Many Christians are blessed in their studies of what is known as Eschatology, or literally, the study of last things. This vital area of biblical doctrine delves into future prophetic events in Scripture such as the Rapture of the Church, the Day of the Lord, the return of the Messiah, the restoration of Israel, and the messianic Kingdom. Many people spend countless hours studying the last things.
Although not a major discipline, nor often examined for very long by very many, the subject of first things is one about which the Bible has much to say. Somewhat obscure and essentially unobserved for almost two thousand years, Israel’s Feast of Firstfruits was an ancient holy day solely devoted to first things. Its powerful message and timeless truths provide a rich lesson for God’s people.
Firstfruits marked the beginning of the cereal grain harvests in Israel. Barley was the first grain to ripen of those sown in the winter months. For Firstfruits, a sheaf of barley was harvested and brought into the Temple as a thanksgiving offering to the Lord for the harvest. It was representative of the barley harvest as a whole and served as a pledge or guarantee that the remainder of the harvest would be realized in the days that followed.
1. The Regulations for Firstfruits
There were specific regulations for this feast outlined by the Lord in Leviticus 23:9-14.
9 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
10 “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you enter the land which I am going to give to you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest.
11 ‘He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord for you to be accepted; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.
12 ‘Now on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb one year old without defect for a burnt offering to the Lord.
13 ‘Its grain offering shall then be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering by fire to the Lord for a soothing aroma, with its drink offering, a fourth of a hin of wine.
14 ‘Until this same day, until you have brought in the offering of your God, you shall eat neither bread nor roasted grain nor new growth. It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places.
A sheaf (Hebrew omer, meaning “measure”) was to be brought to the priest at the Temple. The priest would wave it before the Lord for acceptance. There were also to be sacrifices: an unblemished male lamb of the first year, a drink offering of wine, and a meal offering of the barley flour mixed with olive oil.
The people were forbidden to use any part of the harvest in any way until after the firstfruits were offered to the Lord (Lev. 23:14). The neglect of these firstfruit offerings (or any others) were considered robbery of God according to Scripture (Mal. 3:8).
2. The Ritual for Firstfruits
The ceremony was detailed in Deuteronomy 26:1-10:
1 “Then it shall be, when you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, and you possess it and live in it,
2 that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground which you bring in from your land that the Lord your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His name.
3 “You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘I declare this day to the Lord my God that I have entered the land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.’
4 “Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God.
5 “You shall answer and say before the Lord your God, ‘My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; but there he became a great, mighty and populous nation.
6 ‘And the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us.
7 ‘Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction and our toil and our oppression;
8 and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror and with signs and wonders;
9 and He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10 ‘Now behold, I have brought the first of the produce of the ground which You, O Lord have given me.’ And you shall set it down before the Lord your God, and worship before the Lord your God…”
3. The Reason for Firstfruits
Firstfruits was an early spring feast, the third in the Jewish festive cycle. On the Hebrew calendar, it occurred on the 16th day of Nisan, the first biblical month (March or April), only two days after the beginning of the Passover season.
Firstfruits was preeminently seen as a time marker. It marked the beginning of the grain harvest in Israel, but even more importantly, it marked the countdown to the Feast of Weeks, the fourth of Israel’s annual feasts. Beginning with Firstfruits, 49 days (or seven sevens) were counted, and on the 50th day, the Feast of Weeks was celebrated. The Lord commanded in Leviticus 23:15-16:
“You shall also count for yourselves from the day after the sabbath, from the day when you brought in the sheaf of the wave offering; there shall be seven complete sabbaths. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh sabbath; then you shall present a new grain offering to the Lord.”
As a result, this period of time was, and still is, known as the Sefirat Ha-Omer (Heb. “the Counting of the Omer”) because of the ritual of counting the days from the omer (sheaf, measure) to the Feast of Weeks.
Scripture does not specify the actual calendar date of Firstfruits, but merely prescribed its time of observance to be “on the day after the Sabbath” (Lev. 23:11). This led to various interpretations and considerable debate as to which Sabbath was in view.
The Sadducees, and later Karaite Jews, understood it to refer to the first weekly Sabbath (Saturday) which occurred during the week of Passover season. However, the word Sabbath also designated any holy day on which work was prohibited, no matter on which day of the week it occurred (Lev. 23:24, 32, 39). The majority opinion, held by the Pharisees, was that the Sabbath in question was Nisan 15, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. That day was to be a “holy convocation” (Lev. 23:7) on which no work was performed. This same description was given to the weekly Sabbath (Lev. 23:3) and to holy-day Sabbaths held on other days of the week (Lev. 23:24-25, 28, 32, 36, 39).
Ancient Jewish observance agreed with the Pharisees. Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, wrote: “But on the second day of unleavened bread, which is the sixteenth day of the month, they first partake of the fruits of the earth, for before that day they do not touch them” (Antiquities of the Jews 3.10.5).
Thus, the chronology of the Passover season consisted of: Passover (Nisan 14), the Feast of Unleavened Bread (7 days, Nisan 15-21), and the Feast of Firstfruits (Nisan 16). The second day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Nisan 16) was also Firstfruits, a day simultaneously shared by both holidays.
