Leviticus 23:10, commentary and pictures

The command was given to Israel for when they should come into the land given to them, that at the beginning of the harvest a sheaf should be brought to the priest. The grain was barley, the earliest grain, just beginning to ripen, and the first ripe heads were gathered from the harvest field. The priest waved the sheaf before God's altar before the Lord as a thank-offering acknowledging that the harvest belonged to God.

The presentation took place at Passover, on the second day of the seven days' feast of unleavened bread following the Passover, when the people went up to Jerusalem. This symbolic ceremony had been performed for more than a thousand years. The harvest could not be reaped and gathered until the ceremony had taken place, for the sickle could not be put to the grain to gather it into sheaves beforehand.

The sheaf represented the harvest, and together with the slain lamb and the unleavened bread it was a type of the work of Christ, standing as one of the springtime types alongside the Passover and the meat-offering. Christ is the antitype of the wave-sheaf, fulfilling it by coming forth from the dead and from the grave. His resurrection occurred on the very day the sheaf was to be presented, in its order and time.

As the firstfruits Christ represents the great spiritual harvest to be gathered for the kingdom of God. His resurrection is the type and pledge of the resurrection of all the righteous dead. Just as the spring types were fulfilled as to time — the Passover in the crucifixion, the wave-sheaf in the resurrection, and the meat-offering in the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost — so the autumnal types connected with the second advent would be fulfilled as to time. The work of the high priest coming out of the sanctuary on the tenth day of the seventh month to bless the people points to Christ coming out of heaven on that day to bless His waiting people.