THE FIGHT OVER FIFTY

by Richard Burkard


Suppose you began reading a book or binge-watching a TV series on Sunday morning. It's now Tuesday afternoon. How long have you been reading or watching it?

This may seem like simple math – but maybe it's not. I learned during my years in television news that the interval can be examined two different ways. The Associated Press probably would say you've been reading for three days – Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. But United Press International might say your reading time is “two days old,” based on Sunday to Monday being one full day.

Matters like this come up in the church as well – and even can split a church. Some people left the old Worldwide Church of God (now Grace Commmunion International) when Herbert Armstrong changed the day of the Pentecost celebration from Monday to Sunday in 1974. It's still a make-or-break issue for those who separated, while relatively new members of Church of God groups might not even know the issue came up.

I heard a COG ministerial trainee dare to give a message on this topic, defending Sunday as the proper day. This topic came up in passing, when I encountered a tract by "Scribbler" years ago. But this preacher's words challenged me to dig deeper. I had never proven to myself which day is proper for Pentecost. Have you?

One group which insists on Monday is Bethel Church of God, based in Oregon. Its article The Facts About Pentecost attempts to give a lengthy defense of its view – so lengthy that it took me weeks to review and study it all. With that article as a base, let's see if it's biblically sound and persuasive....


Biblical days are counted at their completion. For example, notice Genesis 1:5, 9 (margin)....

BAD REFERENCE. Bethel's verses link to the New King James, where verse 9 talks about waters being gathered so dry land can appear. The “margin” reference is never made clear, but surely they mean verse 8 “the second day” for explaining this topic.


A look at encyclopedias and other reference works demonstrates that the Sadducees, Samaritans, and Karaites began the count for Pentecost on the weekly Sabbath that fell during the Days of Unleavened Bread.

WRONG - or at least misleading. The three groups mentioned began counting on the morrow after the Sabbath, as Leviticus 23:15-16 (KJV) indicates. Our research on this led to the wonderful discovery that the Jewish Encyclopedia from 1906 is online. It states regarding this issue:

The Sadducees (Boethusians) disputed this interpretation, contending that "Sabbath" meant "Saturday." Accordingly they would transfer the count of "seven weeks" from the morrow of the first Saturday in Passover, so that Pentecost would always fall on Sunday.... The Karaites accepted the Sadducees' view.

Another website offers this regarding Samaritans: “According to the Samaritan interpretation, 'Shabbat' literally means Shabbat, and thus Shavuot must fall out on a Sunday” (found on TheTorah.com June 9, 2019).

Bethel cites the computing of the “year of jubilee” to make its point. Leviticus 25:8 specifies: “Count off seven sabbaths of years,” or “49 years”. A trumpet then is blown on Atonement (verse 9), to “consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants” (verse 10). (People who strictly argue for a “sacred year” beginning in the spring should note this.) Then Bethel continues....


Regarding Pentecost, we are told to count fifty days, not forty-nine. When the count is complete Pentecost is to be observed. God is consistent.

NOT ALWAYS – because the wording of the Old Testament is not consistent. When Moses presents the law a second time in Deuteronomy 16:9-10, he says, “Count off seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle in the standing grain. Then celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God....” (Bethel will get to this section much later in the article.) But this wording to “count off seven” matches Leviticus 25:8 in the Hebrew: “Caphar sheba” - with different things being counted, of course.

Did the second rendering by Moses get it wrong? My NIV Study Bible says the sickle went into the grain on “Abib 16, the second day of the Passover Feast” (1995 ed., p. 261). Bethel notes that specific date led to the Hasidim, Pharisees and Orthodox Jews eventually fixing Pentecost on Sivan 6, 50 days later.

This wording led us to ask: was the cutting date for the grain and the lifting of it for the wavesheaf offering one and the same? Apparently not. Many COG's say Jesus appeared before the Father shortly after His resurrection as a fulfillment of the “wavesheaf offering” of Leviticus 23:9-11. If that's true and we assume a Wednesday afternoon death, He did it on the fourth day of Unleavened Bread – and Bethel calls it “wavesheaf Sunday” in this article several times.


Judges 14:12 and 18 demonstrate the same thing. The Philistines were given seven days to solve Samson’s riddle.

