Leviticus 23 commentary

LEVITICUS 23 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
The Appointed Festivals
1The Lord said to Moses,
BARNES, "The specified times for public worship according to the Law were;
(1) The daily morning and evening sacrifices, sometimes called “the continual burnt-
offering.”
(2) The weekly Sabbath.
(3) the day of the new moon.
(4) the “set feasts” Num_29:39 or appointed times of annual observance, of which
there were five, the Passover, the Day of Pentecost, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day
of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles. For each of these occasions special
sacrifices were appointed Num. 28; 29.
GILL, "And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... Much about the same time as before;
and having delivered to him various laws concerning the holiness of the people of Israel,
who were to serve him, and of the holiness of the priests, that were to minister in holy
things to him, and of the purity and perfections of their sacrifices, he here appoints
various times and seasons, for the more special worship and service of him:
HENRY 1-3, "Here is, I. A general account of the holy times which God appointed
(Lev_23:2), and it is only his appointment that can make time holy; for he is the Lord of
time, and as soon as ever he had set its wheels a-going it was he that sanctified and
blessed one day above the rest, Gen_2:3. Man may by his appointment make a good day
(Est_9:19), but it is God's prerogative to make a holy day; nor is any thing sanctified but
by the stamp of his institution. As all inherent holiness comes from his special grace, so
all adherent holiness from his special appointment. Now, concerning the holy times here
ordained, observe, 1. They are called feasts. The day of atonement, which was one of
them, was a fast; yet, because most of them were appointed for joy and rejoicing, they
are in the general called feasts. Some read it, These are my assemblies, but that is co-
incident with convocations. I would rather read it, These are my solemnities; so the
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word here used is translated (Isa_33:20), where Zion is called the city of our
solemnities: and, reading it so here, the day of atonement was as great a solemnity as
any of them. 2. They are the feasts of the Lord (my feasts), observed to the honour of his
name, and in obedience to his command. 3. They were proclaimed; for they were not to
be observed by the priests only that attended the sanctuary, but by all the people. And
this proclamation was the joyful sound concerning which we read, Blessed are the
people that know it, Psa_89:15. 4. They were to be sanctified and solemnized with holy
convocations, that the services of these feasts might appear the more honourable and
august, and the people the more unanimous in the performance of them; it was for the
honour of God and his institutions, which sought not corners and the purity of which
would be best preserved by the public administration of them; it was also for the
edification of the people in love that the feasts were to be observed as holy convocations.
II. A repetition of the law of the sabbath in the first place. Though the annual feasts
were made more remarkable by the general attendance at the sanctuary, yet these must
not eclipse the brightness of the sabbath, Lev_23:3. They are here told, 1. That on that
day they must withdraw themselves from all the affairs and business of the world. It is a
sabbath of rest, typifying our spiritual rest from sin, and in God: You shall do no work
therein. On other holy days they were forbidden to do any servile work (Lev_23:7), but
on the sabbath, and the day of atonement (which is also called a sabbath), they were to
do no work at all, no, not the dressing of meat. 2. On that day they must employ
themselves in the service of God. (1.) It is a holy convocation; that is, “If it lie within
your reach, you shall sanctify it in a religious assembly: let as many as can come to the
door of the tabernacle, and let others meet elsewhere for prayer, and praise, and the
reading of the law,” as in the schools of the prophets, while prophecy continued, and
afterwards in the synagogues. Christ appointed the New Testament sabbath to be a holy
convocation, by meeting his disciples once and again (and perhaps oftener) on the first
day of the week. (2.) “Whether you have opportunity of sanctifying it in a holy
convocation or not, yet let it be the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. Put a
difference between that day and other days in your families. It is the sabbath of the Lord,
the day on which he rested from the work of creation, and on which he has appointed us
to rest; let it be observed in all your dwellings, even now that you dwell in tents.” Note,
God's sabbaths are to be religiously observed in every private house, by every family
apart, as well as by many families together in holy convocations. The sabbath of the Lord
in our dwellings will be their beauty, strength, and safety; it will sanctify, edify, and
glorify them.
K&D1-2, "This chapter does not contain a “calendar of feasts,” or a summary and
completion of the directions previously given in a scattered form concerning the festal
times of Israel, but simply a list of those festal days and periods of the year at which holy
meetings were to be held. This is most clearly stated in the heading (Lev_23:2): “the
festal times of Jehovah, which ye shall call out as holy meetings, these are they, My
feasts,” i.e., those which are to be regarded as My feasts, sanctified to Me. The festal
seasons and days were called “feasts of Jehovah,” times appointed and fixed by Jehovah
(see Gen_1:14), not because the feasts belonged to fixed times regulated by the course of
the moon (Knobel), but because Jehovah had appointed them as days, or times, which
were to be sanctified to Him. Hence the expression is not only used with reference to the
Sabbath, the new moon, and the other yearly feasts; but in Num_28:2 and Num_29:39
it is extended so as to include the times of the daily morning and evening sacrifice. (On
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the “holy convocation” see Exo_12:16.)
COFFMAN, "Verse 1
PART FOUR
ON HOLY DAYS AND SEASONS
(Leviticus 23-25)
Here begins the fourth major division of Leviticus dealing principally with the
various holy days and festivals observed by the children of Israel. This division
comprises Leviticus 23-25, with Leviticus 24 being somewhat of a parenthesis.
Significantly, these great festivals outlined here are still observed by the Jews all
over the world, although with changes that have inevitably occurred. There was
only one fast day, the Day of Atonement. In post-exilic times, the Jews imposed
many fasts upon their people, but without God's command or sanction. It was a
boast of the Pharisee (Luke 18) that he "fasted twice in the week"!
This part of Leviticus is distinguished by the continued use of "I am the Lord your
God," frequently used to terminate paragraphs. Here it divides this chapter into two
parts detailing the spring festivals (Leviticus 23:22), and the autumn festivals
(Leviticus 23:43). The major divisions of the chapter ending in those verses are
further subdivided by the clause, "this is a permanent rule for your descendants
wherever you dwell" (Leviticus 23:14,21,31,41).
The principal thrust of the chapter regards the people's observance of these
festivals. The detailed types of sacrifices required, which concerned chiefly the
priests, are presented later in Numbers (Numbers 28-29).
Some of these festivals occurred at times of the year when many festivals in the
pagan world had been observed continually for ages, and, as we should have
expected, critical enemies of the Bible try to find the origin of these O.T. festivals in
the older pagan ceremonies occurring about the same time, but all such attempts
have failed. "The original ground of these festivals was not the natural celebrations
of pagans, but historical. All of these observances derived from circumstances
attending the birth of the nation of Israel and their deliverance from Egyptian
bondage."[1] The divine origin of these celebrations is seen, for example, in the very
name Passover, which memorializes the passing over of the houses of Israel the
night when an angel of God slew the firstborn in all Egypt. Also, the Feast of
Unleavened Bread, during which no leaven was used for a whole week, still speaks,
as it did at the inception of the celebration, of the haste in which the children of
Israel were brought out of the land of their bondage, there being no time for leaven
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to be allowed to rise! The finger of God was in all of those ancient festivals, and it is
still visible for those who will observe it. Thus, "The naturalistic identification of
these feasts with the harvest feasts of other nations is a mistake."[2]
"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say
unto them, The set feasts of Jehovah, which ye shall proclaim to be holy
convocations, even these are my set feasts. Six days shall work be done: but on the
seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation; ye shall do no manner
of work: it is a sabbath unto Jehovah in all your dwellings."
"Holy convocations ..." These words "do not signify the necessity of a journey to the
sanctuary. Appearance at the tabernacle to hold the holy convocations was not
regarded as necessary either in the law itself or in later orthodox custom."[3] As a
matter of fact, and of history, religious meetings for the purpose of conducting
worship were held every sabbath day WHEREVER Jews lived; and, "It was out of
these that the synagogues arose."[4]
The sabbath itself is here mentioned somewhat parenthetically, because the sabbath
itself was NOT one of the great festivals about to be proclaimed. However, it was a
most vital part of the Jewish religion and is appropriately named here at the outset.
Besides, the observance of additional sabbaths was involved in festivals themselves.
"Ye shall do no manner of work ..." (Leviticus 23:3). This is a more restrictive
commandment than the one found in Leviticus 23:7,8,21,25,35,36, where "ye shall
do no servile work," is the prohibition. "There is a definite indication here that the
regular, frequently occurring sabbath was intended to be a holier day than any of
the set feasts."[5] Similarly, in Christianity, the extreme sanctity of the regular,
frequently-occurring Lord's Day services, constitute the holiest occasions of all.
What a shame it is that the historical church has tended to downgrade the weekly
observance and give the great stress to "special occasions," not commanded by the
Lord at all, but devised by men, such as Easter, Christmas, Whitsunday, Good
Friday, etc.
BENSON, "Leviticus 23:41. Ye shall keep it a feast unto the Lord seven days in the
year— These days were spent in great festivity and joy; the highest part of which
consisted in the drawing and pouring out of water: the Talmudists say of this, that
he who never saw the rejoicing of drawing of water, knows not what rejoicing is.
This custom is thought to have been in memory of the miraculous water which
flowed from the rock in the wilderness; and undoubtedly was figurative of the
gospel-grace; see Zechariah 14:16. The words of Isaiah 12:3 were sung during this
ceremony; With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation: to which it is
believed our Saviour alluded, when he cried out in the temple, on the last day of this
solemnity; If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink: he that believeth on
me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, John
7:37-38. It is probable, that the Pagans derived their festivals in honour of Bacchus
from this feast of the Jews.
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REFLECTIONS.—The sorrows of repentance are the certain forerunners of peace
and joy in believing. The humiliation of the day of atonement prepared for the feast
of tabernacles, one of the three great festivals, celebrated for eight days, with every
expression of gladness, with many sacrifices, and two days of solemn convocation.
During seven days, they lived in booths, made of the branches of trees; the eighth
was a holy day of rest and joy. They thus remembered their long abode in tents in
the wilderness, and God's care of them there: and as the fruits of the whole year
were now gathered in, this added to their thankfulness. Note; (1.) When we come to
our true land of rest, it will ever warm our hearts with peculiar gratitude, to
remember the hardships we have endured in the wilderness, and from which the
Lord delivered us. (2.) If the joy of harvest was so great, how much greater will be
our joy, when we shall reap the harvest of eternal glory! (3.) We, in this world, dwell
in booths, but in a few days we shall return to our house, which is from heaven, and
then everlasting joy will be upon our heads.
These solemnities were annually observed, besides their sabbaths and free-will
offerings; for nothing must interrupt our ordinary duties, and we are never
restrained from adding any farther portion of our time and substance to the
immediate service of God, if we find our hearts inclined, and our circumstances
enable us.
EBC, "
THE WEEKLY SABBATH
Leviticus 23:1-3
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say
unto them, The set feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy
convocations, even these are My set feasts. Six days shall work be done: but on the
seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation; ye shall do no manner
of work: it is a sabbath unto the Lord in all your dwellings."
The first verse of this chapter announces the purpose of the section as not to give a
complete calendar of sacred times or of seasons of worship, -for the new moons and
the sabbatic year and the jubilee are not mentioned, - but to enumerate such sacred
times as are to be kept as "holy convocations." The reference in this phrase cannot
be to an assembling of the people at the central sanctuary which is elsewhere
ordered {Exodus 34:23} only for the three feasts of passover, weeks, and atonement;
but rather, doubtless, to local gatherings for purposes of worship, such as, at a later
day, took form in the institution of the synagogues.
The enumeration of these "set times" begins with the Sabbath (Leviticus 23:3), as
was natural; for, as we have seen, the whole series of sacred times was sabbatic in
character. The sanctity of the day is emphasised in the strongest terms, as a
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shabbath shabbathon, a "sabbath of sabbatism,"-a sabbath of solemn rest, as it is
rendered by the Revisers. While on some other sacred seasons the usual occupations
of the household were permitted, on the Sabbath "no manner of work" was to be
done; not even was it lawful to gather wood or to light a fire.
For this sanctity of the Sabbath two reasons are elsewhere given. The first of these,
which is assigned in the fourth commandment, makes it a memorial of the rest of
God, when having created man in Eden, He saw His work which He had finished,
that it was very good, and rested from all His work. As created, man was participant
in this rest of God. He was indeed to work in tilling the garden in which he had been
placed; but from such labour as involves unremunerative toil and exhaustion he was
exempt. But this sabbatic rest of the creation was interrupted by sin; God’s work,
which He had declared "good," was marred; man fell into a condition of wearying
toil and unrest of body and soul, and with him the whole creation also was
"subjected to vanity". {Genesis 3:17-18 Romans 8:20} But in this state of things the
God of love could not rest; it thus involved for Him a work of new creation, which
should have for its object the complete restoration, both as regards man and nature,
of that sabbatic state of things on earth which had been broken up by sin. And thus
it came to pass that the weekly Sabbath looked not only backward, but forward;
and spoke not only of the rest that was, but of the great sabbatism of the future, to
be brought in through a promised redemption. Hence, as a second reason for the
observance of the Sabbath, it is said {Exodus 31:13} to be a sign between God and
Israel through all their generations, that they might know that He was Jehovah
which sanctified them, i.e., who had set them apart for deliverance from the curse,
that through them the world might be saved.
These are thus the two sabbatic ideas; rest and redemption. They everywhere
appear, in one form or another, in all this sabbatic series of sacred times. Some of
them emphasise one phase of the rest and redemption, and some another; the
weekly Sabbath, as the unit of the series, presents both. For in Deuteronomy
{Deuteronomy 5:15} Israel was commanded to keep the Sabbath in commemoration
of the exodus, as the time when God undertook to bring them into His rest; a rest of
which the beginning and the pledge was their deliverance from Egyptian bondage; a
rest brought in through a redemption.
Verses 1-44
THE SET FEASTS OF THE LORD
Leviticus 23:1-44
IT is ever an instinct of natural religion to observe certain set times for special
public and united worship. As we should therefore anticipate, such observances are
in this chapter enjoined as a part of the requirement of the law of holiness for Israel.
It is of consequence to observe that the Revisers have corrected the error of the
Authorised Version, which renders two perfectly distinct words alike as "feasts";
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and have distinguished the one by the translation. "set feasts," the other by the one
word, "feasts." The precise sense of the former word is given in the margin
"appointed seasons." and it is naturally applied to all the set times of special
religious solemnity which are ordained in this chapter. But the other word
translated "feast,"-derived from a root meaning "to dance," whence "feast" or
"festival,"-is applied to only three of the former six "appointed seasons," namely,
the feasts of Unleavened Bread, of Pentecost, and of Tabernacles; as intended to be,
in a special degree, seasons of gladness and festivity.
The indication of this distinction is of importance, as completely meeting the
allegation that there is in this chapter evidence of a later development than in the
account of the feasts given in Exodus 34:1-35, where the number of the "feasts,"
besides the weekly Sabbath, is given as three, while here, as it is asserted, their
number has been increased to six. In reality, however, there is nothing here which
suggests a later period. For the object of the former law in Exodus was only to name
the "feasts" (haggim); while that of the chapter before us is to indicate not only
these, -which here, as there, are three, -but, in addition to these, all "appointed
seasons" for "holy convocations," which, although all mo’adim, were not all
haggim.
The observance of public religious festivals has been common to all the chief
religions of the world, both ancient and modern. Very often, though not in all cases,
these have been determined by the phases of the moon; or by the apparent motion of
the sun in the heavens, as in many instances of religious celebrations connected with
the period of the spring and autumnal equinoxes; and thus, very naturally, also with
the times of harvest and ingathering. It is at once evident that of these appointed
seasons of holy convocation, the three feasts (haggim) of the Hebrews also fell at
certain points in the harvest season; and with each of these, ceremonies were
observed connected with harvest and ingathering; while two, the feast of weeks and
that of tabernacles, take alternate names, directly referring to this their connection
