Левит 23:5

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.)

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.).

23:5-8 Passover . . . Unleavened Bread: These feasts were instituted on the eve of the exodus from Egypt (see Exod 12:1-28). Passover was the first of three great festivals (Deut 16:16), followed by the Festival of Harvest (Lev 23:15-21) and the Festival of Shelters (23:34-43). 23:5 Passover began at sundown on the fourteenth day of the first month, as the new day was beginning (see study note on 11:24-25). The Passover feast included a roast lamb, bitter salad greens, and bread made without yeast (Exod 12:8), all representing Israel’s liberation from Egyptian bondage. • The first month marked the beginning of the Jewish calendar as late as Ezra 6:19. The month’s earliest name, Abib (“spring, fresh grain”; Exod 13:4; 23:15; 34:18; Deut 16:1), was partially replaced by the name Nisan after the Babylonian exile (Neh 2:1; Esth 3:7).