3166.-Pentecost by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 28, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 25.

3166.—Pentecost

By Editor

Will you please explain the way of locating the time of the feast of Pentecost? Lev. 23:11 says, "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." Verse 15 says, "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." Is this Sabbath that they were to count from the day after, the ceremonial sabbath of the Passover, or the Sabbath of the Lord—the seventh day? Did Pentecost come on Sunday the year that Christ was crucified? Did it always fall on the first day of the week? If so, why is it that the Jewish people are keeping this feast on a different day of the week now?

1. The word "Pentecost" means fiftieth, having reference to the fiftieth day. Passages which refer to it are Ex. 23:16; 34:22; Num. 28:26-31; Deut. 16:9-14; Lev. 23:15-21.

2. The first sheaf offered at the Passover and the two leavened loaves at Pentecost marked the beginning and ending of the grain harvest, and the interval between these was called the Pentecostal season. Pentecost was used by the Jews as commemorating the giving of the law on Sinai the fiftieth day after the Exodus, or the fiftieth from the morrow after the Sabbath.

3. The Passover was marked by the full moon of the first month; that full moon did not always come on a certain day of the week, as the custom of the Jews at the present time shows. The first and last days of the Passover feast were considered holy days. It mattered not on what days of the week they came.

4. In the year of our Lord's crucifixion the Passover sabbath seems to have been the weekly Sabbath also. That weekly Sabbath was "a high day;" that is, it was the day of the Passover sabbath, too. It is impossible, in the little space of the Question Corner, to discuss the question exhaustively. It is not one that is easy to determine, as it might seem at first sight. As a general thing it is held that the Pentecost of Acts 2:1 came on the first day of the week. And yet the very fact that the day of the week is not mentioned is positive, clear evidence that it is not the day of the week that is honored, but the antitype of the Pentecost; because one first day of the week was passed over in entire silence between the ascension and the Pentecost. If it had been the day of the week, surely the Lord would have given us mention of that day which intervened, as well as the day of the Pentecost itself. But the fact that inspiration is entirely silent upon this, shows that it is not the day of the week that is honored.

5. "The Bible Encyclopedia," by Fausset, has this note, which may be helpful: "The Jews called Pentecost 'the concluding assembly of the Passover.' If the last supper was on the legal day, the 14th of Nisan, and the Sabbath of Jesus' lying in the grave was the day of the omer, the Pentecost of Acts 2, fifty days after, must have been on the Jewish Saturday-Sabbath. Others make the 13th that of the supper; the 14th the crucifixion, the Passover day; the 15th the day of Jesus' sleep, the Saturday-Sabbath; the holy convocation, or Sunday, the first day, the omer day; fiftieth day from that would be Pentecost or Lord's day," by which Sunday is meant. This will show the reason for the two conclusions.