with the harvest; namely, the feast of first fruits and that of ingathering. Thus we
have, first, the feast of unleavened bread, following passover, which was
distinguished by the presentation of a sheaf of the first fruits of the barley harvest,
in the latter part of March, or early in April; then, the feast of weeks, or first fruits,
seven weeks later, marking the completion of the grain harvest with the ingathering
of the wheat; and, finally, the feast of tabernacles or ingathering, in the seventh
month, marking the harvesting of the fruits, especially the oil and the wine, and
therewith the completed ingathering of the whole product of the year.
From these facts it is argued that in these Hebrew feasts we have simply a natural
development, with modifications, of the ancient and widespread system of harvest
feasts among the heathen; to which the historical element which appears in some of
them was only added as an afterthought, in a later period of history. From this point
of view, the idea that these feasts were a matter of supernatural revelation
disappears; what religious character they have belongs originally to the universal
religion of nature.
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But it is to be remarked, first, that even if we admit that in their original character
these were simply and only harvest feasts, it would not follow that therefore their
observance, with certain prescribed ceremonies, could not have been matter of
Divine revelation. There is a religion of nature; God has not left Himself without a
witness, in that He has given men "rains and fruitful seasons," filling their hearts
with food and gladness. And, as already remarked in regard to sacrifice, it is no part
of the method of God in revelation to ignore or reject what in this religion of nature
may be true and right; but rather to use it, and build on this foundation.
But, again, the mere fact that the feast of unleavened bread fell at the beginning of
barley harvest, and that one-though only one-ceremony appointed for that festive
week had explicit reference to the then beginning harvest, is not sufficient to
disprove the uniform declaration of Scripture that, as observed in Israel, its original
ground was not natural, but historical; namely, in the circumstances attending the
birth of the nation in their exodus from Egypt.
But we may say more than this. If the contrary were true, and the introduction of
the historical element was an afterthought, as insisted by some, then we should
expect to find that in accounts belonging to successive periods, the reference to the
harvest would certainly be more prominent in the earlier, and the reference of the
feast to a historical origin more prominent in the later, accounts of the feasts. Most
singular it is then, upon this hypothesis, to find that even accepting the analysis, e.g.,
of Wellhausen, the facts are the exact reverse. For the only brief reference to the
harvest in connection with this feast of unleavened bread is found in this chapter 23,
of Leviticus, composed, it is alleged, about the time of Ezekiel; while, on the other
hand, the narrative in Exodus 12:1-51, regarded by all the critics of this school as
the earliest account of the origin of the feast of unleavened bread, refers only to the
historical event of the exodus, as the occasion of its institution. If we grant the
asserted difference in age of these two parts of the Pentateuch, one would thus more
naturally conclude that the historical events were the original occasion of the
institution of the festival, and that the reference to the harvest, in the presentation of
the sheaf of first fruits, was the later introduction into the ceremonies of the week.
But the truth is that this naturalistic identification of these Hebrew feasts with the
harvest feasts of other nations is a mistake. In order to make it out, it is necessary to
ignore or pervert most patent facts. These so-called harvest feasts in fact form part
of an elaborate system of sacred times, -a system which is based upon the Sabbath,
and into which the sacred number seven, the number of the covenant, enters
throughout as a formative element. The weekly Sabbath, first of all, was the seventh
day; the length of the great festivals of unleavened bread and of tabernacles was
also, in each case, seven days. Not only so, but the entire series of sacred times
mentioned in this chapter and in chapter 25 constitutes an ascending series of sacred
septenaries, in which the ruling thought is this: that the seventh is holy unto the
Lord, as the number symbolic of rest and redemption; and that the eighth, as the
first of a new week, is symbolic of the new creation. Thus we have the seventh day,
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the weekly Sabbath, constantly recurring, the type of each of the series; then,
counting from the feast of unleavened bread, -the first of the sacred year, -the
fiftieth day, at the end of the seventh week, is signalised as sacred by the feast of
first fruits or of "weeks"; the seventh month, again, is the sabbatic month, of special
sanctity, containing as it does three of the annual seasons of holy convocation, -the
feast of trumpets on its first day, the great day of atonement on the tenth, and the
last of the three great annual feasts, that of tabernacles or ingathering, for seven
days from the fifteenth day of the month. Beyond this series of sacred festivals
recurring annually, in chapter 25, the seventh year is appointed to be a sabbatic
year of rest to the land, and the series at last culminates at the expiration of seven
sevens of years, in the fiftieth year, -the eighth following the seventh seven, -the
great year of jubilee, the supreme year of rest, restoration, and release. All these
sacred times, differing in the details of their observance, are alike distinguished by
their connection with the sacred number seven, by the informing presence of the
idea of the Sabbath, and therewith always a new and fuller revelation of God as in
covenant with Israel for their redemption.
Now, like to this series of sacred times, in heathenism there is absolutely nothing. It
evidently belongs to another realm of thought, ethics, and religion. And so, while it
is quite true that in the three great feasts there was a reference to the harvest, and so
to fruitful nature, yet the fundamental, unifying idea of the system of sacred times
was not the recognition of the fruitful life of nature, as in the heathen festivals, but
of Jehovah, as the Author and Sustainer of the life of His covenant people Israel, as
also of every individual in the nation. This, we repeat, is the one central thought in
all these sacred seasons; not the life of nature, but the life of the holy nation, as
created and sustained by a covenant God. The annual processes of nature have
indeed a place and a necessary recognition in the system, simply because the
personal God is active in all nature; but the place of these is not primary, but
secondary and subordinate. They have a recognition because, in the first place, it is
through the bounty of God in nature that the life of man is sustained; and, secondly,
also because nature in her order is a type and shadow of things spiritual. For in the
spiritual world, whether we think of it as made up of nations or individuals, even as
in the natural, there is a seedtime and a harvest, a time of first fruits and a time of
the joy and rest of the full ingathering of fruit, and oil, and wine. Hence it was most
fitting that this inspired rubric, as primarily intended for the celebration of spiritual
things, should be so arranged and timed, in all its parts, as that in each returning
sacred season, visible nature should present itself to Israel as a manifest parable and
eloquent suggestion of those spiritual verities; the more so that thus the Israelite
would be reminded that the God of the Exodus and the God of Sinai was also the
supreme Lord of nature, the God of the seed time and harvest, the Creator and
Sustainer of the heavens and the earth, and of all that in them is.
PULPIT, "Verses 1-5
PART IV. HOLY DAYS AND SEASONS: WEEKLY, MONTHLY, ANNUAL,
SEPTENNIAL, AND EVERY HALF-CENTURY.
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EXPOSITION
THIS Part consists of Leviticus 23:1-44, and Leviticus 25:1-55, with Leviticus
24:1-23 parenthetically introduced.
Every religion must have its round of holy days and seasons:
1. To give occasion for manifesting joyous thankfulness to the Giver of all good
things.
2. To keep alive the memory of past events around which religious associations
cling.
3. To impress upon the hearts of the worshippers those sacred mysteries which are
regarded as essential characteristics of the system.
1. The duty and happiness of rejoicing before the Lord find a prominent place
under the Mosaic dispensation, as they must in any religion where man feels himself
in a covenant relation with God, brought nigh to him by himself, and no longer
estranged from him who is his only true life and happiness. Accordingly, the first
thought of the annual Jewish festivals is that of joyous thankfulness, such as is
becoming to reconciled children grateful to their Father for the many bounties that
they receive at his hands. The first gift of God of which man becomes conscious is
that of the daily sustenance provided for him, and therefore we should expect holy
days to be appointed to commemorate the goodness of God in bestowing the gifts of
the earth. The first aspect, therefore, in which to regard the three great annual
festivals—the Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles—is that they were
days of thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth dispensed by God to man.
First, with regard to the Passover. We read at Leviticus 24:10, Leviticus 24:11,
"When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest
thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf [or an omer] of the firstfruits of your harvest
unto the priest: and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you:
on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it." The words, "the morrow
after the sabbath," mean, as we shall see, the day after the first day of Unleavened
Bread, that is, the second day of the feast, Nisan 16, which fell early in April, when
the first barley was ripening in Palestine. On the 14th day of Nisan (the day of the
Paschal sacrifice) a certain quantity of standing barley was marked off, by men
specially appointed for the purpose, in a field ploughed the previous autumn and
sown at least ten weeks before the Passover, but not prepared artificially in such a
way as to hasten the crop. On the following day, Nisan 15, at sunset, three men were
sent to the selected field, and, in the presence of witnesses, cut the ears of corn
before marked, and brought them into the temple. On the next day, Nisan 16, this
corn, whether in the form of a sheaf or of flour, was offered to the Lord by being
waved before him, and then consigned to the priest. Here, by the presentation of the
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firstfruits of the year, an acknowledgment is made that the products of the earth are
by right God's. This is one of the objects of the Feast of the Passover.
Secondly, as to Pentecost. After the sheaf, or omer, had been offered on Nisan 16, it
was allowable to make the new year's barley into bread, but the dedication of the
grain crops was not complete until a portion of the wheat crop had also been
offered. This was done a week of weeks later, at the Feast of Pentecost, forty-nine
days after the presentation of the barley, and fifty days after the first day of
Unleavened Bread. On this day, two leavened loaves, of the same size as the
shewbread loaves, were waved before the Lord, and then delivered to the priest.
These loaves were made out of ears of corn selected and reaped as the barley had
been seven weeks before, and then threshed and ground in the temple. They were
regarded as the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, though they were not made of the
first cut wheat; and from their presentation the festival has the name of the Feast of
Harvest (Exodus 23:16); the Feast of the Firstfruits of the Wheat Harvest (Exodus
24:1-18 :22); the Day of the Firstfruits (Numbers 28:26); while, from its date
relatively to the Passover, it is called the Feast of Weeks (Exodus 34:22;
Deuteronomy 16:10). The name, Feast of Pentecost, is found only in the Apocrypha
(Tobit 2:1; 2 Macc. 12:32), and in the New Testament (Acts 2:1; Acts 20:16; 1
Corinthians 16:8). The meat offerings might not be made of the new year's flour
until these two loaves had been offered.
Thirdly, with regard to the Feast of Tabernacles. The festivals connected with the
seasons of the year and the products of the soil were not ended until the Feast of
Ingathering (Exodus 23:16; Exodus 34:22), or Tabernacles (verse 34; Deuteronomy
16:13; Ezra 3:4; Zechariah 14:16; Jeremiah 7:2), had been celebrated. This festival
occurred about the beginning of October, and commemorated the final gathering in
of all the fruits of the year, specially of the olives and the grapes. It was observed by
a general dwelling in booths made of the branches of palms, willows, olives, pines,
myrtles, and other close-growing trees (verse 40; Nehemiah 8:15), in which all the
Israelite males, with the exception of the sick, lived for seven days, and kept harvest
home.
2. The second aspect in which to regard the annum festivals is the historical one.
The Passover is characterized by its historical associations to a greater degree than
either of the other festivals. The whole national life of the Israelites received its
character from the Egyptian Exodus, and accordingly the anniversaries of their
religious year began with its commemoration. It was the events which had taken
place in Egypt which gave to the Paschal sacrifice and the Paschal feast their
primary signification; and while to us the Passover festival serves as a proof of the
truth of those events, to the Jew it served as a memorial of them, preventing them
from ever being forgotten or disregarded (cf. Exodus 13:3-16). The ancient
Christian Fathers suggested that the Feast of Pentecost commemorated the
institution of the old dispensation at Sinai, as, to Christians, it recalled the
institution of the new Law by the gift of the fiery tongues at Jerusalem. This
suggestion was adopted by Maimonides and the later school of Hebrew
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commentators, and it is a very probable conjecture; but as no appearance of it is
found in the Old or New Testaments, nor even in early Hebrew writers, it cannot be
regarded as a certainty. Historically, the Feast of Tabernacles is generally
considered to commemorate the dwelling in tents throughout the forty years'
wandering in the wilderness; but if this were so, it would have been called the Feast
of Tents, for the words "tent" and "tabernacle" differ, and the Israelites did not
dwell in tabernacles in the wilderness. Rather, it commemorates the first
encampment of the Israelites after setting forth from Egypt, which took place at
"Succoth," the meaning of which word is "tabernacle" (Exodus 12:37). Thus, as the
event historically associated with the first harvest festival, the Passover, was the
setting forth from Egypt, that associated with the last, the Feast of Tabernacles, was
the resting at the end of the first day's journey at Succoth, where the people now felt
that they were free, and began to rejoice in their freedom.
3. The typical character of the feasts, as well as their historical character, is more
apparent in the Passover than in the other two feasts. St. Paul's testimony on this
point is sufficient: "For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us
keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5:7). Here we
have the typical character of the Paschal lamb, and of the Feast of Unleavened
Bread, authoritatively declared to us. The blood of the lamb slain on the night
before the Exodus, being the means whereby the Israelites were delivered from the
destruction which fell on all the rest of the inhabitants of the land, typified the still
more efficacious bloodshedding by which the redemption of Christ's people was
wrought. The Feast of Pentecost, if it commemorated the gift of the Law at Mount
Sinai, pointed thereby to the giving of the better Law on the day when the Holy
Ghost descended upon the apostles in Jerusalem; and in any case, as a Feast of
Firstfruits, it was emblematic of those firstfruits of the Christian Church presented
to God on that day (Acts 2:41). The Feast of Tabernacles, in which God's people
commemorated their rejoicing in their newly found liberty after the slavery of
Egypt, awaits its full typical fulfillment in the spiritual joy of the redeemed after
they have been delivered from the burden of the flesh and the sufferings of the
world; but its typical meaning is partially fulfilled in the blessed peace and joy
spread abroad in the hearts of the children of God by reason of their adoption in
Christ, whereby we have obtained an inheritance with the saints (Ephesians 1:11,
Ephesians 1:18).
In the annual fast held on the 10th of Tisri, the great Day of Atonement, the typical
element outweighs any other. The present and the past sink away in comparison
with the future. The day suggests no thought of the seasons or of the products of the
earth, and it recalls no event of past history. It teaches a lesson—the need of
reconciliation; and by the entrance of the high priest into the holy of holies with
sacrificial blood, and by the ceremony of the scapegoat, it typically foreshadows how
that reconciliation is to he effected.
The monthly festivals had a purpose different from the annual. They occurred on
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the new moon, or the first day of each month, and their intention was to dedicate
each month to God. Only one of these monthly festivals is mentioned in this chapter
the Feast of Trumpets. It is the feast of the new moon of the sacred seventh month,
with which the civil year began. Because it was New Year's Day, it had more
ceremonies attached to it than the first days of the other months. Whereas the feasts
of the new moons in other months only sanctified the special month which they
began, the Feast of Trumpets sanctified also the whole year, and was therefore an
annual as well as a monthly feast.
The weekly festival was the sabbath (see Exodus 20:10; Deuteronomy 5:15). This
feast sanctified each week, as the monthly feasts sanctified each month; and like the
annual festivals, it looked both backwards and forwards: backwards, to the
sanctification bestowed upon it "Because that in it he had rested from all his work
which God created and made" (Genesis 2:3); forwards, to the great sabbath in
which Christ rested in the grave, and yet further onwards to another sabbath still to
be enjoyed by the people of God.
The sabbatical year and the jubilee were extensions of the sabbatical principle—
certain civil and religious institutions and regulations being attached to each of
them.
2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘These
are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals
of the Lord, which you are to proclaim as sacred
assemblies.
BARNES, "The feasts - literally, the appointed times. So in Lev_23:4, Lev_23:37,
etc. This section Lev. 23:1-38 sets forth for practical guidance the relation in which the
appointed times of the Lord, weekly as well as annual, stood to the ordinary occupations
of the people.
Holy convocations - Days of sabbatical rest for the whole people; they owed their
name to gatherings for religious edification, which, in later times, were probably held in
every town and village in the holy land. There were in the course of the year, besides the
13

