The Wave Sheaf Offering (No. 106B)

The Wave Sheaf Offering Page 5

Christian Churches of God

No. 106b

The Wave Sheaf Offering

(Edition 4.5 19950416-20000423-20080105-20100619-20140429)

The significance of the Wave-Sheaf Offering in the context of Messiah’s Advent and return on the Sunday after the resurrection the previous evening is explained. The sequence of the offerings and the concept of the first-fruits are also expounded. The meaning of the Old Testament offerings which show what Christ was accomplishing through his ascension and return that evening is explained.

Christian Churches of God

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(Copyright © 1995 - 2014 Wade Cox)

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The Wave Sheaf Offering

The Wave Sheaf Offering Page 5

The Wave-Sheaf Offering needs to be kept in order to understand the full implications of Christ’s sacrifice and the power that he was given in terms of his resurrection from the dead. The Wave-Sheaf Offering is an ancient requirement of Israel within the Torah. The ordinance is found in Leviticus 23:9-14, and also in Exodus 29:24-25 and other texts. It is poorly understood by scholars and ignored by many (e.g. it is absent as a category in Schürer’s index in The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ). It is often thought of as being “done away,” as a part of the sacrificial aspects of the law. So why is it to be kept now? It is a day that commences the count to Pentecost. Whilst we don’t physically wave the sheaf of grain, we celebrate the acceptance of Christ before the Throne of God. In the same way we no longer sacrifice the animals at the Temple but we celebrate the actual days on which they were made. The days themselves represent aspects of the Plan of God fulfilled in Christ and the elect. The Wave Sheaf in like manner represents part of the Plan and part of the Story.

It is a mandatory ordinance associated with the Feast of the Passover and controls both the timing of Pentecost and the consumption of the new harvests (Lev. 23:9-14). To put it in its modern perspective, we should look at the significance of the timing of Christ’s death.

The sign of Jonah had to be completed in all of its phases. The only sign that was given to Christ’s ministry was the sign of Jonah. Christ said that the function of three days and three nights in the belly of the whale or great fish of Jonah was the same as his ministry, and he would be three days and three nights in the belly of the Earth (as the great fish). The sign of Jonah is much more than three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. The sign of Jonah was related to the ministry to Nineveh, where there were three days consisting of one day’s journey into Nineveh and two days preaching to Nineveh, and 40 days for repentance. Nineveh repented. Judah was given approximately three years under John the Baptist and the Messiah, and then 40 years to repent. Nineveh repented but Judah did not repent.

All of the Temple and everything associated with it was taken away. The ministry of Jesus Christ had to occur in the time and sequences as they in fact occurred. This was following on from the commencement of John the Baptist’s ministry in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, which appears to be from October 27 CE. The year commences from the civil calendar in the month of October in the East (see commentary in the paper Timing of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection (No. 159)). That is the earliest time that can be placed on the commencement of the ministry of John the Baptist (see the paper Reading the Law with Ezra and Nehemiah (No. 250)). He commenced to baptise in Israel, calling the nation to repentance. By calculations from the Gospels, Christ was baptised sometime from the beginning of October in 27 CE and before February of the year 28 CE, approximately 50 days from the Passover. After the Passover of 28 CE, John shows that Christ and his disciples were baptising away from Jerusalem, and John and his disciples were also baptising at Aenon near Salim (Jn. 3:23). We know that Christ did not commence his ministry until John the Baptist had been imprisoned (Mat. 4:17). Therefore, Christ commenced his ministry sometime after the Passover of 28 CE at the earliest.

The Synoptic Gospels are not clear on the duration of Christ’s ministry, but John is clearer and mentions three Passovers. For a 31 CE crucifixion, we know that there had to have been four Passovers, over 28, 29, 30 and 31 CE. The mention of the double Sabbath in Luke 6:1 is taken to be another Passover, which appears not to be so (see the paper Timing of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection (No. 159)). According to John, who mentions only three Passovers, the crucifixion would have been in 30 CE given the number of the Passovers and the duration of his ministry. Christ’s ministry could not have commenced earlier than subsequent to the Passover of 28 CE, given the time-frame of John the Baptist’s ministry, and could not have been any earlier than October 27 CE. The significance of the commencement of John the Baptist’s ministry in October of the year 27 CE in the fifteenth year of Tiberius was that it was a Jubilee year, and the blowing of the Jubilee occurred in October of 27 CE. That Jubilee was to sound the redemption of Israel through the Messiah.

Messiah, like the Old Testament example of Josiah’s restoration, commenced to preach for the restoration of Israel subsequent to the blowing of the Jubilee. Josiah’s reformation occurred in the first year – the year of return, after the Jubilee.

The assumption that Christ was baptised about February rests on a reconstruction of about 50-odd days from the Passover, based on the texts. Christ was probably baptised a little earlier nearer or before Atonement, and it may be that if the reckoning is according to the Mishnah (i.e. through early Jewish reckoning prior to the Mishnah at the time of Christ), the year of Kings would have been reckoned from 1 Nisan. So, according to the Jews, the fifteenth year of Tiberius would have commenced from 1 Nisan. That allows John the Baptist to have commenced his ministry from a little earlier than that; and perhaps for Christ to have declared the Jubilee in October at the blowing of Atonement.

