Firstfruits

(Num. 18:12). “The first of the fruit of thy land,” it is said in the Law of Moses, “thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God” (Ex. 23:19), and thus, by virtue of this prescription, the first fruits of the harvest, of the vintage, of the oil, the first bread baked from the new wheat, the wool from the sheep, and so on, were brought to the temple for the maintenance of its servants, the priests and Levites (Ex. 23:19, Num. 15:19–21). The quantity of the firstfruits is not specified in the Law of Moses, but it is thought to have been at least a sixteenth part of all the produce.

How the firstfruits were to be brought to the temple is indicated in the Book of Leviticus (23:10–14). The first sheaf of ripened barley was usually brought on the second day of Passover, and the priest waved this sheaf before the LORD; after the threshing of it in the court of the temple, a handful of barley was cleaned, parched, pounded in a mortar, and mixed with oil, and then offered to the LORD on behalf of the whole people, as a sign of gratitude and thanksgiving. Until this waving, the harvest remained untouched.

Seven weeks after this, that is, at the end of the harvest, two loaves of wave offering were prepared from fresh wheat as the first fruit unto the LORD (Lev. 23:16, 17), and until this offering no one was permitted to eat the new bread. The holy Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, points to this ordinance not to eat the new bread until, from it, loaves for the wave offering before the LORD on the day of Pentecost had been prepared. “For if the firstfruit be holy,” he says, “the lump is also holy” (11:16).

The loaves were prepared from leavened dough, since they constituted an offering of ordinary food. The sheaf and the loaves were waved before the LORD on behalf of the whole people, but after this the people were required to bring private offerings. Ripe fruits, freshly prepared drinks, all the best of the oil, the grapes, and the grain (Num. 18:12), as well as honey (2 Chron. 31:5), were to be brought to the LORD in the same way as the first fruits. The firstfruits of the wheat, wine, oil, and also of the wool of the sheep were given for the benefit of the priests (Lev. 18:4 [as cited]).

The first fruits from fruit trees, for three years, were reckoned as uncircumcised, and in the fourth year were consecrated for feasts unto the LORD (Lev. 19:23, 24). The Jews who lived in distant countries—Rome, Asia Minor, Egypt—sent to Jerusalem, instead of the first fruits, which might spoil on the journey, money to the value of what they were worth. In conclusion, let us note that the custom of offering to one’s deities the first products of the field and the firstborn of the flocks already existed in the earliest biblical times, as may be seen from the history of Cain and Abel (Gen. 4:1–4).