weekly Sabbaths, seven days of holy convocation Exo_12:16; Num_28:18, Num_
28:25-26; Num_29:1, Num_29:12, Num_29:35, with a distinction between them as
regards strictness of observance (compare Lev_23:3, Lev_23:28 with Lev_23:7).
CLARKE, "These are my feasts - The original word ‫מועד‬ moad is properly
applied to any solemn anniversary, by which great and important ecclesiastical, political,
or providential facts were recorded; see Clarke on Gen_1:14 (note). Anniversaries of this
kind were observed in all nations; and some of them, in consequence of scrupulously
regular observation, became chronological epochs of the greatest importance in history:
the Olympiads, for example.
GILL, "Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,.... Speak to them
to gather together, and then say unto them what follows, they all being obliged to keep
the feasts, and observe the solemnities hereafter directed to; though it may be the heads
of the tribes and the elders of the people were summoned together, and the following
things were delivered to them, and by them to the people:
concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy
convocations, even these are my feasts; appointed and ordered by God, and to be
kept to the honour of his name; these are the general names for the particular holy times
and seasons after appointed; they are in general called "feasts", though one of them, the
day of atonement, was, strictly speaking, a fast; yet being a cessation from all work, and
opposed to working days, days of labour and business, it is comprehended in this
general title: nor is it unusual with other nations to call a fast a feast; so Aelianus (h)
relates of the Tarentines, that having been besieged by the Romans, and delivered from
them, in memory of their sufferings appointed a feast which was called a fast: the word
used has the signification of stated, fixed, appointed times and seasons, and of
convening or meeting together at such times, and that for the performance of solemn
worship and service, which is true of them all; for there are certain times of the week and
month fixed for them, and when the people in bodies assembled together, and in a
solemn manner worshipped the Lord; and these are called "convocations", because the
people were called together at those times by the priests, and that with the sound of a
trumpet, Num_10:2; and "holy", because separated from other days, and set apart for
holy services: the words may be rendered, as they are by many (i): "the solemnities of the
Lord, which ye shall proclaim holy convocations, these are my solemnities"; times for
holy, religious, and solemn service, of his appointment and for his glory: Aben Ezra
seems to understand all this of the sabbath only, which is next mentioned, expressed in
the plural number, because, as he observes, there are many sabbaths in a year; and
indeed the general title of the rest of the feasts is afterwards given, Lev_23:4.
JAMISON, "Speak unto the children of Israel, ... concerning the feasts of
the Lord — literally, “the times of assembling, or solemnities” (Isa_33:20); and this is a
preferable rendering, applicable to all sacred seasons mentioned in this chapter, even the
day of atonement, which was observed as a fast. They were appointed by the direct
authority of God and announced by a public proclamation, which is called “the joyful
sound” (Psa_89:15). Those “holy convocations” were evidences of divine wisdom, and
eminently subservient to the maintenance and diffusion of religious knowledge and
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piety.
COKE, "Leviticus 23:2. Concerning the feasts of the Lord, &c.— These words
might be rendered more unexceptionably thus: the solemnities of the Lord, which ye
shall proclaim, with holy proclamations, are these my solemnities: i.e. stripped of
the Hebrew idiom, these are the holy solemnities of the Lord, to be publicly
proclaimed and observed. They were to be proclaimed by the sound of a trumpet.
See Numbers 10:8. Solemnities is a more unexceptionable word than feasts, as the
day of atonement could not properly be styled a feast. The original word signifies
any appointed or regular assembly or congregation, and is very expressive of these
solemn meetings of the Jews. "The word used here," says Dr. Beaumont, "is the
same as in Genesis 1:14. ‫מועד‬ moed; and generally signifies a set time or season; but
is applied here to the solemn feasts which were appointed by God at their set-times
in the year."
ELLICOTT, " (2) Speak unto the children of Israel.—As the festivals here discussed
were to be solemnly kept by them, Moses is ordered to address these regulations to
the people or their representatives.
Concerning the feasts of the Lord . . . Better, the festivals of the Lord which ye shall
proclaim as holy convocations, these are my festivals. That is, the following festivals
God claims as His, on which solemn assemblies are to be held in the sanctuary.
PETT, "Leviticus 23:2
“Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, The set feasts of Yahweh, which
you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my set feasts.”
Moses is to declare to the children of Israel what are His set feasts. He is to proclaim
them as ‘holy convocations’, holy ‘calling-togethers’. They are the times when His
people must come together for the purposes of joint worship and renewal of the
covenant which bound them all together as His people.
There were, of course, already recognised times of celebration among many nations
and tribes. They covered the lamb harvest, the barley harvest, the wheat harvest
and the harvest of summer fruits and vintage. But in Israel’s case they also included
celebration of the deliverance from Egypt at the Passover, and a recognition of the
nation’s failures at the Day of Atonement, and a reminder of when they had dwelt in
tents in the wilderness. Thus they were to celebrate both Yahweh’s continual
provision in the various harvests and Yahweh’s deliverance, both past and present,
deliverance from Egypt in the past (Passover), and deliverance from sin in the
present (Atonement).
TRAPP, "Leviticus 23:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,
[Concerning] the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim [to be] holy
15

