Commentaria in Leviticum
Moreover these sacrifices and victims were not those of any private person, as the loaves of the firstfruits were: but were common to the whole people, and for the whole of it were offered from the treasury, and at the common expense.
AND THEY SHALL BE FOR A HOLOCAUST WITH THEIR LIBATIONS.—with their minchah and libation; libations, therefore, our Interpreter here calls whatever was offered with the victim, as oil, wine, flour, frankincense, salt.
19. YOU SHALL OFFER ALSO A BUCK GOAT FOR SIN.—“You shall offer,” that is, you shall sacrifice. For buck goat, the Hebrew is a buck of the goats, that is, a young buck, or kid. See what was said chap. 4, ver. 23.
20. WHEN THE PRIEST SHALL HAVE LIFTED THEM UP WITH THE LOAVES... the pacific victims (for of these alone he treats here, not of the holocausts; for these were wholly burnt to God) immolated and consecrated to the Lord, they shall fall to the priest; for though these victims otherwise for the most part fell to the offerers, yet because the whole people offered them here, and they could not have been distributed to the whole people, hence they are here given to the priests.
Note, that what is here said, that the loaves of the firstfruits offered at pentecost fall to the priest, is not to be understood as if the priest ministering in the tabernacle at pentecost alone received all these loaves: for these, being offered by individuals, were innumerable; but only that he received those which he had lifted up and offered to the Lord, namely three or four: the rest fell to the right of all, and were divided equally among all the priests, as were the other firstfruits.
21. AND YOU SHALL CALL THIS DAY (of pentecost) MOST SOLEMN AND MOST HOLY.—“Most solemn,” that is, very celebrated and a feast, that you may cease on it from all servile work; “most holy,” because it is dedicated to me, to my sacrifices and worship. The Hebrew is, you shall call the substance of this day, that is, this day, a convocation of holiness, that is, festal and solemn; for, as Josephus teaches, book 3, chap. 10, no feast among the Jews was kept without a holocaust and rest from labours: and in this respect our Interpreter calls this feast most solemn and most holy, as I have already explained.
Allegorically, the pentecost of the Hebrews signified the pentecost of the Apostles, on which the Holy Ghost descended upon them in tongues of fire, and promulgated the new law in Sion, which being received, they at once began to reap the regions white for the harvest, to bring to the Lord two loaves of the firstfruits, from the two peoples of the Jews and of the Gentiles; and then many Martyrs were immolated to God, some as lambs, that is, innocents; some as rams, that is, Doctors and princes of the Church; some as calves, who had once been proud in the world; some as kids, who had before lived in the filth and stench of sin, and of the remission of sins, as St. Jerome teaches at length near the beginning of book 2 on Isaias. Whence also Psalm 50 is above all a penitential psalm. The same is plain in the 50th year, or year of jubilee, which is the year of full remission: then therefore we offer two loaves, that is, the love of God and of neighbour. We now therefore celebrate the pasch, pentecost and other feasts, not in a Jewish way but in a Christian way, that is, not only in the letter but in the spirit. Hear Nazianzen, orat. 4 against Julian: “Let us celebrate feasts,” he says, “not with splendour of body, not with change and magnificence of dress, not with revellings and drunkenness, the fruit of which you have learned to be beds and impurities, etc., but with purity of soul, and cheerfulness of mind, and with lamps illuminating the whole body of the Church, that is, divine contemplations, which are set upon the holy candlestick and flood the whole world with light.” And St. Gregory, hom. 33 on the Gospels: “What does it profit,” he says, “to be present at the feasts of men, if it should happen to be absent from the feasts of angels?” The same in the Register: “On the Lord’s day,” he says, “we must cease from earthly labour, and in every way give ourselves to prayers, that if anything of negligence is done through the six days, it may be atoned for by prayers on the day of the Lord’s resurrection.” And Origen, hom. 69 on Exodus: “If you cease,” he says, “from all secular works and do nothing worldly, but give yourself to spiritual works, come to the Church, lend your ear to divine readings, think of heavenly things, take care for the future hope, have the coming judgment before your eyes, look not to things present and visible, but to things invisible and future: this is the observance of the Christian sabbath.”