DIFFERENT WORDING. Samson specified he wanted an answer “within the seven days of the feast.” The Philistine answer indeed came “before sunset on the seventh day.” The wording here is clear; a time limit was set and met. There's no mention of a follow-on event here, as Bethel indicates a feast of Pentecost would be.


The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia and the Jewish Encyclopedia.... reveal that the Sadducean count, which began on the day after the weekly Sabbath was the “old Biblical view.”

REVERSAL – with Bethel now admitting the count began on the day after, six paragraphs after claiming it started on the Sabbath!


Since there are three Sabbaths during the Days of Unleavened Bread....

NOT ALWAYS. There are occasional years where the seven-day Feast lasts from Sunday (day 1) to Saturday (day 7).


Also, the Sadducees do not seem to have taken the vigorous steps to kill Christ as did the Pharisees.

DOUBLE-TALK? Bethel also says two paragraphs before this that “many of the Sadducees were members of the Sanhedrin....” and that group wanted evidence to execute Jesus (Matthew 26:59/Mark 14:55).


Josephus’ view that the Sadducees believed that the soul perishes with the body seems to be an addition to what the Gospels indicate; the Gospels indicate that they simply denied the resurrection.

QUESTION-BEGGING. The Sadducee view on the resurrection is stated accurately, based on Mark 12:18. But if there's no resurrection of the soul (and Revelation 20:4 says there will be), what else would happen to the soul at a human's death? A “ceasing to exist,” as a Grace Communiion International Pastor once suggested would be the ultimate fate of Satan?


The Bible mentions “scribes of the Pharisees” which indicates there were “scribes of the Sadducees”....

PRESUMPTION. That phrase indeed occurs in Acts 23:9. But the Bible sometimes adds descriptions for clarification, not to imply an alternative. Another article on our website examines verses with wording such as “the Jews' passover” (John 2:13). Alternative “Christian” versions didn't exist yet – and other cultures certainly didn't have them.


There must be direct proof that Whitsunday was deliberately chosen by the church to replace the festival of Floralia to make the argument valid, otherwise the entire assertion is thin. The fact that Whitsunday often falls around the first of May is no proof that Whitsunday is pagan.

TRUE, BUT.... Whitsunday never “falls around the first of May.” If it comes seven Sundays after Easter (as Wikipedia defines it), the earliest that can happen in our time is May 13.


Yet some authorities, Lightfoot for example, regard the old rendering of “fully come” in Acts 2:1 to mean that the Christian Pentecost did not coincide with the Jewish.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, “FULLY”? This is the only place in the article where Bethel mentions that word, yet it's critical in the debate. The Greek word sympleroo can mean “to fill completely” (based on Thayer's Greek Lexicon), which supports Bethel's explanation about counting days at their completion. Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words explains it as “time to be fulfilled or completed.”

Yet note how the NASB translates this verse: “When the day of Pentecost had come [margin: was being fulfilled]...” Young's Literal Translation also takes that approach, while Darby offers, “And when the day of Pentecost was now accomplishing...” These renderings imply the “completion” of 50 days did not have to come for the amazing events of Acts 2 to happen!

Sympleroo appears two other times in the New Testament. A noteworthy case is Luke 9:51. “And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.” (KJV) Was Jesus “received up” at that very moment, when He “set his face to go”? Clearly not. Jesus had to get to Jerusalem first – and that didn't happen until Luke 19:28! (NIV translates the Greek word as “approached” here; NLT and ESV use “drew near”.)

Maybe this is why Bethel's article never mentions the other uses of sympleroo. It can also mean the process of fulfillment – not necessarily completed. The third New Testament case shows that, with Luke 8:23 describing a boat “filling with water” (ESV/RSV). Thus Acts 2:1 can mean a Pentecost day in the process of coming. My personal guess is that the Greek specified daytime, as opposed to the night before.


A look at Exodus, chapter nineteen, creates another problem for Sunday advocates. The events of the chapter indicate that “the same day” in verse one is a Thursday. Verse seven indicates a Friday. Verse ten refers to Saturday and Sunday.

HUH? No Biblical backing is given for any of this timing. It's apparently based on the “rabbinical tradition” that the law was given to Moses at Mount Sinai on the day of Pentecost. We must be careful not to mix “Jewish tradition” into Bible fact. Didn't Jesus warn against Jews nullifying the word of God “for the sake of your tradition”? (Matthew 15:6) But let's move farther with this....


