The next in order of time was the _Pentecost_――otherwise called “the feast of weeks, of the first-fruits of wheat-harvest” (Ex. 34: 22); “the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labors which thou hast sown in the field” (Ex. 23: 16); also “the day of first-fruits” (Num. 28: 26). The other passages which treat of it are Lev. 23: 15–21 and Deut. 16: 9–12)――――The name _Pentecost_ is not from the Hebrew but from the Greek, meaning the _fiftieth_ day, _i. e._ after the great Sabbath, which fell during the Passover week (Lev. 23: 15, 16).――――On the first day after that Sabbath, the first-fruits of their barley harvest were brought before the Lord. From that point seven full weeks were numbered, and on the fiftieth day the feast of Pentecost occurred. This festival, unlike the other two in duration, was of one day only――at least this is plainly assumed: “In _the day_ of the first-fruits” (Num. 28: 26), also in Lev. 23: 21, only one day is spoken of.――――It was specially a day of thanksgiving for the first-fruits of the wheat harvest. Two loaves made of the new wheat flour were waved before the Lord on this hallowed day.――――The reference (in Deut. 16: 10–12) gives prominence to the social and joyful character of the day. “Thou shalt keep the feast unto the Lord thy God with a tribute of a free-will offering of thy hand which thou shalt give according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou and thy son and thy daughter, and thy man-servant and thy maid-servant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, the fatherless and the widow that are among you.” As a feast of joyful thanksgiving over the first-fruits of their principal grain harvest, it was eminently the appropriate occasion for the Pentecostal scene of the first great Christian ingathering. How suggestive of the gratitude due to God for the shedding forth of the Holy Ghost and the glorious fruitage from this gospel power! Some have supposed (not without reason) that the Hebrew Pentecost commemorated the completion of the giving of the laws by the hand of Moses, which they suppose was brought within fifty days from the first Passover. Of this however the books of Moses affirm nothing explicitly.