Firstfruits

Shortly after giving the Ten Commandments, God gave Israel another command: "Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread . . . and the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labours which you have sown in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year . . ." (Exodus 23:14-16).

At this Feast of Harvest, also called the Feast of Firstfruits or Weeks, the Israelites were to offer the firstfruits of the late spring wheat harvest in the Holy Land (Numbers 28:26; Exodus 34:22). Months later they celebrated another festival, called the Feast of Ingathering or the Feast of Tabernacles. This came at "the end of the year"—the end of the agricultural cycle of the year at summer's end in the Holy Land—when the people gathered in all the harvest.

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