If this is the case Sunday is a wash day-a work day. Verse eleven refers to Monday. The wash day took place just before Monday, the day the Lord appeared in the sight of the people upon Mount Sinai. If Pentecost fell on Sunday, then Saturday was the wash day [Exodus 19:10]-a work day. The weekly Sabbath cannot be a work day.

IS WASHING “WORK?” Hang onto your chair or smart-phone for this – because in the eyes of the Old Testament, it might not always be!

Consider the instructions for the Day of Atonement. “The man who releases the goat as a scapegoat must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water; afterward he may come into the camp” (Leviticus 16:26). The person assigned to burn sin offerings on that holy day had to do the same thing (verse 28).

Is anything mentioned here about waiting until after sundown on an annual holy day to do it? Keep in mind that no work of any sort was allowed on Atonement (verse 29) – and the high priest had to bathe at least twice to keep Atonement properly (verses 4, 24), which is something you're presumably not supposed to do on a fasting day.

The late COG evangelist Ronald Dart suggested the Azazel goat handler also did it after the main ceremony. And one Catholic Bible study indicates this was an “unclean until sundown” situation, with bathing “as evening approaches” (Deuteronomy 23:10-11). Otherwise, the two “side men” in the Atonement ceremony would have been outside the camp an extra day and missed the end-of-fast events.

(Keep in mind what Jesus said in John 7:23 – that children could be “circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken....”)

So to walk this back: I conclude ceremonial washing did occur on Atonement, based on Leviticus 16 – and that means washing can occur on weekly Sabbaths as well. (Especially since God gave a “washing warning” in Exodus 19:10.) BUT I hesitate to declare from this that church members can make Saturday morning a regular “laundry day.” These are special washings, for moments of uncleanness, explained in sections such as Leviticus 15.


Acts 2:1 is often quoted to prove Pentecost falls on Sunday. The word “Pentecost” means fifty....

WRONG. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance and Thayer's Greek Lexicon show the Greek word pentekoste means “fiftieth.” The word “fifty” is a similar, but different Greek word, pentekonta (see John 8:57 and other verses) This matters because if Pentecost was marked on the 50th day, that's different from counting to 50 and then marking it one day later.

Go back for a moment to Exodus 19. Bethel assumes from verse 11 that Monday is “the third day” when God would come down to Mount Sinai. Read on to verse 16: “On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning....” Moses then was called by God to the mountaintop (verse 20). Bethel doesn't mention it, but God meant “third day” there – not the day after Day Three.


The Greek text in Acts 2:1 should read: “And during the accomplishing of the day of Pentecost they were all with one accord in the same place.”.... the Christians were observing Pentecost as the various events recorded in Acts, chapter two, took place.... and Pentecost is observed on the fiftieth day.

MAKING OUR POINT – by using “accomplishing,” indicating an action in progress. (Review our thoughts on “fully come” above.) But wait: didn't Bethel say earlier that you don't observe Pentecost until the 50-day count is complete? Based on that claim, either the apostles (and, we suppose, the Holy Spirit) were a day early in Acts 2 or Bethel is talking out of both sides of its collective mouth.


According to the Hebrew numeration rule when the preposition min is used with respect to time, the count is inclusive (Gesenius’ Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament, 484-485).

WHERE IS IT? Check the “root transliterated reverse interlinear” Hebrew at BlueLetterBible.com, and you'll find no trace of min in Leviticus 23:15-16. (It's #4481 in Strong's.) BibleHub.com, which has an Interlinear Bible, doesn't show the Hebrew word there, either! So if it isn't there, all arguments about how to count with it are moot.

(Someone is putting the Gesenius Lexicon online, but it's a major undertaking with hundreds of pages. It was in progress as we prepared this article, and the pages Bethel mentions were not there yet.)


Jesus warned about both the Pharisees and the Sadducees. “Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees” (Matt. 16:12). Neither of these sects could be depended upon for counting Pentecost.

OUT OF CONTEXT. If we let the Gospels explain each other. Jesus said the “yeast of the Pharisees.... is hypocrisy” (Luke 12:2). Does that include a counting method?


The accusation that those who observe Pentecost on the fifty-first day is invalid. Why? Because the count ends with the completion of the fiftieth day. There is no fifty-first day.

