Lev. 23 The feasts or, the Lord, Lev. 23:1–2. The sabbath, Lev. 23:3. The passover, Lev. 23:4–8. The sheaf of first-fruits, Lev. 23:9–14. The feast of pentecost, Lev. 23:15–21. Gleanings to be left for the poor, Lev. 23:22. The feast of trumpets, Lev. 23:23–25. The day of atonement, Lev. 23:26–32.

Ye shall proclaim, i.e. cause to be proclaimed by the priests. See Num. 10:8–10. Holy convocations; days for your assembling together to my worship and service in a special manner. These are my feasts, which I have appointed, and the right observation whereof I will accept.

No work; so it runs in the general for the sabbath day, and for the day of expiation, Lev. 23:28, excluding all works about earthly occasions or employments, whether of profit or pleasure; but on other feast days he forbids only servile works, as Lev. 23:7, Lev. 23:21, Lev.

In their appointed and proper times, as the word is used Gen. 1:14, Ps. 104:19.

Seven days, the matter and manner whereof, see Num. 28:18;c.

When ye be come into the land; therefore this obliged them not in the desert, where they reaped no harvest, &c. Shall reap, i.e. begin to reap, as it is expounded Deut. 16:9. So, he begat, i.e. began to beget, Gen. 5:32, Gen. 11:26; and, he built, 1 Kings 6:1, i.e.

To be accepted for you; that God may accept of you, and bless you in the rest of your harvest. On the morrow after the sabbath, i.e. after the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, which was a sabbath, or day of rest, as appears from Lev. 23:7, or upon the sixteenth day of the month.

An he lamb, besides the daily morning and evening sacrifice, which it was needless to mention here, and besides one of those sacrifices to be offered every day of the seven, Lev. 23:8.

Two tenth deals, or, parts, to wit, of an ephah, i. e. two omers, whereas in other sacrifices of lambs there was but one tenth deal prescribed, Num. 15:4.

Bread, made of new wheat, as the nature and reason of the law showeth. Nor green ears, which were usual, not only for offerings to God, as Lev. 2:14, but also for man’s food. See Josh. 5:11, Ruth 2:14, 1 Sam. 17:17, Matt. 12:1.

From the morrow after the sabbath, i.e. from the sixteenth day of the month, and the second day of the feast of unleavened bread inclusively. See on Lev. 23:11. Seven sabbaths, i.e. weeks, which are so called, by a synecdoche, from the chief day of it, both here and Luke 18:12, Acts 20:7, 1 Cor.

i.e. After seven weeks, or forty-nine days, the morrow after which was the fiftieth day, called also pentecost. A new meat offering, to wit, of new corn made into loaves, as it follows.

Out of your habitations, i.e. out of the corn of your own land, for which and for the fruits of it you are now to offer praises unto God. And this also, as well as the former sacrifice, was brought out of the common charge, and in the name of the whole nation, whence it is said to be brought out of…

Two rams; in Num. 28:11, Num. 28:19 it is two young bullocks and one ram. Either therefore it was left to their liberty to choose which they would offer, or one of the bullocks there, and one of the rams here, were the peculiar sacrifices of the feast-day, and the other were attendants upon the two…

One kid: in Lev. 4:14 the sin-offering for the sin of the people is a bullock, but here a kid, &c. the reason of the difference may be this, because that was for some particular sin of the people, but this only in general for all their sins.

The priest shall wave them, i.e. some part of them in the name of the whole, and so for the two lambs, otherwise they had been too big and too heavy to be waved. So it is a synecdochical expression.

An holy convocation, a sabbath or day of rest, called pentecost, which was instituted, partly in remembrance of the consummation of their deliverance out of Egypt, by bringing them thence to the mount of God, or Sinai, as God had promised, and of that admirable blessing of giving the law to them at…

From the plural ye he comes to the singular thou, because he would press this duty upon every person who hath a harvest to reap, that none might plead exemption from it.

A memorial of blowing of trumpets, i.e. solemnized with the blowing of trumpets by the priests; not in a common way, as they did every first day of every month, Num. 10:10, but in an extraordinary manner, not only in Jerusalem, but in all the cities of Israel. This seems to have been instituted, 1.

Ye shall afflict your souls, with fasting, and bitter repentance for all, especially their national sins, among which no doubt God would have them remember their sin of the golden calf. For as God had threatened to remember it in after-times to punish them for it, Ex.

Whatsoever soul, either of the Jewish nation or religion. Hereby God would signify the absolute necessity which every man had of repentance and forgiveness of sin, and the desperate condition of all impenitent persons.

This clause seems to be added to answer an objection, how this day of atonement could be both on the tenth day Lev. 23:27, and on the ninth day here. The answer is, it began at the evening or close of the ninth day, and continued till the evening or close of the tenth day; and so both were true,…

Of tabernacles, i.e. of tents, or booths, or arbours. This feast was appointed principally to remind them of that time when they had no other dwellings in the wilderness, as it is expressed Lev.

Seven days ye shall offer an offering; a several offering each day, which is particularly described Num. 29:13;c. On the eighth day; which though it was not one of the days of this feast strictly taken, nor is it here affirmed to be so, but on the contrary is expressly said to consist of seven…

A sacrifice, i.e. another sacrifice, to wit, for a sin-offering, as we shall find it Num. 29:16, Num. 29:19, Num. 29:22;c., called by the general name, a sacrifice, because it was designed for that which was the principal end of all sacrifices, to wit, for the expiation of sin.

Beside the sabbaths, i.e. the offerings of the weekly sabbaths, by a metonymy, as the day is sometimes put for the actions done in it, as Prov. 27:1, 1 Cor. 3:13. God will not have any sabbath sacrifice diminished, because of the addition of others proper to any, other feast.

Also, or rather, surely, as this particle is oft used; for this is no addition of a new, but only a repetition of the former injunction, with a more particular explication both of the manner and reason of the feast.

Boughs, Heb. the fruit, i.e. fruit-bearing boughs, or branches with the fruit on them, as the word fruit seems to be taken, 2 Kings 19:30, Ezek. 19:12. Goodly trees, to wit, the olive, myrtle, and pine, as they are mentioned, Neh.

Booths were erected in their cities or towns, either in their streets or gardens, or the tops of their houses, Neh. 8:16, which were made flat, and therefore were proper and fit for that use.