convocations, [even] these [are] my feasts.
Ver. 2. To be holy convocations.] Not bare rests, as Plato said, that the gods, pitying
men’s labour, appointed their festivals to be a remission of their labour. (a) {See
Trapp on "Exodus 20:8"} {See Trapp on "Exodus 20:9"} {See Trapp on "Exodus
20:10"} {See Trapp on "Exodus 20:11"}
PULPIT, "Leviticus 23:2
Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations,
even these are my feasts. The translation should rather be, The appointed times
which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are my appointed times. The
appointed times (mo'adin) include the great fast as well as the festivals, and the
weekly and monthly as well as the annual holy days. The primary purpose with
which the following enumeration of holy days is introduced, is to give a list of the
holy convocations. While the Israelites were still dwelling in the wilderness, a holy
convocation appears to have been a religious assembly of all the males in the court
of the tabernacle. After the settlement in Canaan, a religious gathering for prayer or
festive rejoicing in all their dwellings, that is, wherever they lived, would have
satisfied the command to hold a holy convocation, except on the three great festivals,
when all who could, "kept the feast" at Jerusalem. There were in all seven holy
convocations in the year, besides the sabbath, namely, the first and last days of
Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Pentecost, the Day of Atonement, the Feast of
Trumpets, the first and last days of the Feast of Tabernacles.
BI 2-44, "These are My feasts.
The holy festivals
I. Commentators generally on this part of Hebrew law have remarked upon the social,
political, and commercial benefits resulting to the Jewish people from these national
festivals and convocations. They served to unite the nation, cemented them together as
one people, and prevented the tendency to the formation of separate cliques and
conflicting clans or states. These convocations also had great effect upon the internal
commerce of the Hebrew people. They furnished facilities for mutual exchanges, and
opened the ways of trade and business between the various sections.
II. There was also A direct religious value and forethought in the appointment of these
festivals. They prescribed public consociation in worship. Man is a worshipping being. It
is not only his duty, but his nature and native instinct to worship. Mere isolated worship,
without association in common set services, soon dwindles, flags, degenerates, and
corrupts. Neither does it ever reach that majesty and intense inspiration which comes
from open congregation in the same great acts of devotion. “As iron sharpeneth iron, so
man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” And just as the multitude of these
mutual sharpeners is increased, will their common devotion be deepened and
augmented.
III. I propose to speak more particularly of the typical relations of these holy feasts and
seasons. We have in them a system of types, chronologically arranged, to set forth the
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true course of time—to prefigure the whole history of redemption in its leading outlines
from the commencement to the close.
1. The first was the Passover. It was a sort of perpetual commemoration of their
deliverance from the oppressor and from death—a standing testimonial that their
salvation was by the blood of the Lamb. It was the keynote of the Christian system
sounding in the dim depths of remote antiquity. That bondage in Egypt referred to a
still deeper and more degrading slavery of the spirit. That redemption was the
foreshadow of a far greater deliverance. And that slain lamb and its sprinkled blood
pointed to a meeker, purer, and higher Victim, whose body was broken and blood
shed for us and for many for the remission of sins.
2. The next was the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was a sort of continuation of
the Passover on the next day. The one refers to what Christ does and is to the
believer, and the other refers to what the true believer does in return. The one refers
to our redemption by blood and our deliverance from condemnation; the other to
our repentance and consecration to a new life of obedience, separated from the
leaven of unrighteousness. It is therefore plain why both were thus joined together as
one. Redemption is nothing to us if it does not lead us to a purification of ourselves
from the filthy ways and associations of the wicked, We can only effectually keep the
gospel feast by purging out the old leaven of malice and wickedness. Seven days was
this Feast of Unleavened Bread to be kept—a full period of time. We are to “serve
God in righteousness and holiness all the days of our life.” Our work is not done until
the week of our stay in this world ends. We must be faithful until death.
3. Joined with the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread was the additional
service of presenting before God the first sheaf of the barley harvest. “This,” says
Cumming, “was a beautiful institution, to teach the Israelites that it was not the soil,
nor the raindrops, nor the sunbeams, nor the dews, nor the skill of their
agriculturists, that they had to thank for their bounteous produce; but that they must
rise above the sower and reaper, and see God, the Giver of the golden harvest, and
make His praise the keynote to their harvest-home.” It was all this, but it had also a
deeper and more beautiful meaning. The broad field, sowed with good seed, with its
golden ears ripening for the harvest, is Christ’s own chosen figure of His kingdom
upon earth, and the congregation of His believing children maturing for the garners
of eternal life. In that field the chief sheaf is Jesus Christ Himself; for He was in all
respects “made like unto His brethren.” He is the “firstfruits.” He was gathered first,
and received into the treasure-house of heaven. It was the Passover time when He
came to perfect ripeness. It was during these solemnities that He was “cut off.” And
when the Spirit of God lifted Him from the sepulchre, and the heavens opened to
receive Him, then did the waving of the sheaf of firstfruits have its truest and highest
fulfilment. Until this sheaf was thus offered along with the blood of atonement there
could be no harvest for us.
4. There was another harvest, and another festival service connected with its
opening, fifty days later than the barley harvest. This was the wheat harvest, at which
was celebrated the Feast of Weeks, otherwise called Pentecost. The Passover shows
us Christ crucified; the sheaf of firstfruits shows us Christ raised from the dead and
lifted up to heaven as our forerunner; and the Pentecostal feast, with its two leavened
loaves, shows us Christ in the gracious influences of His Spirit wrought into the
hearts and lives of those who constitute His earthly Church. This spiritual kneading
took its highest and most active form on that memorable Pentecost when the
17

