Leviticus 23 Summary

The LORD instructs Moses to declare to Israel the appointed feasts and holy convocations, beginning with the weekly Sabbath. He then enumerates the annual feasts in calendar order: Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month; the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days beginning the fifteenth; the waving of the firstfruits sheaf with its accompanying offerings, followed by a fifty-day count to the Feast of Weeks with its wave loaves and sacrifices and a provision for leaving harvest gleanings for the poor and the stranger. In the seventh month, the first day is a memorial of trumpet-blowing; the tenth day is the Day of Atonement, a strict fast and rest on pain of being cut off; and the fifteenth day begins the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles, during which Israel is to dwell in booths and rejoice, commemorating God's sheltering of Israel in the wilderness after the Exodus. The chapter closes with Moses declaring all these feasts to the children of Israel.