Exodus 23:14-17

God here, through Moses, speaks about the three harvest festivals among the holy days. They are also the three pilgrimage feasts where once they got into the land the people would come to Jerusalem to keep those particular feasts, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost as we call it now, and the Feast of Tabernacles. Now, what is interesting here is that for the last two, God gives them different names from what we are used to. God calls Pentecost the Feast of Harvest. In the New Testament, of course, we call that Pentecost. In Leviticus 23, it is called the Feast of Weeks. And so we have a different name for Pentecost, and then the Feast of Tabernacles, instead of dwelling on the idea of tents or temporary dwellings, here He talks about ingathering, another harvest term.

Well, we need to notice as we focus in on the Day of Pentecost, how God describes this holy day. First, He does call it here the Feast of Harvest. Now, the Hebrew word that lies underneath the word harvest is qasir. (Like I said before, I am not going to give you all the diacritical marks here.) And this particular word does not necessarily mean harvest. It comes to mean harvest, but the base idea behind the word is cutting or severing. And so when you reaped a field of grain, you brought in the harvest, you would cut the stalks with something very sharp, and then you would gather them up and bring them in.

Now you might wonder, is that the same word that they used for ingathering there in the middle part of verse 16? But no, these are two different words and that is why they are translated with two different English words. Ingathering is the Hebrew word asip, and it means to gather or to bring in, to receive, or of course ultimately it meant also to harvest. This refers not to the reaping or the harvest of grains out in the field, but more specifically, it refers to the ingathering of fruit, or grapes specifically. That is what was ripe in the fall, whereas the wheat that was gathered in and around Pentecost was ripe around Pentecost. And so it was cut out of the field, harvested, whereas at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, the harvest was a fruit or grapes, and that was brought in, as the Hebrews thought of it. And that is what the word ingathering means, to gather or to bring in.

Exodus 23:14-15

Now there "the month of Abib" is directly connected to the day that they went out.

There it is again. The phrase "the month of Abib" is connected with Unleavened Bread.

The phrase "the month of Abib" in these three situations is properly connected with the Exodus and not Passover. So why in Deuteronomy 16 is "being brought forth out of Egypt" used in connection with Passover and not Unleavened Bread as in all the other scriptures?

Exodus 23:14-17, Exodus 34:18-24, and Deuteronomy 16:1-17 all have something in common. They all pertain to the three festival seasons: Unleavened Bread, Pentecost (called the Feast of Firstfruits), and the Feast of Tabernacles. In neither one of these contexts is either Passover or the Last Great Day mentioned at all. What we have in these three chapters are specific instructions for these three Feasts. This is especially important to Deuteronomy 16. Deuteronomy 16 is not about Passover. It is about the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles.

Exodus 23:14-17

The phrase "the month of Abib" in these three situations is properly connected with the Exodus and not Passover. So why in Deuteronomy 16 is "being brought forth out of Egypt" used in connection with Passover and not Unleavened Bread as in all the other scriptures?

Exodus 23:14-17, Exodus 34:18-24, and Deuteronomy 16:1-17 all have something in common. They all pertain to the three festival seasons: Unleavened Bread, Pentecost (called the Feast of Firstfruits), and the Feast of Tabernacles. In neither one of these contexts is either Passover or the Last Great Day mentioned at all. What we have in these three chapters are specific instructions for these three Feasts. This is especially important to Deuteronomy 16. Deuteronomy 16 is not about Passover. It is about the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles.

Exodus 23:14-16

I do not want to go further because I want you to note what it says there. Verse 16 specifically applies to the firstfruits offering. Now, is it not true that the wave sheaf offering is the first of the firstfruits offering, so this instruction that is given here in verse 16 applies directly to it. You could not get something more positive.

What does it say here? It says that the offering must be made from the firstfruits of their labors that the Israelites had sown in their field. See—"which you have sown." Is there anything hard to understand about that phrase? The wave sheaf offering had to be made from the harvest from the seeds that they had sown in the field.

Exodus 23:14-16

This first mention gives a basic outline of the three festival seasons, and here the present Feast is called “the Feast of Ingathering.” It is a harvest festival, and this sets the tone because it evokes thoughts of abundance as all the produce has been gathered in, and there is a break from the work.