Last night, I watched Cecil B DeMille’s The Ten Commandments once again. I just love that movie, and I always notice something that somehow bypassed me in prior years.
In the movie, Moses learns he is a Hebrew, and he becomes a slave in order to sort out who and what he is. In the scene where he was standing in the mud pit stomping straw into the mud, it occurred to me that he was the original Undercover Boss.
OK, they did take some artistic license. However, the truth is contained in the Bible, and it outlines how God sent the Angel of Death to kill the firstborn in Egypt. Only those houses with the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts and lintels were spared. Later, God outlined His feast days, and the first of the annual days was the Passover, which was to be followed by seven Days of Unleavened Bread.
5In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD’s passover.
6And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
7In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
8But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. (Leviticus 23:5-8, King James Version)
Within this week, there was another ceremony that took place.
9And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
10Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest:
11And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. (Leviticus 23:9-11, King James Version)
Today, the day after the Sabbath during the Days of Unleavened Bread, would have been when this ceremony would have taken place. What was this ceremony about? What is its symbolism?
Feel free to check out my article on Associated Content “Reflections: Jesus as the Wave Sheaf”.