Passover Puzzle

First Fruits

Some say the priests always offered First Fruits on the second day of the feast, but others say the offering always fell on the day after the Sabbath of Passover. If the former applied, First Fruits always fell on the sixteenth, but if the latter applied, it always fell on a Sunday.

Most of the priests were Sadducees, a minority sect who interpreted Scripture through the lens of human reasoning. They were a wealthy aristocracy, and their wealth bought them secular influence and placed them in high office. Even so, they held office on the condition that they always followed the edicts of the majority and kept their Hellenistic theories and skepticism in check. Jesus railed against the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, but he rebuked the Sadducees because they were poorly versed in Scripture. They did not hold a high reverence for Sacred Oracles, and it showed. We can resolve the First Fruits timing based solely on Scripture, but first, let us consider how prominent Christians have treated the subject:

The early Adventist pioneers, who studied prophecy, often believed that First Fruits fell on Nisan 16, but many others disagreed. Mrs. White wrote broadly that First Fruits fell on the second day of Unleavened Bread while writing about the Passover Jesus attended twenty-one years earlier as a child in 10 AD, but she never mentioned the sixteenth. If she had said, “the sixteenth,” we would reconsider our position because her insight is so remarkable. This study agrees that First Fruits routinely fell on the second day of Unleavened Bread.

Josephus was a Pharisee. Unlike Mrs. White, he referred to the sixteenth. However, it was not his purpose to explain every facet of a subject. We may tell a child that leap years fall every four years, but there are exceptions to that rule, which we may deem unnecessary to mention in a cursory explanation. The wave sheaf guidelines require several paragraphs to explain.

Josephus wrote to a Greek and Roman audience to give them a broad overview of Jewish history and culture without burying them in a sea of minutia. Josephus served a great purpose. He gave us a historical, eyewitness account of the events that fulfilled Daniel’s prophecies, but his writings are not Scripture. He was accurate regarding the timing of events that occurred after the captivity, but not before. He skimmed over some topics, promising a more detailed explanation later, which often never materialized. “The sixteenth” was sufficient detail for his audience because First Fruits almost always fell on the sixteenth.

Nevertheless, the whole controversy leads us to ask: Were there ever occasions when First Fruits fell on the day after Nisan 16? Let us see what the Bible, the authoritative source, has to say about the timing of First Fruits and Pentecost:

… When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it… And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete: Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord (Leviticus 23: 9–11,15,16 italics given).

Regarding First Fruits, the Bible says nothing about the second day of Unleavened Bread, nor does it mention the sixteenth anywhere. It simply required the priests to offer the wave sheaf on the morrow after the Sabbath. That is the sole directive. God specified a calendar date for every other holy day in the ceremonial season, but He fixed First Fruits and Pentecost by a formula that varied with the weekly cycle. Setting a date by formula means the date is variable. If God intended the barley offering to only fall on the sixteenth and the wheat harvest to only fall on Sivan 6, He would have said so.

Theologians disagree on whether God spoke the law from fiery Mount Sinai on Sivan 6 or Sivan 7. The matter depends on how they interpret the events of Exodus 19. The Israelites camped at the base of the mountain on Sivan 1. We know the wheat offering falls forty-nine days after the wave-sheaf offering, and we can see parallels and contrasts between the graceful Spirit of Pentecost and the frightening display when God issued the Law. Therefore, the matter all rests on how the weekly cycle fell out in the year of the Exodus.

Leviticus 23 prevents First Fruits from falling on a Sabbath Convocation. Theologians also have disagreed about how to define the Sabbath involved, but Leviticus 23 already defined it in the introductory verses. The Bible describes the weekly Sabbath. Then it describes the Ceremonial Sabbath. Both Sabbaths apply.