The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
The Feast of Weeks
Numbers 28:26–31 — The Feast of Weeks. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
26On the day of firstfruits, when you present an offering of new grain to the LORD during the Feast of Weeks, you are to hold a sacred assembly; you must not do any regular work.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·ḇə·yō·wm hab·bik·kū·rîm bə·haq·rî·ḇə·ḵem ḥă·ḏā·šāh min·ḥāh Yah·weh bə·šā·ḇu·‘ō·ṯê·ḵem yih·yeh lā·ḵem qō·ḏeš miq·rā- lō ṯa·‘ă·śū kāl- mə·le·ḵeṯ ‘ă·ḇō·ḏāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And in the day of the firstfruits, in your bringing-near a new grain-gift to YHWH in your weeks, a holy convocation shall be to you; you shall not do any work of service.
Where the English smooths the original
Also in the day of the firstfruits,.... When the firstfruits of the wheat harvest were brought unto the Lord, which was the day of Pentecost, fifty days from the sheaf of the wave offering being brought
first, the barley- harvest first-fruits, beginning at the passover; and then, at seven weeks’ end, the wheat-harvest festival, called the feast of weeks, which is here intended
Your weeks, i.e. the seven weeks which you are to number from the passover, Leviticus 23:15 Heb. in the weeks, in being put for afterPoole notes the idiom: "in your weeks" functions as "after your weeks [are out]" — the temporal terminus of the count.
27Present a burnt offering of two young bulls, one ram, and seven male lambs a year old as a pleasing aroma to the LORD,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·hiq·raḇ·tem ‘ō·w·lāh šə·na·yim bə·nê- ḇā·qār pā·rîm ’e·ḥāḏ ’a·yil šiḇ·‘āh ḵə·ḇā·śîm bə·nê šā·nāh nî·ḥō·aḥ lə·rê·aḥ Yah·weh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And you shall bring near a burnt offering for a pleasing aroma to YHWH: bulls, sons of the herd, two; ram, one; seven lambs, sons of a year.
Where the English smooths the original
In Leviticus 23:18 the animal sacrifices enjoined are one young bullock, two rams, and seven lambs without blemish. The Mishnah (Menach. iv. 2) considers that these animals were to be presented together with the loaves, whereas those named in Numbers were additional sacrifices of the day.
It is not the same as that prescribed for the same day in Leviticus 23 , and it is difficult to determine whether it was meant to supersede the previous ordinance, or to be distinct and additional.
The festal burnt-offering and sin-offering of this one day was independent of the supplementary burnt-offering and sin-offering of the wave-loaves appointed in Leviticus 23:18 , and was to be offered before these and after the daily morning sacrifice.
28together with their grain offerings of fine flour mixed with oil—three-tenths of an ephah with each bull, two-tenths of an ephah with the ram,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·min·ḥā·ṯām sō·leṯ bə·lū·lāh ḇaš·šā·men šə·lō·šāh ‘eś·rō·nîm hā·’e·ḥāḏ lap·pār šə·nê ‘eś·rō·nîm lā·’a·yil hā·’e·ḥāḏ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: three tenth-parts for the one bull, two tenth-parts for the one ram,
Where the English smooths the original
And their meat offering of flour mingled with oil, three tenth deals unto one bullock, two tenth deals unto one ram,
the meat offering which went along with this was of the same quantity of flour to each creature as in the above mentioned sacrificesGill notes the grain tribute is proportioned per animal exactly as in the new-moon and Massoth offerings — the graduated 3/2/1 measure of vv. 28–29.
By the sacrifices enjoined in this chapter, we are reminded of the continued power of the sacrifice of Christ, and of our continual need to depend thereon.Henry's note covers the whole pericope (28:16-31) and is quoted across these verses for its single sustained argument.
29and a tenth of an ephah with each of the seven lambs.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
‘iś·śā·rō·wn ‘iś·śā·rō·wn hā·’e·ḥāḏ lə·šiḇ·‘aṯ hak·kə·ḇā·śîm lak·ke·ḇeś
Literal — word-for-word from the original
a tenth-part, a tenth-part for the one, for the seven lambs;
Where the English smooths the original
A several tenth deal unto one lamb, throughout the seven lambs;"A several tenth deal" — Tudor English for "a separate tenth-part apiece," precisely the distributive force of the doubled ʿiśśārôn.
the meat offering which went along with this was of the same quantity of flour to each creature as in the above mentioned sacrifices
The same number of sacrifices is appointed for the day of the first-fruits, i.e., for the feast of Weeks or Harvest feast
30Include one male goat to make atonement for you.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’e·ḥāḏ śə·‘îr ‘iz·zîm lə·ḵap·pêr ‘ă·lê·ḵem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
one shaggy-goat of the goats, to cover over you.
