESTIVALS]. It was one of the three great yearly festivals, in which all the males were required to appear before God at the place of his sanctuary. Josephus states that in his time great numbers of Jews resorted from every quarter to Jerusalem to keep this festival. This testimony affords interesting corroboration of Act 2:1; Act 2:9-11; Act 20:16; 1Co 16:8, in which the same fact appears. The commencement of the Christian church on the day of Pentecost, preceded as it was by our Lord’s ascension, attached a peculiar interest to this season, and eventually led to its being set apart for the commemoration of these great events. It was not, however, established as one of the great festivals until the fourth century. The combination of two events (the Ascension and the descent of the Holy Ghost) in one festival has a parallel in the original Jewish feast, which is held to have included the feast of first-fruits, and of the delivering of the law (Exo 23:16; Lev 23:14-21; Num 28:26). Indeed, this festival in some respects bears a close analogy to the Jewish one; and is evidently little more than a modification of it. The converts of that day, on which the Holy Ghost descended, were the first fruits of the Spirit. This festival became one of the three baptismal seasons, and it derives its name of Whitsunday, or white-Sunday, from so many being clad in white on this the day of their baptism.
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Pentecost
This name which signifies ‘fiftieth’ is found only in the N.T.: it corresponds to the FEAST OF WEEKS. From the waving of the sheaf of firstfruits fifty days were counted, and on the day after the seven sabbaths the feast was kept. A new meat offering of two loaves baken with leaven was offered; also seven lambs, one bullock, and two rams for a burnt offering, with their meat and drink offerings “even an offering made by fire of sweet savour unto the Lord.” Also one kid of the goats for a sin offering; and two lambs for a peace offering. It was proclaimed a holy convocation, in which no servile work was to be done. Lev 23:15-21. The Israelites came with their free-will offerings unto Jehovah, according as He had blessed them. See OFFERINGS.
The feast is typical of the presentation of the saints in the power and sanctification of the Holy Spirit. It was to be a day of universal rejoicing before the Lord, Deu 16:9-12, and was the commencement of the ingathering of the harvest. It is not mentioned in Ezekiel’s future feasts, because it has been fulfilled in the present interval in God’s dealings with Israel. Cf. Joh 7:37-39. See FEASTS.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Pentecost
Called:
– Feast of Weeks
Exo 34:22; Deu 16:10
– Feast of Harvest
Exo 23:16
– Day of First Fruits
Num 28:26
– Day of Pentecost
Act 2:1; Act 20:16; 1Co 16:8
Institution of
Exo 23:16; Exo 34:22; Lev 23:15-21; Num 28:26-31; Deu 16:9-12; Deu 16:16
Holy Ghost given to the apostles on the first day of
Act 2 Feasts
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Pentecost
Pentecost. Act 2:1. From a Greek word signifying fiftieth. The name in the New Testament for the second great festival of the Jews, called by them “the feast of weeks,” or “the day of first-fruits.” It was celebrated on the fiftieth dayhence the nameafter the passover, reckoning from the second day of the passoverthe 16th of NisanLev 23:11; Lev 23:15, to the morrow after the end of the seventh week. Lev 23:15-16; Deu 16:9. It was originally a simple thanksgiving for the harvest, which in Palestine fell in the weeks between the passover and the pentecost. The festival was kept only for one day, and the principal rite consisted in the offering of two loaves made of the finest flour of the last crop’s wheat. In some branches of the Christian Church pentecost is celebrated seven weeks after Easter, in commemoration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples, as the birthday of the Christian Church. See Act 2:1-14
Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible
Pentecost
Pen’tecost. Pentecost, that is, the fiftieth day, (from a Greek word, meaning fiftieth), or Harvest Feast, or Feast of Weeks, may be regarded as a supplement to the Passover. It lasted for but one day. From the sixteenth of Nisan, seven weeks were reckoned inclusively, and the next or fiftieth day was the Day of Pentecost, which fell on the sixth of Sivan, (about the end of May). Exo 23:16; Exo 34:22; Lev 23:15; Lev 23:22; Numbers 28. See the Jewish Calendar at the end of this volume.
The Pentecost was the Jewish harvest-home, and the people were especially exhorted to rejoice before Jehovah with their families their servants, the Levite within their gates, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, in the place chosen by God, for his name, as they brought a free-will offering, of their hand to Jehovah their God. Deu 16:10-11.
The great feature of the celebration was the presentation of the two loaves made from the first-fruits of the wheat harvest. With the loaves, two lambs were offered as a Peace Offering, and all were waved before Jehovah, and given to the priests; the leaves being leavened, could not be offered on the altar.
The other sacrifices were, a Burnt Offering of a young bullock, two rams, and seven lambs, with a meat and drink offering, and a kid for a Sin Offering. Lev 23:18-19. Till the Pentecostal, leaves were offered, the produce of the harvest might not be eaten, nor could any other firstfruits be offered. The whole ceremony was the completion, of that dedication of the harvest, to God as its giver, and to whom both the land, and the people were holy, which was begun by the offering of the wave-sheaf at the Passover. The interval is still regarded as a religious season.
The Pentecost is the only one of the three great feasts, which is not mentioned as the memorial of events, in the history of the Jews; but such a significance has been found in the fact, that the law was given from Sinai, on the fiftieth day after the deliverance from Egypt. Compare Exodus 12 and Exodus 19. In the Exodus, the people were offered to God as living first fruits; at Sinai, their consecration to him as a nation was completed. The typical significance of the Pentecost is made clear, from the events of the day recorded, in the Acts of the Apostles. Acts 2. Just as the appearance of God on Sinai was the birthday of the Jewish nation, so was the Pentecost, the birthday of the Christian Church.
Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary
Pentecost
an adjective denoting “fifieth,” is used as a noun, with “day” understood, i.e., the “fifieth” day after the Passover, counting from the second day of the Feast, Act 2:1; Act 20:16; 1Co 16:8. For the Divine instructions of Israel see Exo 23:16; Exo 34:22; Lev 23:15-21; Num 28:26-31; Deu 16:9-11.
Fuente: Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words
Pentecost
, a solemn festival of the Jews; so called, because it was celebrated on the fiftieth day after the sixteenth of Nisan, which was the second day of the passover. The Hebrews call it the feast of weeks, because it was kept seven weeks after the passover. They then offered the first fruits of the wheat harvest, which was then completed; beside which, they presented at the temple seven lambs of that year, one calf, and two rams for a burnt-offering; two lambs for a peace-offering; and a goat for a sin-offering, Lev 23:15-16; Exo 34:22; Deu 16:9-10. The feast of pentecost was instituted among the Israelites, first to oblige them to repair to the temple of the Lord, there to acknowledge his absolute dominion over the whole country, by offering him the first fruits of the harvest; and, secondly, to commemorate and give thanks to God for the law which he had given them from Sinai, on the fiftieth day after their coming out of Egypt. The modern Jews celebrate the pentecost for two days. They deck the synagogues, where the law is read, and their own houses, with garlands of flowers. They hear an oration in praise of the law, and read from the Pentateuch and prophets lessons which have a relation to this festival, and accommodate their prayers to the same occasion. It was on the feast of pentecost that the Holy Ghost descended in the miraculous manner related, Acts 2.