Charles Ellicott Commentary Leviticus 23:11

"and he shall wave the sheaf before Jehovah, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it." — Leviticus 23:11 (ASV)

And he shall wave the sheaf. —Better, and he shall wave the omer. The priest mixed with the omer of meal a log of oil, put on a handful of frankincense , as on other grain offerings, waved it, took a handful of it and caused it to ascend in smoke , and then consumed the residue in company with his fellow priests. Immediately after this ceremony, bread, parched grain, green ears, etc., of the new crop were exposed for sale in the streets of Jerusalem, as, prior to the offering of the omer, no use whatever was allowed to be made of the new grain.

On the morrow after the sabbath.— The interpretation of this phrase also constituted one of the differences between the Pharisees and the Sadducees during the Second Temple. According to the Pharisees, the term "sabbath" here, as elsewhere (see Leviticus 23:24, 32, 39), is not the weekly Sabbath, but the next day, or the first day of the holy convocation—the first day of Passover—on which the Israelites had to abstain from all unnecessary work. It is the 16th of Nisan. The Sadducees, however, maintained that it is to be understood in its literal sense as denoting the weekly Sabbath in the Passover week, which might happen to fall within the seven days, and possibly the fifth or sixth day of the festival.

But this is against the import of Leviticus 23:15. Here the Feast of Pentecost is to be reckoned from this Sabbath, and if this Sabbath might fall on either the second or sixth day of the Passover, not only would the Feast of Pentecost have no definite day, but the Passover itself would, in the course of time, be displaced from the fundamental position it occupies in the order of the annual festivals. Hence the Pharisees, rightly regarding the word "sabbath" here as an alternative term for the day of holy convocation, took "the morrow after the sabbath" to denote Nisan 16.

On the afternoon of this day, therefore, the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns of Jerusalem assembled together “so that the reaping might take place amidst great tumult.” As soon as it became dark, each of the reapers asked, “Has the sun gone down?” To which the people replied, “Yes.” They asked twice more, “Has the sun gone down?” to which the people each time replied, “Yes.” Each reaper then asked three times, “Is this the scythe?” to which the people each time replied, “Yes.” Next, they asked three times, “Is this the box?” Again, the people replied “Yes” three times. “Is this the Sabbath?” the reaper asked three times, and three times the people replied, “Yes.” “Shall I cut?” he asked three times, and three times the people replied, “Yes.”

When cut, it was laid in boxes, brought into the court of the Temple, threshed with canes and sticks so that the grains might not be crushed, and laid in a perforated pan so that the fire might touch each grain.

Then it was spread in the court of the sanctuary for the wind to pass over it, and ground in a barley mill which left the hulls unground. The flour thus obtained was sifted through thirteen different sieves, each one finer than its predecessor. In this manner was the prescribed omer or tenth part obtained from the seah.