Leviticus 23:15

THE FEAST OF PENTECOST, Leviticus 23:15-21.

15. From the morrow after the sabbath There are two explanations of this sabbath. “The small minority” of writers, among whom Professor Murphy ranks himself, believe that the sabbath of the decalogue is intended, The majority, with whom we concur, understand it to be the day of holy convocation, the fifteenth of Nisan, irrespective of the day of the week on which it fell. Hence the morrow was the sixteenth. For this opinion we have the testimony of Josephus, ( Antiquities, Leviticus 3:10 ; Leviticus 3:5,) and the fact that the passover was on a fixed day of the month in which the sabbath of the decalogue is movable. If the morrow after the sabbath was the sixteenth, and the day of holy convocation was on the fifteenth, as we infer from Leviticus 23:6-7, the identity of these days is inevitable. Professor Murphy assumes without proof that the first day of Leviticus 23:7 is different from the fifteenth of Leviticus 23:6. That other days than the seventh are called sabbaths is proved by Leviticus 23:32, and Leviticus 16:31, where the day of atonement is so styled. For additional arguments see Concluding Note, (2.) The Seventy, Josephus, Philo, and the Talmud, understand that the first passover day is called a sabbath, and that it is identical with the morrow after the passover in Joshua 5:11. See note.

Seven sabbaths shall be complete The Syriac version has seven weeks, in which the Seventy, Gesenius, Furst, and Kiel concur. The New Testament continues this translation in the Greek, in Matthew 28:1, and Mark 16:2.