The Day of the First Sheaf

The women came to the tomb while it was still dark, at the far end of a run of sabbatons, as the light began to dawn toward one of them. The last chapters have shown how the Gospel writers named that morning. This chapter asks a different question: what was that morning in the calendar God Himself had given to Israel? It had a name long before the women walked to the garden, and it had a service of its own, which the priest was to carry out on that day and on no other. The resurrection came on that day.

A Sheaf Brought to the Priest

While Israel was still in the wilderness, God gave Moses an appointed time that could not be kept until the people had land of their own to reap.

Leviticus 23:9-11 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them: When you come into the land which I am giving to you, and you reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD for your acceptance; on the morrow after the Shabbat the priest shall wave it.

The people reap their harvest, and before anything else is done with it, they bring a sheaf of its firstfruits to the priest. The Hebrew name for it is omer reshit עֹמֶר רֵאשִׁית ray-sheeth': omer is a sheaf, and reshit is the first part, the beginning of a thing. The priest takes that one sheaf and waves it “before the LORD for your acceptance.” The rest of the harvest is still to be brought in, and yet the first sheaf has already been lifted up before God.

The commandment waited for them in the land. Then the verse names the day: “on the morrow after the Shabbat the priest shall wave it.”

Which Shabbat

The verses just before, which we read in Chapter 18 (Leviticus 23:5-7), tell us which Shabbat is meant. The Passover belongs to the fourteenth, and the fifteenth is the day of the feast (chag חַג khag) of unleavened bread, a holy convocation, a day on which no work of service is done. That day, the fifteenth, is the great sabbath of Unleavened Bread, and that year it was also the weekly seventh-day Sabbath. The morrow after that Shabbat is the sixteenth. In the week of the cross, then, the morning on which the first sheaf was to be waved was the morning of Nisan 16, the last of the three sabbatons counted in Chapter 36.

Now lay that beside the timetable this book has followed from the start. Yeshua died at the ninth hour, about 3 p.m., in the daytime of the thirteenth, the preparation day for the Passover. He was laid in the tomb by late afternoon, before the evening that begins the fourteenth. He lay there through the Passover of the fourteenth and through the great sabbath of the fifteenth. And very early in the morning of the sixteenth, at first light, He rose.

The hour can be put more exactly still. Every other appointed time opens with its evening, but Omer Reshit is offered in the morning. And Leviticus names who offers it: “he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD,” and “the priest shall wave it.” One priest waves the one sheaf. The priest is a picture of the risen Yeshua, whom Scripture calls our great high priest, and the sheaf is a picture of Him as the first fruits.

Hebrews 4:14 Having then a great high priest who has passed through the heavens — Yeshua, the Son of God — let us hold fast our confession.

Because the sheaf is offered in the morning, the One it pictures rose very early, at first light. The resurrection happened on that sabbaton σάββατον sab'-bat-on at first light, as dawn was about to break, before the sheaf was waved later that morning. After the resurrection the day’s service of the wave offering began, and the feast of unleavened bread went on through its seven days. The day God had set apart in the Torah for the first of the harvest was the very day on which Yeshua came up from the dead.

The First to See Him

That same morning the risen Messiah was seen. Mark writes that “He appeared first to Mary Magdalene” (Mark 16:9), and John tells how she stood weeping outside the tomb and did not know Him until He called her by name, “Mariam!” (John 20:11-18). Later that same day He walked with two disciples on the road to Emmaus and was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24:13-35).

Paul’s Word

Years later Paul, who had been trained in the Torah as a Pharisee, wrote to the believers in Corinth about the resurrection. When he named the risen Yeshua, he drew his word from this very appointed time.

1 Corinthians 15:20-23 But now Messiah has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Messiah all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Messiah the first fruits, after that those who are Messiah's at His parousia παρουσία par-oo-see'-ah(presence-coming).

Paul calls Him “the first fruits of those who are asleep.” The Greek word is aparche ἀπαρχή ap-ar-khay', firstfruits, and it was not chosen by chance. Paul was writing to a church in a Greek city, yet for the risen Messiah he took a word from the Torah’s own calendar of harvest. He names Yeshua’s resurrection after the offering that belonged to the morning on which He rose. The day, the offering, and the apostle’s word all agree.

Notice too how the verse goes on. “But each in his own order: Messiah the first fruits, after that those who are Messiah’s at His parousia(presence-coming).” Paul does not leave the first fruits standing alone. There is an order. Messiah comes first, and those who belong to Him follow at His coming. The waving of the first sheaf before the LORD was never the end of the harvest. It went before the rest.

Three Appointed Times, One Morning

Chapter 33 showed three appointed times fulfilled in their order: the Passover, the great sabbath of Unleavened Bread, and the day of the first sheaf. This chapter has stood on the last of the three. It is worth saying plainly what that means for the way we count.

If the women had come to the tomb on a morning that had nothing to do with the feasts, the word aparche would still be a fine picture of resurrection. But they did not. They came on the morrow after the Shabbat, the day of the omer reshit, after three daytimes and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40). The Torah had fixed that day centuries before, in a commandment about a sheaf and a priest. When the time came, the Son of Man kept the appointment to the day.

To call Him the first fruits of the resurrection, however, is easy to misread. Some hear it as though Yeshua were simply the first stalk in the field to ripen, one sheaf among the others, only earlier. That reading needs to be set right, and setting it right opens a teaching about the resurrection that begins in every person who receives Him. That is the subject of the next chapter.