God's 3 Great Harvests

In Bible days, the Israelites harvested 3 harvests each year, refraining from harvesting only every 7th and 50th year. The 3 harvests are the barley harvest, wheat harvest, and fruit harvest (grapes, olives, figs, etc.).

These 3 harvests paint a picture of God’s plan for humanity, as we’ll soon see! They broadcast His plan to “bring many children to glory” (Heb. 2:10).

The first harvest, the barley harvest, commenced with the first sickle swing each spring at the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We can deduce this from the fact that the plague of hail pulverized Egypt’s barley crop “in the bud” before Passover (Ex. 9:31) combined with God’s instructions to bring the firstfruits of the harvest before Him as an offering at the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev. 23:10-11).

On Pentecost (also called Shavuot or the Feast of Weeks), God commanded the Israelites to bring another offering of firstfruits (Lev. 23:17) — the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, as we are told in Ex. 34:22. Jer. 8:20 shows us that summer is the harvest season: “The harvest is past, the summer is ended….”

The third and last harvest was the harvest of grapes, olives, and other fruits. All 3 harvests concluded before the Feast of Tabernacles, also called the Feast of Ingathering, in the seventh month (Ex. 23:16). For the Feast of Tabernacles, God commanded the Israelites to set aside a tenth (tithe) of their increase during the year and rejoice before Him (Deut. 14:22-26):

“You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days, when you have gathered from your threshing floor and from your winepress. And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant and the Levite, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, who are within your gates. Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the LORD your God in the place which the LORD chooses, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you surely rejoice. Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Tabernacles; and they shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you” (Deut. 16:13-17).

Each of these 3 harvests — barley, wheat, and fruit — lined up with God’s holy days: the barley harvest with Passover, the wheat harvest with Pentecost, and the full harvest with the Feast of Tabernacles.

At each of these holy days, God commanded the Israelites to appear before Him at His sanctuary: “The Feast of Unleavened Bread you shall keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the appointed time of the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt. And you shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end. Three times in the year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the LORD God of Israel” (Ex. 34:18, 22-23).

Why did God create 3 harvest seasons for the Israelites? Why did He link the harvests and His holy days together?

Jesus Christ explained it to us in several of His parables. Here’s His parable of the growing seed: “And He said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come’” (Mark 4:26-29).

So a harvest represents people being gathered into God’s Kingdom. Jesus returned to this point in His parable of the wheat and the tares, explaining, “The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Mat. 13:37-42).

At the harvest, God will gather the righteous into His Kingdom. The unrepentant wicked He will destroy.

Why, then, are there 3 harvests? Because God prepares people for His Kingdom in 3 stages or eras of salvation.

As we saw in the post on the Second Resurrection, the first stage is happening right now. During the 6,000-odd years God has given mankind on this earth, He is preparing a select few to be firstfruits in His Kingdom. They will be in the First Resurrection and, when Jesus Christ returns, will reign over the earth with Him as priests for a thousand years (Rev. 20:4-6).

Christ’s millennial reign is the second stage of salvation. Everyone on earth who survives the Great Tribulation will live under the reign of Jesus Christ and be taught by Him and His saints. At the end of the Millennium, God will destroy those who still reject His way of life:

“Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them” (Rev. 20:7-9).

Following this is the Second Resurrection, as we also saw previously in the post on this topic. At this time, all of humanity will be resurrected, taught God’s ways, and given an opportunity to choose Him and His way of life. Those who reject Him will be destroyed, and those who accept Him will enter into His Kingdom. This is the third and final stage of salvation.

God followed this same pattern when He raised up the Levitical priesthood in the Old Testament. He set up a high priest, who was a type of our High Priest Jesus Christ (Heb. 4:14-15). Other priests helped the high priest and served under him (Ex. 28:41). These are a type of the firstfruits, for all of us who aspire — and whom God chooses — to be in the First Resurrection will be “priests of God and of Christ” (Rev. 20:6).

The priests’ job was to teach people God’s ways and lead them in worship of Him: “For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and people should seek the law from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts” (Mal. 2:7).

God provided one whole tribe, the Levites, to help the priests perform these duties (Num. 8:19). The Levites are a type of those who choose God’s way of life and commit themselves to Him during Christ’s thousand-year reign.

Lastly, there was the whole congregation of Israel — the other twelve tribes. These are a type of all humanity who will be raised in the Second Resurrection.

The high priest presided over the priests, who taught the Levites, who in turn helped the priests to teach the rest of the people (Neh. 8:7). Jesus Christ, our High Priest, will preside over the firstfruits, who will teach the people in the Millennium, who together will teach all humanity in the Second Resurrection. Just as there were few priests, thousands of Levites, and millions of Israelites, so there will be few firstfruits, many more saved during the Millennium, and likely untold billions saved during the Second Resurrection!

Another example that illustrates this concept for us is the story of Gideon. When God chose Gideon to deliver Israel from the Midianites, Gideon assembled an army of 32,000 men.

But “the LORD said to Gideon, ‘The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, “My own hand has saved me.’ Now therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, “Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.”’ And twenty-two thousand of the people returned, and ten thousand remained” (Judg. 7:2-3).

But God was not satisfied, telling Gideon that he still had too many men. He commanded Gideon to test his army again, and this time only 300 men were chosen! With these few men, God promised to deliver Israel from the Midianites (Judg. 7:7).

Notice that God whittled down and sifted Gideon’s army from 32,000 to 10,000 and finally to 300. Likewise, out of the billions of people who have ever lived, God has called relatively few, yet He has still called many people. Out of the many that God has called, He chooses very few during these 6,000 years. “Many are called, but few chosen” (Mat. 20:16).

The number 300 is itself an interesting number, for it first appears in Scripture in Gen. 5:22, where we learn that Enoch walked with God for 300 years. We can deduce from this that 300 represents walking with God. Gideon’s 300 men represented the firstfruits whom Jesus counts worthy “to walk with Me in white” (Rev. 3:4)!

Is this fascinating or what?!

We can also view the 300 men as the firstfruits, the 10,000 men as those saved during the Millennium, and all 32,000 as those saved during the second resurrection. They all answered the call, but not all are chosen at the same time.

After Gideon’s 300 men defeated the Midianites, their Israelite brethren rushed to help and joined in pursuing their defeated foe:

“And the men of Israel gathered together from Naphtali, Asher, and all Manasseh, and pursued the Midianites. Then Gideon sent messengers throughout all the mountains of Ephraim, saying, “Come down against the Midianites, and seize from them the watering places as far as Beth Barah and the Jordan.” Then all the men of Ephraim gathered together and seized the watering places as far as Beth Barah and the Jordan. And they captured two princes of the Midianites, Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they killed at the winepress of Zeeb. They pursued Midian and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side of the Jordan” (Judg. 7:23-25).

In like manner, God’s firstfruits will be joined by many others during the Millennium and the Second Resurrection!

The story of Gideon is a fascinating one that may one day be a blog post all on its own. It shows us, though, just like the priesthood and the 3 harvests, that God’s plan happens in stages. At each stage, He blesses more people with His gift of salvation.

These, then, are God’s 3 great harvests: the First Resurrection, the Millennium, and the Second Resurrection. Jesus Christ and His firstfruits will teach the people in the Millennium, and all of them together will teach the people in the Second Resurrection. This will be the biggest harvest of all, when God will bring many billions of His children to glory!