Albert Barnes Commentary Matthew 12:1

"At that season Jesus went on the sabbath day through the grainfields; and his disciples were hungry and began to pluck ears and to eat." — Matthew 12:1 (ASV)

MATTHEW CHAPTER 12

At that time. Luke 6:1 fixes the time more particularly. He says that it was the second Sabbath after the first. To understand this, it is important to note that the Passover was observed during the month Abib, or Nisan, corresponding to the latter part of March and the first of April.

The feast was held for seven days, beginning on the fourteenth day of the month (Exodus 12:1–28; Exodus 23:15), on the second day of the Paschal week. The law required that a sheaf of barley should be offered up as the first fruits of the harvest (Leviticus 23:10–11). From this day, seven weeks were counted to the Feast of Pentecost (Leviticus 23:15–16), also called the Feast of Weeks (Deuteronomy 16:10) and the Feast of the Harvest (Exodus 23:16).

This second day in the Feast of the Passover, or of Unleavened Bread, was therefore the beginning from which they counted towards Pentecost. The Sabbath in the week following would be the second sabbath after this first one in the reckoning; and this was undoubtedly the time mentioned when Christ went through the fields.

It should be further mentioned that, in Judea, the barley harvest begins around the start of May, and both it and the wheat harvest are over by the twentieth of the month. Barley is in full ear in early April. Therefore, there is no improbability in this narrative concerning the season of the year. This feast was always held in Jerusalem.

Through the corn. Through the barley or wheat. The word corn, as used in our translation of the Bible, has no reference to maize or Indian corn, as it does for us. Indian corn was unknown until the discovery of America, and it is hardly probable that the translators knew anything of it. The word was applied, as it still is in England, to wheat, rye, oats, and barley. This explains the circumstance that they rubbed it in their hands (Luke 6:1) to separate the grain from the chaff.