Pentecost/Shavuot

Shavuot (Weeks) or Pentecost comes fifty days after First Fruits. Those fifty days are known as the Counting of the Omer. In the Old Testament, Shavuot/Pentecost was the time of the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai. Later, it would be a time of celebrating the wheat/grain harvest and remembering the giving of the Ten Commandments. In the New Testament, Jesus fulfilled this feast with the giving of the Holy Spirit. The same day that the Jews were celebrating God’s giving of His Torah (Law) on tablets of stone, the Holy Spirit came and wrote His Torah on people’s hearts!

This is one of the three Pilgrimage feasts (Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles). This means that Jewish men are required to come to Jerusalem to celebrate this feast and many bring their families with them too. At the time of the giving of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, many Jews still lived in other countries and did not permanently settle back in Jerusalem after they went into captivity during the deportation in Old Testament times. This is why Acts 2:5-11 tells us there were Jews from all nations there:

⁵Now there were Jews staying in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. ⁶And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. ⁷They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? ⁹Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.”

Here’s a chart to help visualize where they were from:

This chart compares God’s presence on Mt. Sinai at the giving of the Ten Commandments and God’s presence on Mt. Zion at the giving of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost:

Mt. Sinai in the Old Testament	Mt. Zion in the New Testament
The Exodus marked the birth of the Israelite nation	Pentecost marked the birth of Christianity
The people received the gift of the Torah (Law) written on tablets of stone	The people received the gift of the Holy Spirit, the law written on their hearts
Fire consumed the mountain visible to all, but people were kept at a distance.	Tongues of fire were distributed on each person
The mountain trembled	Violent rushing wind
People were amazed at God speaking from the mountain	People were amazed at the speaking in tongues in their language
3000 people died as a result of disobedience	3000 were saved as a result of acceptance
First fruits of the wheat harvest	First fruits of the spiritual harvest