Seder 79: Lev 7:12-15---The Thanksgiving Offering

 The seventh chapter of Leviticus describes three types of peace/fellowship offerings.  One was called a toda, an offering of praise and thanksgiving.  It was given in gratitude for rescue or deliverance. 

Some examples are described in Psalm 107.  In one of them, a person receives healing from God:

"He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction.  Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man!  And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!" (verses 20-22)

Other examples in Psalm 107 involve people who have been rescued from the wilderness, released from imprisonment, or safely brought through a sea voyage.  

A thanksgiving offering involved a communal meal that had to be eaten on the day of the offering.  This requirement encouraged the offeror to invite a large group of people to share the feast.  As it says in Psalm 107:32, "Let them extol him in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders."

The feast included lots of bread, both unleavened and leavened (Lv 7:12-14).  Sharon Rimon suggests that the unleavened bread might represent the trial the person had endured, while the leavened bread might represent the fact that the offeror had been completely delivered from the trial.  

Rimon points out that a toda is in several ways similar to a Passover meal, which is a kind of national toda:

• Both give thanks for deliverance.
• Both are shelamim (offerings of peace or wellbeing).
• Both have to be finished by the following morning.
• Both are eaten with bread.

One major difference is that the bread at a Passover meal is strictly unleavened bread.  Rimon observes that Passover celebrates a redemption that has begun but has not yet been completed.  The redemption of the Exodus is completed when Israel receives the Torah at Mt Sinai, inherits the Promised Land, and begins harvesting crops there.  These things are celebrated at Pentecost, when leavened bread is part of the liturgy (Lv 23:15-21).  

Seder 96: Leviticus 23---Festivals of Rest, Joy, Remembrance, and Harvest

 Leviticus 23 lays out God's festival calendar.  The biblical festivals are gifts of God to his people, times of rest and times of joy.  They are also times of remembrance---times to remember God's mighty works of salvation, and times to call upon God to remember his people.

For ancient Israel the festivals celebrated the harvests.  At the start of the spring barley harvest, a sheaf of the firstfruits of that harvest was waved before God, thanking God for the harvest and dedicating it to him, the source of all blessings (vv 9-14).  

This ritual was carried out "on the day after the Sabbath" (v 11).  The text does not specify which exact Sabbath this was, and so it was up to communities keeping this festival to make a decision on this matter.  The choice determined the timing of Shavuot/Pentecost, which came 50 days after that Sabbath.  

In Jesus' day the Sadducees began the count to Pentecost on the first Sunday after Passover, while the Pharisees began the count on Nisan 16, the day after the first day of unleavened bread.  Today Jews follow the Pharisaic tradition, while Christians basically follow the Sadducees, with Pentecost seven weeks after Resurrection Sunday.  In 2022 both methods coincide, with the count beginning on April 17 and ending on June 5.  

Pentecost is the time for another offering of firstfruits, this time the firstfruits of the wheat harvest (vv 15-17).  

Christians recognize the harvest festivals as symbolizing spiritual harvests of people. The firstfruits ritual during the days of unleavened bread is associated with the resurrection of Jesus.  "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep," Paul wrote in 1 Cor 15:20.  Some have suggested that when Jesus made the ascension to which he referred in John 20:17, he may have been carrying out a sort of wavesheaf offering.  

The next to be resurrected are those who are "those who belong to Christ" (v 23).  This group can be associated with Pentecost and is also referred to in the New Testament with firstfruits language ( Rom 8:23; 11:16; 2 Thes 2:13; James 1:18; Rev 14:4).  

A later, larger harvest is symbolized by the Feast of Tabernacles in the fall.

Rob Wilson looked at the concept of firstfruits and the festival calendar in a sermon at Church of the Messiah on March 19, 2022.