Charles Ellicott Commentary Deuteronomy 16:9-12

"Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: from the time thou beginnest to put the sickle to the standing grain shalt thou begin to number seven weeks. And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto Jehovah thy God with a tribute of a freewill-offering of thy hand, which thou shalt give, according as Jehovah thy God blesseth thee: and thou shalt rejoice before Jehovah thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the sojourner, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are in the midst of thee, in the place which Jehovah thy God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt: and thou shalt observe and do these statutes." — Deuteronomy 16:9-12 (ASV)

Deuteronomy 16:9–12. THE FEAST OF WEEKS, OR PENTECOST.

See also Exodus 23:16; Exodus 34:18–23; Leviticus 23:15–22; Numbers 28:26–31. The feast itself is ordained in Exodus; the time is given in Leviticus; and the sacrifices in Numbers.

From such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn. — The word for sickle only occurs here and in Deuteronomy 23:25. In Leviticus the weeks are ordered to be reckoned from the offering of the wave sheaf on the sixteenth day of the first month, two days after the Passover. This sheaf was of barley, the first ripe corn. A different view is sometimes taken of the word “Sabbath” in Leviticus 23:11; but the view given here is correct according to the Talmud.

A tribute. — This word (missah) occurs nowhere else in the Bible. The marginal rendering, “sufficiency,” is its Aramaic or Chaldean sense. The idea seems to be “a proportionate offering” — i.e., a freewill offering, proportioned to a man’s means and prosperity. In Exodus 34:20; Exodus 23:15, we read, “None shall appear before me empty.” The command is made general for all the three feasts in Deuteronomy 16:16-17 further on.

Thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God. — This aspect of the feast of weeks is specially insisted upon in Deuteronomy. Its relation to the poor appears also in the command connected with this feast in Leviticus 23:22, to leave the corners of the fields un-reaped for them.