5 Covenants and 5 Feasts of Pentecost

 At first glance, it appears as though God’s Word says little about the Feast of Pentecost. We do find four different names for it in Scripture: the Feast of Weeks (Ex. 34:22), the Feast of Harvest (Ex. 23:16), the day of the firstfruits (Num. 28:26), and Pentecost (Acts 2:1).

Yet observances of this day are seldom mentioned in Scripture by name. Only once, in fact. Only one time, in all of Scripture, are we specifically told that something happened on Pentecost, and that’s in Acts 2:1-4:

1 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.

4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

However, there ARE several other Pentecost observances detailed in Scripture as well. We just aren’t specifically told. We have to put the pieces of the puzzle together to see it.

First, we know that Pentecost occurs in the third month of the Hebrew calendar, “which is the month of Sivan” (Est. 8:9). This is true regardless of whether one observes Pentecost on Sunday, Monday, or Sivan 6th. Fifty days from the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the first month brings us, without fail, to the third month, Sivan.

Secondly, Pentecost is a holy convocation, a commanded assembly: “Also on the day of the firstfruits, when you bring a new grain offering to the LORD at your Feast of Weeks, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work” (Num. 28:26).

But not only was Pentecost a commanded assembly; it was also, like the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Tabernacles, a pilgrimage feast at which God commanded all His people to appear before Him in one place at His sanctuary: “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. 34:22-23). Elsewhere, we can see that God didn’t just command all the men to appear before Him, but those men and all their households with them:

5 “But you shall seek the place where the LORD your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go.

6 “There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

7 “And there you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the LORD your God has blessed you.

12 “And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates, since he has no portion nor inheritance with you.” (Deut. 12:5-7, 12.)

This command is the very reason that so many people assembled together at God’s temple in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2! Not only were Jesus’ disciples assembled together “with one accord in one place” (Acts 2:1), but so were countless pilgrims from faraway lands: “And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5).

So whenever we read in Scripture about all God’s people assembling together at His sanctuary in the third month, we know it was Pentecost! We don’t have to be specifically told. All we have to know is that it was a commanded assembly in the third month. The Feast of Pentecost.

Armed with this information, we then find many observances of Pentecost in Scripture! Let’s take a quick look at these in chronological order.

Observances of Pentecost

Noah and his family departed from the ark on the 27th day of the second month, which is near the end of the month. Shortly thereafter he built an altar, offered sacrifices, and made a covenant with God (Gen. 8:14-22). Since the second month was nearly over, it seems probable that this covenant happened early in the third month at Pentecost. But we’ll see more about this in a moment.

After departing from Egypt, Israel assembled before God at Mt. Sinai early in the third month (Ex. 19:1, 9-11). On the appointed day, God came down on Mt. Sinai in the presence of Israel and began to deliver His law.

When Saul became king of Israel, the Israelites assembled together with Samuel the prophet before God in Gilgal. “So all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the LORD in Gilgal. There they made sacrifices of peace offerings before the LORD, and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly” (1 Sam. 11:15). On that day, Samuel said, “Is today not the wheat harvest?” (1 Sam. 12:17). And of the Day of Pentecost, we read that it is “the firstfruits of wheat harvest” (Ex. 34:22).

During the reign of Solomon’s great grandson, King Asa, all the people of Judah assembled before God at Jerusalem in the third month. “So they gathered together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa. And they offered to the LORD at that time seven hundred bulls and seven thousand sheep from the spoil they had brought” (2 Chron. 15:10-11).

A long time later, during the reign of King Hezekiah, the people of Judah again assembled before God at Jerusalem during the third month, this time to begin bringing their tithes to the temple: “And the children of Israel and Judah, who dwelt in the cities of Judah, brought the tithe of oxen and sheep; also the tithe of holy things which were consecrated to the LORD their God they laid in heaps. In the third month they began laying them in heaps, and they finished in the seventh month” (2 Chron. 31:5-7).

After Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, His disciples assembled together in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, as we have already seen. And on that day, God poured out the Holy Spirit on His people.

In 1 Cor. 16:8, Paul wrote of his desire to keep Pentecost with the congregation in Ephesus, “But I will tarry in Ephesus until Pentecost.” And later, near the end of his recorded ministry, he was overcome with a burning desire to keep Pentecost in Jerusalem once more: “For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he would not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hurrying to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the Day of Pentecost” (Acts 20:16).

So that makes at least eight recorded observances of Pentecost in the Bible! Five in the Old Testament; three in the New Testament.

There’s a common thread among five of these that I’d like for us to look at. Five of these Pentecosts involved a covenant between God and man.

Pentecost and the Covenant

When God poured out the Holy Spirit on His people on the Day of Pentecost, He sealed His covenant with them. “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who [which] is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:13-14).

We who have God’s Spirit now are His firstfruits (Jam. 1:18; Rev. 14:4). But there will be a day when all Israel and all mankind will have His Spirit, too! And of that day, we read, “‘As for Me,’ says the LORD, ‘this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who [which] is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,’ says the LORD, ‘from this time and forevermore’” (Isa. 59:21).