disciples “were all with one accord in one place,” and the Holy Spirit came down
upon them with gifts of mighty power. Three thousand souls were that day added to
the Church, It was a glad and glorious day for Christianity. It was the firstfruits of
wheat harvest brought with joyous thanksgiving unto God. But it was only the
firstfruits—the earnest of a vast and plenteous harvest of the same kind ripening on
the same fields. Thenceforward the world was to be filled with glad reapers gathering
in the sheaves, and with labourers kneading the contents of those sheaves into loaves
for God. Leaven there needs is in those loaves; but, presented along with the blood of
the chief of the flock and herd, they still become acceptable to Him who ordained the
service. There was a peculiar requirement connected with these laws for the wheat,
harvest well worthy of special attention. The corners of the fields and the gleanings
were to be left. This was a beautiful feature in these arrangements. It presents a good
lesson, of which we ought never to lose sight. But it was also a type. Of what, I have
not seen satisfactorily explained, though the application seems easy. If the wheat
harvest refers to the gathering of men from sin to Christianity, and from subjects of
Satan to subjects of grace, then the plain indication of this provision is that the entire
world, under this present dispensation, shall not be completely converted to God. I
believe that the time will come, and that it is largely and fully predicted in the
Scriptures, when “all shall know the Lord from the least unto the greatest”—when
there will not be a single sinner left upon the earth. But that time will not come until
a new dispensation with new instrumentalities shall have been introduced.
5. The next was the Feast of Trumpets. This was held on the first day of the seventh
month of the ecclesiastical year, which was the same as the first month of the civil
year. It was therefore a new-year festival, and at the same time the feast of
introduction to the Sabbatic month. Its chief peculiarity was the continual sounding
of trumpets from morning till evening. It was the grand type of the preaching of the
gospel. The Feast of Trumpets was, to a great extent, a preliminary of the great Day
of Atonement. We have already considered the peculiarities of this solemn day. Its
leading thought is contained in its name—at-one-ment—that is, agreement,
reconciliation, harmony, and peace with God. The Feast of Trumpets was a call to
this at-one-ment. The gospel is an appeal to men to be reconciled to God.
6. Immediately succeeding the great solemnity on the fifteenth day of the month
began another remarkable festival called tile Feast of Tabernacles. It was to
commemorate the forty years of tent life which their fathers led in the wilderness,
and pointed, the same as that which it commemorated, to that period of the
Christian’s career which lies between his deliverance from bondage and his entrance
into rest—that is, between his reconciliation to God and his final inheritance of the
promises. It celebrates the state of the believer while he yet remains in this present
life. This world is not our dwelling-place. We are pilgrims and strangers here,
tarrying for a little season in tents and booths which we must soon vacate and leave
to decay. “The earthly house of this tabernacle” must “be dissolved.” The places that
know us now shall soon know us no more. “Seven days”—a full period—were the
people of Israel to remain in these temporary tabernacles. And thus shall we be at the
inconvenience of a tent life for the full period of our earthly stay. But it was only once
in a year that Israel kept the Feast of Tabernacles. And so, when we once leave the
flesh, we shall never return to it again. Our future bodies shall be glorified, celestial,
spiritual bodies. It is also a precious thought connected with this subject that when
the Jews left their tents at the conclusion of the Feast of Tabernacles it was the
Sabbath morning. This frail tent life is after all to be rounded off with the calm quiet
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of a consecrated day that has no night, and to merge into a rest that is never more to
end. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)
Feasts of the Lord
I. Sacred life is itself a festival.
1. Divine in its origin.
2. Blissful in its quality.
3. Enriched with frequent delights.
II. The Christian year has its festivities.
1. Time is interrupted by sacred seasons.
2. Human life is refreshed by the blessings of religion.
3. A witness to what is God’s will for man.
III. Gracious seasons are appointed for the church.
1. Days of rest and gladness.
2. Special times of revival.
3. Foretaste of Heaven’s joy. (W. H. Jellie.)
The great feasts
I. Political effects. Annual gatherings of the people exhibited the numerical strength of
the nation. As they went “from strength to strength,” i.e., from company to company
(Psa_84:7 marg.), on their way to Jerusalem, and saw the vast crowds flocking from all
parts of the kingdom to the capital, their patriotic ardour would be fired. The unity of the
nation, too, would be ensured by this fusion of the tribes. Otherwise they would be likely
to constitute separate tribal states. They would carry back to the provinces glowing
accounts of the wealth, power, and resources of the country.
II. Sanitary effects. They would greatly influence the health of the people. The Sabbath,
necessitating weekly cleansings, and rest from work, and laws and ceremonies
concerning disease (as leprosy) and purifications, deserve to be looked at in this light
also. The annual purifying of the houses at Feast of Unleavened Bread; the dwelling at
certain times in tents—leaving the houses to the free circulation of light and air; and the
repeated journey on foot to Jerusalem, must have had a great sanitary influence. As man
was the great object of creation, so his welfare—in many respects besides religion—was
plainly aimed at in these regulations.
III. Social effects. Promoted friendly intercourse between travelling companions.
Distributed information through the country at a time when the transmission of news
was slow and imperfect. Imported into remote provincial districts a practical knowledge
of all improvements in arts and sciences. Enlarged the general stock of knowledge by
bringing many minds and great variety of taste together. Spread before the eyes of the
nation the wonders collected in Jerusalem by the wealth and foreign alliances of Jewish
19

kings.
IV. Moral effects. The young looking forward to, the aged looking back upon, and all
talking about past or future pilgrimages to the city of the great King. Education, thus, of
memory and hope and desire. Influence of this on the habits of the people. Thrift
promoted to provide against expenses of the journey. The promise of bearing company
held out as reward to well-conducted youth. Enlargement of knowledge, improvement of
taste, advantage to health, fixing habits, etc., would all react morally on the character of
the people.
V. Religious effects. These the most important. Preserved the religious faith of the
nation, and religious unity among the people. Constantly reminded the people of the
Divinely wrought deliverances of the past. Promoted gratitude and trust. Testified the
reverence of the people for the Temple and its sacred contents. Influence of well-
conducted Temple services upon the synagogues through the land. Led the mind of the
nation to adore the one true and only God. (J. C. Gray.)
Seven feasts mentioned in this chapter
There were seven feasts which God commanded His people to observe every year. All
these feasts are mentioned in this chapter, and should be studied together so that their
relation may be seen. The first, the Sabbath, commemorated God’s rest from the work of
creation, and typified the rest of God’s people in the eternal Sabbath-keeping. The
second, the Passover, commemorated Israel’s redemption through the blood of the
paschal lamb, prior to their exodus from bondage, and typified our redemption through
Christ’s blood, previous to our exodus from the bondage of sin to the liberty wherewith
Christ makes us free (Gal_5:1). The third, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, typified the
holiness of life for which they were redeemed through blood (1Co_5:7-8). The fourth,
the Firstfruits, was a grateful assurance of the coming harvest, and typical of the
resurrection unto life of all believers, because Christ as their firstfruits has risen from the
dead (1Co_15:20; 1Co_15:23). The fifth, the Pentecost, has become universally known by
being the day on which the Holy Spirit was given to the twelve in the upper room in
Jerusalem (Act_2:1-4), and as in the Feast of Firstfruits (type of Christ’s resurrection),
the sheaf of the firstfruits of the barley harvest was waved before the Lord, so on the Day
of Pentecost, the sheaf of the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, typical of the gift of the
Holy Spirit and prophetic of the harvest of souls gathered to Christ through the power of
the Holy Spirit. The fifth, Feast of Trumpets, typical of Israel’s ingathering for their
millennial privileges, and of the call to all the world to come to the gospel feast. The
sixth, the Day of Atonement, typical of Christ’s atonement. The seventh, the Feast of
Tabernacles. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
God’s holy days
Here we have a general account of the holy times which God appointed (Lev_23:2); and
it is only His appointment that can make time holy. For He is the Lord of time; and as
soon as ever He had set its wheels agoing, it was He that first sanctified and blessed one
day above the rest (Gen_2:3). Man may by His appointment make a good day (Est_
9:19), but it is God’s prerogative to make a holy day; nor is anything sanctified but by the
stamp of His institution. As all inherent holiness comes from His special grace, so all
20

