CONTENTS

The Pentateuch is a most important segment of God’s written Word, furnishing a solid foundation upon which much that follows firmly rests. Its first book, Genesis, gives us the inspired account of creation and also traces man’s history from Eden down through much of the patriarchal era to the death of Joseph (a period from c. 46,026 to 1657 B.C.E.). The second book, Exodus, begins with the death of Joseph, tells of Moses’ birth during a time of slavery, of the deliverance of God’s people from Egyptian bondage and the inauguration of the Law covenant at Sinai, and includes details for the construction of the central structure for worship, namely, the tabernacle in the wilderness (historic events from 1657 to 1512 B.C.E.). Leviticus, the third book, covering only about one month’s time (1512 B.C.E.), gives invaluable information about the Levitical priesthood, its ordination and duties, as well as laws and regulations governing the congregation’s obligatory support of Jehovah’s worship. The fourth book, Numbers, as its name implies, tells of the censuses taken near the beginning and end of the wilderness journey. It also gives us many details on the forty years of wandering (down to 1473 B.C.E.), and includes many laws embraced within the framework of the national covenant. The final book, Deuteronomy, covering about two months’ time (1473 B.C.E.), restates and expands the Law covenant with many ordinances necessary for the new generation of Israelites, poised as it was on the plains of Moab, ready to invade and occupy the Promised Land. The closing chapters tell of the appointment of Joshua as leader and the death of Moses.

WRITERSHIP

There is no single text saying that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch, but scattered throughout the material are explicit statements serving the same purpose. (Ex. 17:14; 24:4; 34:27; Num. 33:2; Deut. 31:9, 19, 22, 24-26) There are also many sections where the words are directly credited to Moses, beginning with his first recorded conversation (Ex. 2:13, 14) and continuing to his final blessing on the people (Deut. 33:1-29), including some of his lengthy speeches (Deut. 1:1; 5:1; 27:1; 29:2; 31:1) and notable songs. (Ex. 15:1-19; Deut. 31:30–32:43) The opening verses of twenty out of twenty-seven chapters of Leviticus tell us that what follows are the words of Jehovah spoken to Moses so he, in turn, could inform the people. The same is true in more than fifty instances in the book of Numbers. So, with the exception of the closing verses of Deuteronomy, the evidence within the Pentateuch itself shows that its writership properly belongs to Moses.

Many other passages in the Bible witness to the fact that the Pentateuch was from the hand of Moses. (Josh. 1:7; Judg. 3:4; 2 Ki. 18:6; Mal. 4:4) Such men as David (1 Ki. 2:1-3), Daniel (9:11), Ezra (6:18), Nehemiah (8:1), Jesus (Mark 12:26; Luke 16:29; John 7:19), Luke (24:27), and John (1:17), make references to this work as that of Moses. More directly to the point, Jesus acknowledged that Moses was the writer (Mark 10:3-5; John 5:46, 47), as did also the Sadducees.—Mark 12:18, 19.

PENTECOST

[Gr., pen·te·ko·steʹ, fiftieth].

A later name used to denote the Festival of Harvest (Ex. 23:16) or Festival of Weeks (Ex. 34:22), called also “the day of the first ripe fruits.” (Num. 28:26) Instructions for this festival are found at Leviticus 23:15-21; Numbers 28:26-31; Deuteronomy 16:9-12. It was to be celebrated on the fiftieth day from Nisan 16, the day that the barley sheaf was offered. (Lev. 23:15, 16) In the Jewish calendar it falls on Sivan 6. It was after the barley harvest and the beginning of the harvest of wheat, which ripened later than the barley.—Ex. 9:31, 32.

The Israelites were not allowed to begin the harvest until the firstfruits of the barley had been presented to Jehovah on Nisan 16. Therefore, in Deuteronomy 16:9, 10 the instructions are: “From when the sickle is first put to the standing grain you will start to count seven weeks. Then you must celebrate the festival of weeks to Jehovah your God.” Every male was required to attend, and, in connection with this festival, it is also stated: “You must rejoice before Jehovah your God, you and your son and your daughter and your man slave and your slave girl and the Levite who is inside your gates and the alien resident and the fatherless boy and the widow, who are in your midst, in the place that Jehovah your God will choose to have his name reside there.” (Deut. 16:11) The Passover was of the nature of a close family observance. The Festival of Harvest or Pentecost was in the nature of a more open and hospitable liberality, in this sense resembling the Festival of Booths.

