Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Sabbath, and the Set Feasts
Leviticus 23:1-14
1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, · WEB
The weekly day is announced first and kept at home, and then the annual list restarts, which is how the chapter distinguishes them.
The chapter announces its subject: the set feasts of Yahweh, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations Leviticus 23:2.
Then, before any of them is named, comes something that is not annual.
Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation; you shall do no kind of work. It is a Sabbath to Yahweh in all your dwellings Leviticus 23:3.
And then the list starts over: these are the set feasts of Yahweh, even holy convocations, which you shall proclaim in their appointed season Leviticus 23:4.
The restart is the chapter's way of marking a distinction. The weekly day is set out first and separately; everything after verse 4 is dated to a month and a day.
Two differences follow from the arrangement. The seventh day is kept in all your dwellings — at home, wherever a family is, requiring no journey and no sanctuary. And the summary at the end of the chapter names the annual feasts as observed in addition to the Sabbaths of Yahweh Leviticus 23:38, distinguishing them in so many words.
The two also rest on different ground elsewhere. The seventh day was blessed and set apart at the close of creation, before any Israel existed to be told about it Genesis 2:3, and the commandment gives that as its reason Exodus 20:11. The annual days are dated to events in this nation's history.
The annual cycle then begins. Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month; unleavened bread from the fifteenth, seven days Leviticus 23:5–6.
And the sheaf of firstfruits, which has a rule attached that would test any farmer: you must not eat bread, or roasted grain, or fresh grain, until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God Leviticus 23:14.
After a winter of stored food, with the new barley standing ripe in the field, nobody eats any of it until the first sheaf has been waved. The first of the harvest is given before any of it is enjoyed, and the timing makes that a real restraint rather than a formality.
held with reason What this mark means