adherent holiness from His special appointment. Now concerning the holy times here
ordained, observe—
1. They are called feasts. The Day of Atonement, which was one of them, was a fast;
yet, because most of them were appointed for joy and rejoicing, they are in general
called feasts. Some read it, “These are My assemblies,’ but that is coincident with
convocations. I would rather read it, “These are My solemnities”; so the Word here
used is translated (Isa_33:20), where Zion is called “the city of our solemnities.” And
reading it so here the Day of Atonement was as great a solemnity as any of them.
2. They are the feasts of the Lord: “My feasts.” Observed to the honour of His name,
and in obedience to His command.
3. They were proclaimed; for they were not to be observed by the priests only that
attended the sanctuary, but by all the people. And this proclamation was the joyful
sound which they were blessed that were within hearing of (Psa_89:15).
4. They were to be sanctified and solemnised with holy convocations that the
services of these feasts might appear the more honourable and august, and the
people more unanimous in the performance of them. It was for the honour of God
and His institutions, which sought not corners, and the purity of which would be
best preserved by the public administration of them; it was also for the edification of
the people in love that the feasts were to be observed as holy convocations. (Matthew
Henry, D. D.)
God’s festivals
The solemnities appointed were—
1. Many, and returned frequently; which was intended to preserve in them a deep
sense of God and religion, and to prevent their inclining to the superstitions of the
heathen. God kept them fully employed in His service that they might not have time
to hearken to the temptations of the idolatrous neighbourhood they lived in.
2. They were most of them times of joy and rejoicing. The weekly Sabbath is so, and
all their yearly solemnities except the Day of Atonement. God would thus teach them
that wisdom’s ways are pleasantness; and oblige them to His service by obliging
them to be cheerful in it and to sing at their work. Seven days were days of strict rest
and holy convocations: The first day, and the seventh, of the Feast of Unleavened
Bread; the Day of Pentecost; the day of the Feast of Trumpets; the first day, and the
eighth, of the Feast of Tabernacles; and the Day of Atonement: here were six for holy
joy, and one for holy mourning. We are commanded to rejoice evermore, but not to
be evermore weeping. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)
The Sabbath
21

3 “‘There are six days when you may work, but
the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, a day of
sacred assembly. You are not to do any work;
wherever you live, it is a sabbath to the Lord.
BARNES, "The seventh day had been consecrated as the Sabbath of Yahweh, figuring
His own rest; it was the acknowledged sign of the covenant between God and His people.
See the Exo_20:1-11 notes. As such it properly held its place at the head of the days of
holy convocation.
CLARKE, "The seventh day is the Sabbath - This, because the first and greatest
solemnity, is first mentioned. He who kept not this, in the most religious manner, was
not capable of keeping any of the others. The religious observance of the Sabbath stands
at the very threshold of all religion. See Clarke’s note on Gen_2:3.
GILL, "Six days shall work be done,.... Or may be done by men, any sort of lawful
work and honest labour, for the sustenance of themselves and families:
but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest; from all bodily labour and work of any
kind; typical of rest by Christ and in him:
an holy convocation; when the people were called to holy exercises, to pray and
praise, and hear the word, and offer sacrifice:
ye shall do no work therein; not any at all, see Exo_31:15,
it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings: other feasts were kept in the
sanctuary, in the tabernacle or temple, or where they were; but this was not only
observed there and in their synagogues, but in their private houses, or wherever they
were, whether, travelling by sea or land; and so the Targum of Jonathan and Aben Ezra
interpret it.
JAMISON, "Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the
sabbath of rest — (See on Exo_20:8). The Sabbath has the precedence given to it, and
it was to be “a holy convocation,” observed by families “in their dwellings”; where
practicable, by the people repairing to the door of the tabernacle; at later periods, by
22

meeting in the schools of the prophets, and in synagogues.
K&D, "The seventh day is the Sabbath - This, because the first and greatest
solemnity, is first mentioned. He who kept not this, in the most religious manner, was
not capable of keeping any of the others. The religious observance of the Sabbath stands
at the very threshold of all religion. See Clarke’s note on Gen_2:3.
COKE, "Leviticus 23:3. The sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings— The
Sabbath is first briefly mentioned, as being the first and chief of these solemn
meetings; at all times and in all places religiously to be observed, in all their
dwellings.
REFLECTIONS.—The sabbath was a weekly feast, and still is such, to every true
believer, who especially fears then on God's word and ordinances. A holy rest was to
be observed. We must rest from sin as from labour. There was on it to be a holy
convocation. Nothing on that day must keep us from waiting in the courts of God's
house together—nothing but works of necessity. Note; If servants are kept from
Divine service to provide for our bodies, when they should be feeding their own
souls, the guilt of sabbath-breaking will be against the heads of that family. And not
only by a convocation, but in their dwellings the sabbath must be kept; public duties
are but a part of the service; on that day every house must be a temple, and resound
with prayer and praise. To prostitute the hours of the evening in vanity, or visiting,
or idleness, is to profane the day, as much as when we forsake the assembly of God's
people.
BENSON, "Leviticus 23:3. The seventh day is first named as a holy convocation —
A day to be kept holy by every Israelite, in all places wheresoever they dwelt, as well
as while they lived in the wilderness; and as a day of rest, in which they were to do
no work — A similar prohibition is declared Leviticus 23:28, concerning the day of
expiation, excluding all works about earthly employments, whether of profit or of
pleasure; but upon other feast-days he forbids only servile works, as Leviticus 23:7;
Leviticus 23:21; Leviticus 23:36; for surely this manifest difference in the
expressions used by the wise God, must needs imply a difference in the things. In all
your dwellings — Other feasts were to be kept before the Lord in Jerusalem only,
whither all the males were to come for that end; but the sabbath was to be kept in
all places, both in synagogues, and in their private houses.
ELLICOTT, " (3) Six days shall work be done.—Recurring every week, and being
the most important as well as the oldest of all festivals, the sabbath introduces the
holy seasons. Hence, during the second Temple it was declared that “the sabbath is
in importance equal to the whole law; he who profanes the sabbath openly is like
him who transgresses the whole law.” The hour at which it began and ended was
announced by three blasts of the trumpets.
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Ye shall do no work therein.—Better, ye shall do no manner of work, as the
Authorised version renders this phrase in Leviticus 23:31 of this very chapter. (See
Leviticus 16:29.) Whilst on all other festivals servile work only was forbidden (see
Leviticus 23:7-8; Leviticus 23:21; Leviticus 23:25; Leviticus 23:35-36), and work
connected with the preparation of the necessary food was permitted (see Exodus
12:16), the sabbath and the day of atonement were the only days on which the
Israelites were prohibited to engage in any work whatsoever. (See Leviticus 23:28;
Leviticus 23:30; Leviticus 16:29.) Though manual labour on the sabbath was
punished with death by lapidation (see Exodus 31:14-15; Exodus 35:2; Numbers
15:35-36), and though the authorities during the second Temple multiplied and
registered most minutely the things which constitute labour, yet these
administrators of the Law have enacted that in cases of illness and of any danger
work is permitted. They laid down the principle that “the sabbath is delivered into
your hand, but not you into the hand of the sabbath.” Similar is the declaration of
Christ (Matthew 12:8, Mark 2:27-28).
PETT, "Verse 3
The Sabbath (Leviticus 23:3).
Leviticus 23:3
“Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, a
holy convocation. You shall do no manner of work. It is a sabbath to Yahweh in all
your dwellings.”
The first celebration mentioned is of the seventh day feast. This was the Sabbath,
the seventh day, the day laid down in the covenant beginning at sunset after each
period of six working days when all work was to cease in the camp, and later
throughout the land (Exodus 20:11; Deuteronomy 5:12-14). Wherever they were
throughout the land they would on that day cease from labour, both they, and all
their servants, and all their bond-men and women. No manner of work could be
done. It was a Sabbath of solemn rest, in every dwelling. The whole of Israel was to
stop work as one. And as work ceased they would remember, ‘we were once in
bondage in the land of Egypt, we had to work without ceasing, and by His mighty
power Yahweh delivered us’ (Deuteronomy 5:15).
The Sabbath was a holy ‘calling-together’ in an act of obedience and tribute to
Yahweh, and recognition of His overlordship. This more than anything else would
bind them together, distinguishing them from all others, and forming a bond of
unity between them. They were the Sabbath-keepers to the glory of Yahweh.
On this day at the Central Sanctuary two lambs instead of one would be offered for
the morning and evening sacrifices (Numbers 28:9), and twelve loaves of showbread
were presented to God (Leviticus 24:5-9; 1 Chronicles 9:32). However far they may
24