WHY NOT? God dares in Leviticus 23 to call what some consider the “Last Great Day” the “eighth day” of the fall festival season (verses 36, 39). The separate holy day is added to the Tabernacles count. The word “51st” admittedly isn't in the King James Bible. But neither is “50th” in terms of counting days - so why can't the same wording apply to Pentecost?

Bethel clearly is playing semantical games, by saying a 50-day “count” plus the one day it keeps does not equal 51 days – that perhaps Monday should be the real first day of “Whitsuntide.” United Methodists declare seasons like that; I know because I grew up as one. Trouble is, they and other groups start on the “sun” - as in Sunday.

(I personally wondered long ago why all COG's don't hold Pentecost services at 9:00 a.m., following the example stated in Acts 2:15. If someone does, we haven't found it.)


A look at Leviticus 23:15-16 shows that the word “even” at the beginning of verse 16 is the preposition ad. This same preposition is used in Exodus 12:18.... The italicized word “until” is the preposition ad.

DISPUTABLE. Blue Letter Bible and BibleStudyTools.com show no ad in that Exodus verse. ”Until the one” is combined into the Hebrew word echad, which can mean “one” (as in “one and twentieth day”) or “first” (see Genesis 1:5). BUT BibleHub.com indicates ad IS there (it's #5704 in Strong's) – and the Hebrew lettering matches Blue Letter Bible.

But does any of this matter? “Until” here refers to a length of time, and Exodus 12:18 clearly sets the boundaries for that length: “...from the evening of the 14th day until the evening of the 21st day.” YET all COG groups agree the first day of Unleavened Bread actually is Abib 15. The change of wording from “at even” in KJV (“between the two evens,” some COGs would be quick to tell you) might confuse some people into doing things early.

(By the way, the Bethel article claims certain words are italicized – but the version we found online has nothing that way. We copied directly off their web page.)


There are a number of Bible examples that show the use of min and ad together in counting. Look at 1 Samuel 8:8. Should we assume that the Israelites had forsaken God up to this day, but on this day were no longer idolaters? Clearly this day is included in the time period spoken of here. We see the same thing in various other passages.

WHAT COUNTING? None of the verses listed in this section involve calculating days at all (say from one to 50). They refer to a general length of time – such as, “From the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day” in I Samuel 8:8.

One verse cited by Bethel is Numbers 14:19: “.. you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until [ad] now.” But that preposition appears five other times in the chapter – including a reference to future time (verse 33) and distance (verse 45 “to Hormah”). So that Hebrew word can be used in many ways – and if we think about it, that's true with English prepositions such as “until” as well.

In addition, these verses have ad without min. We used the Hebrew Interlinear Bible at BibleHub to check that.


In Exodus 10:6 Moses told the Egyptians the land would soon be filled with locusts, and that they had seen nothing like it since they were upon the earth until this day. The plague came a day later (verse 13), so was “until this day” in verse six excluded?

DIFFERENT USAGE. Bethel jumps back to min here, and it occurs twice in verse 5 (not 6, per BibleHub). At least one case refers to a location (KJV “out of the field”). The other could be argued either as a time or location (KJV “from the hail”; NIV “after the hail”).

Strong's actually assigns two different numbers for min. This part of Exodus (at least in BibleHub, missing in Blue Letter Bible) is #4480, which Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon says can mean “a part taken out of a whole.” To require that the word always refers to a count seems improper.

(Ad is in Exodus 10 as well – but in verses 3, 7 and 26.)


In 1 Samuel 30:17 it tells us that David smote the Philistines “from twilight even unto the evening of the next day.” Should we assume “the evening of the next day” was excluded from this time period?

DIFFERENT VERSES. Ad is in verse 17, “until the evening of the next day”; min is in verse 19, referring to the captured people (“neither small nor great” KJV). Besides, this clearly refers to a period of about 24 hours; what is there to count here?


When the priests of Baal called on Baal “from morning even until noon” was noon excluded from this demonstration? (1 Kings 18:26). All these texts clearly show that when ad was used with min to delineate a duration of time, the end of the period was included as a part of that time.

KEEP READING. “Midday passed,” verse 29 records, and frantic activity continued “until the time for the evening sacrifice” - presumably three hours later. And by the way, min is not in this chapter either.