The firstfruits of the wheat harvest were to be treated differently from the barley firstfruits. Two-tenths of an ephah of fine wheat flour (c. 1/8 bushel; 4.4 liters) was to be baked into two loaves along with leaven. They were to be “out of your dwelling places,” which meant that they were to be loaves like those made for the daily use of the household and not expressly for holy purposes. (Lev. 23:17) Burnt offerings and a sin offering went along with this, and as a communion offering two male lambs. The priest waved the loaves and the lambs before Jehovah by putting his hands underneath the loaves and the pieces of the lambs and waving them back and forth, signifying that they were presented before Jehovah. After the loaves and the lambs were offered, they became the priest’s for him to eat as a communion offering.—Lev. 23:18-20.

There is a slight difference in description of the other offerings (aside from the communion offering) in the account at Numbers 28:27-30. Instead of seven lambs, one young bull, two rams and one kid of the goats, as at Leviticus 23:18, 19, it calls for seven lambs, two young bulls and one ram and one kid of the goats. Jewish commentators say that the passage in Leviticus refers to the sacrifice to accompany the wave loaves, and the one in Numbers to the properly appointed sacrifice of the festival, so that both were offered. Supporting this, Josephus, in describing the sacrifices on Pentecost day, first mentions the two lambs of the communion offering, then combines the remaining offerings, enumerating three bullocks, two rams (evidently a transcriber’s error for three), fourteen lambs and two kids of the goats. (Antiquities of the Jews, Book III, chap. X, par. 6) The day was a holy convention, a sabbath day.—Lev. 23:19, 21; Num. 28:26, 30.

The festival of Pentecost came at the end of the early harvest of the year and was a time of rejoicing, as indicated by the communion offering presented by the congregation and which was given to the priest. This offering would also denote peaceful fellowship with Jehovah. At the same time the sin offering reminded the Israelites of sin on their part, and was a petition to God for forgiveness and cleansing. The increased burnt offering served as a practical expression of their gratitude for His bountifulness as well as a symbol of their wholeheartedness in carrying out their covenant relationship to God.

Not only was it specially appropriate for Israel to offer thanks to Jehovah on this day, but their poor brothers were not to be forgotten, as, after giving instructions on the festival, Jehovah commanded: “And when you people reap the harvest of your land, you must not do completely the edge of your field when you are reaping, and the gleaning of your harvest you must not pick up. You should leave them for the afflicted one and the alien resident. I am Jehovah your God.” (Lev. 23:22) Thus, the poor would have real incentive for thanking the Lord and enjoying the festival along with all others. There would also be many personal offerings of the firstfruits of the harvest during this festival.

According to rabbinical sources, after the exile the participants in the festival customarily went up to Jerusalem the day previous to its commencement and there prepared everything necessary for its observance. In the evening the blasts of the trumpets announced the approach of the festival day. (Num. 10:10) The altar of burnt sacrifice was cleansed, the gates of the temple were opened immediately after midnight for the priests and for the people who would bring the sacrifices for burnt offerings and for thanksgiving offerings to the court to be examined by the priests. Dr. Alfred Edersheim, in The Temple, comments (p. 228): “Before the morning sacrifice all burnt- and peace-offerings which the people proposed to bring at the feast had to be examined by the officiating priesthood. Great as their number was, it must have been a busy time, till the announcement that the morning glow extended to Hebron put an end to all such preparations, by giving the signal for the regular morning sacrifice.”

After the regular daily morning sacrifice was offered, the festive sacrifices described in Numbers 28:26-30 were brought. Afterward came the offering peculiar to Pentecost day—the wave loaves with their accompanying sacrifices. (Lev. 23:18-20) After the loaves were waved, one of them was taken by the high priest and the second was divided among all the officiating priests.

SYMBOLIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FESTIVAL

It was on the day of Pentecost that the holy spirit was poured out by Jesus Christ on the group of about 120 disciples in the upper room at Jerusalem in the year 33 C.E. (Acts 1:13-15) Jesus had been resurrected on Nisan 16, the day of the offering of the barley sheaf by the high priest. He was, in a figurative sense, without leaven, which represents sin. (Heb. 7:26) At Pentecost, he, as the great High Priest, could present to his Father Jehovah additional spiritual sons, the footstep followers of his taken from sinful mankind and who accepted his sacrifice. The approval of God and the presentation of his sacrifice were manifested by the pouring out of God’s spirit upon them. This forms a parallel to the offering of two loaves containing leaven. At Pentecost it was first the Jews who became Christ’s spiritual brothers. Later on, Cornelius and his family would initiate the entry of a second group making up the rest of the spiritual congregation, namely, the Gentiles.—Acts 2:1-4; 10:44-48.

The Jews traditionally hold that Pentecost corresponded to the time of the giving of the Law at Sinai, when Israel became a distinguished people. It was early in the third month (Sivan) that the Israelites gathered at Sinai and received the Law. (Ex. 19:1) Just as Moses as mediator was used to introduce Israel into the Law covenant, so Jesus Christ as Mediator of the Christian congregation now brought spiritual Israel into the new covenant. The apostle Paul draws a comparison from these two events, saying that Christians are gathered to a far greater assemblage at “a Mount Zion and a city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem,” under new covenant arrangements.—Heb. 12:18-24; compare Revelation 14:1-5.