be from that Sanctuary they would be aware that ‘the Priest’ was offering these on
their behalf.
There was no day like it anywhere else in the world. The Babylonian sabbatu was
not part of a regular cycle but occurred on specific days of the month (the
fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty first and twenty eighth), and was for the purposes of
religious observance and sacrifices in order to divert the wrath of certain gods. But
it was limited to certain classes of society, including the ruler and certain priests,
while work continued on it for others, as is evidenced by business contracts of which
we have copies. It was not a day of total rest. Other nations also had days in the
month on which there were certain restrictions, but none like the Sabbath. The
Sabbath was totally free from connection with the moon (see below). It was a new
idea altogether.
We are so used to the idea of ‘a week’ that we automatically read it into Scripture.
But everyone, including Israel, dated things by the moon. Everything happened on
such and such a day of a moon period. The first possible mention of ‘a week’ in the
sense in which we know it was in Jeremiah 5:24, and even there it is extremely
questionable. Otherwise the concept does not appear in the Old Testament. (Where
we find the translation ‘week’ we should retranslate as ‘seven’). The seven day
period leading up to the Sabbath operated independently of dating. There is never
any reference to a particular ‘day of the week’, it is always to a ‘day of the month’.
With regard to the Sabbath being a day of complete cessation of all work it is
difficult for us in our day, when we have so much free time, to recognise what it
must have been like to live in days when some had no free time at all, and when
many could find themselves literally worked without respite until they died of
exhaustion. The Sabbath ensured that this could not happen to anyone in Israel. No
exceptions were allowed specifically for this reason. Men must not be allowed to find
a way round it. All men, slave or free, must every seventh day have that one day of
total rest.
The timing of the ‘seventh’ day Sabbath was probably determined by the first day
on which manna appeared (Exodus 16:23). Whether it was known before that we do
not know. There is no mention of the Sabbath prior to that point, nor of a regular
day when men were to cease to work, even though, once commenced, it was
patterned on the seventh day of the creation narrative. But Moses declared that the
reason that Yahweh had given them the Sabbath was as a reminder of their
deliverance from bondage in Egypt by His mighty power (Deuteronomy 5:15).
Isaiah would later stress that it was to be a day when men remembered God and
sought His pleasure and not their own (Isaiah 58:13-14). Then they would be blessed
indeed.
Note On The Sabbath.
The first mention of the Sabbath is in Exodus 16. The impression given there
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(Leviticus 23:23; Leviticus 23:25-26; Leviticus 23:29) is that when Moses spoke of
the Sabbath he was imparting new information. He was declaring that at the same
time as the giving of the Manna God had given them the Sabbath (Leviticus 23:29).
He explained that the seventh day of the giving of the manna was to be a holy
sabbath (a ‘ceasing from work’), and therefore also that every seventh day after that
was to be a Sabbath as it followed a six day supply of Manna.
Indeed the ‘rulers’ were confused about it and had to have it explained to them
(Leviticus 23:22). This can only be explained by the fact that they were at this stage
unaware of a regular Sabbath. If they had been their question could hardly have
arisen. Had the Sabbath already been instituted they would have expected that there
should be no gathering on the Sabbath.
The seventh day Sabbath was then firmly established as something which was to
continue while the Manna was given (Leviticus 23:26). Later in the giving of the
covenant at Sinai it was made a permanent feature, and there it was made a
reminder of creation (Exodus 20:8-11) which established its permanence. God had
rested on the seventh day and blessed it, and now also so must Israel on each
seventh day that followed the giving of Manna. But it should be noted that the
creation account says nothing about the Sabbath, nor about ‘a week’. Nor does it
suggest that time should follow that pattern. It simply speaks of a divinely perfect
period of ‘seven days’.
In fact Moses specifically declared in Deuteronomy 5:15 that the reason that
Yahweh commanded them to keep the Sabbath day was as a memorial of their
delivery from Egypt, with the ceasing from work symbolising their ceasing from
bondage. Every Sabbath as they ceased work it would be a reminder of that great
deliverance from bondage by the mighty power of Yahweh.
This gives good reason to think that Exodus 16 was in fact the time when the regular
permanent seventh day Sabbath was first established, in order to commemorate the
giving of the Manna as something better than the bread of Egypt, and as a symbol of
deliverance and of God’s care. Previously holy rest days had been mentioned on
which all work should cease (Exodus 12:16), and they were sometimes, but not
always, ‘seventh days’, but they had never been called sabbaths, and they were
specific memorial days indicating the beginning and ending of special feasts. The
Sabbath was something new.
Because it was a sabbath (shabbath - a stopping of work) they were to cease work on
it. It was a holy rest (shabbathon). This would hardly have needed to be explained if
they were familiar with it.
So while no specific statement was made in Exodus 16 that it was a new institution,
everything about the narrative suggests that it was. The sabbath had not previously
been mentioned, and the only mention of a seventh day feast previously was in
Exodus 13:6 and there it was a seventh day numbered from another day (the first
26

day after the fourteenth day of Abib) fixed by the moon. And new and full moons
did not always occur on a specific day of the week. Indeed in Exodus 13 there was
also a special feast on the first day after the fourteenth of Abib as well as on the
seventh after. Both were holy days. This was the pattern of special days elsewhere.
They were on fixed days of a moon period
It may well be therefore that the first giving of the Manna also represented the first
establishing of the strict seven day ‘week’ pattern and of the regular Sabbath.
Previously they probably simply numbered the days of each moon period and have
utilised periods of the moon for recording time, or followed the ways of the
Egyptians. This new way of measuring time from one Sabbath to another would be
another indication of their new nationhood, and their new position under God their
Provider. But they still dated everything under the old non-week system.
Indeed had the Sabbath and the seven day period on which it ended already been a
well recognised feature we might have expected that those who broke it (Exodus
16:27) would be put to death (compare Numbers 15:32-36). But instead they are
only rebuked for having disobeyed the command not to gather.
It is also interesting to note that there is no specific emphasis in Exodus 16 of doing
no work, although it may possibly be seen as implied in Leviticus 23:23 and
Leviticus 23:26-27, the latter only being stated, however, after the failure to observe
the Sabbath. This may be why they were only rebuked.
If this be so its introduction was probably made easier by the fact that ‘seven days’
(not directly related to the week) was often seen as a holy period (see Genesis 7:4;
Genesis 7:10; Genesis 8:10; Genesis 8:12; Genesis 8:22; Genesis 29:27-28; Genesis
50:10; Exodus 7:25; Exodus 12:15; Exodus 12:19; Exodus 13:6-7 and often). Seven
was the number of divine perfection. Thus they learned that from now on their life
was in a sense to be made up of holy periods of seven days in which God provided
their food for six days, followed by a day on which they ceased work as a reminder
of their deliverance from bondage.
It is true that in Genesis 2:1-3 God stopped working on ‘the seventh day’ from all
His activity in creation, but that is not applied there to any requirement for man to
observe it, and had it been a requirement when that was written we would have
expected it to be mentioned, especially if that was the intention. Nor is the seventh
day there called the Sabbath, although it is true that shabbath is related to shabath,
to stop, be at a standstill, stop working, the verb used there. Later in Exodus 20:10
(see also Exodus 31:17) this example is given as proving that the idea of the seventh
day was something which God has blessed but there is no necessary suggestion or
indication that the Sabbath itself was inaugurated at the time of creation. Creation
did not take place in a ‘week’, it took place over a seven day period. The distinction
is important for accuracy. As we have seen in Deuteronomy 5:14-15 it is in fact the
deliverance from Egypt that is given as the reason why God instituted the Sabbath.
The bondmen had become free and in gladness and gratitude would honour
27

Yahweh by dedicating a work-free day to Him.
Thus we should note that ‘the seventh day’ was not something that was fixed as the
last day in a week. The week did not come first. The idea of the seventh day of a
series of days came first. The reason that it was special was precisely because it was
the seventh day of a divinely complete series. It was because God introduced the
idea of a Sabbath every seventh day in Exodus 16 to follow each six day series of
giving of the Manna that the week eventually resulted. This brings out how
important the Manna was seen to be, that the giving of it led up after each six day
period to a Sabbath. God was sealing the fact that it was a divine supply. But for
calendar purposes they still thought of moon periods.
End of Note.
So the Sabbath was to be seen as primary. It would distinguish Yahweh’s people
from all others, and ensured that on one day in seven they turned from the demands
and trials of daily life to a day of contemplation and worship. Every seven days they
would observe a feast. It was to be Yahweh’s day, a day of ceasing work and a day
of remembering. It reminded them of creation, and of the Creator (Exodus 20:11). It
reminded them that their lives continually followed His creation pattern. It
reminded them that they had been delivered from bondage in the land of Egypt,
that they had not been able to cease work then, and that Yahweh had mightily
delivered them. Indeed the latter is why He commanded them to keep the Sabbath
day (Deuteronomy 5:15).
TRAPP, "Leviticus 23:3 Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day [is] the
sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work [therein]: it [is] the
sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.
Ver. 3. Ye shall do no work therein.] Save only works of piety, charity, and
necessity. These are allowed by our Saviour. [Mark 2:23-28; Mark 3:4] The Jews
superstitiously hold, (a) that it is not lawful for a blind man to lean upon a staff on a
Sabbath day, as the lame may: that if a flea bite a man on that day, he may take it,
but not kill it. That if a thorn prick him in the foot on that day, he may not pull it
out. That a tailor may not carry a needle, much less a sword; that a man may not
spet, (b) or be taken out of a jakes, as that Jew of Tewkesbury, who said,
“ Sabbata santa colo, de stercore {c} surgere nolo. ”
Whereunto the Earl of Gloucester replied,
“"Sabbata nostra quidem (Solomon) celebrabis ibidem." ”
“(Sir, reverence (d) of the Sabbath keeps me here:
And you, sir, reverence (e) shall our Sabbath there.)”
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In all your dwellings.] Where you are to sanctify this rest, and to repair to your
synagogues. [Acts 15:21]
PULPIT, "The seventh day is the sabbath of rest. This is a very strong expression,
literally, the sabbath of sabbatism, which doubles the force of the single word. Ye
shall do no work therein. The sabbath and the Day of Atonement were the only days
in which no work might be done, whereas on the other festivals it was only no
servile work that might be done. It is not to be observed solely where the tabernacle
is pitched or the temple is built, but in every town and village of Canaan—in all
your dwellings. In the sanctuary itself the peculiar characteristics of the sabbath
were a holy convocation, the renewal of the shewbread, and the burnt offering of
two lambs with their meat and drink offerings (Numbers 28:9, Numbers 28:10);
elsewhere it was observed only by the holy convocation and rest from all labour. It
commenced at sunset on Friday evening, and continued till sunset on Saturday
evening. In later days the hour at which it began was announced by three blasts of
the priests' trumpets, immediately after which a new course of priests entered on
their ministry.
The Passover and the Festival of Unleavened
Bread
4 “‘These are the Lord’s appointed festivals, the
sacred assemblies you are to proclaim at their
appointed times:
BARNES, "The recurrence of the sabbatical number in the five annual days of holy
convocation should be noticed.
GILL, "These are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations,.... What
follow besides the sabbath mentioned:
which ye shall proclaim in their seasons; the proper times of the year, the day or
days, and month in which they are to be observed; these were to be proclaimed by the
29

