Exodus 23:15 - Forerunner Commentary

Exodus 23:15

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Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain The Second Book of Moses Called Exodus 23:15:

Exodus 23:14-17
Excerpted from: Still Producing Fruit?

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 23:14-17
Excerpted from: Passover (Part 9)

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.

Articles
Countdown to Pentecost 2001
Milk and Meat  (2)
The Wavesheaf Offering

Sermons
Wandering or Pilgrimage?
Why Are We Here?
Psalms of Ascents
Is America a Christian Nation? Summary (Part Two)

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