A number of Bible examples using mimaharat (on the morrow).... The only text that makes the beginning of the day plain is Numbers 33:3. We know this means the beginning of the day because the Israelites did not leave the land of Egypt until the night of the fifteenth. [Exodus 12:41-42]

PERHAPS OTHERS. One paragraph above this, Bethel mentions I Samuel 30:17: “David fought them from dusk until the evening of the next day.” Remember that to Bethel, “the beginning of the day” really is sunset – so shouldn't this “evening” also be the beginning of a day, to be consistent? (It's the same Hebrew word as Genesis 1:5.) So....


To insist that mimaharat means the count is from the beginning of the day is strictly an interpretation.

AGREED – and so is Bethel's view on several fine points here, such as the “51st day” defense. Mimaharat (or mochorath at BlueLetterBible, Strong's #4283) can mean different times of day, much as min can have different meanings in different verses.


The fact is that Leviticus 23:15-16 is the only text in the Bible that uses mimaharat in tandem, that is, at the beginning of the count and the end of the count.

NOT EXACTLY. The Hebrew word also seems to do that in Joshua 5:11-12. Bethel is coming to that.

We pause here and ask: As you check all these verses, are you reviewing them completely? Reading the entire verse, instead of quickly noting the wording about timing? Several of them have deeper messages, which could call on you to self-examine and repent.


There are numerous Bible examples which show how God counts time. Let us notice a few. In Genesis, chapter one, we find days are not counted until they are complete with both the evening and the morning included.

KEEP READING. Have you noticed the seventh day of creation week (Genesis 2:1-3) never has that “evening and morning” description, like the first six days do? Didn't Bethel tell us earlier that “God is consistent”? In some things, yes – but not here.

Let's think deeper about this. The only time a morning is mentioned in connection with a Sabbath is in terms of storing up manna for the seventh day, in Exodus 16:23: “Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.” This is similar to Moses's warning not to keep a day's manna “until morning” in verse 19.

Of course, the manna appeared after the morning dew (verses 13-14). Doesn't this show God adjusted His timing when it came to food, to a “morning and evening” clock – with baking and boiling allowed to prepare dinner? Maybe God is more flexible with time than some think!


There are numerous Bible examples which show how God counts time.... In Genesis, chapter one, we find days are not counted until they are complete with both the evening and the morning included. In Genesis 7:4 God said the rain would last for forty days. This is confirmed in verse twelve....

YES, BUT.... Notice the wording in chapter 7: “forty days and forty nights....” If God is so adamant about the evening (sunset) beginning a day, why would He mention days before nights here? Bethel later notes the time between the crucifixion and resurrection was “three full days and nights” - and it mentions days first. Why aren't they consistent?


A famine was prophesied for a seven year period under the hand of Elijah.

WRONG. It was Elisha who pronounced this in II Kings 8:1-3.


All these examples of time show how the Bible counts days. They are counted to their completion, not when the last day of the count is incomplete.

YES, BUT.... This excerpt follows Bethel quoting Jonah 1:17 and Matthew 12:40. Yet notice the wording in these two verses: "three days and three nights" - stated at one point by Jesus Himself! Again, if the Son of God really wanted to show "how the Bible counts days," why didn't He say "three nights and three days"? Especially since He died at around the ninth hour of the day (Matthew 27:46)? Practically every translation, including the Greek interlinear, agrees on that order of phrasing.

We'd also ask about the fast for Esther. She requested a fast "for three days, night or day" (Esther 4:16) - then she took action "on the third day" (5:1). She apparently didn't wait for the day to be completed at sunset. And God blessed her actions, anyway!

(There's also the changing uses of "the third day" between Luke 24:7 and 24:21 - but we'll leave that one for you to ponder.)



To say the church was in error on the proper day of Pentecost is to make Christ out to be derelict or to be a liar! We are not called into error. True Christians are called into the truth, not into a forty year mistake! Was the Worldwide Church of God led into the truth or was it not? If not, then it was never the true church.

THE “ALL-IN” QUESTION – and as big for COG members now (including myself) as it was when a great divide occurred in the former WCG during the mid-1990s. The deeper question -- based on John 16:13, which Bethel cites right before this excerpt -- is one Pontius Pilate asked in Jesus's presence: Who or "what is truth"? (John 18:38)

"I am the way, the truth and the life," Jesus said of Himself in John 14:6. I John 5:6 adds that the Holy Spirit "is the truth," truly guiding believers "into all truth" (John 16:13). Is that truth referring to Jesus and the Holy Spirit - or a package of doctrines based on days of the week? Methinks COG's tend to overemphasize the latter, by quoting John 17:17 more than those other verses.

