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Notice that the King James Version specifies "seven sabbaths," but in the Torah it's just
"seven weeks." In the Masoretic Hebrew manuscript, it is clearly the word shabbat (sabbath),
NOT shabuwa (week). The difference is that the Torah makes it clear that the Omer count begins
from the "second day."

This starting point is confirmed in the Septuagint Version as "On the morrow of the first
day [of Unleavened Bread] the priest shall lift it up [the omer]." Leviticus 23:11. And, historians
Josephus and Philo both understood it this way.

Due to the lunar nature of the Hebrew months, every year Passover will fall on a different
day of our current commercial week. So, for example, let's say that the fist High Day of Unleav-
ened Bread falls on a Wednesday. We are to begin counting the "weeks" from the next day, Thurs-
day, when the Omer is waved. The count continues "unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath..."
Leviticus 23:16 (KJV).

So, if we begin counting on the day after the first day of Unleavened Bread, a Thursday,
and number 50 solar days only, we will arrive at a Thursday -- 5 days AFTER the seventh "Satur-
day" Sabbath, and 4 days after the seventh "Sunday" Sabbath. This is hardly the morrow after.

But IF we begin counting on that same day, and count seven lunar quarters, grouping the
New Moon sabbaths as ONE DAY (See Keeping Yahweh's Appointments, pages 61-63), the
49th day will fall right on the first quarter-moon Sabbath of the 3rd month. Then the following day
is the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost).

We cannot begin counting the day after the first day of Unleavened Bread (in a lunar posi-
tion), and then jump to the regular commercial week to end the count on the day after a Saturday or
Sunday "Sabbath."

To get around this, many Saturday keepers who also keep Unleavened Bread will arbitrar-
ily delay the beginning of the count to the day after the first Saturday following the first day of the
feast (which we hypothetically stated to begin on a Wednesday). There is no such "delay" pre-
scribed anywhere in scripture. To prescribe such an arbitrary method, without scriptural authority,
is adding to Yah's Laws -- which is strictly forbidden (Deuteronomy 4:2).

There are other problems that arise regarding a Saturday or Sunday "Sabbath" with the
proper counting method. For example, if the first day of Unleavened Bread was on a Friday, the
second day would, of course, fall on a Saturday "Sabbath." It would be unthinkable to perform the
omer count beginning on a Sabbath as it is clearly spelled out in every translation to be the day af-
ter a Sabbath, and particularly the first Sabbath [and High Day] of Unleavened Bread. Moreover,
since no work is to be done on the Sabbath, the grain could not be harvested on Saturday.

The reason why the specific term "seven sabbaths" is rendered vaguely as "seven weeks"
in the Torah version should now be obvious. To have left the term "seven sabbaths" side by side
with the clear description that the count begins on the day after the first day of Unleavened Bread
would have exposed the lunar nature of the Sabbath Day itself. Indeed, it tends to make the relig-
ious authorities declaring Saturday to be the Sabbath appear to be perpetuating a fraud.

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