Jesus had announced the new covenant to his disciples on the evening of his last Passover and, just before his ascension, had instructed them to wait at Jerusalem for the promised holy spirit. Now, as the apostle Peter explained, “because he was exalted to the right hand of God and received the promised holy spirit from the Father, he has poured out this which you see and hear.” (Luke 22:20; Acts 2:33) The presence of God’s spirit was manifested in miraculous speaking in different tongues by some 120 disciples. By this means the multitudes of Jews and proselytes from all parts of the Roman Empire could hear with intelligibility the “magnificent things of God.” (Acts 2:7-11) First at this time, by means of Peter, baptism in the name of the Father, Son and holy spirit was preached, as Jesus commanded at Matthew 28:19. (Acts 2:21, 36, 38, 39) Having gone into the heavens with the value of his sacrifice, Jesus was able to bring his followers into the new covenant.—Heb. 9:15-26.

These followers, then, with the 3,000 added that day (Acts 2:41) and others later, were not the very first firstfruits to God, for this was Jesus Christ himself, presented on Nisan 16 of 33 C.E. (1 Cor. 15:23), when the barley sheaves were waved. Rather, they were like the firstfruits of the wheat, a second crop, “certain first fruits” to God. (Jas. 1:18) They now became God’s new nation, God’s “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for special possession.”—1 Pet. 2:9.

PENUEL

(Pe·nuʹel) [face of God].

1. “Father of Gedor” in the tribe of Judah. (1 Chron. 4:1, 4) Since Gedor appears as the name of a town in Judah, Penuel may have been its founder or the ancestor of its inhabitants.

2. A family head in the tribe of Benjamin who lived in Jerusalem; son of Shashak.—1 Chron. 8:1, 25, 28.

3. The place near the ford of the Jabbok River where Jacob wrestled with the angel; hence he called the place Peniel (Penuel) because there he ‘had seen God face to face.’ (Gen. 32:22-31) In the time of the Judges, Gideon asked the men of Penuel for food in order that his forces might continue after the kings of Midian, but the Penuelites refused, for which reason Gideon later destroyed their tower and killed all their men. (Judg. 8:4-9, 17) Nothing more is mentioned of Penuel until King Jeroboam I “built” it again, or at least fortified it.—1 Ki. 12:25.

Penuel is generally identified with Tulul edh-Dhahab, about four miles (6.4 kilometers) E of Succoth on the Jabbok River some nine miles (14.5 kilometers) or so NE of its confluence with the Jordan. Indications are that it was heavily fortified and strategically positioned so as to control the entrance of the Jabbok gorge leading westward down to the Jordan. Similarly spelled names are found in Assyrian and Egyptian records relating to Palestine.

PEOR

(Peʹor) [an opening, a cleft].

In the account of King Balak’s efforts to get the prophet Balaam to curse Israel, the third vantage point to which Balaam was conducted is said to be the “top of Peor, which looks toward Jeshimon.” (Num. 23:28) From here Balaam could see the tents of Israel spread about on the Plains of Moab below.—Num. 22:1; 24:2.

Some consider Peor to be the abbreviated form of the name Beth-peor. (Deut. 4:46) However, this latter place is evidently a town, included as such in the territorial assignment of Reuben. (Josh. 13:15, 16, 20) Others, therefore, consider Peor to be a summit or peak and suggest that the town of Beth-peor may have been so named because of being situated on the slopes of such summit. Both Peor and Beth-peor appear to be connected with the pagan worship of “the Baal of Peor” (Num. 25:1-3, 18; 31:16; Josh. 22:17), and it is possible that the height of Peor was a center of such immoral worship.—See BAAL No. 4.

Balaam was first taken to Bamoth-baal, then to the “top of Pisgah,” and finally to the “top of Peor.” (Num. 22:41; 23:14, 28) The direction of movement is from S to N and seems to indicate that Peor was N of Pisgah and Mount Nebo. Based on the testimony of Eusebius and Jerome, of the third and fourth centuries C.E., the summit of Peor is suggested to have been one of the peaks bordering the Wadi Hesban.—See BETH-PEOR.

PERAZIM, MOUNT

(Pe·raʹzim) [breakings through].

A mount seemingly referred to elsewhere as Baal-perazim.—Isa. 28:21; see BAAL-PERAZIM.

PERES

(Peʹres).

Daniel used this Aramaic word when interpreting the handwriting on the wall, “MENE, MENE, TEKEL and PARSIN.” (Dan. 5:25, 28) Dr. Judah Slotki (Soncino commentary on Daniel) and