Jewish Feasts: (3) Feast of Firstfruits, Hag Habikkurim

Leviticus 23:9–14 (RSV)
9 And the Lord said to Moses, 10 “Say to the people of Israel, When you come into the land which I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest; 11 and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, that you may find acceptance; on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12 And on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord. 13 And the cereal offering with it shall be two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, to be offered by fire to the Lord, a pleasing odor; and the drink offering with it shall be of wine, a fourth of a hin. 14 And you shall eat neither bread nor grain parched or fresh until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.


• This is the only passage in scripture where the feast is explained
• When does it occur? From the context, the last thing mentioned is the seven days of Unleavened Bread. It is the first Sabbath, so it will depend on when the 14th (Passover) and the 15th (Start of the Feast of Unleavened Bread) occurs
• In AD33, for example:
• Passover, 14 Nisan, was Friday (started on the evening of Thursday, the 13th)
• Feast of Unleavened Bread, 15 Nisan, was Saturday (the Sabbath)
• Feast of Firstfruits was therefore 16 Nisan, Sunday. It is always on Sunday, the first day of the week, but not always the 16th
• Other names:
• Reshit Ketzivchem means "the firstfruits of your harvest"
• Also called the "Feast of Omer"
• And called the "Feast of the wave-sheath"
• So what was it the firstfruits?
• The barley and grain harvests
• There was a one-sheaf offering
• It is the day after the Sabbath
• It marks the beginning of the two-month Spring harvest (in other words, the feasts of firstfruits and weeks bookend the Spring harvest)
• Practice or observance
• Not practice for most of the time since AD 70
• Jesus predicted the punishment of AD 70 for not recognizing the time
• Feast was primarily agricultural
• Jews not allowed to own land because of Gentile law
• Today, there are some observances of the old feast
• What was the offering?
• One lamb, bread, and wine
• Waiving of one sheaf (the first fruits of the spring harvest)


1 Corinthians 15:12–26 (RSV)
12 Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14 if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.
20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.


• In context, verse 20 is referring to what?
• The resurrection
• The surety of the resurrection
• The absolute necessity of the resurrection for salvation
• Key point: Christianity is not based on blind faith but on established fact. The records and the eyewitnesses validate the most important fact in history
• Jesus is described as ____________ of ______________
• Jesus is the first fruits of those who have died
• Jesus is also compared to who and why?
• Death came through a man (Adam, a type of first)
• Resurrection of the dead came through a man (Jesus, also a type of first)


1 Corinthians 15:51–57 (RSV)
51 Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is thy victory?
O death, where is thy sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.


• Is Jesus the first person to come back from the dead? No. So why is Jesus' resurrection from the dead different?
• Because he is the first person to not die again
• This is the first time we see death defeated


1 Thessalonians 4:14–18 (RSV)
14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; 17 then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.


• So what group is the second in a series of resurrections?
• The church alive at the time of the rapture
• The dead in Christ
• What groups remain?


Daniel 12:2 (RSV)
2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.


Daniel 12:13 (RSV)
13 But go your way till the end; and you shall rest, and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.”


Hosea 13:14 (RSV) 14 Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?
Shall I redeem them from Death?
O Death, where are your plagues?
O Sheol, where is your destruction?
Compassion is hid from my eyes.


• What is the next group to be resurrected?
• The OT saints
• And the last group?


Revelation 20:4 (RSV)
4 Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom judgment was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life, and reigned with Christ a thousand years.


• The last group to resurrect are the tribulation saints. This concludes the first resurrection. You want to be a part of the first resurrection. There is a second resurrection at the end of the millennial years


ONE LAST THOUGHT RELATED TO RUTH


Perhaps the most significant of these feasts for this study, in light of the prominent agricultural motif, is the Feast of Firstfruits. The wave offering at that feast signified Israel’s recognition of her need of divine provision. It was a wave offering of a sheaf of raw barley (Lev. 23:11). Surely the reader would see the significance of Ruth’s gleaning among the sheaves of barley (she was certainly in need of divine provision) at the very time Israel celebrated a feast that focused on the nation’s need for divine provision. And this is not to mention Naomi’s earlier request to the Lord that He deal kindly with Ruth and Orpah (i.e., give them husbands, a home, and rest; Ruth 1:8–9). Of significance is the difference between the attitude that should have been expressed according to Leviticus 23 and the attitude expressed by Naomi. Leviticus 23 enjoins an attitude of acknowledged dependence coupled with faith that the Lord will provide, that He will remain faithful to His covenant promises by giving His people a full harvest. Naomi lacked the component of faith. She definitely recognized her need for divine assistance, and she recognized that that assistance was available for Ruth and Orpah (Ruth 1:8–9)


Grant, Reg. “Literary Structure in the Book of Ruth.” Bibliotheca Sacra 148 (1991): 429–430. Print.


APPLICATION:
• Jesus resurrection fulfills the feast of Firstfruits for us
• God has provided everything we need now for eternal life (punishment for our sins and future resurrection of a new body)
• Firstfruits reminds us that God is our divine provider -- everything we have is from his hand
• Firstfruits reminds us that the next resurrection occurs at the rapture, where the church is taken from the earth in preparation of marriage to the lamb
• Do we recognize our need for divine dependence? Through prayer?
• Do we exercise our need … by prayer and handing over our worries to God?