Where the English smooths the original
And one kid of the goats, to make an atonement for you.
A new sacrifice is here ordered for the celebration of this festival, in addition to the other offering, which was to accompany the first-fruits (Le 23:18).
on this day also was offered a kid of the goats for a sin offering; and there were also peace offerings which are not mentioned hereGill's note, written on v. 27, expressly identifies the goat of v. 30 as the day's sin offering and observes the silence of the chapter on peace offerings.
31Offer them with their drink offerings in addition to the regular burnt offering and its grain offering. The animals must be unblemished.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ta·‘ă·śū wə·nis·kê·hem mil·lə·ḇaḏ hat·tā·mîḏ ‘ō·laṯ ū·min·ḥā·ṯōw yih·yū- lā·ḵem tə·mî·mim
Literal — word-for-word from the original
You shall do [them] besides the continual burnt offering and its grain offering — they shall be to you unblemished — and their drink offerings.
Where the English smooths the original
The daily sacrifice of the morning and evening, so often mentioned in this chapter, and so frequently inculcated as not to be omitted, either in the weekly, monthly, or anniversary festivals; it being so necessary a sacrifice, and so eminent a type of the great sacrifice of the Messiah
Ye shall offer them beside the continual burnt offering, and his meat offering, (they shall be unto you without blemish) and their drink offerings.
this denotes the purity of Christ, the bread of life, and his spotless and perfect sacrifice, when his soul was poured out unto deathGill reads the required purity of flour and wine (without dust, worm, or dregs) typologically toward the spotless sacrifice.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The festival has no proper name of its own here; it is called only the day of the firstfruits (bikkûrîm, H1061) celebrated in your weeks (bə-šābu‘ōṯêḵem, H7620, literally "sevened"). The whole identity of the day is borrowed time — the terminus of a seven-week count from Passover. Matthew Poole fixes the idiom precisely: "in the weeks, in being put for after" — the Hebrew preposition marks the count's completion. John Gill draws the line forward: this is "the day of Pentecost, fifty days from the sheaf of the wave offering being brought." ⚙ The literary economy is its own theology: before a single bull is named, the day is constituted by patient, completed time — a sabbath of weeks — and by the firstfruits brought near (bə-haqrîḇḵem, the Hifil of qârab). Worship begins as approach, and the harvest is acknowledged as gift before it is enjoyed.
The prescribed victims — two bulls, one ram, seven lambs — do not match Leviticus 23:18 (one bull, two rams, seven lambs), and the human commentators feel the friction. Charles Ellicott reports the rabbinic and Josephan attempts to harmonize by addition: "the Mishnah (Menach. iv. 2) considers that these animals were to be presented together with the loaves, whereas those named in Numbers were additional sacrifices." The Pulpit Commentary is more honest about the difficulty: "it is difficult to determine whether it was meant to supersede the previous ordinance, or to be distinct and additional," finally judging — from the silence about wave-loaves — that "the two lists were independent." Keil & Delitzsch concur that the day's festal offering "was independent of the supplementary burnt-offering... of the wave-loaves appointed in Leviticus 23:18." ⚙ Numbers and Leviticus are not competing accounts of one rite; they record two strata of one day — the festal calendar of Numbers 28–29 layered over the agricultural rite of Leviticus 23. The graduated grain tribute (three tenths / two / one, vv. 28–29) belongs to the Numbers system, scaling homage to the worth of each victim.
The joyful firstfruits day still requires a sin offering: one shaggy-goat (śāʿîr, H8163) to cover over you (ləḵappēr, H3722). John Gill identifies it plainly — "a kid of the goats for a sin offering" — and the Geneva Study Bible preserves the purpose clause: "to make an atonement for you." Then everything is anchored to the continual (hattāmîḏ, H8548): Gill calls the daily offering "so necessary a sacrifice, and so eminent a type of the great sacrifice of the Messiah," and reads the demanded purity of flour and wine as the figure of "his spotless and perfect sacrifice, when his soul was poured out unto death." ⚙ The structure preaches: thanksgiving (firstfruits) is built on covering (the goat), and both are stacked milləḇaḏ — "apart from, over and above" — the unceasing tāmîḏ. No feast ever interrupts the continual; the special day is added, never substituted. Matthew Henry reads the whole chapter to this end: it reminds us of "the continued power of the sacrifice of Christ, and of our continual need to depend thereon."
