Two Harvests: Barley and Wheat

Kinda long and rambling Bible study on Pentecost and the Rapture

I was thinking about the two grain harvests, barley and wheat, in the Levitical calendar yesterday while running errands, and this verse came to mind:

Matt 19:30 NKJV "But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Barley is the first grain harvest. Jesus was the Firstfruits of the barley harvest, which was offered as grain from the field in a sheaf—not as loaves made in the homes (remember this, this is important). Barley is associated with Abraham and his seed or zera; Abraham was promised that his seed would fill the earth, as God said to Isaac.

Gen 26:4 NKJV "And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed

On the first Palm Sunday, a week before the Feast of Firstfruits of barley, Jesus referred to Himself as a grain of sitos.

John 12:24 NKJV "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat [sitos] falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.

Sitos is a word that in pre-Christian times referred to the part of the meal made with grain (without specifying the kind of grain). Most often it referred to cooked barley balls called masa, resembling falafel, a simple and nourishing way to prepare the less expensive grain barley.

So it is more likely that Jesus wasn't actually calling Himself a grain of wheat. His poorer hearers would have understood the word sitos to refer to the cheaper staple of barley, especially as the barley Firstfruits was a week away from this conversation. The Feast of Firstfruits of the barley harvest occurs on the first day of the week after Passover, or in other words, the first Sunday after Passover begins, per Numbers 28:26 and Leviticus 23:10-17.

Leviticus 23:10-17 NKJV

10 "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest.

11 'He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted on your behalf; ON THE DAY AFTER THE SABBATH the priest shall wave it.

The Sabbath is Saturday, so Firstfruits is always on a Sunday. Thus Easter is always on a Sunday. Wow. Nothing in the Bible is random.

12 'And you shall offer on that day, when you wave the sheaf, a male lamb of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering to the LORD.

Sacrificed with the firstfruits sheaf is the Lamb of God, a male without blemish, offered up as an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord. Can't get any clearer than that!

13 'Its grain offering [shall be] two-tenths [of an ephah] of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the LORD, for a sweet aroma; and its drink offering [shall be] of wine, one-fourth of a hin.

Pearl barley, or solet, is mixed with oil (denoting joy, Isaiah 61:3), and offered with a fourth part of a hin of wine, which is served at weddings and harvest feasts. The word for fourth is rebii, meaning a square—this is also important (see below). This foreshadows the salvation of Israel, the first of the grain harvests of which Jesus was the Firstfruits. But take note—this unleavened grain offering is burned up. It must go through the fire.

14 'You shall eat neither bread nor parched grain nor fresh grain until the same day that you have brought an offering to your God; [it shall be] a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

In other words, there will be no enjoyment of the harvest, a.k.a. salvation, for those who have not been fruitful towards God first. This foreshadows the judgment of Israel in the Parable of the Talents, Matt. 25:14-30. Psalm 51 defines what God wants us to bring to Him, the kind of sacrifice that is acceptable to God, from Jew or Gentile:

Psalm 51:17 NKJV The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart--These, O God, You will not despise.

And from there it is hardly even a stretch to Zech. 12:10, describing the repentance of the remnant, the precursor to the harvest of the first sowing. The first shall be last.

RABBIT TRAIL: It makes me wonder if the barley at the mid-Tribulation Passover will not be harvested, instead left standing in fields until the seed falls to the ground unharvested. Perhaps military vehicles will drive over these fields, pressing the seed into the ground, where it will await the proper temperature and moisture conditions to sprout again, when the Great Tribulation draws to a close, perhaps after the earth turns over and alters Israel's climate. Will there perhaps be a fall crop of barley in the fields when Jesus, the Firstfruits of the barley harvest, returns?

Then Leviticus 23 goes on to describe the second harvest, wheat:

15 'And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed.

16 'Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the LORD.

The new grain, this second crop, is wheat, and it will not be offered as a sheaf. Lehem, the word for loaves, means bread made of wheat:

17 'You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. [They are] the firstfruits to the LORD.

There were seven sevens, or 49 days until the barley harvest was completed, and the Feast of Weeks was celebrated on the 50th day, a.k.a. Pentecost. If, as Tyler of Generation 2434 has logically theorized, the Acts 2:1 "fullness of Pentecost" is the last day of the wheat harvest and was the day that the Holy Spirit was given to the church, then what does the firstfruits of Pentecost prophesy? Why are the loaves baked with leaven?

Exodus 12:15 NKJV 'Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.

