Feast of Weeks
Lesson Text: Leviticus 23:15-22
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Thought to Remember: I am the LORD your God.
Lessons learned:
The Feast of Weeks, also known as Shavuot, is a significant Biblical pilgrimage festival that occurs exactly fifty days after the Feast of First Fruits. The fifty-day period highlights the continuity of Jesus' ministry. He was crucified as the Passover Lamb and rose during the Feast of First Fruits. Following Jesus’ resurrection, He spent 40 days teaching His disciples before ascending; the counting then concludes ten days later with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, empowering the disciples for ministry on the Day of Pentecost.
The Law of the Edges
And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the LORD your God. (Lev 23:22 KJV)
When given instructions on the festival of Shavuot, God provided specific instructions for reaping the harvest. His people could not reap the entire plot of land, but they must save the edges of the field for others, like the poor, to reap. We can call this process the Law of the Edges.
Why did God direct His people to give a part of the field to the less fortunate ones? The core purpose of implementing the Law of the Edges was to ensure provision for the poor. By leaving the corners of the field untouched, God provided a safety net within the nation's agricultural cycle for the less fortunate ones. When you read this passage, notice that God gave these directions after the details about the Feast of Weeks, which celebrated the abundance of the wheat harvest. This feast was one of the three feasts at which God commanded all the men of Israel to gather before Him yearly in Jerusalem. Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God. (Exodus 23:17).
While studying this Scripture, I wonder whether the Law of the Edges still works today. As I shared this practice with a friend, it reminded him of his youth. He recalled living in front of a peanut field, and each season of harvesting peanuts, the owner left the rows near the road where they lived unharvested. He thought he left it intentionally to keep them from stealing peanuts because they always retrieved some to boil and roast for themselves. He never realized such a rule was biblical.
If one leaves the edges for gleaning, those in need must still labor to glean the wheat and make bread. Similarly, my friend had to dig up the peanuts and pick them from the roots, then boil and roast them before eating. Therefore, the Law of the Edges caused the less fortunate to labor before they ate, unlike the beggar who sat at the Temple gate and begged for a handout. Labor brings reward, whether you are fortunate or less fortunate.
Nonetheless, God’s directions encouraged generosity among his people to both the less fortunate and foreigners. For any society to keep stability, people must foster positive relationships, and the best way to support this is through generosity. Generosity is the quality of being kind and unselfish, leading toward giving and sharing with others. Therefore, the Law of the Edges reminds us to show generosity within our community rather than practice stinginess, leading one to favor parsimony, which is extremely frugal and unwilling to spend. The bottom line is that when we exercise the Law of the Edges, we sustain our ability to get more, so we can give more. If you never give, you will never have to give. Giving occurs first, as noted when God commanded that the Law of the Edges stay untouched while the owner of the field reaped the other parts of the field.
Even the writer of Proverbs makes this same claim as follows:
Proverbs 19:17 NKJV He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, And He will pay back what he has given.
