Charles Ellicott Commentary Leviticus 23:14

"And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched grain, nor fresh ears, until this selfsame day, until ye have brought the oblation of your God: it is a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings." — Leviticus 23:14 (ASV)

And you shall eat neither bread. —In acknowledgment of the bountiful Giver of the new harvest, it was ordained that the Israelites were not to taste any of it until they had dedicated the firstfruit to the Lord. By bread is meant the unleavened bread which they were now enjoined to eat. The unleavened bread for the first and the second days of Passover was prepared from the last year’s harvest, but the bread for the following days could only be made from the new harvest after the normal dedication of it to the Lord.

Parched corn.—See Leviticus 2:14.

Green ears.—The expression carmel, which the Authorized Version renders “full ears” in Leviticus 2:14, authorities during the Second Temple interpreted as denoting the five kinds of new grain—namely, wheat, rye, oats, and two kinds of barley—which were forbidden to be used in any form whatsoever prior to this public dedication of the harvest to the Lord. The same custom of dedicating the firstfruits of the harvest to divine beings was also found among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and other nations of antiquity.

A statute for ever ...—See Leviticus 3:17; Leviticus 7:23–25.