Commentaries:

No entry exists in Forerunner Commentary for Leviticus 23:22.

Leviticus 23:18-22
Excerpted from: Psalms: Book Two (Part One)

So this is the first major crop and it is to the Lord, it is to Him and for Him and everything is supposed to be directed toward Him. Verse 18 has to do with offerings being made, so there is a lot of sacrifices going on, burnt offerings, grain offerings, drink offerings, made by fire as a sweet aroma to the Lord.

Tacked on to the end of the Pentecost instructions is this important instruction not to glean the edges of your field but to leave it for the poor and the stranger. So you have this idea of helping the needy and that the poor and the stranger will be able to feed from your labors. All of these are very important concepts. They are just thrown in here one after another and we have had to make sense of them over the years.

Leviticus 23:22
Excerpted from: Patience With Growth

This is a harvest festival and God, in the middle of the holy day instructions, leaves some extra instructions about how we are supposed to harvest. We are supposed to go ahead and harvest, but leave the corners of the field open. We are not supposed to go back through the field to clean up what we have harvested. We are supposed to leave them out there because the poor have a right to those.

That was how a lot of the poor were able to get food for themselves in ancient Israel. They would go through and reap the corners of the fields that were left for them and they would also go over the rest of the field and pick up any of the gleanings that were there. So God put this in, giving us a clue that there is more going on here.

Leviticus 23:22
Excerpted from: The Two Wave Loaves of Pentecost

Now, if you would turn back to Leviticus 23 again, we will keep going. Pentecost strongly underscores this meaning of generous devotion to others. We will continue with the wave loaves in a moment, but for now we will skip ahead to verse 22. Remember that this is part of the instruction for the holy day:

Maybe this verse seems like a random statute tacked onto the holy day, or like some scribe accidentally put this verse in the wrong place. But with an understanding of the grain offering, we can see that this verse fits perfectly with the other themes for this day. It gives a clear example of mankind owing something to fellow man and supporting his well-being.

Leviticus 23:21-22
Excerpted from: Psalms: Book Two (Part Three)

So we see tacked on the end of the instructions about Pentecost, that we are to keep the stranger and the poor in mind, we are to leave the corners of our fields unharvested so that they can have something to gather. We find in the book of Ruth that is exactly what she did, she went and gathered grain in the field that just happened to be Boaz's field. Boaz is a type of Christ who redeemed her, and by her he had a child. This child is the one who became the father of Jesse who became the father of David and then suddenly we are right back in Book Two of the Psalms.

Leviticus 23:22
Excerpted from: The Appointed Weeks of Pentecost

That might seem like a statute that is just tacked onto the end, but when we pull all the themes together, we can see how that verse fits perfectly. The Feast of Harvest represents a harvest of our labors, labors that God’s intends to benefit fellow man, as the grain offering pictures. And within that theme is this further instruction not to be exacting, even in harvesting what is our own, but to allow the poor and the stranger to also labor so they can have something. It shows supporting the well-being of our fellow man.

 

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