`But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and

said...' (Acts 2:14).

We draw attention to the peculiar word used here for `said'

(apophtheggomai), which also occurs in Acts 2:4 in the phrase, `as the Spirit

gave them utterance'.  We are to understand by this that Peter's explanation

of the meaning of Pentecost was that it was an exercise of that recently

conferred power from on high.  We have elsewhere referred to the fact that

nearly every important act and word both of Peter and of Paul is echoed later

in the Acts.  The word apophtheggomai occurs but once more, namely in Acts

26:25, this time in the record of Paul's defence before Agrippa.  It is

suggestive that Peter rebuts a charge of `drunkenness' in Acts 2:14,15, and

Paul rebuts a charge of having become `mad' through much learning in Acts 26.

Pentecost was a season of rejoicing:

`Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven

weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn.

And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God with a

tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give

unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee:

and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and

thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite

that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the

widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord thy God  hath

chosen to place His name there' (Deut. 16:9 -11).

The reader may remember that the first epistle to the Corinthians keeps

count of several of Israel's feasts:

Passover -- `For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us'

(1

Cor. 5:7).

`The cup of blessing' (1 Cor. 10:16).

Unleavened bread -- `Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old

leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the

unleavened bread of sincerity and truth' (1 Cor. 5:8).

Firstfruits -- `But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the

firstfruits of them that slept' (1 Cor. 15:20).

Pentecost -- `I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost' (1 Cor. 16:8).

The passage in the Law that best sets out the feasts of the Lord and

the place of Pentecost is Leviticus 23.  The passage is too long for

quotation here, but the following outline will help to keep the whole festal

year before the reader.  While the length of Israel's year was the same as

our own, there are only seven months noted in the calendar of their feasts.

These feasts are prophetic, and set forth in type and shadow the whole course

of Israel's history from the day that they became a nation (Exod. 12:2) until

the great future day of ingathering at the time of the end.  The fact that

the Lord has used seven months only in which to show this typical unfolding

is but further evidence that the number seven is intimately associated with

the purpose of the ages.  The fact that creation occupied six days, followed

by a Sabbath of rest, indicates that at the very beginning, God had this

`rest' in view (Heb. 4:9).