Under Sola Scriptura, read only what the text and the cross-references warrant, and the shape is striking. The harvest festival is governed by a count of weeks and crowned with firstfruits — and the New Testament places the outpouring of the Spirit on exactly this day (Acts 2:1), the firstfruits of the Church's harvest. ⚙ I read the unit as a single deliberate descent through three depths: thanksgiving (the firstfruits brought near), resting on atonement (the one shaggy-goat that covers), resting on the continual (the never-interrupted daily offering that types the Messiah). The order is not incidental. Israel may never celebrate the gift of harvest as though sin were not still present, nor offer the festal as though the daily could be skipped. The very perfection required of the victim — təmîmim, "whole, without blemish" — is the gap the type opens and cannot fill: a blameless offering is demanded, and only One "without blemish or defect" (1 Peter 1:19) finally answers it. This is a fallible reading offered to be tested against the text, not a verdict.
The firstfruits rest on the covering, and the covering rests on the offering that never stops — joy is the topmost layer, never the foundation.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The phrase rêaḥ nîḥōaḥ ("soothing aroma," H7381 + H5207) that crowns the burnt offering in v. 27 is the standing liturgical formula of the daily and festal sacrifices. It recurs verbatim in the daily offering of Numbers 28:13 and the firstfruits libation of Leviticus 23:13, sharing both lexemes — nîḥōaḥ (43 verses), rêaḥ (55 verses). ⚙ The Verifier returns this overlap at "verbal" grade, but the honest tier is structural: this is not a quotation of one passage by another but a fixed formula stamped repeatedly across the whole sacrificial code — a technical seal, like a recurring legal boilerplate, that an offering is accepted. Neither lexeme is rare enough, nor is there a citation claim, to warrant calling it a quotation; we downgrade to structural and say so. The same formula is what God "smells" at Noah's altar in Genesis 8:21 — the Torah's earliest use of the phrase, anchoring every later "sweet savour."
Numbers 28:13 · Leviticus 23:13
basis: shared lexemes per Verifier: H5207 nîychôwach (43 vv) + H7381 rêyach (55 vv), recurring together as a fixed liturgical formula (Num 28:27↔28:13 also shares H3532 kebes, H5930 ʻôlâh; ↔Lev 23:13 also shares H8147 shᵉnayim). DOWNGRADED from the Verifier's 'verbal' tier: a formula repeated across the same code is structural, not a quotation of one verse by another, and the lexemes are not low-frequency enough to claim quotation
The whole human apparatus orbits the relation of this passage to Leviticus 23:15–22, the firstfruits rite with its wave-loaves and differing victim count. The Verifier confirms shared cultic vocabulary with Leviticus 23:17 (the firstfruits loaves) through the rare word bikkûr (H1061, only 15 verses) plus sōleṯ (fine flour) and ʿiśśārôn (tenth-part), and with the sabbath-convocation language of Leviticus 23:21 (miqrâʾ, məlâʾḵâh, ʿăḇōḏâh, qôḏeš). The link is structural, not a quotation: the two passages legislate the same day from different angles, and (as the Pulpit Commentary and Keil & Delitzsch judge) the lists are independent rather than contradictory.
Leviticus 23:17 · Leviticus 23:21
basis: shared cultic lexemes per Verifier: H1061 bikkûwr (15 vv), H5560 çôleth, H6241 ʻissârôn (Lev 23:17); H4744 miqrâʼ, H5656 ʻăbôdâh, H4399 mᵉlâʼkâh, H6944 qôdesh (Lev 23:21) — same-day legislation, no quotation claim
The single sin-offering goat of v. 30 (śāʿîr, H8163, to cover, kāphar, H3722) is the same provision that recurs at every appointed time in the chapter. The Verifier links v. 30 to the Passover sin offering of Numbers 28:22 through three shared lexemes — śāʿîr (57 vv), kāphar (94 vv), and ʾeḥāḏ ("one") — and the same shaggy-goat term ties forward to the Day of Atonement ritual of Leviticus 16:15. The basis is a shared motif and vocabulary, not a citation: even Israel's gladdest harvest day is structured so that thanksgiving is never offered apart from a covering for sin.
