[322] _Maimon. in Korban. Pesach c. 5. sect. 8, 9._
1 One of the flock. 1 _Perfect man_, _John 1._ 2 Without blemish. 2 _Without sin._ 3 To be sacrificed and 3 _Suffered and died._ roasted. 4 His bones were not 4 _They brake not his legs_, broken. _John 19. 33._ 5 About the Evening. 5 _In the end of the world_, _Heb. 9. 26._ 6 Their door-posts were 6 _The Blood of Christ purgeth to be sprinkled with our consciences._ the blood. 7 That the punishing 7 _That sin and death might Angel might pass over not prevail against us._ them. 8 It was eaten in their 8 _He is applied by Faith._ several families. 9 The whole Lamb. 9 _According to all the Articles of the Creed._ 10 Without Leaven. 10 _Without Hypocrisie_, _1 Cor. 5._ 11 With bitter herbs. 11 _With patience under the Cross._ 12 In haste, and in the 12 _With an earnest and manner of Travellers. longing expectation of life eternal._ 13 Only by the Circumcised. 13 _Only by the faithful_, _1 Cor. 11._
This Feast was called πεντεκοστὴ, _the Pentecost_; which word signifieth the _fiftieth day_, because it was observed upon the _fiftieth day after the second of the Passover_, which was the _sixteenth of Nisan_. Here in the first place we must note, that the fourteenth of _Nisan_ was τὸ πάσχα, the _Passover_; the _fifteenth_ ἑορτὴ τοῦ πάσχα, the _Feast of the Passover_: or πρώτη τοῦ πάσχα,[323] the _first of the Passover_: the sixteenth was δευτέρα τοῦ πάσχα, the _second of the Passover_; or _the morrow after the Passover_, _Levit. 23. 11._ which is all one, as if it had been said, the _morrow after the feast of the Passover_; for in those feasts which consisted in many daies, the _first_ and the _last_ were termed _Sabbaths_. Now these fifty daies were in truth the appointed time of their Harvest, their Harvest, being bounded as it were, with two remarkable daies, the one being the _beginning_, the other the _end_ thereof: the _beginning_ was δευτέρα τοῦ πάσχα the _second of the Passover_; the _end_ was πεντεκοστὴ, the _fiftieth day after_, called the _Pentecost_. Upon the δευτέρα, then they offered[324] a _sheaf of the same fruits of their harvest_, _Levit. 23. 10._ Upon the _Pentecost_, then they offered two _wave loavs_, _Levit. 23. 17._ the _sheaf_ being an Oblation offered in the name of the whole Congregation, whereby all the after-fruits throughout the Land were sanctified,[325] it being from thence afterward lawful, and not before, to reap the Corn, the _two loavs_ being not only an _Eucharistical Oblation_, but also a token of the Harvest finished and ended. In the second place we are to know, that they did count these fifty daies by numbring the _Weeks_ from the δευτέρα, whence it was called a _Feast of weeks_. The manner how they counted the _weeks_, was, according to the number of the _Sabbaths_ following the δευτέρα. Thus the first _Sabbath_ following they called δευτερόπρωτον σάββατον: the second, δευτεροδεύτερον: the third δευτερότριτον, _&c._ So that[326] all the _Weeks_ and _Sabbaths_, during the time of the _Pentecost_; as the _first_, _second_, _third_, and _fourth_, _&c._ took their denomination from δευτέρα, which observation giveth light to that of S. _Luke_, _Luke 16. 1._ where there is mention of a _Sabbath_ termed δευτερόπρωτον, that is, the _second first Sabbath_, and by it is meant the _Sabbath next after the sixteenth of Nisan_, which was the δευτέρα. Seeing that these _fifty daies_ did measure out the time of their Harvest, it will not be amiss to observe the difference betwixt their Harvest and ours, which chiefly consisted in their anticipation of time; for both the _Canaanites_ and the _Ægyptians_ began their Harvest about the first of _April_,[327] it was quite finished in _May_.