PENTECOST
PENTECOST 741)
hd (Ly 257 * ® 26%. 4); while the use of ninz¢ in opr sense of weeks may be justified by the analogy of the Aramaic and Syriac, the interpreta- tion οἱ the LXX (τῶν ἑβδομάδων), and the use of σάββατον and σάββατα in NT, e.g. Mt 28', Lk 184 [see Biihr, Symb. ii. 619; Dillm. in Schenkel’s Bid.- Lex. (in his Com. also Dillm. regards this view as exegetically defensible); Schiirer, HJP πὶ. ii. 37; W. H. Green, Heb. Feasts, ch. vii.J]. It is at any rate certain that the Jews celebrated the sheaf- waving on Nis. 16, and Pentecost on the fiftieth day after (usually Sivan 6), without regard in either case to the day of the week. Reland (Antig. Sacr. Vet. Heb. part iv. ch. iv.) states, indeed, that they took care that Pentecost should not fall on the third, fifth, or seventh day of the week; but this was probably only a later Rabbinical Tule (see Ideler, Handb. ὦ. Chronol. i. p. 537 ff.).
The feast of weeks or Pentecost, therefore, as it ereeTein the Pent., was a joyful acknowledgment of the completion of the harvest in the land which God had given Israel. The whole harvest season was in a sense sacred time. Hence Pentecost lasted but oneday. By its prelude, the sheaf-waving, it was aap ent on Passover, commemorative of Israel’s
emption ; and by the interval of seven weeks between it and Nis. 16, it was brought into the sabbatical system in accordance with which the Heb. feasts were arranged.
Those modern writers who maintain the post- exilic origin of the Levitical code, consider Pente- cost, like the other agricultural feasts, to have been cxiptially a nature-festival, which in the development of the Heb. cultus was taken up into an artificial ecclesiastical system. Wellhausen (Proleg. Eng. tr. ch. iii.) points out that in the early prophetical narrative of JE (Ex 9316 34%) the dates of the harvest festivals are vaguely de- scribed; that first in Dt (e.g. 12% 142-28 106. 16) is Pentecost, as well as the other feasts, connected with a central sanctuary, and the freewill offer- ings tend to appear as liturgical obligations, though there is still no mention of a single com- munal offering ; but that in the Levitical code (Lv 23, Nu 28, the former including, however, elements from older sources ; see also Driver, LOT® p. 56; Dillmann, Comment.) the offerings have become mere dues, the communal offering through the priests ontranks the freewill offerings of the people, and the festival has been brought into an arbitrary system of dates and relations quite different from its primitive freedom.
The ceremonies for the celebration of Pentecost are described in Ly 234%, On it no servile work could be done. Two loaves of bread, made from two-tenths of an ephah (RV) of fine flour from the new wheat (Ex 34") harvest, were to be baked with feaven and presented by the priest before the LorpD as a wave-oflering. ‘Ye shall bring (the loaves) out of your habitations’ (oy naye>, LAX ἀπὸ τῆς κατοικίας ὑμῶν) does not mean that each house- hold was to present two loaves (as Vulg. and Luther read, ‘out of all your dwellings’; so Calvin, Osiander, George, et al.), but that the loaves were to be taken from the oui bread made from wheat of the land for household pur- poses. Hence also they were to be leavened,* and therefore could not come upon the altar (Ex 23", Ly 2"), but were merely waved before the Lorp and consumed by the priests. With them two lambs were to be also waved as peace-otlerings, significant of the fellowship between J” and his people; while at the same time a burnt-offering was to be made, consisting of seven yearling
* Edersheim (The Temple, eto. p lla the leaven repre- sented the sense of sin which mingled with the thanksgiving. The common explanation is that the loaves were intended to represent the τι τεστας food of the people, and this explanation appears sufficient.
lambs without blemish, one young bullock, and two rams, with the appropriate meal- and drink- offerings, and also a he-goat as a sin-offering—these latter (El SNee = men of pr bs ee which properly mingled with the e’s thanksgiving.
_ nNu ogi a slightly diferent set of λέας ἠδ is directed for ‘the day of first-fruits,’ as Pentecost is there called, to be made in addition to the daily sacrifices. Many consider this list also to refer to the offering accompanying the loaves, and either pass over the differences as unimportant or explain them as due to corruption of the text or to diverse and unharmonized sources. The later Jews, how- ever, regarded the two lists as supplementary,— that in Nu referring to the sacrifices for Pentecost considered as a special feast-day ; that in Ly to the sacrifices directly connected with the loaves; so that on Pentecost three series of sacrifices were made: (1) the daily burnt- offerings; (2) the sped offerings for a feast-day ; (3) the waving of the loaves and lambs, and the sacrifices connected therewith. This usage appears from Jos. Ant. I. x. 6, where the offerings of both lists are added together (except that he specifies two rams, which is probably an error for three); also from the Mishna (see Menach. iv. 2, 5). Neither is there any reasonable objection to thus combining the lists, since Nu 28. 29 contain directions for sacrifices on special days without describing other ceremonies which fell on those days. Finally, besides these communal offerings, Pentecost was celebrated by the freewill offerings of individuals both to the sanctuary and to the poor (Dt 16», Ly 23),