Now, tomorrow is one of the appointed times that God commands that we set aside our normal activities in order to glorify Him.
God commands His people to keep feasts to Him at various seasons of the year because keeping Him at the forefront of our minds is critical to our well-being. These seasons center around agriculture. Up until the Industrial Revolution, which really was not that long, national and community life revolved around agriculture. We’ve all grown up since the Industrial Revolution, so even though we understand the concepts, nearly all of us are largely removed from the reality of living from the land and depending on God for a good harvest. But with each festival season, God brings the focus back to Himself—back to His works and to His providence. It is for the good of His people that He is repeatedly brought to mind. One of the worst calamities is for a man to forget his Creator, Deliverer, and Provider.
So, the pre-incarnate Christ commands keeping the feasts to Him. That’s what verse 14 says. Two of the festival seasons are directly named in agricultural terms: the Feast of Harvest and the Feast of Ingathering. And even though Unleavened Bread is mentioned here in terms of the deliverance from Egypt, that feast also has a connection to agriculture because the wavesheaf offering was made on the day after the Sabbath within Unleavened Bread. That offering to God was required before any harvesting could take place. God had to be acknowledged before the work could move forward.
This passage contains the first mention of the feast we typically call Pentecost. Here it is named “the Feast of Harvest.” That has an obvious literal meaning, but there is a metaphorical one as well. Biblically, the time of harvest can imply receiving the consequences of one’s behavior, whether good or bad. A harvest can be a symbol for a time of evaluation of one’s labors.
That’s what verse 16 says about both the Feast of Harvest and the Feast of Ingathering. In type, those are appointed times when the fruit of our labors are brought before God. Israel did that physically, but we understand that, for the Israel of God, God is most interested in our spiritual labors and the spiritual fruit that comes as a result.
Verse 10 reiterates what we saw in Exodus 23 that the Feast of Weeks is kept to the LORD. It wasn’t just a festive occasion, but a time He set apart for His people to remember Him. The feasts are about Him.
So, while each of God’s festivals teaches us something different, they also have some commonalities. Each festival season has an agricultural focus, which in turn points to God’s providence and natural law and dependence on Him. Each festival season also contains reminders of what God brought His people from. During all three seasons, He says to remember where we came from and what He has done in separating us from this world. He does not want that ever to get far from our minds lest we are tempted to return.
Part of Pentecost’s uniqueness is its emphasis on time. It is the only holy day arrived at by counting. In the Hebrew Scriptures, its primary name is the Feast of Weeks. It is called that five times (Exodus 34:22; Numbers 28:26; Deuteronomy 16:10, 16; II Chronicles 8:13), and the Feast of Harvest once. In the New Testament, Pentekostos is a Greek word that means “count fifty.” Thus, it is a feast that cannot take place until the designated number of weeks, or the number of days, has been fulfilled. The feast is a culmination of a distinctive span of time.
We saw in Exodus 23 that the Feast of Harvest is when we bring before God the firstfruits of our labors that we have sown. Metaphorically, a harvest is a time of evaluation and judgment, a time when efforts bear fruit, whether those efforts are good or bad, serious or half-hearted. What we focus on and spend time on, and the way we conduct ourselves, will … . . .
