Having now been equipped with the knowledge of some of the physical characteristics of barley, we can proceed to glean spiritual truths about barley in the Bible. In Genesis 1:11-12 it describes how the grasses were one of the very first things created by God.
Genesis 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
After He had separated the land from the sea, the next thing He did was to create the grasses. Although none are mentioned by name, barley is classified among the grasses. In ancient times Israel was an agrarian society and Yahweh commanded the Israelites very specifically about the harvest times.
He commanded feasts to be observed which centered around the three great harvest times of the Hebrew agricultural year. The first feast time began in the spring with the observance of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. During that time, the Levitical priest was to take a sheaf of the grain of the barley harvest and wave it before YHWH (Yahweh).
Leviticus 23:10 Speak 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 first fruits of your harvest unto the priest:
11 And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD [Yahweh], to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.
12 And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the LORD [Yahweh].
13 And the meat offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the LORD [Yahweh] for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin.
The next verse tells us that until this offering of worship was completed, no one was to partake of the harvest for food for himself.
14 And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched com, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
The word “corn” in the KJV generally means “grain,” not our modem corn. By the context here, it is specifically referring to the barley grain. Thus the people were not to eat it raw (“green ears”), nor cook it (“parched”), nor make it into bread until the first batch had been offered to God.
Then, when only that much, just the first fruits of the harvest, had been sanctified before Yahweh, the entire harvest was then considered sanctified, and the people could then reap and partake of the rest of the harvest. The instructions for the next feast observance are then given.
Leviticus 23:15 And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the [barley] wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:
16 Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD [Yahweh].
This, of course, is the Feast of Pentecost. The word “meat,” like “corn,” is another poor translation for modern English. What it means is another grain offering, a cereal offering. At this time of the year it is the wheat offering.
Just as the barley was “waved” before Yahweh, so too with the wheat—except that the wheat was first ground into meal (flour), mixed with leaven, and then baked (being divided into two loaves) and the loaves were offered to God along with animal and drink offerings.
Leviticus 23:17 Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the LORD [Yahweh].
18 And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be for a burnt offering unto the LORD [Yahweh], with their meat offering, and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savour unto the LORD [Yahweh].
19 Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings.
20 And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave offering before the LORD [Yahweh], with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the LORD [Yahweh] for the priest.
21 And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
This passage concerning the wheat harvest is also pregnant with symbolism, but our purpose in this study is to harvest the spiritual truths concerning barley.
In the autumn harvest, corresponding to our late September-early October, we find the third major feast time of the year commanded to the Israelites: the Feast of Tabernacles (Booths).
Leviticus 23:34 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, the fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD [Yahweh].
35 On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
36 Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD [Yahweh]: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD [Yahweh]: it is a solemn assembly; and ye shall do no servile work therein.
37 These are the feasts of the LORD [Yahweh], which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD [Yahweh], a burnt offering, and a meat offering, a sacrifice, and drink offerings, everything upon his day:
38 Beside the sabbaths of the LORD [Yahweh], and beside your gifts, and beside all your vows, and beside all your freewill offerings, which ye give unto the LORD [Yahweh].
39 Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the LORD [Yahweh] seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.
The spring harvest was of barley. The late spring-early summer harvest was of wheat, and in the fall, the gathering in of the crops was primarily from the orchards and the vineyards, which would be the olives and the grapes that Yahweh had commanded Israel to offer to him.
These are all great types or symbols of things to be played out on the tapestry of the history of the world. The feasts of Israel are prophetic in that sense. All of history hinges on the framework of Israel’s feast calendar.
In the ultimate sense, the three harvests represent times when God will make three great harvests of the souls of men. The cereal grains and the autumn produce (olives and grapes) all represent people—groups of people.
Remember the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13? Each harvest will occur in its appointed time. (Incidentally, the Hebrew word translated “feast” literally means “appointed time.”)
Moreover, each harvest will be in its proper sequence (order): first the barley, then the wheat, then the grapes and olives. Paul confirms this in his epistle to the Corinthians, speaking of the resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15:23 But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
What the Feasts Commemorate
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, and before zeroing in on the barley alone, we must proceed by first examining what these feasts commemorate in the natural, the literal meaning.
Passover commemorates the deliverance (salvation) and the redemption of our forefathers out of Egypt at the exodus. They were delivered—redeemed—from the hands of Pharaoh.
In Luke 1:77 Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, is prophesying about the soon-to-be-born Savior. He proclaims that He will be our deliverer and our redeemer and he will redeem us “from our enemies and the hand of all that hate us.”
What enemies (plural)? Is that referring only to death and “the devil?” In the churches of Judeo-Christianity, they often talk about being “saved” or redeemed, and many/most of them understand that about the only things they are to be redeemed from are sin and from the second death.
But Zechariah affirmed that we would also be redeemed from the hands of our enemies, those who hate us. He was referring to flesh-and-blood enemies just as the Israelites under Moses were delivered from the very real flesh-and-blood enemy armies of Pharaoh. Let us not give short shrift to God’s Word when He promises to deliver us from the hands of physical enemies and all that hate us.
When Christ was slain in the springtime at Passover, He was fulfilling the type which was given to us in the Old Testament. A lamb was selected on the tenth day of the first month (corresponding to our March-April) and sacrificed on the fourteenth day of that first month.
Christ was the lamb “slain from the foundation of the world,” the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. He fulfilled that type. The statute required that the lamb to be sacrificed was to be without blemish or spot. It had to be a perfect animal specimen.
Even so, Christ was the perfect, sinless, spotless man. But not only was Christ the sacrificial Lamb, but He also fulfilled the type of the wave sheaf offering of the barley.
Like an unblemished lamb, barley is a naturally, nearly perfect grain. The reason for this, as we saw earlier, is that it is planted in the winter and is a very hardy crop. It matures early. In the spring when other crops are just beginning to sprout, barley is mature.
Therefore, the barley is not plagued with the fungi, the molds, mildews, and other pestilences which can attack the later crops. It is unblemished. Nor does the barley need as much moisture as do the later crops.
Jesus was the pattern son. He was the first individual in history to fully mature, to come to perfection. The sheaf of barley was to be waved “on the morrow after the sabbath” (Leviticus 23:11). Thus we find Christ fulfilling that type ‘‘to a tee” on resurrection morning, the morrow after the sabbath.
John 20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
14 And when she had thus said, she turned herself “back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.
15 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.
16 Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
17 Jesus saith unto her, touch me not: for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father. and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
Mary Magdalene was not permitted to touch the Risen Savior yet because the statute commanded that the Israelites were not to partake of the barley until the wave sheaf offering had been made (Leviticus 23:14). In the above scene, it is about dawn.
The Levitical priests performed the wave sheaf offering at the time of the morning sacrifice—9 a.m., well after sunrise. Thus the risen Christ, as both the High Priest, and as the barley wave sheaf offering, needed to ascend to the Father in heaven in order to present Himself as the sheaf waved before God at the appointed time: 9 a.m.
With that offering having been accepted and sanctified, the entire Barley Company of people who have ever lived or who ever will live were all sanctified at that time as well.
Romans 11:16 For if the firstfruit be holy [set apart, sanctified], the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
As the prototypical individual Barley, Christ Jesus was the first to mature. Likewise, the believers in the Barley Company will come to maturity first. They will be harvested (i.e., resurrected or translated) before the Wheat Christians. The Barley Company are the Overcomers of all ages who will be raised in the first resurrection.
Revelation 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
(To be continued.)
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