Exegesis of Leviticus 23:11-16

Daniel Gregg/ www.torahtimes.org

            One should notice the inconsistency in the versions in the matter of translating .   It is evident that in the first use in vs. 11, the refers to the contents of a single day, and it is thusly translated 'in' or 'on' the morrow, while in the second use in vs. 15, it is rendered 'from' the morrow extensively since it is obvious from the context that one cannot count seven Sabbaths "in" or "on" the day immediately after  the start.   Then the versions revert back to 'in' or 'on' the day after for vs. 16 because they suppose that the 50th day is counted 'in' or 'on' the very day after the seventh Sabbath.   This essay will show that such waffling with the meaning of provides us with the necessary tool to extract the real meaning of the text and to straighten out the linguistic data.   Firstly, if can be translated extensively, "from the day after" in vs. 15 as the versions are wont to do, then why not in vs. 16?   Good question.   Actually an examination of all the other passages of with will show that always means 'in' the day after, and not 'from' the day after.

            If this is the case, then how is the resulting contradiction in vs. 15 resolved, of having to count seven Sabbaths 'in' the day after, seeing that they will not fit 'in the day after'.   The answer to this question is not in , but in (which is the root of ) and understanding the Hebrew word in the Hebrew sense.   To do this, first let's reconstruct the passage translating consistently as "in" , and allowing to take on the meaning of "day after" or "time after" as the context requires.   The KJV is used as the base text here.

KJV[1] Leviticus 23:11 “And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: in the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12 And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the LORD. 13 And the meat offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the LORD for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin. 14 And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. 15 And ye shall count unto you in the time after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete: 16 Yet[2] in the time after the seventh sabbath shall ye number a fiftieth day; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.”

The phrase “in the morrow after” is used three times in this passage.   The Hebrew is   A study of its usages will show that preposition is a genitive of content, which is to say it designates  a specific “time” out-of a whole “time”.  It does not specify extension away from the whole.  For example, the scripture says, “And it came to pass on the morrow, which was the second day of the month, that David's place was empty: and Saul said unto Jonathan his son, Wherefore cometh not the son of Jesse to meat, neither yesterday, nor to day?”[3]  David was missing at a certain time on the next day.  There is no sense of marking time away from a point, just the sense of a given time “in” the day after.

The literal Hebrew from -day after signifies points in time taken from day after, and not points in time taken beyond that day.  The words “on” or “in” are used the capture contextual sense.  To use the word “from” is ambiguous, and may lead to confusion with extended time.[4]  To use the word “on” will impose a too restrictive English sense.  “On” cannot take a specific time “from” the whole, but must refer to the whole.  Therefore, to remove the confusion we are required to translate the preposition “in”[5].

An investigation will show that in all of the 25 or so cases of the word , that “in the day after” will concordantly explain all the texts in their contexts and at the same time solve our exegetical and chronological difficulties with Lev. 23:11-16.

The word without its preposition is .   The ending is construct.  This leaves the lexical form of the word .  Koehler’s Lexicon gives the first derivation of this word as .  This means “day” + “after”.  Contracting the two words, the alef is swallowed and the beginning of yom is dropped.

The lexemes + +  + result in the same meaning as given in two passages.  The first is Genesis 30:33, where Jacob says, “So shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come”.  The words “in time to come” render the Hebrew which literally means “in day day-after” (cf. Proverbs 27:1).  But also is used alone to mean “in time to come” (cf. Exodus 13:14, KJV).

                It is clear in these contexts that the yom lexeme is being used for “time” in a general sense.  Thus Jacob does not mean just the day after, but “in time – time after”.  The first attested use of this sense of  will be found in Genesis 2:4 where it says “in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.”  The Hebrew for “in the day” is .  We note that the Hebrew yom  is used in the sense of a longer period of time than one literal “day” in English.  BDB gives exactly this definition, “6. = time”.  The word yom is used to mean the week of creation.   In Genesis 2:17 it is used to mean period of time lasting 1000 years.

                We now turn to the word at the beginning of vs. 16.  This word is translated “until” or “even unto” (KJV).  The explanation to come can survive this word as it is, however, I will suggest that it was originally pointed o, and meant yet, or while.    Moreover,  the words “fifty days” in the KJV in vs. 16 are not literal.  The word is singular and compels us to understand the number in the ordinal sense ‘fiftieth’.  (Since only the fiftieth day is mentioned the preposition is probably introductory [i.e. yet, still]  and not extensive of the day count.)

                The phrase  from the day    in vs. 15 stands in parallel to .   This further demonstrates that the latter word must contextually mean in the time after.   The words from the day do not have the power to redefine the preposition of , but they have the power to require us to select a meaning that this word already has, namely in the day after = in the time after.

                Therefore, the count to Shavuot (Pentecost) commenced "in the day after the (annual) Sabbath" at the soonest possible time, which would be the very day after, yet according to vs. 15, "in the day after" "seven Sabbaths" are to be counted, evidently, "day" embedded the word is being taken as 'time to come' and not the very day after, and then in vs. 16, the seventh Sabbath is counted, but a 50th day is counted 'in the day after' the seventh Sabbath, where the sense of 'in the day after' is the same as 'in the time after' since the seven Sabbaths are weekly Sabbaths and the annual Sabbath after which the count of days began was likely not on the Sabbath.   Therefore, the 50th day would be a space beyond the seventh Sabbath.

                That this must be the solution is clear because Yeshua died before the annual Sabbath, showing that there was an annual Sabbath.  This Sabbath was Thursday in the year of the crucifixion.   The counting was therefore begun on the day after this Sabbath, both days and Sabbaths.   The first of the [seven] Sabbaths was the weekly Sabbath in Passover week, but the first of the 50 days was Friday that year since it was the day after the annual Sabbath.   Now when the seventh Sabbath of the count is reached, then the 50 day count will pass it up by 6 days, so that the count ends on Friday "in the day after the seventh Sabbath".  This shows that 'day after' in this case means 'time to come after' and not the very day after in a manner similar to Jacobs statement in Genesis 30:33.

                Furthermore, since Yeshua was not in the grave past the end of three days, he cannot have been in the grave at any time after the Sabbath.  He died on a Wednesday, so the third day would end at sunrise on the Sabbath by temple reckoning for sacrificial offerings.    There would be a temporal mismatch of typology in the first fruits offering if the sheaf were supposed to be waved on the following Sunday, since Yeshua is called the first fruits, and he did not rise at that time.  He rose in accord with counting the first fruits day after the annual Sabbath according to the day for sacrificial offerings.   The day after the annual Sabbath (Thursday) was Friday sunrise to Sabbath sunrise.   Again we use the temple day regarding offerings (sunrise to sunrise) and not regarding Sabbaths (sunset to sunset).   We see then that Yeshua was the first fruits and rose on the third day, i.e. just before sunrise on the Sabbath.  He rose at deep dawn as I have elsewhere shown.