Blessed Thomas More kept feasts with such religion that even when living alone in prison he put on the better garments brought him on them; and when they wondered why he did this, being alone, he answered: “I keep feasts, and dress becomingly, not to be seen by the people, but for the honour of God.” The same, having received the sentence of death, when its execution was deferred longer than he wished, and the feast of the Translation of St. Thomas of Canterbury was at hand, said on the vigil of the feast: “To-morrow I earnestly long to migrate to God; for that day would be altogether fitting for me”; and God fittingly granted the day he desired to his Martyr, on which both the patron whose name he bore was crowned with martyrdom for a like cause, and the holy Apostle (for that feast falls in the octave of SS. Peter and Paul), for whose primacy he shed his blood, is celebrated in the Church. So Stapleton in his Life.
Anagogically, pentecost, or the week and sabbath (that is, feast) of weeks, signified the universal rest of all the saints in heaven, that as on the second day of azymes there preceded the offering of the sheaf of ears, that is, the resurrection of Christ, so on the seventh week from then, and the fiftieth day, all who by faith and love have clung to Christ shall be gathered to him as to their head, to have eternal rest with him, and then they shall offer the two loaves of the firstfruits, namely the glory of soul and body, and consecrate them to God and to the eternal praises of God. So Radulphus.
22. NOR SHALL YOU CUT IT (the land) TO THE VERY GROUND—you shall not reap it altogether, that you may leave something for the poor to gather. See what was said chap. 19, ver. 9.
24. IN THE SEVENTH MONTH, ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE MONTH, SHALL BE A SABBATH (that is, a solemn feast), A MEMORIAL, WITH THE SOUNDING OF TRUMPETS.—This is the fourth feast, namely of Trumpets, on the first day of the month Tisri, that is, September.
Note: Seven was sacred among the Hebrews. For first, the seventh day was a feast, and was the sabbath; secondly, the seventh week of days was pentecost; thirdly, the seventh month was for the most part sacred, and, as Origen says, hom. 23 on Numbers, was as it were the sabbath of months, as the seventh day was the sabbath of days: for in the seventh month four, indeed five feasts were celebrated, namely of the New Moon, of Trumpets, of Expiation, of Tabernacles, and that for seven days; and of the Assembly or Collection. Fourthly, the seventh year was a sacred year of liberty and remission, and of rest for the land. Fifthly, the seventh week of years, namely the fiftieth year, was wholly a feast, and was the jubilee.
ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE MONTH—there was therefore on that day a double feast, first of the new moon, from which they began the month: for the first day of the month was the new moon; secondly, of trumpets. Hence they also offered double sacrifices on that day, namely both of the new moon and of trumpets, as is plain from Num. 29:4 and following.
A MEMORIAL WITH THE SOUNDING OF TRUMPETS.—In Hebrew, a memorial of sounding, or, as the Septuagint, of trumpets. The Hebrews and Latins relate that the feast of trumpets was instituted in memory of the patriarch Isaac, delivered from the immolation and the sword of his father Abraham, a ram being substituted in his place, Gen. 22:13, and that therefore on that day they were wont to blow with rams’ horns, though besides they blew silver trumpets the same day for the new moon and the sacrifices, as commanded Num. 10:10. Nay, the Hebrews relate that Isaac was delivered from this immolation on the same day, namely the first of the seventh month. The sound, therefore, was a memorial of the deliverance of Isaac, and at the same time a silent prayer that God would remember them also, and as he had delivered Isaac, so deliver his posterity from perils of death.
Mystically, the seventh month is the time of grace, namely of the new law, in which the seven spirits of God were sent into all the earth, Apoc. 5, and in which we receive the sevenfold grace and spirit of the Holy Ghost: its first festivity is the joy of the sounding of trumpets, that is, of the preaching of the Apostles (for these, like certain heavenly trumpets, sounded through the whole world) and of the conversion of the Gentiles. So Origen, Radulphus and Hesychius. For these Christ, about to go from this world to the Father, sent to sound over the whole world, saying: “Go ye into the whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,” Matt. last chap. Mindful of this command, St. Peter and John, when they were bidden to be silent, answered: “If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard,” Acts 4.