How to Count Pentecost

Pentecost is the only feast that the Bible does not give a date for.

Instead, the Bible says, “count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath” (Leviticus 23:15-16).

So to know the proper day to celebrate Pentecost, we must count 50 days.

There are several different ideas about when to start and end the count, so we must carefully examine what the Bible says, since it tells us, “count for yourselves.”

The count begins the day after a Sabbath. But which Sabbath?

Modern rabbis say that Sabbath is the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is always on Nisan 15. So modern Jews always count fifty days from Nisan 16 to Sivan 6, and they celebrate Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks) on that day.

But there are three scriptures that prove the tradition of the rabbis is not correct.

First, Leviticus 23:16 says we must “Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath.”

The seventh Sabbath can only refer to a weekly Sabbath, on a Saturday. And the day after Saturday is always Sunday. So according to Leviticus 23:16, Pentecost is always on a Sunday. That also means that the count always begins on a Sunday, the day after a weekly Sabbath.

Second, Joshua 5:11 shows that sometimes the wave sheaf must be offered on Nisan 15. This means that the rabbis who teach the wave sheaf must always be offered on Nisan 16 are not correct.

Notice that when the Israelites entered the land of Canaan, “they ate of the produce of the land on the day after the Passover, unleavened bread and parched grain, on the very same day” (Joshua 5:11). The Bible explains that they were not allowed to eat bread and parched grain until after they had offered the wave sheaf (Leviticus 23:14). They kept the Passover on Nisan 14 (Leviticus 23:5), and on Nisan 15 they offered the wave sheaf and began to eat unleavened bread and parched grain on the same day. So the count for Pentecost that year began on Nisan 15, not Nisan 16.

Third, notice the conversation between Mary Magdalene and Jesus on Sunday morning, after Jesus had risen from the grave. This is what my Bible says:

Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’” (John 20:17, NKJV)

The word “cling” should be translated as “touch,” as it is translated everywhere else in the Bible. Jesus told Mary not to touch Him because He had not ascended to His Father yet. But later that day, He told His disciples to touch Him (Luke 24:39). That means that Jesus ascended to heaven on that Sunday and returned.

I have explained at other times that Jesus was buried on a Wednesday evening and rose three days and three nights later on Saturday evening, according to the scriptures (Matthew 12:40). But He did not ascend to heaven until Sunday morning, because Christ is the wave sheaf offering (compare Leviticus 23:9-14 and 1 Corinthians 15:22-23).

These scriptures show that the wave sheaf was always offered on the Sunday during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. So that is the day that we must count as the first of the 50 days to Pentecost.

To get the correct date for Pentecost this year, see the Hebrew Calendar.