Leviticus 23:14
A plain-spoken deep dive on this verse. Read the chapter →
You must not eat any bread or roasted or new grain until the very day you have brought this offering to your God. This is to be a permanent statute for the generations to come, wherever you live.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
This chapter does not contain a "calendar of feasts," or a summary and completion of the directions previously given in a scattered form concerning the festal times of Israel, but simply a list of those festal days and periods of the year at which holy meetings were to be held. This is most clearly stated in the heading (Lev 23:2): "the festal times of Jehovah, which ye shall call out as holy meetings, these are they, My feasts," i.e., those which are to be regarded as My feasts, sanctified to Me. The festal seasons and days were called "feasts of Jehovah," times appointed and fixed by Jehovah (see Gen 1:14), not because the feasts belonged to fixed times regulated by the course of the moon (Knobel), but because Jehovah had appointed them as days, or times, which were to be sanctified to Him. Hence the expression is not only used with reference to the Sabbath, the new moon, and the other yearly feasts; but in Num 28:2 and Num 29:39 it is extended so as to include the times of the daily morning and evening sacrifice. (On the "holy convocation" see Exo 12:16.)
Open source ↗Hitherto the levitical law had been chiefly conversant about holy persons, holy things, and holy places; in this chapter we have the institution of holy times, many of which had been mentioned occasionally before, but here they are all put together, only the new moons are not mentioned. All the rest of the feasts of the Lord are, I. The weekly feast of the sabbath (Lev 23:3). II. The yearly feasts, 1. The passover, and the feast of unleavened bread (Lev 23:4-8), to which was annexed the offering of the sheaf of firstfruits (Lev 23:9-14). 2. Pentecost (Lev 23:15-22). 3. The solemnities of the seventh month. The feast of trumpets on the first day (Lev 23:23-25), the day of atonement on the tenth day (Lev 23:26-32), and the feast of tabernacles on the fifteenth (Lev 23:33, etc.).
Open source ↗23:14 Israelites could not eat food from the harvest on that day until they acknowledged God’s provision by presenting him with the appropriate offering.
Open source ↗Cross-references
Other passages the community most often connects to this one. Tap to read.
Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God. You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and carefully follow these statutes.
so that you may teach the Israelites all the statutes that the LORD has given them through Moses.”
You revealed to them Your holy Sabbath and gave them commandments and statutes and laws through Your servant Moses.
This is a permanent statute for the generations to come, wherever you live: You must not eat any fat or any blood.”
The precepts of the LORD are right, bringing joy to the heart; the commandments of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.