Why is the Jewish feast of Pentecost also known as the “Feast of Weeks?”

Why is the Jewish feast of Pentecost also known as the “Feast of Weeks?”

In the Holy Land, there were two wheat harvests each year. The early harvest came during the months of May and June; the final harvest came in the Fall. Pentecost was the celebration of the beginning of the early wheat harvest, which meant that this feast always fell sometime during the middle of the month of May or sometimes early June.

There were several festivals, celebrations, or observances that took place before Pentecost. There was Passover, or the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and there was the Feast of Firstfruits. The feast of Firstfruits was the celebration of the beginning of the barley harvest and the method behind determining the date of Pentecost.

According to the Old Testament, you would reckon Pentecost by counting fifty days after Firstfruits. This, then would be the beginning of the wheat harvest. Pentecost literally means “50,” and since, fifty days equals seven weeks, it became a “week of weeks,” and later, the “Feast of Weeks.”

It is also significant that the Holy Spirit was issued to the Apostles upon the Feast of Pentecost, because this inaugurated the beginning of “harvesting” people into Christ’s Church. 

Fr. John