POSTED 18 MAY, 2004

The Beginning and End of the Omer Count

by Mark Huey
mark@outreachisrael.net

What is Counting the Omer, a process known in Hebrew as sefriat ha’omer (rm[h tryps)? An omer (rm[) is actually a measure of weight seen in the Tanakh Scriptures (Old Testament), the equivalent of about 2.3 quarts or 2.2 liters in modern units.[1] In the waving of the sheaf/omer ceremony during the season of Passover, the priest was to take this omer amount from the firstfruits of the barley harvest, presenting it before the Lord. Following the waving of the sheaf/omer, a fifty-day period would commence, counting toward the Feast of Weeks or Shavuot (tA[bv).[2] Shavuot is often known by its Greek-derived name “Pentecost,” as Pentēkostē (penthkosth) means “fiftieth.” The principal instructions regarding how Shavuot or Pentecost is to be observed are seen in Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16:

“Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you enter the land which I am going to give to you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord for you to be accepted; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. Now on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb one year old without defect for a burnt offering to the Lord. Its grain offering shall then be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering by fire to the Lord for a soothing aroma, with its drink offering, a fourth of a hin of wine. Until this same day, until you have brought in the offering of your God, you shall eat neither bread nor roasted grain nor new growth. It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. You shall also count for yourselves from the day after the sabbath, from the day when you brought in the sheaf of the wave offering; there shall be seven complete sabbaths. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh sabbath; then you shall present a new grain offering to the Lord” (Leviticus 23:10-16).

“You shall count seven weeks for yourself; you shall begin to count seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain. Then you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you shall give just as the Lord your God blesses you; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servants and the Levite who is in your town, and the stranger and the orphan and the widow who are in your midst, in the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His name” (Deuteronomy 16:9-11).

Before you read through my daily devotionals for the fifty-day Counting of the Omer, an overview of the subject is in order. Within the Torah, it is stated that the Counting of the Omer is to begin during the Festival of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:6-8); it is to specifically start “on the day after the sabbath” (Leviticus 23:11).[3] For many Bible readers, when to start the Counting of the Omer is a closed issue: there is a weekly Sabbath or Shabbat (tBv) that occurs during the Festival of Unleavened Bread, meaning that the start of the Omer Count begins and ends on a Sunday, the day after the Sabbath. This means that Shavuot will always fall on a Sunday. Does this not align with the admonition to count “seven complete sabbaths” (Leviticus 23:15)?[4] It should not really matter that Deuteronomy 16:6 uses different terminology, saying that the Counting of the Omer involves “seven weeks.”[5]

If you have been a part of the Messianic community for any period of time, then you have probably heard the expression, “two Jews, three opinions.” While to many people, the instructions on how to Count the Omer may seem pretty straightforward, within Jewish history they have been interpreted differently. Different sects of Second Temple Judaism, in which Messiah Yeshua conducted His ministry, had their own views on the Torah commandments for when to Count the Omer. Of the two main Jewish groups of the First Century C.E., the Sadducees interpreted the “day after the sabbath” in Leviticus 23:11 to be the weekly Sabbath during Unleavened bread, but the Pharisees interpreted “the day after the sabbath” to actually be the High Sabbath which begins the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The Saddusaical Omer Count would always be observed from a Sunday to a Sunday, but the Pharisaical Omer Count would begin on the 16th of Aviv/Nisan and end on the 6th of Sivan, fluxuating on any day of the week year-by-year. Jeffrey H. Tigay summarizes in his commentary on Deuteronomy,

“According to Leviticus 23:11, the counting begins with an offering of the first sheaf of the harvest ‘on the day after the Sabbath.’ From the context this seems to refer to the Sunday after the first sheaf is cut, whenever that should occur, some time during or after the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In Second Temple times it was assumed that ‘on the day after the Sabbath’ does not refer to an exact date. There was controversy among various Jewish sects as to whether a Sabbath within the Feast of Unleavened Bread was meant or one following it. The Pharisees held that ‘the day after the Sabbath’ does not mean a Sunday at all, but the day after a Sabbath-like holiday, namely the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This became the basis of the halakhic ruling that the first sheaf is brought, and the counting begins, on the second day of the feast, the sixteenth of Nisan, and that the Feast of Weeks falls on the sixth of Sivan (May-June).”[6]

Within Jewish history, schisms and divisions between different sects and groups widely occurred on the basis of what religious calendar was employed. The differences of interpreting “the day after the sabbath” (Leviticus 23:11) were one of the main areas where the Sadducees and Pharisees, who both composed the religious council known as the Sanhedrin, were divided. The Sadducees largely made up the Temple priesthood and Jewish aristocracy, and the Pharisees composed many of the Rabbis, teachers, and scribes that the people as a whole looked to for spiritual leadership. A third group, the Essenes or Qumran community (who gave us the Dead Sea Scrolls), interpreted “the day after the sabbath” to be the last weekly Sabbath during the week of Unleavened Bread, meaning that they would keep Shavuot a week after the Sadducees. When the Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E. the Sadducees disbanded, the Essenes faded away, but the Pharisees continued on, giving rise to Rabbinical and Talmudic Judaism. Within today’s Jewish community (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform), the theological descendants and offshoots of the Pharisees, Shavuot is remembered on the 6th of Sivan.

What all positions regarding the Counting of the Omer agree upon for certain is that the Counting of the Omer lasts fifty days. Whenever you begin the seven weeks to Shavuot, you will count forty-nine days and then the day of Shavuot.

Surveying today’s broad Messianic community, which largely includes Messianic Judaism, and both the Two-House and One Law sub-movements, there is no agreed-upon way over when to Count the Omer to Shavuot. It is safe to say that most of Messianic Judaism follows the same Pharisaical reckoning as does the Synagogue, but in the independent Messianic movement—of which our ministry largely finds itself a part—one encounters a great deal of variance. Just as divisions within Judaism have often been focused around calendar disputes, so can the method of Counting the Omer divide Messianic Believers during the season of Passover to Pentecost. Sadly, there has often not been a great deal of maturity or forbearance present regarding this issue, and people are frequently perplexed over factionalism that can manifest—especially during a season when Messiah followers should especially be coming together!

End of sample excerpt.

Enjoyed this excerpt? Purchase Counting the Omer
Paperback: $17.99; Amazon Kindle eBook: $9.99

Mark Huey (B.A., Vanderbilt University in History and Graduate Studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University) is the Director of Outreach Israel Ministries (www.outreachisrael.net). He is the author of several books, including: TorahScope, Volumes I & II, and Counting the Omer: A Daily Devotional Toward Shavuot. He is also co-author of Hebraic Roots: An Introductory Study.

NOTES

$21.00 including U.S. shipping & handling