Unleavened bread is a symbol of God's covenant with Israel ONLY.

But I just found an amazing prophecy about the Rapture in Leviticus 2! On to the wheat crop…

Lev 2:11-12 NKJV

11 'No grain offering which you bring to the LORD shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey in any offering to the LORD made by fire.

12 'As for the offering of the firstfruits, you shall offer them to the LORD, but they shall not be burned on the altar for a sweet aroma.

Conclusion: No fire for leavened bread! The church is not appointed to suffer the wrath of God! The last shall be first.

Thus we know Easter (or Resurrection Day, or the Feast of Firstfruits after Passover) is a holy day. How about Pentecost? If the Holy Spirit was given to the church at the Feast of New Wine, which is the last day, or fullness, of the Pentecost wheat harvest (Acts 2:1), why is the first day, a.k.a. the Firstfruits of the wheat harvest a holy day for the church?

Num 28:26 NKJV 'Also on the day of the firstfruits, when you bring a new grain offering to the LORD at your [Feast of] Weeks, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work.

So here is the mystery: To this day the church celebrates Pentecost as God intends, but without realizing that the Holy Spirit was given in July/August, not in May/June. There must be a hidden event that God wants us to remember annually on Pentecost.

The fifty days of Pentecost is significant. Fifty is a number associated with the instructions for building the Tabernacle (fifty curtain loops, fifty clasps, fifty cubits for a recurring measure, etc.). Could this number fifty signify a second covenant, present in the Old Testament but hidden from Israel all this time?

Exodus 27:13, 18 NKJV

13 "The width of the court on the east side [shall be] fifty cubits. ...

18 "The length of the court [shall be] one hundred cubits, the width fifty throughout, and the height five cubits, [made of] fine woven linen, and its sockets of bronze.

Exodus 36:12-13 NKJV

12 Fifty loops he made on one curtain, and fifty loops he made on the edge of the curtain on the end of the second set; the loops held one [curtain] to another.

13 And he made fifty clasps of gold, and coupled the curtains to one another with the clasps, that it might be one tabernacle.

Thus there are two equal parts of the Tabernacle, each 50 cubits square. Remember the fourth part of the hin of wine, meaning "square"? Could the Rapture of the church take place on the 50th day after the Firstfruits of the barley harvest, known as the Day of Pentecost? Is the church the Firstfruits of the wheat harvest (with the remainder to be harvested at the end of the Tribulation)? Paul hints at this, in his first letter to the Corinthians:

1Corinthians 15:23-24, 35, 37, 42, 51-52 NKJV

23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those [who are] Christ's at His coming.

Does “His coming” mean His appearing in the clouds (the Rapture), or with the clouds in the Second Coming? The Greek word parousia is used by Paul in 1Thessalonians 3:13 and 4:15, and 2Thessalonians 2:1, which point to the Rapture and also to the beginning of the Tribulation in 2Thessalonians 2:9 and 2Peter 3:12.

24 Then [comes] the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. ...

35 But someone will say, "How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?" ...

37 And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain--perhaps wheat or some other [grain]. ...

42 So also [is] the resurrection of the dead. [The body] is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. ...

51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed--

52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.* For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

*Could this mean the trumpet sounded for the last, or wheat, harvest? Just a thought.

Paul is being deliberately unspecific, I’m sure. As a former Pharisee-Christian convert, he must have recognized the significance of all that I am stumbling upon here. But Jesus is more forthright. After He spoke with the Samaritan woman with five husbands, a Gentile to whom He revealed Himself as the Messiah, He told His disciples that He had food, brosis, of which they as yet knew nothing. The Greek word connotes "meat," just as the Hebrew minha is translated "meat" in the KJV in Lev. 2:11, meaning a food offering, not necessarily of flesh.

John 4:35 NKJV

"Do you not say, 'There are still four months and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!

Is Jesus saying He has another harvest, a harvest of Gentiles, of which His disciples knew nothing? A wheat harvest?

Last thing: What are these four months that Jesus speaks of? Well, if the context is Firstfruits, and that feast is held in April, then four months later would be a date in July, which lines up with an invasion of Israel during the season of early fruit on the trees. So is THAT a possible Rapture date? I do not know, because no man knows the day or the hour. But I think I will be even more alert for the sound of the trumpet than I am already between the dates of Pentecost and the Feast of New Wine.

