Primary source: H. P. Mansfield’s annotations in his Holy Bible, HPB 04-Deu01-Jud04.PDF, pp. 27–28. Mansfield’s separately published Deuteronomy Expositor is a distinct document and was consulted only as a secondary cross-check. This edited verse-by-verse study is based on the HPB notes; it is not the Expositor.
PASSOVER AND UNLEAVENED BREAD • WEEKS • TABERNACLES • THREE PILGRIMAGE APPEARANCES • GIVE ACCORDING TO BLESSING • JUSTICE, JUSTICE SHALT THOU PURSUE • NO ASHERAH OR CULT PILLAR BESIDE YAHWEH’S ALTAR
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
Deuteronomy 16 gathers Israel’s three pilgrimage seasons around memory, harvest, rejoicing and generosity, then joins worship with justice by turning to judges and officers.
The feasts are not a complete festival calendar. The chapter concentrates on the three occasions of national pilgrimage: Passover/Unleavened Bread, Weeks and Tabernacles.
PASSOVER AND UNLEAVENED BREAD — DEUTERONOMY 16:1–8
Deuteronomy 16:1 — Abib and deliverance by night
Israel must observe the month of Abib because Yahweh brought the nation from Egypt by night.
Abib refers to the stage of grain in the ear/green ears and became the name/designation of the first-month season. Later biblical books use the Babylonian month-name Nisan. Claims about an Egyptian etymology are uncertain.
Deuteronomy 16:1 — pesach/pasach
The Passover term belongs to the Hebrew root pasach. Its semantic range in Exodus includes pass over/spare/protect; Isaiah 31:5 also uses protective/sparing imagery, while 1 Kings 18 uses the same root for limping/dancing.
Mansfield’s insistence that “Passover” is actually a mistranslation and that the root’s true meaning is always “hover over” goes beyond the evidence. “Pass over,” “spare” and “protect” are all contextually relevant.
Deuteronomy 16:2 — flock and herd
The Passover festival sacrifices are offered at the chosen place “of the flock and the herd.” Exodus 12 specifies a lamb or kid from the flock for the original Passover victim.
The broader Deuteronomy wording can include festal sacrifices associated with the Passover/Unleavened Bread celebration; it should not be used to rewrite Exodus 12 as though the original paschal animal could simply be an ox.
Deuteronomy 16:3–4 — bread of affliction and seven days
Unleavened bread is eaten seven days in remembrance of the haste of the Exodus; leaven is not to be seen throughout the territory.
Paul later uses leaven morally in 1 Corinthians 5, but leaven is not intrinsically a universal Bible symbol of evil in every context: Leviticus 7:13 and 23:17 deliberately include leaven in specified offerings.
Deuteronomy 16:5–6 — not within any gate
The Passover is not to be sacrificed at any self-selected town but at the place Yahweh chooses, at the appointed evening time.
Deuteronomy 16:7 — cook/roast and return
KJV “roast” renders bashal, a broad cooking term. Exodus 12 specifically requires the Passover animal roasted with fire, and 2 Chronicles 35:13 uses the same verb in a context explicitly describing roasting according to ordinance.
The lexical verb by itself is broader than “roast,” but the Passover law supplies the specific cooking requirement.
Deuteronomy 16:8 — six days plus seventh assembly
Verse 3 speaks of seven days of unleavened bread; verse 8 says six days eat unleavened bread and on the seventh hold a solemn assembly.
The statements are complementary: the feast spans seven days, with the seventh specially characterised by ‘atsereth, closing/solemn assembly. It is not a six-day feast contradicting verse 3.
FEAST OF WEEKS — DEUTERONOMY 16:9–12
Deuteronomy 16:9 — count seven weeks
Seven weeks are counted from the beginning of the sickle to standing grain.
Deuteronomy 16:10 — freewill tribute according to blessing
The Feast of Weeks is kept with a voluntary offering in proportion to Yahweh’s blessing.
