This is the fourth feast noticed in this chapter, the sheaf-offering of the first fruits. And a sweet type it was of the LORD JESUS, as the first fruits of them that slept. And it is worth the Reader's notice, that the LORD JESUS actually arose from the dead, according to the Jews own calculation, on the very day that those first fruits were appointed to be offered. But beside this view of our subject, as principally referring to the LORD JESUS, this solemnity was a delightful institution of honoring the LORD (as Solomon saith) with all our substance and the first fruits of all our increase. Proverbs 3:9. The waving the sheaf before the LORD by the priest, implied that all the people considered GOD as the rightful owner and giver of all their mercies; and as from him they received all, so to him they gave the glory. And that additional precept concerning it was truly significant; that they should eat neither bread nor parched corn, until that they had presented to the LORD this offering; for it taught most expressly, that all our enjoyments, even our most common concerns, ought to begin with GOD. Reader! may you and I gather this sweet lesson from it; to begin everything in JESUS and with JESUS. May every day be opened, and all the day carried on with him. In temporal as well as spiritual occupations may JESUS be uppermost. For depend upon it whatever is thus began in GOD, will end in GOD. That was a sweet resolution of the kind formed by David, in the view of another's portion contrasted with his own. Psalms 17:14-15.
Leviticus 23:9-14
9 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
10 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheafa of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest:
11 And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.
12 And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the LORD.
13 And the meat offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the LORD for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin.
14 And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.