Addendum:

Oops! I said that I would finish up, but I realized that I had not dealt with the other sacrifices ordained for Pentecost in Leviticus 23. I also need to finish this thought about the foretold Rapture:

Lev 23:17-22 NKJV

17 'You shall bring from your dwellings two wave [loaves] of two-tenths [of an ephah]. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. [They are] the firstfruits to the LORD.

The barley sheaf for Firstfruits was brought from the field as seed, just as Jesus, the seed of Abraham, came from the midst of the Jews.

But the wheat loaves are brought out from the houses! They represent one fifth of an ephah. The number five is cropping up again (5, 50, 500, etc.). Ten means a full set (ten fingers, ten toes), so five means half a set. One half of those who are going to be saved. One half of the Tabernacle.

When the Rapture happens, many if not most of us will be in our houses, sleeping or preparing meals or working from home. Will we be brought out of our houses as these loaves are brought from the Israelites' dwellings?

I mentioned that leaven is a symbol for non-Israelites, but it also symbolizes sin and sinners. Therefore the following parable has always been confusing to me:

Luke 13:20-21 NKJV

20 And again He said, "To what shall I liken the kingdom of God?

21 "It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened."

But if this leaven is the church's sin that Jesus forgives, and if the forgiven sin is hidden in the aleuron, the wheat flour, which is measured in THREE PARTS (Father, Son, and Spirit), the parable suddenly makes a lot more sense! Non-Israelite sinners are ransomed and brought into the Kingdom of God! Without being burnt!

Back to Leviticus 23 and sacrifices of Pentecost:

18 'And you shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year, without blemish, one young bull, and two rams. They shall be [as] a burnt offering to the LORD, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering made by fire for a sweet aroma to the LORD.

Seven is the number of completion. After the wheat bread is brought forth from the dwellings and waved but not burned, the seven unblemished lambs indicate that the sacrifice of the Lamb of God is complete. It is finished.

A young baqar, or bull, is a plowing animal. The root word for baqar means "to cleave or open," as a plow breaks the dirt into furrows. And the root word of par means "to break or make void." The sacrifice of this young bullock could refer to the tearing of the Temple curtain, the opening of the Holy of Holies to all believers, or even to the breaking of the bride's hymen on her wedding night. The curse from Eden is broken, the serpent's head is crushed.

The two rams may indicate the two covenants, Israel and the church, and the twisted rams' horns, the horns or shofars by which they will be called.

19 'Then you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats as a sin offering, and two male lambs of the first year as a sacrifice of a peace offering.

The he-goat was worshiped as a false idol by the Israelites, a sin they brought from Egypt. Is this a reminder of Israel's idolatry? and are the two male lambs a sign that both Israel and the church will be forgiven for this sin and at peace with God? I have to assume that all these sacrifices pertain to both covenants, since the wave offering of the bread is offered at the end of the sacrifices with the two lambs, the peace offering.

20 'The priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits [as] a wave offering before the LORD, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the LORD for the priest.

And this brings us to the Millennial Kingdom, with all the redeemed.

21 'And you shall proclaim on the same day [that] it is a holy convocation to you. You shall do no customary work [on it. It shall be] a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.

There is a final verse that seems kind of tacked on at the end, having to do with any harvest of grain, either barley OR wheat. Ruth gathered grain in the corners of the fields during the barley harvest and was married to the kinsman-redeemer, Boaz in a "happily ever after" scenario where she became the Moabite great-grandmother of King David.

22 'When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I [am] the LORD your God.' "

This is not an afterthought. My eyes fill with tears at the great mercy of the Lord, for His great love for the poor and the strangers (Gentiles), to have made a place for them in His Son's harvest, so that no one who loves the Lord is left out of the kingdom.

That is the Gospel.

Paul tried to explain this in Romans,

Romans 4:13 NKJV For the promise that he would be the heir of the world [was] not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

but as Peter lovingly said, Paul can be hard to understand sometimes:

2Peter 3:15-16 NKJV

15 and consider [that] the longsuffering of our Lord [is] salvation--as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you,

16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable [people] twist to their own destruction, as [they do] also the rest of the Scriptures.

But in the end, it is not ourselves and our own understanding that we lean on, but on the Holy Spirit who gave these words to the writers of the canon, and who gives us His own understanding of the Word.

Peace to you, my brethren. 🙏💕 I hope my ramblings today made some kind of sense, and pray that the Holy Spirit would convey directly to you what He wants you to know, if my words, like Paul's, sometimes seem convoluted.

Jas 5:7 NKJV Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See [how] the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain.

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