Why is the date of Firstfruits so important? Remember, the 7 feasts of the Lord picture the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Jesus is our Passover Lamb and died on Passover (Nisan 14). Unleavened Bread pictured the sinless body of Jesus that did not decay while it was in the tomb on the 14th, 15th, and 16th of Nisan. Jesus rose from the grave on Nisan 16—the day of the Feast of Firstfruits. We shall see why this is so important.
4. The Record of Firstfruits
Firstfruits sacrifices and offerings are not offered today since there is no Temple. The only Firstfruits ritual which has survived to modern times has been the counting of the omer, the days from Firstfruits to the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost).
In ancient times the feast was observed on two levels.
-First, the priests would observe the feast for the entire nation.
-Second, each farmer was to observe the feast for his family farm.
I will describe to you the ceremony observed by the priests. But remember, each farmer was required to do the same for his individual crop.
A. The Preparation for Firstfruits
In Temple days, Nisan 14 brought the painstaking preparations for the Passover season to completion: lambs had been chosen for Passover sacrifices, houses had been purged of all leaven in preparation for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and barley sheaves had been marked in the fields for the Feast of Firstfruits.
With each passing week, the weather in Israel turned warmer. Winter rains had ceased, and cloudy days had quickly become few and far between. Looking eastward from the Temple, one could see the breathtaking panorama of the Mount of Olives and the intervening Kidron Valley basking in the bright golden rays of the springtime sun. Across the Kidron Valley in an area known as the Ashes Valley, a small, open field of amber barley nestled itself against a background of grassy, green slopes and misty gray olive trees. The ripe grain, swaying gently in the soft breeze, created a relaxing, mesmerizing pattern of warm gold. At one end of the field, several bundles of barley were conspicuously marked and tied together, still uncut, in anticipation of the coming Feast of Firstfruits.
This barley field was a special field, cultivated solely for the national Firstfruits offering and kept strictly in accordance with all rabbinic traditions. It had been plowed in the autumn and sown with barley some seventy days earlier during the winter months. Constant oversight assured that the crop had grown naturally, with no artificial watering or fertilization. In the days leading up to Passover, several sheaves were selectively marked and bundled by representatives from the Sanhedrin, Israel’s ruling religious body. With that, the preparation for Firstfruits was complete.
B. The Procession of Firstfruits
Several days later at sundown on Nisan 15 (the beginning of the new Jewish day, Nisan 16), a three-man delegation from the Sanhedrin emerged from the Temple area, accompanied by a multitude of excited observers. The procession made its way down to the barley field to perform the Firstfruits reaping ceremony. With sickles in hand and baskets under arm, the three chosen reapers positioned themselves in readiness before the predetermined bundles of barley. As they did so, a hush fell over the crowd in recognition of the solemnity of the moment. Only the soft whisper of the swaying grain could be heard.
Suddenly, the unison voices of the reapers broke the stillness of the evening with a series of questions to the onlookers: “Has the sun set?” “With this sickle?” “Into this basket?” “On this Sabbath?” “Shall I reap now?” To each question the crowd would respond “Yes!”
The series of questions was repeated two more times as a safeguard to make sure the sun had indeed set. The marked sheaves were then reaped until one ephah of barley (approximately 2/3 bushel) was obtained.
C. The Presentation of Firstfruits
In the Temple court, the grain was threshed with rods rather than oxen-drawn sledges so that the barley corns would not be broken. It was then parched over an open flame and winnowed in the wind to remove the chaff. Finally, the barley was milled and put through an intensive sifting process until sifted very fine. This sifting ceremony continued until one of the Temple inspectors could plunge his hand into the flour and remove it without any flour adhering to his hands (Talmud, Menahot 8:2).
On the morning of Nisan 16, the firstfruits were presented to the Lord. One omer (about 5 pints) of the barley flour was mixed with ¾ pint olive oil, and a small amount of frankincense was sprinkled upon it. This became the Firstfruits offering. The priest waved it before the Lord in accordance with Leviticus 23:11-13 and burned a small amount upon the altar. The remainder was given to the Levites.
D. The Picture of Firstfruits
The Feast of Firstfruits is a picture of the resurrection of Jesus. The feast is a celebration of the rest of the harvest. I will go into greater detail of this next Sunday.
Did you see the picture of Jesus in the Firstfruits offering?
The barley is set apart for the harvest…Jesus was pure and sinless, set apart from the world’s sinfulness.
The barley is harvested by being “cut off” by sickle…Jesus was “cut off” by being crucified.
The barley is threshed with rods to separate the grain from the chaff, without breaking the kernels…Jesus was beaten, but none of His bones were broken.
The grain is then parched over fire…Jesus took our judgment upon Himself.
The grain is ground to a fine flour…Jesus did not take any shortcuts to end or relieve His suffering on the cross. He refused the narcotics that would have dulled the pain.
The flour sits overnight….Jesus was buried in the tomb.
At daybreak on Nisan 16 the flour is offered to the Lord after being mixed with olive oil and sprinkled with frankincense…Jesus’ body was placed in the tomb after being anointed with frankincense. Next, at daybreak on Nisan 16 Jesus was raised from the dead by the Spirit of God (pictured by the olive oil).
The Firstfruits offering was a celebration that the remainder of the harvest still in the fields would be brought in to the storehouse…The resurrection of Jesus is a guarantee that all who trust in Him will one day be resurrected in the likeness of Jesus and brought to the Father’s house!
Do you know if have a part in the resurrection of Christ and will be brought to the Father’s house?
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