The last of the Spring Feasts and the second of the pilgrimage feasts. That means every Jewish male has to come up to Jerusalem. It is celebrated on the 50th day after the Feast of First Fruits.

As an aside the word Pentecost comes from the Greek pentekoste which simply means 50th nothing else.
An ‘Omer’ was a unit of measure used for grain in Bible times.
This is the start of the wheat harvest and so there will be a first fruit wave offering.

King James Bible : 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 wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:

It has been 50 days since the last feast, First Fruits, and every evening since that feast the Jewish household has been counting the Omer or counting the sheaves, they say special prayers with meditation and reading from Psalm 119. Those who are observing the counting of the Omer will meditate first and recite the verse from Leviticus above preparing themselves. They will then continue by saying a blessing and will recite the omer count, and then read Psalm 67. Now watch this for symbolism. Psalm 67 has 7 verses (the number of weeks), in the original Hebrew there are 49 words(the number of days) and it will be read, meditated on and recited each evening of the count.

King James Bible : Psalm 67:
1: {To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm or Song.} God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; Selah.
2: That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.
3: Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee.
4: O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah.
5: Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee.
6: Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us.
7: God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.

In the synagogues during these weeks Psalm 119 will be read and meditated on. The people will also be mindful of the Ten Commandments, as we will see a little later in here that the first feast was the day the commandments were given on Mount Sinai.

The people are instructed to be mindful of this 50 day period, they take particular care in counting, in a prayerful manner, they are expecting a great work to be done by God on that 50th day, and in so doing they are making sure they are ready and prepared for whatever this event is. The gentile church has very few christians who pay any attention to these days, maybe if they did become a little more attentive, they might just see and experience a little more of God.

If you ask most gentile christians what is the feast of Shavu'ot, most will not have a clue, ask them about Pentecost and you will be told that it represents the day that the Holy Spirit was given, some may add that it was 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus and some may say it happened in the upper room. A fire has been lit that is true but that is not the full story. After all this feast was given 1500 years before the disciples were baptised in the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem. So what actually happened at the very first feast of Shavu'ot, good question, hold onto your hats and lets go find out.

The first feast takes place during the Exodus out of Egypt, exactly 50 days after the day they left Egypt, walking out of slavery into freedom. They are baptised along the way when they passed through the Red Sea, they have seen the Egyptian army destroyed in those very same waters, they are fed every day with manna, they have seen the pillar of smoke by day and pillar of fire by night, it has guided them during the day and protected them at night and now they are stood at the foot of mount Sinai, they have been told to prepare themselves for 3 days, and now they stand facing the mount, the trumpets, the thunder are loud a fiery furnace sits on top of the mountain and God has started shouting down His commandments, the noise is now exceedingly loud, so loud that mens chest are feeling like they will explode, we ask Moses to tell God to stop and to tell the rest to Moses. Whatever God says we will obey and agree to but please dont let us hear God talk to us like this again, ever. God calls Moses up into that furnace and says that the people have spoken well.

Now you can read the full story in the book of Exodus chapters 19, to chapter 33. So at the moment I will simply tell the story in my words. The above section, the giving of the Ten commandments is found in chapters 18 and 19, now jump ahead to chapter 31 for the giving of the tablets of stone. The in between chapters deal with more commandments, the Tabernacle, furniture and clothing for the priests when they are in the tabernacle.

God has inscribed His commands onto two stone tablets for Moses to give to the people, His word has been carved in stone, God is not going to change or alter this, but down in the main camp with all the people, trouble is brewing and mischief is being made. We pick up the story again in chapter 32 as Moses comes down the mount. Moses has been gone over 40 days at this point in time, the people have got restless and created a golden calf to which they have sacrificed just as they had been doing in Egypt for the last 400 years or so. God sees the golden calf and tells Moses to stand aside whilst He removes every single person with a blast of fire so that He can start again. Moses argues with God saying, "you could do that, easily, but then the nations will say that you brought them out of Egypt only to kill them", Moses reminds God about the covenant He had made with Abraham, now notice the next verse which says "King James Bible : Exodus 32:14: And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.", our God is a dynamic God, He will not go back on His word. However watch what happens when Moses sees the golden calf, he grinds it down into powder and makes the people drink it (apparently according to medical research this causes a diarrhea effect, so they could have got the gold back if they wished) Moses then orders the Levi to kill about 3000 men.

So you can see all the plagues in Egypt, you can walk through the parted Red Sea, you can watch as the entire Egyptian Army is killed, You can see God on top of the mountain, hear His trumpets, hear Him shout down the first 10 commandments and yet you can still sin to the extent that God wants to blast you from the face of the earth. Hmmm.

So let us jump forward 1500 years to Shavu'ot in Jerusalem, we have to turn to Acts chapter 2

King James Bible : Acts 2:
1: And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
2: And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
3: And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
5: And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.
6: Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
8: And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
...
41: Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.

First point notice how 3000 men were killed at Mount Sinai and then here as the Holy Spirit is given 3000 souls are added to the church.

Secondly, notice how as soon as the Holy Spirit fills each person there, they start talking in other tongues so that everyone in hearing distance can understand in their own language.

Thirdly, remember this is a pilgrimage feast so all the people who were here 50 days previously and witnessed Jesus crucified at Passover are here again.

Lastly notice verses 1 and 2, this gives the location. A question, how many of you have a room that can hold 3000 plus people plus a pulpit and a baptistry, there are not a lot of venues that can do that and yet most Christians believe this happens in the upper room, some will say this is the same room where Jesus ate the last supper. Sorry to tell you a slight mis-translation has happened in verse 2 "the house" should be "The House" and for those who do not know the difference, The House is The Temple, they are stood on the steps that lead into the courtyard of the temple. The steps are still there, the Mikvah's, pools for ritual immersion, about 6 of them have all be excavated. Tourists to this day sit on these steps as guides recount stories of the temple to them.
You can see a picture of one of the Mikvah's here, it will open in a new window..
You can also see these steps in some of the photographs on this page. You are looking for the stone steps up to "Double Gate" on the Southern Wall. We are on the slopes of Mount Moriah, here we find out the Abraham brought his son Isacc to sacrifice him to God, now also it is here that Jacob had his dream of the ladder up to heaven where the angels are seen both climbing up and down. Seems to be just the right place for the Holy Spirit to come down and dwell with Man. One thing I have found is we always have to come back to the starting point to see the end. God works in cycles, the New Jerusalem will be on top of the original City of David.

Now just a moment, let me take you back to Moses for one more snippet for you to notice. Once Moses got down to the camp and saw the golden calf, he broke the tablets that God had written the commandments on and that He Moses had carried down the mount. After Moses had ground down the calf and made the people drink it, he then had to climb back up the mount and carve the stone tablets himself, God did not write them the second time. A shadow picture of the covenant that had just been made, and quickly broken, will be re-written. Shavu'ot in Jerusalem, the re-newed covenant is finalised. Notice I say re-newed it is not a new covenant that Jesus has given to us, it is exactly the same covenant, but the new part is that it is carved onto our hearts

I feel I have to give a warning here about those who say that we must obey and celebrate these feasts.
King James Bible : Romans 14:
5: One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
6: He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.
We are clearly told here by the Apostle Paul that if you want to remember and celebrate a day unto the Lord, then do it, but if you do not wish to keep the celebration then dont. We are not allowed to judge anyone for doing it one way or the other. My thoughts here are why do you wish to hold onto the shadow picture of Jesus when you have the real Jesus living with you and in you.