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Bible Dictionaries
Pentecost
People's Dictionary of the Bible
or Pentecost. Acts 2:1. From a Greek word signifying fiftieth. The name in the New Testament for the second great festival of the Jews, called by them "the feast of weeks," or "the day of first-fruits." It was celebrated on the fiftieth day—hence the name—after the passover, reckoning from the second day of the passover—the 16th of Nisan—Leviticus 23:11; Leviticus 23:15, to the morrow after the end of the seventh week. Leviticus 23:15-16; Deuteronomy 16:9. It was originally a simple thanksgiving for the harvest, which in Palestine fell in the weeks between the passover and the pentecost. The festival was kept only for one day, and the principal rite consisted in the offering of two loaves made of the finest flour of the last crop's wheat. In some branches of the Christian Church pentecost is celebrated seven weeks after Easter, in commemoration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples, as the birthday of the Christian Church. See Acts 2:1-14
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Rice, Edwin Wilbur, DD. Entry for 'Pentecost'. People's Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/rpd/p/pentecost.html. 1893.