Deuteronomy 16:11 — inclusive rejoicing
Son, daughter, servants, Levite, resident stranger, fatherless and widow rejoice together at the chosen place.
Deuteronomy 16:12 — remember slavery
Israel must remember being a slave in Egypt and carefully do the statutes.
The later Jewish association of Weeks/Shavuot with the giving of the Torah at Sinai is important tradition, while the Torah text here explicitly emphasises harvest and redemption memory rather than stating that the feast commemorates Sinai.
FEAST OF TABERNACLES — DEUTERONOMY 16:13–15
Deuteronomy 16:13 — after threshing floor and winepress
Seven days of Tabernacles follow the ingathering of agricultural produce.
Deuteronomy 16:14–15 — complete communal rejoicing
Household, Levite, stranger, fatherless and widow share the feast; Yahweh’s blessing in produce and work becomes the ground of joy.
Leviticus 23 additionally records an eighth-day assembly. Deuteronomy’s seven-day pilgrimage-feast focus does not contradict that fuller festival legislation.
THREE APPEARANCES — DEUTERONOMY 16:16–17
Deuteronomy 16:16 — all males appear three times
At Unleavened Bread, Weeks and Tabernacles all males appear before Yahweh at the chosen place and must not appear empty.
Deuteronomy 16:17 — according to the gift of Yahweh
Each gives according to his hand/ability and according to the blessing Yahweh has given.
Worship therefore includes proportionate material gratitude rather than mere attendance.
JUDGES AND OFFICERS — DEUTERONOMY 16:18–20
Deuteronomy 16:18 — judges in all gates
Judges and officers are appointed throughout tribal towns to judge the people with righteous judgment.
Deuteronomy 16:19 — no distortion, partiality or bribe
Justice must not be wrested; faces/persons must not be recognised preferentially; a shochad, bribe/gift, blinds wise eyes and twists righteous words.
Deuteronomy 16:20 — “justice, justice”
Hebrew repeats tsedeq tsedeq, literally “justice, justice shalt thou pursue,” an emphatic demand for right judgment.
KJV “that which is altogether just” captures the force but hides the striking repetition.
NO CANAANITE CULT SYMBOL BESIDE THE ALTAR — DEUTERONOMY 16:21–22
Deuteronomy 16:21 — no Asherah beside Yahweh’s altar
Israel must not plant/set up an asherah of any kind of tree beside Yahweh’s altar.
KJV “grove” is misleading if read as ordinary landscaping; the target is an Asherah cult object/pole.
Deuteronomy 16:22 — no hated cult pillar
Israel must not erect a matstsebah, cult pillar, which Yahweh hates in this worship context.
Earlier patriarchal memorial pillars are not retroactively condemned as identical acts. The prohibition concerns a cultic form associated with unacceptable worship in Israel’s settled sanctuary order.
PRINCIPAL THEMES
• Deuteronomy 16 focuses on three pilgrimage festivals, not the entire sacred calendar.
• Abib is the grain-ear season/month designation; Egyptian etymology is uncertain.
• Pasach has a pass over/spare/protect range; “hover over” is not the one proven true meaning.
• Deuteronomy’s flock-and-herd language should not rewrite Exodus 12’s original lamb/kid requirement.
• Leaven can carry negative typology, but Scripture also commands leaven in some offerings; it is not universally evil by lexical nature.
• Seven days of Unleavened Bread and the special seventh-day assembly are complementary.
• Weeks is explicitly a harvest feast; Sinai commemoration is later tradition rather than the stated Deuteronomy reason.
• Leviticus’ eighth day supplements Deuteronomy’s seven-day Tabernacles focus.
• Pilgrimage worship requires giving in proportion to blessing.
• Tsedeq tsedeq literally repeats “justice, justice.”
• Asherah is a cult object/pole, not an ordinary grove.
• The prohibited matstsebah is cultic in context; not every earlier memorial stone is thereby condemned.