This covenant, which is sealed by God’s Holy Spirit, is the new covenant spoken of in Jer. 31:31-33:

31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—

32 “not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.

33 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

But when did this new covenant begin? It began at the moment Jesus Christ shed His blood for us as our Passover Lamb. As He told His disciples on the night before His death, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:20).

This new covenant is a covenant of blood! “Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:28-29).

Jesus Christ “is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death” (Heb. 9:15). The covenant began when He died and shed His blood for us. “For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives” (Heb. 9:16-17).

But God seals the covenant with each one of us the moment He gives us the Holy Spirit! When we get baptized and receive the Holy Spirit, we have agreed to that covenant, and there can be no turning back. And thus Pentecost, the day God sent the Holy Spirit, is intimately connected to Passover, the blood of the covenant, and the covenant itself!

Now throughout all this, throughout the giving and the ratifying of the New Covenant, we can see how the Old Covenant foreshadowed it. God sealed His people with the Holy Spirit, writing His laws on their hearts, on the Day of Pentecost. God gave the Old Covenant and declared His laws from Mt. Sinai on the Day of Pentecost. The New Covenant required blood, the blood of Jesus Christ. The Old Covenant also required blood. Here’s Heb. 9:18-22:

18 Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood.

19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,

20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.”

21 Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry.

22 And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.

God gave the Old Covenant from Mt. Sinai. He gave the New from Mount Zion, from His sanctuary in heaven. Here’s Heb. 12:18-24:

18 For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest,

19 and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.

20 (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.”

21 And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”

22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels,

23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,

24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

And so, given the significance of the Old Covenant on the Day of Pentecost and the New Covenant on the Day of Pentecost, and given the parallels between the two, it’s small wonder that no less than five Pentecost observances relate to a covenant between God and man!

Shortly after Noah and his family left the ark near the end of the second month, on the 27th day of that month (Gen. 8:14), he built an altar to God. “Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar” (Gen. 8:20). Now, this is the season of Pentecost. And given what happened next, it could scarcely have been any other day, for it was at this time that God made a covenant with all flesh:

8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying:

9 “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you,

10 “and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth.

11 “Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” (Gen. 9:8-11.)

Again, when Israel assembled before Samuel the prophet at Gilgal on the Day of Pentecost, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, Samuel reminded the people of God’s covenant and of what would happen if they broke it. He warned them that neither Saul, whom they had just crowned king, nor any other man, could save them if they broke their covenant with God:

13 “Now therefore, here is the king whom you have chosen and whom you have desired. And take note, the LORD has set a king over you.

14 “If you fear the LORD and serve Him and obey His voice, and do not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then both you and the king who reigns over you will continue following the LORD your God.

15 “However, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD, but rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then the hand of the LORD will be against you, as it was against your fathers.” f(1 Sam. 12:13-15.)

And finally, when all the people of Judah assembled together with King Asa in Jerusalem at Pentecost, it was to renew their covenant with God. Here’s the full account:

10 So they gathered together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa.

11 And they offered to the LORD at that time seven hundred bulls and seven thousand sheep from the spoil they had brought.

12 Then they entered into a covenant to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul;

13 and whoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.

14 Then they took an oath before the LORD with a loud voice, with shouting and trumpets and rams’ horns.

15 And all Judah rejoiced at the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart and sought Him with all their soul; and He was found by them, and the LORD gave them rest all around.

So throughout all five of these Pentecost observances, we can see a common theme emerge of God’s covenant with man! But that’s not all. God’s very instructions for this day give us another glimpse of the covenant.

The Feast of Sevens

Remember, God told us to count seven weeks, that is, seven sevens or forty-nine days, and the fiftieth day is Pentecost (Lev. 23:15-16; Deut. 16:9-10). As we have observed before, the Hebrew word sheva (Strong’s # H7651), or “seven,” stems from the root word shava (H7650), or “oath.” Brown-Driver-Briggs explains that it means oath because “probably, so to say, [to] seven oneself, or [to] bind oneself by seven things.”

When Abraham made a covenant with Abimelech, he set aside seven female lambs as a sign of that covenant (Gen. 21:27-30). The place they made the covenant came to be called Beersheba (Gen. 21:31), that is, “well of seven” or “well of oath.”

When God made His covenant with Noah, He gave the rainbow as a sign of the covenant (Gen. 9:12-17). As we have noted before, the rainbow has seven colors.

Of the Sabbath, God said, “Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you” (Ex. 31:13). And the Sabbath, of course, is the seventh day of the week.

So the number seven pictures, among other things, God’s covenant with His people. And when He tells us to count seven weeks of seven days to keep the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, it’s yet another reminder of the link between Pentecost and His covenant!

The truth is, God’s Word tells us a great deal about Pentecost. And there’s much more that could be written! But it should be obvious, from this study, how closely the Feast of Pentecost and God’s covenant with His people are tied together.