Leviticus 23:10 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

When ye be come into the land— See Deuteronomy 12:10; Deuteronomy 12:32. This precept could not take place till they came into the land of Canaan, as they neither sowed nor reaped in the wilderness:—and shall reap, might be rendered, more consistently with the context, shall begin, or be about to reap; see Deuteronomy 16:9. Josephus says, that the sheaf to be brought upon this occasion, or the handful, as the margin of our English Bibles has it, consisted, not of the stalks of corn as they were cut, but of the corn ears dried by the fire; see ch. Leviticus 2:14. The harvest here mentioned, signifies the barley harvest, which began about the passover, Exodus 9:31. The wheat harvest began at pentecost, when they offered the first-fruits, mentioned Leviticus 23:17. "These first-fruits," says Calmet, "were reaped by men delegated for that purpose, and presented, in the name of the community, to the priest, who waved them towards the four quarters, in sign of their being consecrated to the Sovereign of the universe."