Barley in Christ's day was not harvested when fully ripe. Because ripe grain would fall from the husk while being cut, the reaper cut it when it was white, the transition color between green and golden brown, as Christ's words in John 4:35 indicate. The landowner had to judge the moment carefully, since cutting too early yielded immature grain and cutting too late lost the harvest. A sharp sickle cut the standing stalks, and harvesters then gathered them into sheaves so they would not rot on the damp ground. Fifteen to twenty sheaves leaned together formed a cone-shaped shock, which supported the sheaves, let air pass through, and drained rain and dew while the grain matured over many days. The reaper watched the shocks and hauled them to the threshing floor only when the grain was still held by the husks, so none was lost. There the grain hardened and was threshed by shaking or gently beating it from the husks, then winnowed by tossing it into the wind to remove chaff and foreign matter. This corresponds to the early harvest of God's firstfruits, the Bride of Christ, which Christ reaps as the Son of Man with His sickle (Revelation 14). The cutting may have begun with the church's fracturing, the sheaves are the small groups, the shocks are the scattered fellowships, the threshing floor is the Place of Safety, and winnowing is the resurrection. Grain left in the corners of the field for the poor corresponds to those God leaves in the world to serve others in the Great Tribulation.

The barley harvest began with the Wavesheaf, so Wavesheaf Day was a critical working day, not a holy day. Harvest was Israel's livelihood, and when the grain ripened the farmer immediately put in the sickle. Deuteronomy 16:9 says to begin counting the seven weeks from the time the sickle is put to the grain, so the day the work of harvesting began was the day the count started. For that reason, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, though they disagreed on when to start the count, never placed the start of the harvest on a day when God commands no customary work. Insisting that Wavesheaf Day may fall on the First Day of Unleavened Bread is a new thing. The appeal to Joshua 5 fails. The phrase "when you come into the land" is general, refers to Israel dwelling in the land, and can be modified by other requirements. Offering the Wavesheaf, like the heave offering of ground meal in Numbers 15, would have required reaping, threshing, winnowing, and grinding, which would have profaned a holy day. God also accepted only offerings from grain the Israelites themselves had sown, and the grain in Joshua 5 came from the land's former inhabitants. Israel could eat it but could not offer it. Joshua therefore was not required to wave a sheaf, and the holiness of God's annual Sabbaths and of His offerings governs how the count is understood.

Wavesheaf day centers on the barley harvest. Wavesheaf day marks the start of reaping what an individual has sown by his own hand in the land. The first record of sowing and reaping by one of God's people in the promised land appears when Isaac sowed and reaped with abundant blessing from God. That example establishes the principle that the grain must come from the labors of God's people rather than from foreigners. Hundreds of thousands of Israelites brought sheaves of barley as their firstfruits offering on Wavesheaf day. Each person cut a sheaf from his own harvest on that day. The Wavesheaf offering then came from that harvest. Wavesheaf day therefore concerns the harvest itself before any offering takes place. The underlying harvest and the Wavesheaf offering remain linked. This linkage keeps Wavesheaf day from coinciding with the first day of Unleavened Bread.