Firstfruits

The wave sheaf of barley was lifted before Him on the 16th of Aviv (Lev 23:10-11), and at Shavuot two loaves "baken with leaven" were presented as "the firstfruits unto Yahuah" (Lev 23:17). Jeremiah applies the image to a people: "Israel was holiness unto Yahuah, and the firstfruits of his increase" (Jer 2:3). The book reads the barley sheaf as the Messiah's resurrection and the 144,000 as the Shavuot loaves: set apart before the larger harvest, not sinless by nature but wholly presented. The dispensational claim that they are an ethnic remnant of a future tribulation is answered by the text: they were "redeemed from among men" (Rev 14:4).