Leviticus 23:15

15 And ye shall number to yourselves from the day after the sabbath, from the day on which ye shall offer the sheaf of the heave-offering, seven full weeks:

Leviticus 23:15 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 23:15

And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath,
&c.] Not the seventh day sabbath in the passover week, nor the whole feast of unleavened bread, but the first day of it, which was an holy convocation, a sabbath in which no servile work was to be done, ( Leviticus 23:7 ) ; and it was from the day after this, even the sixteenth of Nisan, that the following count was to be made; so the Targum of Jonathan, after the first feast day of the passover: and Josephus F19 is very clear in it, that Pentecost, or the feast of weeks, was the fiftieth day from the sixteenth of Nisan, when the above offerings were made: from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering;
which plainly points out the express day from whence the count was to begin, even on the day when the sheaf of the firstfruits of the barley harvest was offered: seven sabbaths shall be complete;
or seven weeks, that is, forty nine days; and hence, Jarchi says, we learn that the count began from the evening, or otherwise the weeks would not be complete; and Gersom thinks the day in which the sheaf was offered is included in the days counted; for the count began from the day after the first of the passover, and lo, seven days are seven weeks of days, which make forty nine days.


FOOTNOTES:

F19 Antiqu. l. 3. c. 10. sect. 6.

Leviticus 23:15 In-Context

13 And its meat-offering two tenth portions of fine flour mingled with oil: it is a sacrifice to the Lord, a smell of sweet savour to the Lord, and its drink-offering the fourth part of a hin of wine.
14 And ye shall not eat bread, or the new parched corn, until this same day, until ye offer the sacrifices to your God: a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
15 And ye shall number to yourselves from the day after the sabbath, from the day on which ye shall offer the sheaf of the heave-offering, seven full weeks:
16 until the morrow after the last week ye shall number fifty days, and shall bring a new meat-offering to the Lord.
17 Ye shall bring from your dwelling loaves, as a heave-offering, two loaves: they shall be of two tenth portions of fine flour, they shall be baked with leaven of the first-fruits to the Lord.

The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.