Leviticus 23 · a question people ask
Which Sabbath is "the next day after the Sabbath" (23:11)?
The sheaf is waved "On the next day after the Sabbath" (23:11), and the fifty days are counted "from the next day after the Sabbath" (23:15). The chapter doesn't give a date for it, as it does for the Passover (23:5) and the feast of unleavened bread (23:6). Readers take "the Sabbath" here in two main ways. Both agree that the count begins on the day the sheaf is brought and runs to "fifty days", when the new meal offering is brought (23:15-16).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
The weekly Sabbath
Those who hold this view point out that the chapter has just used "Sabbath" for the seventh day: "on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest" (23:3). They note that the count is "seven Sabbaths" to "The next day after the seventh Sabbath" (23:15-16), which they read as seven weeks, each ending on a weekly Sabbath. On this reading the sheaf is always waved on the day after a weekly Sabbath.
Leviticus 23:3 · Leviticus 23:15-16
The first day of the feast
Those who hold this view point out that the first day of unleavened bread is "a holy convocation" with "no regular work" (23:7), and that the chapter calls the Day of Atonement, a day set by the month, a Sabbath: it says, "you shall keep your Sabbath" (23:32). They read "the Sabbath" of 23:11 as that first feast day. They note that where Leviticus counts "seven Sabbaths" (23:15), Deuteronomy counts "seven weeks" (Deuteronomy 16:9), and that when Israel first ate from the land, it was "on the next day after the Passover" (Joshua 5:11).
Leviticus 23:7 · Leviticus 23:32 · Deuteronomy 16:9 · Joshua 5:11
The verses
“In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening, is the LORD’s Passover. On the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread to the LORD. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.”
“He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you. On the next day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.”
““‘You shall count from the next day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. The next day after the seventh Sabbath you shall count fifty days; and you shall offer a new meal offering to the LORD.”