The same sequence occurs with Christ, and subsequently in the second Jubilee of the final series. Christ’s ministry was less than three years, culminating in the Passover of 30 CE (31 CE according to some erroneous calculations). The biblical Passover of 14 Nisan fell on a Wednesday in 30 CE, so that the three days and three nights could be fully kept, and Christ would be three days and three nights in the belly of the tomb. He rose from the tomb on Saturday evening at sunset, and he spent all night in or near the tomb waiting for this next most significant event.

The Wave-Sheaf Offering seems to have been waved at 9 a.m. on the Sunday morning within the Feast of the Passover. The general wave offering was brought by the worshipper and made in conjunction with the priest (Ex. 29:24-25). We know that the Samaritans and the Sadducees kept a Sunday Wave Sheaf and a Sunday Pentecost. That is an important factor in history. The Jews do not keep the Wave Sheaf because they keep a Sivan 6 Pentecost, which came from the traditions of the Pharisees in rabbinical Judaism after the Temple was destroyed. We know that the Samaritans keep the 14th and 15th and the concept of the Wave Sheaf, and count the Omer from Sunday within the Feast. So the Temple period structure and right throughout, including the Samaritans, always kept Pentecost on a Sunday. The early Church kept Pentecost on a Sunday. Only the Jews kept a Sivan 6, and only after the Temple was destroyed.

Modern Judaism does not do this now. Pentecost was then counted from this day. This (the Sadduccean) position was held up until the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE (see F. F. Bruce, art. ‘Calendar’, The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ed. by J. D. Douglas and N. Hillyer, IVP, 1980, Vol. 1, p. 225). After the dispersion, the Pharisaic position became the accepted practice, and the conflict is noted in the Mishnah (Hag. 2:4). After the dispersion, the Wave Sheaf was understood to be waved on the first Holy Day of Unleavened Bread, and Pentecost was then determined to fall on a fixed date, namely, Sivan 6. This practice was not followed during the days of the Temple priesthood and up until 70 CE and, hence, at the time of Christ.

It is perhaps important that we note that the word Shibboleth in Hebrew meant both flowing stream (cf. Isa. 27:12; Ps. 69:2,15) and also ear of grain (Gen. 41:5-7,22-24,26f.; Ruth 2:2; Job 24:24; Isa. 17:5) or bunch of twigs (Zech. 4:12). The Gileadites probably pronounced it Thibboleth (or perhaps with a guttural sh sound) (see ISBE, art. ‘Shibboleth’, Vol. 4, p. 478). Christ was both the flowing stream and the first of the grain harvest. However, the word in Leviticus 23 is based on omer, which means a small heap (of cut grain).

We will get the timing of the Wave-Sheaf Offering from Leviticus 23.

Leviticus 23:9-14 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 for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. (RSV)

That is a significant point. It is from this offering forward that the new harvest is eaten in bread and as grain in the Feast of Unleavened Bread. From the offering on the morning (thought to have been 9 a.m.) on the Sunday of the Wave-Sheaf Offering, bread may be eaten, or parched (i.e. roasted) corn or green ears of corn made from the new harvest. In other words, from the Passover the unleavened bread is eaten with the Passover. It might be assumed there is no bread – even unleavened bread – eaten at all from 15 Nisan through, according to this text. The rabbinical understanding is that it was bread from the new crop (Abraham ibn Ezra, Soncino). This explanation is satisfactory in that the manna ceased after the Passover in Canaan when the produce of the new land was eaten (Josh. 5:12).

It is clear that it is the old corn that was eaten “on the morrow after the Passover” in the new land of Canaan (Josh. 5:11). Thus the distinction of the new and the old corn made by Ibn Ezra is the correct one. The new corn and produce cannot be eaten until after the Wave-Sheaf Offering is made following the Sabbath. The Wave-Sheaf Offering is made after the weekly Sabbath (or Shabbat) and not the Shabbatown of the Holy Day. The method of counting weeks for seven clear weekly Sabbaths makes it impossible for the offering, and thence the Feast of Pentecost, to be on any day other than the first day of the week, or Sunday, both in Passover and at Pentecost.

This Wave-Sheaf Offering is the first of the first-fruits, accompanied by offerings – literally a meal offering – of bread and wine. The he-lamb, of course, was Christ.

The offering of the he-lamb and the waving of the first-fruits symbolised Christ as a first-fruit ascending into Heaven to his Father. Compare the passage concerning Mary Magdalene. In John 20:1,14-18, we find that Christ had waited that night. He was resurrected and he was waiting to ascend to the Father, and that ascension took place on the Sunday morning. The resurrection did not take place on Sunday morning at all; it took place on the Saturday night, and Christ waited until Sunday morning in readiness to ascend into Heaven.

John 20:1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Mag'dalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. (RSV)

So, in the early hours of the morning, while it was dark – before first-light on Sunday morning – Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found Christ already resurrected. The same concept is found in Luke.

Luke 24:1 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. (KJV)

The term here is the deepest dawn (orthros bathus). The term for first day is the one of the week, which is from Saturday sunset to Sunday sunset. Mark 16:2 shows it was just on sunrise. Jesus had already risen. Therefore, his resurrection took place on the Saturday evening, given the time-frame and restrictions around the dates of the Passover in 30 CE.

John 20:15-17 Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." 16 Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rab-bo'ni!" (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, "Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." (RSV)