Exodus 34:22; Leviticus 23:15-17; Leviticus 23:20,21; Isaiah 2:1-3; Acts 2:1-5
Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest.
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: Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord. 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.
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. And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.
J. C. BAYLEY (circa 1884): It is not merely a matter of conjecture when we say the Hebrew Festivals were typical of future dispensations.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Let us study the spiritual meaning of these types.
J. C. BAYLEY: The antitype of this is given in Acts 2:1-47, “when the day of Pentecost was fully come,—that is, not merely come, but “fully” come in the antitype—the disciples being together, the Holy Ghost descended upon them and formed them into the one body of the church.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): The feast of Pentecost commenced on the fiftieth day reckoned from the morrow after the paschal lamb was offered. On Pentecost, God gave His law on Mount Sinai, accompanied with thunderings and lightnings. On Pentecost, God sent down His Holy Spirit, like a rushing mighty wind; and tongues of fire sat upon each disciple, that by His influence that new law of light and life might be promulgated and established. The new law of grace was given from Mount Sion, at the same time as when the law of Moses was given from Mount Sinai, Isaiah 2:-33; Acts 2:1-5—at the feast of Pentecost, when the apostles having received the first-fruits of the Spirit, gathered in three thousand souls, whom they presented unto God and the Lamb, hallowed or anointed with the unction of the Spirit, as a kind of first-fruits of the new creation.
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): God had ordained that this feast of Pentecost should be observed in Israel as the type of the beginning of a new dispensation when a new meal offering would be offered to the Lord: “Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves—baken with leaven.” These could not typify our Lord because they had leaven in them: leaven is a type of sin and He was the sinless one. But the loaves do typify those, who through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, are presented to God a new creation—Jew and Gentile—sinners in themselves, but their sins judged in the light of the cross of Christ.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross,” Ephesians 2:15, 16. The meaning of Paul’s words is now clear—the middle wall of partition hindered Christ from forming Jews and Gentiles into one body. Therefore this wall has been broken down.
STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): It was the custom of the Jews that dwelt among other nations, at a distance from Jerusalem, to assemble together at Jerusalem at the feast of Pentecost: and God pitched upon this season, that there might be witnesses of this miracle in many parts of the world: there were some of every nation under heaven; that is, of that known part of the world, so saith the text. Fourteen several nations are mentioned—and “proselytes,” as well as Jews by birth, Acts 2:10—whether Jews or Gentiles, or mixed with both.
ALFRED EDERSHEIM (1825-1889): “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore,” Psalm 133:1-3. In this prayer and song of the unity of the church, it is noteworthy how, commencing with the fundamental idea of “brethren,” we rise to the realization of the Elder Brother, Who is our common anointed High Priest. It is the bond of His priesthood which joins us together. It is the common anointing which flows down to the skirts of the garment of our High Priest which marks our being brethren.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Theodoret (393-457), thinks some respect is had here to the pouring down of the Spirit on the apostles in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): This dew is not to be taken literally. And if it seem strange that the dew should be taken literally in the first clause, and mystically in the next, we have a like instance in Matthew 8:22, “Let the dead,”—spiritually, “bury the dead,”—naturally.
THE EDITOR: Indeed, the Holy Spirit, poured out through Jesus Christ, is “the dew from heaven” descending on Mount Zion, uniting Jews and Gentiles together as brethren, as one body in the Lord; “for there the Lord commanded the blessing;” thus they were commanded by our Lord to wait in Jerusalem until they received power; then, after the Holy Ghost had come upon them, they were “to be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth,” Acts 1:8. That witness began immediately and literally in Peter’s sermon on that day of Pentecost.
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): The feast of Pentecost was under the old law the feast of the “first fruits,” Leviticus 23:10. Thus it was in the type, and the apostles on that day received for the church of the New Testament “the first fruits of the Spirit,” Romans 8:23.
ADAM CLARKE: Those of them that believed were the first fruits of that astonishing harvest which God has since reaped over the whole Gentile world. “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures,” James 1:18…The Holy Spirit seems to have designed all these analogies to show that, through all preceding ages, God had the Gospel continually in view; and the old law and its ordinances were only designed as preparatives for the new. Thus, the analogy between the Egyptian bondage occasioned by sin—the deliverance from Egypt and redemption from sin—the giving of the law, with all its emblematic accompaniments, and sending down the Spirit, with its symbols of light, life, and power, has been exactly preserved.
THE EDITOR: Even exactly to the fiftieth day—not the forty-ninth day, the Jewish seventh day Sabbath under the old Mosaic law.
THOMAS GOODWIN: The Holy Ghost, when Christ was set in heaven, fell down upon the feast of Pentecost, which was upon the first day of the week, our Lord’s Day.
C. H. SPURGEON: The Levitical feast of Pentecost contains, among its regulations, that no servile work is to be done—it sends a lesson to many Christians who seem to have little regard for the Lord’s Day, who break its rest in a thousand frivolous ways and half regret they cannot pursue their earthly callings throughout the whole seven days of the week. It is true we consider these days, weeks and sacred festivals to have become obsolete by the fulfillment of the great truths of God which they typified, but we may at least learn from the Jews’ strict observance of the Sabbath, the Passover and the feast of Pentecost, to guard with care the one great festival which remains to the Church, namely, the Lord’s Day. On our Sabbath let us do no needless work, but seek rest both for body and soul.
WILHELMUS à BRAKEL (1635-1711): We sin when we make a work day out of this day—or a day of worldly pleasure.
