Counting the Omers - Parshat Emor

(9) The Eternal spoke to Moses, saying: (10) Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving to you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the first omer of your harvest to the priest. (11) He shall elevate the omer before the Eternal for acceptance in your behalf; the priest shall elevate it on the day after the sabbath (meaning, Passover). (12) On the day that you elevate the sheaf, you shall offer as a burnt offering to the Eternal a lamb of the first year without blemish. (13) The meal offering with it shall be two-tenths of a measure of choice flour with oil mixed in, an offering by fire of pleasing odor to the Eternal; and the libation with it shall be of wine, a quarter of a hin. (14) Until that very day, until you have brought the offering of your God, you shall eat no bread or parched grain or fresh ears; it is a law for all time throughout the ages in all your settlements.

(15) And from the day on which you bring the omer of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: (16) you must count until the day after the seventh week—fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to the Eternal. (17 You shall bring from your settlements two loaves of bread as an elevation offering; each shall be made of two-tenths of a measure of choice flour, baked after leavening, as first fruits to the Eternal. (18). With the bread you shall present, as burnt offerings to the Eternal, seven yearling lambs without blemish, one bull of the herd, and two rams, with their meal offerings and libations, an offering by fire of pleasing odor to the Eternal. (19 You shall also offer one he-goat as a sin offering and two yearling lambs as a sacrifice of well-being.

(15) ...And Moses said to them, “That is the bread which the Eternal has given you to eat. (16) This is what the Eternal has commanded: Each household shall gather as much as it requires to eat—an omer to a person for as many of you as there are; each household shall fetch according to those in its tent.” (17) The Israelites did so, some gathering much, some little. (18) And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered more had not added excess, and the one who gathered less had not taken too little: each household had gathered as much as it needed to eat.

(19) And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over until morning.” (20) But they paid no attention to Moses; some of them left of it until morning, and it became infested with maggots and stank. And Moses was angry with them. (21) So they gathered it every morning, as much as each one needed to eat; for when the sun grew hot, it would melt. (22) On the sixth day they gathered double the amount of food, two omers for each; and when all the chieftains of the community came and told Moses, (23) he said to them, “This is what the Eternal meant: Tomorrow is a day of rest, a holy sabbath of the Eternal. Bake what you would bake and boil what you would boil; and all that is left put aside to be kept until morning...”

(31) And the house of Israel named it manna; it was like coriander seed, white, and it tasted like wafers in honey. (32) Moses said, “This is what the Eternal has commanded: Let one omer of it be kept throughout the ages, in order that they may see the bread that I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out from the land of Egypt.” (33) And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar, put one omer of manna in it, and place it before the Eternal, to be kept throughout the ages.” (34) As the Eternal had commanded Moses, Aaron placed it before the Pact, to be kept. (35) And the Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a settled land; they ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. (36) And the omer is a tenth of an ephah.

(35) You shall not falsify measures of length, weight, or capacity. (36) You shall have an honest balance, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin. I the Eternal am your God who freed you from the land of Egypt. (37) You shall faithfully observe all My laws and all My rules: I am the Eternal.