Building on the Foundation

  Under the Old Covenant, God taught His people to offer Him the firstfruits of each harvest in the Promised Land.This included, as we saw previously , the two primary grain crops: barley and wheat. Because the Creator showered upon His people an abundance of all things, it was only fitting to offer an expression of gratitude to Him! As we also saw previously , God’s people offered the firstfruits of barley as a wave sheaf when beginning the count to Pentecost. Fifty days later, on the Day of Pentecost itself, they offered the firstfruits of wheat as wave loaves. In that same post, we examined God’s ordained process of preparing the wave sheaf. All this begs a follow-up question: What, exactly, was a wave offering? A wave offering both began and ended the count to Pentecost. The Bible mentions several other wave offerings, too. So what were these “wave offerings,” how were they offered, and what was their purpose? Types of Wave Offerings In Leviticus 23, where we discover the wave ...

  The count to Pentecost — or the Feast of Weeks, as it’s called in the Old Testament — is somewhat controversial, as folks have diverse understandings of when the count should begin. Due to the differences in counting, some may observe Pentecost always on a Sunday during the Hebrew month Sivan (the third month), others on a Monday, and others on Sivan 6th. And there are likely other variations as well. In ancient times, the count to Pentecost began with offering a wave sheaf of the firstfruits of the harvest. God told the Israelites, “When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it” (Lev. 23:10-11). The count concluded fifty days later, on the Day of Pentecost, by offering wave loaves of the firstfruits of a later harvest: “You shall bring from your dwellin...