11th Month /17th Day -1st from Sabbath (sunday): Pentacontad VII

The 7 Pentacontads of First Fruits

The pentecontad calendar (from πεντηκοντάς pentēkontás) is an agricultural count system in which the year is broken down into seven periods of fifty days (a total of 350 days), with an annual supplement. A pentecontad calendar is marked by festivals on the last day of each fifty-day period, such as the Feast of Barley, Feast of New Wine, the Feast of Oil, … . The biblical expression “feast of weeks” is a vestige of these ancient harvest celebrations by the means of counting weeks. The same concept is being echoed in Acts by the greek word πεντηκοστή Pentecost. Various biblical laws and stories refer to ancient Israelite crops, making YHWH’s calendar inevitably linked to seasons & harvests. Amongst others, we find major crops of the land listed in Deuteronomy 8:8: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and honey.

Philo expressly connected the “unequalled virtues” of the pentecontad calendar with the Pythagorean theorem, further describing the number fifty as the “perfect expression of the right-angled triangle, the supreme principle of production in the world, and the ‘holiest’ of numbers”

The question relating to the means of counting the Omer (should we to count cycles of 49+1, or should we count cycles of 50+1) is finally settled by the findings of Qumran: it is a cycle of 49 (7×7), and the 50th day is day 1 of the next 49 days.

Finally, the debate on the signification of the “morrow of the sabbath”, as being a 1st day (sunday) after Unleavened I, weekly sabbath, or Unleavened II is also settled thanks to the resurrection of these ancient holy texts: The “waving of the Sheaf” occur after the weekly shabbat after the 7 day feast of unleavened.

Biblical Definition of “First Fruits”:

Numbers 18:13

12All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat, the firstfruits of them which they shall offer unto the LORD, them have I given thee. 13And whatsoever is first ripe in the land, which they shall bring unto the LORD, shall be thine; every one that is clean in thine house shall eat of it.

Deut 26:2

You must take some of the first of all the land’s produce that you harvest from the land’s produce that you harvest from the land YHWH your God is giving you and put it in a container. Then go to the place where the LORD your God chooses to have His name dwell.

Attempt at reconstructing the 7 biblical pentacontads:

# Feast of First Fruits Biblical Month Gregorian Month Biblical Date

1 Barley; Waving of Sheaf 1st biblical month Apr 1/26

2 Wheat; “Weeks” 3rd biblical month May 1/26 + 50 = 3/15

3 New Wine / Pentecost 5th biblical month July-Aug 3/15 + 50 = 5/3

4 Oil & Wood 6th biblical month Sept 5/3 + 50 = 6/22

5 (…) 8th biblical month Oct-Nov 6/22 + 50 = 8/10

6 (…) 9th biblical month Dec 8/10 + 50 = 9/29

7 (…) 11th bibl. month Feb 9/29 + 50 = 11/17

(49 days + 49 days + 49 days + 49 days + 49 days + 49 days + 70 days = 364 days)

(7 x 7) x 7 + (3 x 7) = 364 days

Pentacontad I: FirstFruits of Barley, the Head of all the Pentacontads

Pentacontad II: First Fruits of Wheat & Flour, Feast of Weeks/Shawot

Pentacontad III: First Fruits of Grapes & New Wine

Pentacontad IV: First Fruits of Oil & Wood

Pentacontad V

Pentacontad VI

Pentacontad VII