John Lightfoot on Matthew 12:1

[At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn.] The time is determined by Luke in these words, on the sabbath from the second-first.

I. Provision was made by the divine law, that the sheaf of firstfruits should be offered on the second day of the Passover-week, Leviticus 23:10,11: On the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall shake [orwave] it. Not on the morrow after the ordinary sabbath of the week, but the morrow after the first day of the Passover week, which was a sabbatic day, Exodus 12:16; Leviticus 23:7. Hence the Seventy, the morrow of the first day; the Chaldee, after the holy-day. The Rabbins Solomon and Menachem, on the morrow after the first day of the Passover-feast: of which mention had been made in the verses foregoing.

II. But now, from that second day of the Passover-solemnity, wherein the sheaf was offered, were numbered seven weeks to Pentecost. For the day of the sheaf and the day of Pentecost did mutually respect each other. For on this second day of the Passover, the offering of the sheaf was supplicatory, and by way of prayer, beseeching a blessing upon the new corn, and leave to eat it, and to put in the sickle into the standing corn. Now the offering of the first fruit loaves on the day of Pentecost (Lev 23:15-17) did respect the giving of thanks for the finishing and inning of barley harvest. Therefore, in regard of this relation, these two solemnities were linked together, that both might respect the harvest: that, the harvest beginning; this, the harvest ended: this depended on that, and was numbered seven weeks after it. Therefore, the computation of the time coming between could not but carry with it the memory of that second day of the Passover-week; and hence Pentecost is called the 'Feast of weeks' (Deut 16:10). The true calculation of the time between could not otherwise be retained as to sabbaths, but by numbering thus: This is the first sabbath after the second day of the Passover. This is the second sabbath after that second day. And so of the rest. In the Jerusalem Talmud, the word the sabbath of the first marriage, is a composition not very unlike.

When they numbered by days, and not by weeks, the calculation began on the day of the sheaf: "A great number of certain scholars died between the Passover and Pentecost, by reason of mutual respect not given to one another. There is a place where it is said that they died fifteen days before Pentecost, that is, thirty-three days after the sheaf."

At the end of the Midrash of Samuel which I have, it is thus concluded; "This work was finished the three-and-thirtieth day after the sheaf."

III. Therefore by this word the second-first, added by St. Luke, is shown, first, that this first sabbath was after the second day of the Passover; and so, according to the order of evangelic history, either that very sabbath wherein the paralytic man was healed at the pool of Bethesda, John 5, or the sabbath next after it. Secondly, that these ears of corn plucked by the disciples were of barley: how far, alas! from those dainties wherewith the Jews are wont to junket, not out of custom only, but out of religion also! Hear their Gloss, savouring of the kitchen and the dish, upon that of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 58:13: "'Thou shalt call the sabbath a delight':--It is forbidden," say they, "to fast on the sabbath; but, on the contrary, men are bound to delight themselves with meat and drink. For we must live more delicately on the sabbath than on other days: and he is highly to be commended who provides the most delicious junkets against that day. We must eat thrice on the sabbath, and all men are to be admonished of it. And even the poor themselves who live on alms, let them eat thrice on the sabbath. For he that feasts thrice on the sabbath shall be delivered from the calamities of the Messias, from the judgment of hell, and from the war of Gog and Magog." 'Whose god is their belly,' Philippians 3:19.

IV. But was the standing corn ripe at the feast of the Passover? I answer,

I. The seed-time of barley was presently after the middle of the month Marchesvan; that is, about the beginning of our November: "He heard that the seed sown at the first rain was destroyed by hail; he went and sowed at the second rain, &c.: and when the seed of all others perished with the hail, his seed perished not." Upon which words the Gloss writes thus; "The first rain was the seventeenth day of the month Marchesvan; the second rain, the three-and-twentieth day of the same month; and the third was in the beginning of the month Chisleu. When, therefore, the rain came down, that which was sown at the first rain was now become somewhat stiff, and so it was broken by the hail; but that which was sown at the second rain, by reason of its tenderness, was not broken, &c. Therefore the barley was sown at the coming in of the winter, and growing by the mildness of the weather, in winter, when the Passover came in, it became ripe: so that from that time (the sheaf being then offered) barley-harvest took its beginning.

2. But if, when the just time of the Passover was come, the barley were not ripe, the intercalary month was added to that year, and they waited until it ripened: "For, for three things they intercalated the year; for the equinox, for the new corn, and for the fruit of the trees. For the elders of the Sanhedrim do compute and observe if the vernal equinox will fall out on the sixteenth day of the month Nisan, or beyond that; then they intercalate that year, and they make that Nisan the second Adar; so that the Passover might happen at the time of new corn. Or if they observe that there is no new corn, and that the trees sprouted not when they were wont to sprout, then they intercalate the year," &c.

You have an example of this thing: "Rabban Gamaliel to the elders of the great Sanhedrim, our brethren in Judea and Galilee, &c.; health. Be it known unto you, that since the lambs are too young, and the doves are not fledged, and there is no young corn, we have thought good to add thirty days to this year," &c.

[And his disciples were an hungered.] The custom of the nation, as yet, had held them fasting; which suffered none, unless he were sick, to taste any thing on the sabbath before the morning prayers of the synagogue were done. And on common days also, and that in the afternoon, provision was made by the canons, "That none, returning home from his work in the evening, either eat, or drink, or sleep, before he had said his prayers in the synagogue."

Of the public or private ways that lay by the corn-fields, let him that is at leisure read Peah, chapter 2.