When Passover falls on a weekly Sabbath, as it does in less than 13 percent of years, the next day is a Sunday and the first day of Unleavened Bread, a holy day Sabbath. The last day of Unleavened Bread then falls on the weekly Sabbath, the only weekly Sabbath within the feast that year. To keep one fixed rule, the count to Pentecost begins the day after that Sabbath, one day outside the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Starting the count on the Sunday inside the feast, as the Worldwide Church of God did from 1974 and several groups still do, is wrong for several reasons. It adds to Scripture, which never commands that the sheaf be waved during Unleavened Bread; what matters in Leviticus 23 is the weekly Sabbath. Passover (Nisan 14) and Unleavened Bread (Nisan 15-21) are separate festivals with different teachings, so a Sabbath Passover is not a weekly Sabbath within the feast. Counting it as one makes the feast eight days instead of seven and contradicts the method used in the other 87 percent of years. No Jewish group, whether Sadducee, Pharisee, Essene, Karaite, or Falasha, ever observed Wavesheaf Day on any Sabbath. The argument that every Wavesheaf Day must copy Christ's year is as unsound as keeping every Passover on a Wednesday. Wavesheaf Day is tied to Pentecost, not to Unleavened Bread, so it may fall outside the feast without losing its meaning.

When Passover falls on a weekly Sabbath, the counting to Pentecost must still adhere to the principle of beginning with the day after the weekly Sabbath within the Days of Unleavened Bread. The count always starts with the day following the weekly Sabbath that falls on or between the two holy days during the Days of Unleavened Bread, ensuring the correct positioning of Wavesheaf Day and Pentecost. Scripture provides no authority to alter the method of counting to Pentecost based on the day Passover occurs, maintaining consistency in using the weekly Sabbath as the key reference point. Honoring God's Sabbath by using the correct weekly Sabbath to establish Wavesheaf Day ensures Pentecost, another Sabbath, is observed on the intended day each year.

When Passover falls on a weekly Sabbath, it creates disputes within the Church of God regarding the proper counting method for locating Pentecost. This disagreement results in various groups observing Pentecost one week apart. The weekly Sabbath that falls within the Days of Unleavened Bread is of primary importance, as it determines when Wavesheaf Day occurs, which in turn sets the date for Pentecost. According to the rule derived from Leviticus 23, the count to Pentecost always begins the day after the weekly Sabbath within the Days of Unleavened Bread. When Passover falls on a Saturday, which is a weekly Sabbath, the next day, the 15th of Nisan, is the first day of Unleavened Bread. The only weekly Sabbath within the Days of Unleavened Bread in this case is the 21st of Nisan, which is also the last day of Unleavened Bread, making it a double Sabbath. Consequently, Wavesheaf Day falls on the 22nd of Nisan, and Pentecost is observed on Sivan 12. There is no authority in Scripture to change the method of counting to Pentecost when Passover falls on the weekly Sabbath, and the count must begin on the day following the weekly Sabbath, which varies in date each year depending on the day Passover occurs.

When Passover falls on the weekly Sabbath, as it did in 2025 and does about once every decade, the Sabbath within Unleavened Bread is also the last day of the Feast. The Pentecost count begins the day after that Sabbath (Leviticus 23:11), so Wavesheaf Day falls just after the festival ends. In 1974 the Worldwide Church of God instituted a non-biblical rule that Wavesheaf Day must always fall within Unleavened Bread. Some of its scholars used Joshua 5 to support the rule, claiming that the Canaanites' firstfruits were waved on the first day of Unleavened Bread, which would put Wavesheaf Day inside the Feast after a Sabbath Passover. The New Testament, however, teaches about Wavesheaf Day, though most translations hide it. In all four resurrection accounts (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19), the phrase mia sabbaton is rendered "first day of the week," but sabbaton is plural, so the phrase means "first of the weeks." That day marks the start of the seven-week count to Pentecost. Christ appeared on that Sunday after the Sabbath, raised by the Father as the First of the Firstfruits. This designation of Wavesheaf Day is the New Testament's own, and it does not require the day to fall within Unleavened Bread.

When Passover falls on a weekly Sabbath, nothing in Scripture authorizes an exception to the way Pentecost is counted every other year. Human nature is ingenious at creating exceptions for itself, just as the world has done with the fourth commandment, and the same thing is being done to Leviticus 23. Nothing after Leviticus 23 has changed the date of any festival, so nothing changes Pentecost. The Wave Sheaf is waved on the morrow after the Sabbath, and the weekly Sabbath within the Days of Unleavened Bread is the only anchor that fits the command to count. Fixed-date Holy Day Sabbaths would make counting unnecessary and would always land Pentecost on the same date, whereas the weekly Sabbath shifts yearly and so requires counting. Jewish groups such as the Sadducees, Pharisees, Karaites, and Essenes always used a Sabbath within the Days of Unleavened Bread. Joshua 5 cannot support a Saturday Passover followed by a Wave Sheaf Sunday. Israel made no Wave Sheaf offering there, because the grain came from the stranger's hand, was not sown or labored over by Israel, and cost them nothing. The accompanying offerings also had to be made at a Tabernacle, which was not established until years later. Such an offering would have pictured the sinless, risen Christ coming from corrupt pagans. Luke 6:1 and the Greek word deuteroprotos are only guesswork and are probably spurious. The Church of the Great God is right to count the same way every year, wherever Passover falls.

Scripture gives no alternate method of counting to Pentecost when Passover falls on a weekly Sabbath, so altering the count in those years adds to God's Word. The count always begins on the day after the weekly Sabbath that falls within the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:15-16), never on a holy-day Sabbath, which cannot be a common workday. Joshua 5:10-11, the usual proof for changing the count, establishes nothing. It never says what day of the week Passover fell on, or even that it was kept in the first month, and it mentions no altar, priest, offerings, harvest, or waving of a sheaf. The Israelites ate Canaanite-grown produce that had been prepared beforehand, so no wavesheaf was needed. Any wavesheaf from that grain would have been unacceptable, because the firstfruits had to come from what Israel itself had sown (Exodus 23:16), and offerings from a foreigner's hand were forbidden (Leviticus 22:25). Deuteronomy 12 also forbids normal altar worship until the land had rest and God chose the central sanctuary, which happened at Shiloh about seven years later. The wavesheaf could be waved only there. No Jewish group has ever waved the sheaf on a Sabbath. A doctrine should not rest on guesses and symbolism about a year that cannot even be dated.