But isn't it really BOTH? And which is greater - the Law or the Lawgiver? Galatians 3:24 says the law "was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ" (KJV). Jesus "accomplished the purpose for which the law was given" (Romans 10:4, NLT) - the Lord who is "our lawgiver" (Isaiah 33:22).

I made the same argument during the 1990s that Bethel makes, when it came to the old WCG changing the weekly Sabbath. Why would God lead me out of a mainstream denomination to do and keep something that was false and wrong? Critics would say I was at least misled by "the commandments of men" (Mark 7:7), every bit as much as COG preachers say the world's mainstream ministries are. I believe God has shown me much more from His Bible since that great schism - things that at times endorse COG positions, and at times do not. Is "growing in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (II Peter 3:18) a static thing that stopped in 90 A.D.? Or 1974? Or 1986? Should it ever stop?



What does the Bible say about scholars? Can we have confidence in the mental capabilities of men in spiritual matters?

AGREED, BUT.... Bethel cites several verses here, but not Isaiah 29:14. "...The wisdom of the wise shall perish, and the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish." Is Sunday Pentecost based solely on "scholars" – or are we showing it has a more solid Biblical base than Bethel's view?


But what happened after the doctrinal change on Pentecost and divorce and remarriage. It was as though someone had placed blinders on the eyes of all but a few of the church members. It was as though God had removed His Spirit from His church.

NOT EXACTLY. WCG membership increased for about ten more years, after the 1974 adjustment to a Sunday Pentecost. The slide began after Herbert Armstrong's death in 1986, in part due to splits by ministers such as Gerald Flurry and Rod Meredith.


Those who kept a Monday Pentecost had a long spiritual precedent-forty years of blessings with faith and confidence in the truth. But those who went to a Sunday Pentecost had only scholars to rely on.

HUH?! Where did Bethel (and perhaps the old Radio Church of God) get a Monday Pentecost idea in the first place? Did a "still small voice" speak to Herbert Armstrong in a prayer or a dream? Or did he study books in an Oregon library? His own autobiography shows he studied plenty of books, probably including some written by “scholars” - however you define that (Vol. 1, pp. 295-296).

We'd note that the very next paragraph of Bethel's article cites the Encyclopedia Judaica, “McClintock and Strong” (whomever they are; the source is not mentioned) and the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. If these are not works of “scholars,” what is?


Sivan 6 advocates say the wavesheaf offering must follow the first high day or it would be impossible to eat bread during the Days of Unleavened Bread. Leviticus 23:10 shows this command refers to the new harvest, not to stored grains from the previous year.

IMPRECISE. We think Bethel is referring to this command: “Do not eat any bread or roasted grain or fresh kernels on that day until you bring this offering to your God.” That's verse 14, although it refers back to verse 10.


The idea that the Apostle Paul as a former Pharisee continued to keep a Sivan 6 Pentecost is an assumption.... Many scholars realize there is much that is not known about Jewish customs and practices during Christ’s time. The truth is: At the present all the facts are not available.

YES, BUT.... If that's true, isn't it also an assumption to conclude the apostle kept Pentecost on a Monday?


To sustain a Sivan 6 Pentecost “Sabbaths” in Leviticus 23:15-16 is interpreted to mean “week.” Sabbath never means “week” in the Bible. Gesenius is in error.... The Hebrew word for “week/s” is shabuot. It is a plural noun usually translated “weeks.” The singular shabuah means week.

HUH? Both the singular and plural form appear in the KJV of verse 15 – and Strong's has the same Hebrew word for both! It's shabbath (#7676). The Hebrew Interlinear agrees with this view.

Shabua (#7620), or “a week,” only appears once in Leviticus – in 12:5, referring to uncleanness after childbirth. BUT it also appears in Exodus 34:22, mentioning “the Feast of Weeks.” Bethel never mentions that verse, but mentions another case that we brought up before....


Deuteronomy 16:9-10 uses shabuot but is illustrating another way to count Pentecost. It decidedly does not use shabbat.

