you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest:

11. 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.

12. And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Lord.

13. And the meat offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin.

14. And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

We have here a repetition of the appointment of the feast of the passover, the original institution of which we learnt in the book of Exodus. Some few additional particulars are recorded, which would be necessary when the Israelites came into the promised land. It was to commence on the fourteenth day of the first month, a memorial of their original deliverance from bondage, and was to be celebrated by killing the paschal lamb on the first day, and eating unlea

vened bread for seven days, the first and last to be "holy convocations unto the Lord," and no doubt the intermediate days devoutly and appropriately employed.

The following beautiful addition was now made to the ceremony; that as the passover took place just previously to the harvest, every head of a family, before he proceeded to benefit by the grain of the field, before he ventured to touch the new corn with which God had provided him, should carry "a sheaf of the first-fruits unto the priest," to wave it before the Lord, in token of recognition of the hand from which all our bounties flow, and of gratitude for the harvest which was about to be reaped. There is something deeply interesting in this symbol. The very fact that a whole population should thus openly and publicly exhibit their dependence upon Jehovah, for the supply of all their wants, and their thankfulness to Him for providing for them, might of itself teach a valuable lesson to many among us, who are too apt to look at the produce of our fields, as the result of our own industry and sagacity, or of the improved methods of agriculture, which science has introduced, and of which man, and man alone, is the author.

How especially does this striking and instruc

tive symbol address itself to the cultivators of the soil, who, in all ages, have been prone, we fear, to overlook the Giver in the gift, and in the harvest, forget the great and merciful "Lord of the harvest" who sends it.

It is expressly said that the first-fruits were to be offered unto God, on " the morrow after the sabbath,” i. e. on the day following the paschal sabbath. With what peculiar propriety then does the apostle to the Corinthians exclaim, "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept,"* for this was the very day on which the Saviour rose, the Christian's Sunday. He had died on the day on which the paschal lamb was sacrificed, the day before the sabbath, to prove that he was indeed "the very paschal lamb;" and now he rises from the grave, on the day succeeding the sabbath, the same day that the sheaf of the in-coming harvest was always waved before the Lord, to demonstrate with equal precision that he was the firstborn from the dead, and had become the first-fruits of them that slept. Thus, was he preeminently the forerunner of that mighty harvest which he had purchased for himself, and which shall all come in, every sheaf like the full shock of corn in his season, until it shall fill the garners

* 1 Cor. xv. 20.

of heaven, and make the songs of joy and gladness, (of which the harvest-homes of earth are but a faint and shadowy type,) resound throughout the many mansions of his Father's house.

EXPOSITION LIX.

CHAP. xxiii, 15-20.

15. 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.

16. Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord.

17. Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Lord.

18. And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be for a burnt offering unto the Lord, with their meat offering, and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savour unto the Lord.

19. Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings.

20. And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest.

In the last Exposition we reviewed the renewal of the institution of the feast of the passover: in the verses we have just read we have the appointment of the feast of pentecost.

You

will observe that it was to take place seven weeks after the passover; or, as it is expressed, "ye shall number fifty days." This is the reason that it was called pentecost, from the Greek word, penteconta, fifty. It was instituted in remembrance of the giving the law from Mount Sinai, which occurred on the fiftieth day after the Israelites had been delivered from their Egyptian bondage.

As the former feast marked the commencement of the corn-harvest, and was celebrated by waving a handful of the ripe corn before the Lord, so this feast was intended to honour the close of the same harvest, and was to be distinguished by "waving two loaves of the fine new flour, baken with leaven, before the Lord," in grateful acknowledgment that he who sent the harvest, had given them power to reap and to enjoy it. There was a remarkable addition at this feast to the sacrifices and peace-offerings, viz. "Ye shall