priests with the sound of trumpet, namely, what follow, for they are put together, which
had been before for the most part singly delivered.
HENRY 4-14, "Here again the feasts are called the feasts of the Lord, because he
appointed them. Jeroboam's feast, which he devised of his own heart (1Ki_12:33), was
an affront to God, and a reproach upon the people. These feasts were to be proclaimed in
their seasons (Lev_23:4), and the seasons God chose for them were in March, May and
September (according to our present computation), not in winter, because travelling
would then be uncomfortable, when the days were short, and the ways foul; not in the
middle of summer, because then in those countries they were gathering in their harvest
and vintage, and could be ill spared from their country business. Thus graciously does
God consult our comfort in his appointments, obliging us thereby religiously to regard
his glory in our observance of them, and not to complain of them as a burden. The
solemnities appointed them were, 1. Many and returned frequently, which was intended
to preserve in them a deep sense of God and religion, and to prevent their inclining to
the superstitions of the heathen. God kept them fully employed in his service, that they
might not have time to hearken to the temptations of the idolatrous neighbourhood they
lived in. 2. They were most of them times of joy and rejoicing. The weekly sabbath is so,
and all their yearly solemnities, except the day of atonement. God would thus teach them
that wisdom's ways are pleasantness, and engage them to his service by encouraging
them to be cheerful in it and to sing at their work. Seven days were days of strict rest and
holy convocations; the first day and the seventh of the feast of unleavened bread, the day
of pentecost, the day of the feast of trumpets, the first day and the eighth of the feast of
tabernacles, and the day of atonement: here were six for holy joy and one only for holy
mourning. We are commanded to rejoice evermore, but not to be evermore weeping.
Here is,
I. A repetition of the law of the passover, which was to be observed on the fourteenth
day of the first month, in remembrance of their deliverance out of Egypt and the
distinguishing preservation of their first-born, mercies never to be forgotten. This feast
was to begin with the killing of the paschal lamb, Lev_23:5. It was to continue seven
days, during all which time they were to eat sad bread, that was unleavened (Lev_23:6),
and the first and last day of the seven were to be days of holy rest and holy convocations,
Lev_23:7, Lev_23:8. They were not idle days spent in sport and recreation (as many that
are called Christians spend their holy days), but offerings were made by fire unto the
Lord at his altar; and we have reason to think that the people were taught to employ
their time in prayer, and praise, and godly meditation.
II. An order for the offering of a sheaf of the first-fruits, upon the second day of the
feast of unleavened bread; the first is called the sabbath, because it was observed as a
sabbath (Lev_23:11), and, on the morrow after, they had this solemnity. A sheaf or
handful of new corn was brought to the priest, who was to heave it up, in token of his
presenting it to the God of Heaven, and to wave it to and fro before the Lord, as the Lord
of the whole earth, and this should be accepted for them as a thankful acknowledgment
of God's mercy to them in clothing their fields with corn, and of their dependence upon
God, and desire towards him, for the preserving of it to their use. For it was the
expression both of prayer and praise, Lev_23:11. A lamb for a burnt-offering was to be
offered with it, Lev_23:12. As the sacrifice of animals was generally attended with meat-
offerings, so this sacrifice of corn was attended with a burnt-offering, that bread and
flesh might be set together on God's table. They are forbidden to eat of their new corn till
this handful was offered to God; for it was fit, if God and Israel feast together, that he
30

should be served first. And the offering of this sheaf of first-fruits in the name of the
whole congregation did, as it were, sanctify to them their whole harvest, and give them a
comfortable use of all the rest; for then we may eat our bread with joy when we have, in
some measure, performed our duty to God, and God has accepted our works, for thus all
our enjoyments become clean to us. Now, 1. This law was given now, though there was
no occasion for putting it in execution till they came to Canaan: in the wilderness they
sowed no corn; but God's feeding them there with bread from heaven obliged them
hereafter not to grudge him his share of their bread out of the earth. We find that when
they came into Canaan the manna ceased upon the very day that the sheaf of first-fruits
was offered; they had eaten of the old corn the day before (Jos_5:11), and then on this
day they offered the first-fruits, by which they became entitled to the new corn too (Lev_
23:12), so that there was no more occasion for manna. 1. This sheaf of first-fruits was
typical of our Lord Jesus, who has risen from the dead as the first-fruits of those that
slept, 1Co_15:20. That branch of the Lord (Isa_4:2) was then presented to him, in virtue
of the sacrifice of himself, the Lamb of God, and it was accepted for us. It is very
observable that our Lord Jesus rose from the dead on the very day that the first-fruits
were offered, to show that he was the substance of this shadow. 3. We are taught by this
law to honour the Lord with our substance, and with the first-fruits of all our increase,
Pro_3:9. They were not to eat of their new corn till God's part was offered to him out of
it (Lev_23:14), for we must always begin with God, begin our lives with him, begin every
day with him, begin every meal with him, begin every affair and business with him; seek
first the kingdom of God.
JAMISON, "These are the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim in
their seasons — Their observance took place in the parts of the year corresponding to
our March, May, and September. Divine wisdom was manifested in fixing them at those
periods; in winter, when the days were short and the roads broken up, a long journey
was impracticable; while in summer the harvest and vintage gave busy employment in
the fields. Besides, another reason for the choice of those seasons probably was to
counteract the influence of Egyptian associations and habits. And God appointed more
sacred festivals for the Israelites in the month of September than the people of Egypt
had in honor of their idols. These institutions, however, were for the most part
prospective, the observance being not binding on the Israelites during their wanderings
in the wilderness, while the regular celebration was not to commence till their settlement
in Canaan.
CALVIN, "4.These are the feasts of the Lord. The other festivals which Moses here
enumerates have an affinity to the Sabbath. In the first place the Passover is put, the
mystery of which I have annexed, not without reason, to the First Commandment,
for its institution was there explained, inasmuch as it acted as a restraint on the
people from falling away to strange gods. In that rite they were initiated to the
service of God, that they might abandon all the superstitions of the Gentiles, and
acquiesce in the pure instruction of the Law. The Passover, therefore, in itself was a
supplement to the First Commandment; yet the day recurring from year to year is
fitly enumerated amongst the other festivals. And surely it is plain that the Fourth
31

Commandment had no other object or use except to exercise the people in the
service of God; but since the killing of the lamb represented the grace of adoption
whereby God had bound them to Himself, it was necessary to annex it to the First
Commandment. Let my readers therefore now be content with the other part, i.e.,
that its annual celebration was a help to the perpetual recollection by the Israelites
of their redemption.
COFFMAN, "Verse 4
"These are the set feasts of Jehovah, even holy convocations, which ye shall
proclaim in their appointed season. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the
month at even, is Jehovah's Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is
the feast of unleavened bread unto Jehovah: seven days ye shall eat unleavened
bread. In the first day ye shall have a holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work.
But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto Jehovah seven days: in the seventh
day is a holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work."
Sometimes one encounters the proposition that "six feasts are mentioned in this
chapter, whereas there are only three in Exodus 34," with the usual reference to
"later editors," "redactors," etc., but, as Kellogg pointed out, the three major feasts
here: Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and Tabernacles are carefully distinguished and
set apart from the others by "the use of the Hebrew word [~haggiym], a word that
sets them apart and signifies a special degree of gladness and festivity."[6] The
purpose in Exodus was to name only the [~haggiym]; whereas, here, "the appointed
seasons" are named (distinguished by the Hebrew word [~haggam]). Since the
[~haggam] included also the [~haggiym] given in Exodus 34, they were of necessity
included here also.[7]
PASSOVER. This was the great celebration of the night of God's deliverance from
Egyptian bondage, an event that followed immediately after the tenth and final
visitation of God's wrath upon Egypt in the slaying of the firstborn. It was
celebrated on the fourteenth of Nisan (the old name was Abib), the first month of
the ecclesiastical year.
FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD. This followed at once upon the celebration of
Passover; it lasted seven days; and both the first day (the fifteenth) and the last day
(the twenty-first) were also observed as holy convocations (sabbaths, or periods of
rest). In this appears the back-to-back sabbaths on the successive dates of Nisan
14,15 which also occurred while our Lord was in the tomb. That is why Matthew
wrote, "And after the sabbaths (plural) were past ... came Mary Magdalene ... etc."
(Matthew 28:1, see the Greek Text). The recognition of this truth has a significant
bearing upon determining what day it was when our Lord was crucified.
"Ye shall do no servile work ..." (Leviticus 23:7). We have already noted that this
was a less strict command than the "no manner of work" prohibited on the sabbath.
Orlinsky gave the meaning of this phrase as, "You shall not work at your
32

occupation."[8]
Both the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were discussed at length in
my commentary on Exodus, and they will appear a third time in Numbers 28.
It should be remembered, however, that both Passover and Unleavened Bread are
significant in their implications for Christians. Christ is our Passover. He is the
great Antitype of the Passover Lamb. His blood redeems people, not by being
sprinkled on a door-post, but by Christ's shedding his blood on Calvary for the sins
of the whole world.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread is likewise significant. "Bread signifies communion
or fellowship with Christ, and the leaven which was purged out signifies sin, or
evil."[9] Christians are commanded to "purge out the old leaven" (1 Corinthians
5:7,8; 2 Corinthians 7:1; and Galatians 5:7,9).
ELLICOTT, " (4) These are the feasts of the Lord.—Because the following are the
festivals proper as distinguished from the sabbath (see Leviticus 23:37-38), and
because they are now enumerated in their regular order, the introductory heading is
here repeated.
Ye shall proclaim in their seasons.—By the blast of trumpets on the day of the
month on which they are to be observed.
EBC, "THE FEAST OF PASSOVER AND UNLEAVENED BREAD
Leviticus 23:4-14
"These are the set feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which ye shall
proclaim in their appointed season. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the
month at even, is the Lord’s passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is
the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord: seven days ye shall eat unleavened
bread. In the first day ye shall have a holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work.
But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord seven days: in the seventh
day is a holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work. And the Lord spake unto
Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be
come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye
shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest unto the priest: and he shall
wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the
sabbath the priest shall wave it. And in the day when ye wave the sheaf, ye shall
offer a he-lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Lord.
And the meal offering thereof shall be two tenth parts of an ephah of fine flour
mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savour: and the
drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of a hin. And ye shall eat
neither bread, nor parched corn, nor fresh ears, until this selfsame day, until ye
have brought the oblation of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your
33

Leviticus 23 commentary

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Leviticus 23 commentary