YES, BUT.... Since Bethel contends things are counted at their completion, would it not agree that a Biblical “week” is complete when seven days have ended – which would include a Sabbath, wherever the count begins? Bethel will dig into these verses later.


Shabbat is never translated “week” in the Old Testament of the Authorized Version, and any other translation that does so violates the literal meaning of shabbat.

YES, BUT.... Don't overlook Leviticus 25:8, which refers to “sabbaths of years” (KJV) for computing the year of jubilee. And what about 26:34-43, which refers to land sabbaths? That's a seven-year count. (See also II Chronicles 36:21.)


The following texts contain the word haShabbat. The reader is asked to examine them carefully.... All these texts use haShabbat and clearly refer to the weekly Sabbath.

MAYBE NOT ALL. The lengthy list includes Nehemiah 10:33, where an agreement to serve is made “for the offerings on the Sabbaths, New Moon festivals and appointed feasts....” Sabbaths is plural here – yet it's in a list which includes feast days. How many COG ministers have claimed the use of “Sabbaths” in the Bible refers to both weekly and annual days?.


One of the arguments listed by McClintock and Strong in support of a Sivan 6 Pentecost is that the word “Passover” used in Joshua 5:11 is the equivalent of haShabbat. Therefore, haShabbat refers to one of the high Sabbaths. However, Passover is not a high Sabbath day but can fall on a weekly Sabbath.

INACCURATE QUOTING. We satisfied our curiosity and tracked down the unnamed “McClintock and Strong” work online. Its Pentecost entry says Joshua 5:11 “shows that.... Lev. 23:11 denotes the first day of Passover, which was to be a day of rest.” So the reference really is to Leviticus – and verse 11 mentions a “day after the Sabbath,” following the rest on Day 1 of Unleavened Bread.

“Passover” can be a synonym for the entire spring Unleavened Bread season. It's described that way in Deuteronomy 16:1-4 and Luke 22:1. We'd also add that the phrase “high day” occurs only once in the KJV, in John 19:31. NIV uses the term “special Sabbath,”


Hebrew numeration always includes the beginning and the end, that is, the terminus a quo (beginning) and the terminus ad quem (ending). See the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, s.v. “Pentecost.”

KEEP READING. Another great find we made on the Internet from this article is access to that COG-loved 11th edition! The next sentence after the mention of terminus a quo and terminus ad quem states: “On this fiftieth day two wave-loaves made from the produce of the fields.... are offered together....” On the 50th, not the day after!

The encyclopedia article goes on to discuss the ancient controversy over how to count the days. It notes, “The later Jews also extended the one day of the feast to two.” Is this an “either-or” compromise that COG's would accept – keeping Pentecost on either Sunday or Monday, or both if you wish? Or should we be possessive of one day as being “the right day,” as Bethel seems to be – arguing it's the only one that God possibly could accept?


What has been overlooked in all this is Joshua 5:2-3 and 8. Circumcision is a debilitating operation. Is it possible the Passover could have been prepared and observed a few days after this surgery?

YES, IF.... If the women had not been circumcised, and could do the preparation! The context of verses 4-7 indicates only the males were circumcised here.

“Female genital mutilation.... is neither mentioned in the Torah, nor in the Gospels.... female circumcision was never allowed in Judaism, according to the Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion,” said the African Journal of Urology in September 2013.

Bethel concludes the Passover of Joshua 5 occurred in the second month. We would note the second month isn't specified in verse 10, as it is in other places such as II Chronicles 30:2. - but is this matter really essential to this topic?


Could a wave sheaf offering from Canaanite grain have been acceptable to God? Not at all! Notice Leviticus 22:24-25....

HUH?! These verses are about animal sacrifices, not grain. And “their corruption.... [and] blemishes” (Bethel quotes KJV) may not have anything to do with a different nation and its people; NIV translates this as animals which “are deformed and have defects” - just as deformed people were barred from presenting offerings (21:16-23). No scripture indicates blemished grain (whatever that means) was banned from being an offering.

By the way: where did ancient Israel get grain or “fine flour” to offer in the first place? People wandering in the wilderness couldn't settle down and grow crops – and held-over flour made from manna would have bred worms and stunk, based on Exodus 16:20. We'll leave you with this blogger's theory about it, but we welcome your ideas.


