The Feast of Firstfruits, associated with the wave sheaf day, marks the beginning of the harvest and initiates the seven-week count to Pentecost, which concludes both the count and the harvest. Both occasions center on the concept of firstfruits, with the wave sheaf offering representing the initial barley harvest and Pentecost featuring two wave loaves made of fine wheat flour, presented as firstfruits to the Lord. The wave sheaf day, though occurring during the environs of Unleavened Bread, holds a stronger connection to Pentecost through these shared themes. Scripture highlights Jesus Christ as the first of the firstfruits, the initiator of God's spiritual harvest, being the firstborn from the dead. This designation implies that others will follow as firstfruits to the Lord, linked to the broader harvest of God's elect. On the wave sheaf day, Christ stands as the chronological firstfruit, the beginning of the spiritual harvest, while on Pentecost, He is the model firstfruit, the standard of excellence that the elect must emulate. The two wave loaves at Pentecost, baked with leaven symbolizing corruption, contrast with Christ's sinless nature, underscoring His preeminence both in time and quality. Thus, Christ remains the central focus of these feasts, guiding and exemplifying the path for those who aspire to be firstfruits in God's Kingdom.

The Feast of Firstfruits is the day of the wavesheaf, when the firstfruits of the barley harvest were offered before the Lord (Leviticus 23:10-14). It begins the spring grain harvest, which culminates in the Feast of Pentecost, called the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of Israel's labors sown in the field (Exodus 23:16). Jesus Christ fulfilled the wavesheaf offering as the first of the firstfruits of God's spiritual harvest, and that harvest ultimately includes those He calls into His church (I Corinthians 15:23). Because it parallels Israel's spring grain harvest rather than the fall harvest of fruits and vegetables, the harvest of the firstfruits is the early harvest of the children of God, who become the Bride of Christ. Christ says the fields are already white for harvest (John 4:35). Ancient barley harvesting illustrates how this harvest unfolds: the grain was cut while still white, before full ripeness, then bound into sheaves and stood in shocks to mature, then taken to the threshing floor, threshed, and winnowed. The sheaves and shocks may picture the church's small groups and scattered fellowships, the threshing floor the Place of Safety, and the winnowing the resurrection, when the firstfruits are lifted up and purified. Those left in the field, like gleanings for the poor, may be God's children who serve others during the Great Tribulation.

To the Jews of Jesus' day, Pentecost was known as the Feast of Weeks and/or the Feast of Firstfruits. Jesus, being the First of the firstfruits, was raised from the dead to eternal life, and He continues to build His house of called-out ones until He returns to resurrect them to eternal life as firstfruits. God, the Master Potter, molds His people into a spiritual nation of firstfruits, shaping them into His holy and righteous character. On the day of firstfruits in AD 31, Jesus began to build His spiritual house of firstfruits, and neither death nor the grave will prevent Him from completing this work.

The Feast of Firstfruits, also tied to the Feast of Harvest as described in Exodus 23:16, emphasizes the firstfruits of labor sown in the field. Leviticus 23:17 identifies the two leavened loaves offered on Pentecost as firstfruits, a symbol representing the early, abundant sample of a harvest, often signifying not only the earliest but also the best part. This symbol varies widely, as every harvest—whether barley, wheat, olives, grapes, or honey—has its firstfruits, indicating the start of maturation rather than the completion of the harvest. The grain offering of Pentecost, central to this feast, embodies the fruit of one's labors from God's bounty, reflecting devotion and generosity toward others, as it is an offering to God with a portion for human benefit through the priest. This aligns with the instruction in Leviticus 23:22 to leave the corners of the field and gleanings for the poor and the stranger, underscoring the theme of giving humanity its due with what God has provided.

Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks or Feast of Firstfruits, is the fiftieth day of a count that God commands in Leviticus 23:15-16. Unlike the other festivals in that chapter, it has no fixed date and must be counted every year. The count begins the day after the weekly Sabbath that falls within the Days of Unleavened Bread. That day is Wavesheaf Day, when the sheaf of the firstfruits of the harvest was waved before God with a lamb, a grain offering, and a drink offering. Counting the Hebrew way, inclusively, from a Sunday Wavesheaf Day, the fiftieth day always falls on a Sunday. Counting from the first or last day of Unleavened Bread fixes Pentecost on Sivan 6 or Sivan 12 and removes the need to count. Christ's resurrection proves the rule. As the firstfruits of the dead (I Corinthians 15:20) and the reality of the Wavesheaf, He ascended to the Father to be accepted on the Sunday morning after the weekly Sabbath. Wavesheaf Day completes its meaning in Pentecost, since Wavesheaf Day begins the harvest and Pentecost finishes it. When Passover falls on a Sabbath, the only weekly Sabbath within the Days of Unleavened Bread is the last day, so Wavesheaf Day is Nisan 22 and Pentecost is Sivan 12. Joshua 5 gives no reason to change this, since Israel made no Wavesheaf offering that year.

The Feast of Firstfruits, identified as Pentecost, is presented as the day that pictures the harvest of the firstfruits through the giving of the Holy Spirit. The count to this feast begins with the wave sheaf offering waved on the day after the Sabbath that falls during the Days of Unleavened Bread, an offering fulfilled in type by Jesus Christ Himself. From that point the count proceeds through seven Sabbaths to the fiftieth day, each Sabbath marking successive stages in God's redemptive work: the first two reflecting the Days of Unleavened Bread, the third representing the firstfruits, the fourth the return and judgment of Christ, the fifth the binding of Satan, the sixth the millennial rule, and the seventh the eighth-day festival that opens truth and judgment to all who have ever lived. On the fiftieth day, understood as a jubilee, Jesus Christ completes the offering and presents everything, including Himself, to the Father so that God may be all in all. This sequence is shown to be another expression of God's signature of sovereignty through the Sabbath and His precisely orchestrated plan that moves from the firstfruits now being trained in sacrificial service to the ultimate inclusion of all mankind in the family of God.

The Wavesheaf offering, the firstfruits of the harvest, is waved before God on the morrow after the weekly Sabbath that falls within the Days of Unleavened Bread, and from that day the fifty days to Pentecost are counted (Leviticus 23:10-16). That Sabbath is the anchor. Passover is not a Sabbath, and the two Holy Day Sabbaths are fixed dates that would never require counting, so only the weekly Sabbath fits the command to count and yields consistency each year. The dates of God's festivals never change, though some ceremonies did. Every Jewish group, including the Sadducees, Pharisees, Karaites, and Essenes, always counted from a Sabbath within Unleavened Bread. The offering had to be firstfruits from Israel's own labor, sown and harvested on their own land. It could not come from a stranger's hand or be corrupt, blemished, or costless, and it was accompanied by the lamb, meal, and drink offerings at the Tabernacle. Once Israel entered the land, the national offerings were centralized at the Tabernacle, which was not set up and the land subdued with rest until about seven years after Joshua 5. Joshua 5:10-12 therefore records no Wavesheaf. The produce Israel ate there was a stranger's, unsown by them, and no sacrifices could be made. The Wavesheaf represents the pure, sinless, risen Christ, so a Wavesheaf taken from pagan hands would have been an abomination. Neither Joshua 5 nor Luke 6:1, with its uncertain word deuteroprotos, gives any authority for an exception to the consistent counting.