The offerings which were now concluded had a reference to the whole people; it remained that individuals should offer for themselves, both thank-offerings and burnt-offerings, in order not to appear empty-handed before Jehovah. The thank-offerings might only be offered on this day, the burnt-offerings on the following day also. Elisama had bought a goat without blemish, for a thank-offering, in the court of the Gentiles. The choicest parts, the breast and the shoulder, belonged to the priest, the fat to Jehovah; all the rest was cooked in some of the out-buildings of the temple: for Iddo had made engagements for their feasting there. On this day no other flesh might be eaten, than that of thank-offerings; the majority of those who sacrificed carried the portions which they retained for themselves, to consume them in their houses or their tents. Elisama had invited to his feast, his host, his host’s family, and some Levites; bearing in mind the precept, “Thou shalt not neglect the Levites as long as thou livest upon the earth.”[119] They assembled in a saloon allotted for this purpose, in one of the courts on the south. Elisama, as the offerer of the sacrifice, blessed the bread and the wine, and they were all merry and thanked the Lord. Helon, to whom this meal, eaten within the precincts of the temple, seemed like an anticipation of his future priestly functions, thought of the passage of Isaiah, “They that have gathered corn shall consume it and praise Jehovah, and they that bring in their wine shall drink it in the courts of the sanctuary.”[120] Footnote 119: Deut. xiv. 27. Footnote 120: Isaiah lxii. 9. They remained together till the evening sacrifice, and Helon did not leave the temple till after it, in order that he might witness the ceremony of the wave-sheaf. This is the commencement of harvest, which begins at the time of the Passover, with the barley (in the warm valley of the Jordan still earlier) and is finished about Pentecost, with the wheat. Every thing which concerned the people of Israel, the harvest especially, must begin and end with religious solemnity.