Numbers 28:22 · Leviticus 16:15
basis: shared lexemes per Verifier: H8163 sâʻîyr (57 vv), H3722 kâphar (94 vv), H259 ʼechâd (Num 28:22); H8163 sâʻîyr with Lev 16:15 — recurring sin-offering motif, no quotation
Gill, Benson, and Poole all identify this firstfruits day with the day of Acts 2:1 (Pentecost), when the Spirit is poured out. This is a cross-Testament link: the Greek of Acts cannot share a Strong's lexeme with the Hebrew of Numbers, so no "verbal" tier is possible. The connection is structural-typological — the same calendar day (the fiftieth, the firstfruits feast) is the day God gives the Spirit as the firstfruits (Romans 8:23) of redeemed humanity. James 1:18 then calls believers "a kind of firstfruits of his creatures," carrying the harvest image into the new covenant.
Acts 2:1 · James 1:18
basis: cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew): no shared Strong's possible; basis is the shared calendar day (firstfruits / fiftieth) and the firstfruits motif — ancient and widely-held in Christian reading
Verse 31 anchors the festal offerings to the continual (tāmîḏ, H8548) and stacks them milləḇaḏ ("apart from, over and above," H905). The Verifier ties v. 31 to Numbers 28:23 through these very words — tāmîḏ, bad, and ʿōlāh — the same clause that subordinates the Passover offering to the daily. The thread is the structural rule of the whole chapter: every appointed sacrifice is added onto the unceasing daily offering, never substituted for it.
Numbers 28:23
basis: shared lexemes per Verifier: H8548 tâmîyd (103 vv), H905 bad (178 vv), H5930 ʻôlâh — recurring 'besides the continual' clause across the festal calendar
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The day of firstfruits (bikkûrîm) is read in the New Testament as fulfilled in Christ: "Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). The harvest offering of the first-ripe wheat — the choicest, brought near to God first — becomes the figure of the risen Christ presented to the Father as the pledge and first installment of the whole resurrection harvest. ⚙ The synthesis here only follows a connection the apostle Paul makes explicit; the Hebrew bikkûr supplies the agricultural image Paul's Greek aparchē translates.
Numbers 28:26 · 1 Corinthians 15:20
Gill names the daily tāmîḏ of v. 31 "so eminent a type of the great sacrifice of the Messiah," reading the required unblemished perfection (təmîmim) as "his spotless and perfect sacrifice." Hebrews develops exactly this contrast: the priests "offered... again and again the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins" (Hebrews 10:11), whereas Christ "offered for all time one sacrifice for sins" (Hebrews 10:12). ⚙ The unceasing daily offering — the worship that could never stop because it could never finish — images by its very repetition the need for the one offering that finishes it. The unblemished victim required here finds its answer in "a lamb without blemish or defect" (1 Peter 1:19).
Numbers 28:31 · Hebrews 10:11
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
This unit is liturgical legislation; the human commentary is unusually uniform. Matthew Henry, Albert Barnes, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, and Keil & Delitzsch each wrote a single note covering the whole pericope (28:16–31 or the firstfruits day as a block), so the same words recur across vv. 26–31 in the source — quoted here only on the verses they actually bear on, never restitched. Poole and Ellicott supply no comment on several later verses ("No text from Poole on this verse"); for those, Geneva, Gill, and Henry carry the load. The most contested point in the unit is the mismatch between the victim count here (two bulls, one ram, seven lambs) and Leviticus 23:18 (one bull, two rams, seven lambs); the sources disagree on whether the lists are additional or independent, and the synthesis (movement ii) reports that disagreement rather than resolving it. The "pleasing aroma" link shares two moderately frequent lexemes (nîḥōaḥ, 43 vv; rêaḥ, 55 vv) that recur together as a fixed formula; though the Verifier returns this at "verbal" grade, the synthesis deliberately downgrades it to structural, since a liturgical boilerplate stamped across the same code is a recurring formula, not a quotation of one verse by another, and neither lexeme is rare enough to claim quotation. The Pentecost/firstfruits link to Acts 2 is cross-Testament and therefore cannot rest on shared Strong's numbers; it is tiered typological, resting on the shared calendar day. No Joshua 1:5 / Hebrews 13:5 thread applies to this unit.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)