The second of the three great celebrations ordered by the Law was the Feast of Weeks. This was really the harvest festival, not a prolonged break from work but a sustained recognition of God as the Giver of all good. Again we feel compelled to recognise that there was a hidden meaning, a ritual prophecy of things to come in the single sheaf of the first-fruits and the two loaves presented at the end of harvest.
Pentecost was supposed to be the beginning of the Feast of Weeks, but any attentive student will surely feel that there is a difficulty in this. Certainly the present writer has found a difficulty, arising in the first instance from a consideration of agricultural realities and rendered greater by every effort to get help from commentators. We should naturally feel diffident in making any suggestion that learned men of the past had made a mistake in such a matter, but there have been many errors of interpretation, many changes of ceremonies to suit human convenience, and so many conflicting opinions of learned men cancelling out against each other, that an earnest student of the Bible may venture to read for himself and form his own conclusions.
The Jews even in ancient days undoubtedly perpetrated some blunders in the interpretation and application of their Law. They pushed the scapegoat over a cliff to kill it, instead of letting it go free; and some of them waved the sheaf at the Passover instead of the harvest; needing to use either an imported sheaf, or one saved from the previous year. In each of these matters they spoilt the type. Such errors do not inspire confidence. Modern Gentiles are surely no better, for the men who are recognised as authorities are often unbelievers. It seems quite unreasonable for anyone to object to the use of this word, for an unbeliever is clearly one who does not believe, and if a man repudiates the claim so continually repeated in the words “The Lord said unto Moses,” obviously in relation to this matter he is an unbeliever. The Higher Critics regard Exodus as the more ancient writing. Leviticus and Numbers are treated as post-exilic! Rabbinical tradition is apparently regarded as of equal authority. We cannot expect any light to come from this confusion.
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Author: Islip Collyer
Keywords: Pentecost, Shavuot, Feast of Shavuot, Feast of Weeks, Atzeret, 50 days, Fifty days
Bible reference(s): Exodus 23:16, Exodus 34:22, Numbers 28:26, Deuteronomy 16:10, Deuteronomy 16:16, 2 Chronicles 8:13, 2 Maccabees 12:31, Acts 2:1, Acts 20:16
Source: “The Law Given Through Moses: The Feast of Weeks” The Testimony, Vol. 18, No. 207, March 1948, pp. 78-81.
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