Deuteronomy 16:9 states, “Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn” (Deut. 16:9). Wavesheaf Sunday was taken up with the (omer) offering. The harvest could not begin until this was complete. Since we have no min associated with this count, it is not inclusive. Day one of this count, then, would be Monday. The end of the count would coincide with the last day of the fifty-day count of Leviticus 23:15-16. But the count must be complete. Thus, Pentecost would fall on a Monday.

BUT YOU SAID…. Didn't Bethel say earlier that based on Leviticus 23, the count starts on Sunday? And the Sadducees' problem supposedly was that they only counted 49 days, then kept Pentecost on Sunday?

Based on Bethel's own logic, a count beginning on Monday would have Day 50 on Monday.... and then Pentecost (no, not Day 51) would have to occur on Tuesday! This group apparently is trying to refute Pentecost falling on a fixed Sivan 6 in this section (it's a bit confusing to me) – but Bethel can't have it both ways.

Should there be an “off day” between the Wavesheaf Sunday ceremony and the start of a 50-day count? One small Sabbath-keeping group in California offers this simple explanation against such thinking: “The ceremony begins the harvest of the crop, after all.” John Calvin's commentary on Leviticus 23:10 says it “represented.... the begnning of the harvest.” The Jameson, Fausset and Brown commentary concurs with this.

Another small group in Arizona which accepts this idea adds, “The people harvested enough grain later this day to make unleavened bread.” This would explain what the Israelites did in Joshua 5. And remember that Wavesheaf Sunday is normally not a holy day, so work could be done.


The whole sabbaton theory is lacking in substance and should be discarded as having any weight for proof of a Sivan 6 Pentecost.

AGREED. Bethel cites Acts 16:11-13 as a place where some people argue for a Sivan 6 Pentecost, “because had they met on the weekly Sabbath it surely would have been mentioned.” But the Greek word sabbeton there can refer to weekly Sabbaths; it does in Mark 1:21 and Acts 13:27, among other places.

But check a concordance for sabbaton and you'll find a big surprise. The Greek word also is translated “the first day of the week”! It's that way at the end of all four gospels! Herbert Armstrong's booklet The Resurrection Was Not on Sunday never directly addressed that wording. It's not our topic here, but we encourage you to study it on your own.

The last section of Bethel's article asks, “Can the Septuagint Be Relied Upon?” We have not cited the Greek Old Testament in our article, so that's not our issue. But check Bethel's conclusion....


What should be clear to any objective reader is that Pentecost should be counted from the weekly Sabbath during the Days of Unleavened Bread.... Only a Monday Pentecost meets the Bible requirements for the correct observance of this holy day.

WRONG. The error from the beginning of the article is repeated. Yet Bethel twice quoted Leviticus 23:15, which says: “From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks.” Not the sabbath during the spring festival – the day after it!

The entire debate over when to keep Pentecost may come down to a simple four-letter word, which Bethel never analyzes. What do we mean by “from,” in terms of measuring time?

Exodus 12:15 in KJV warns against eating leavened bread “from the first day until the seventh day”. Does that “from” mean the rule begins on the second day? Of course not, and no COG to our knowledge teaches that. It's understood as a seven-day festival: Day 1 is the first day. Day 2 the second, etc.. Yet Bethel's statements about the Pentecost count suggest that's how the Sadducees reasoned it.

On the other hand, consider Nehemiah 5:14. Nehemiah said he was governor “from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes.... until his thirty-second year – twelve years....” The only way this makes mathematical sense is by counting intervals. From Year 20 to Year 21 is the first year, Year 21 to Year 22 is the second year, etc. And what if Nehemiah became governor in the middle of the year? Would Bethel insist the year must be completed before it counts?


Conclusions

I conclude Bethel Church of God's defense of a Monday Pentecost falls short in several ways. Summing them up:

Yet several reference sources we checked agree with Bethel, that the debate over the date of Pentecost has been going on since ancient times. Based on what I reviewed and presented here, I think the Sunday-keepers have it right – even if it puts them in the same league as mainstream denominations which also mark Pentecost, while perhaps not completely keeping it. May you “count the cost” in how you keep Pentecost.

P.S. 2021: We were surprised to learn around Pentecost 2021 that 2020 was "the last year of operation" for Bethel Church of God. We have no idea whether this article had anything to do with that.


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