Helon departed, was present at the evening-sacrifice, and remained in the temple through the night with all the priests who had assembled at Jerusalem for the festival. On the following day the principal duty fell to the course whose week was just beginning; but there was so much to be done beyond the common offices, that they needed the aid of the others. The dissensions of the Pharisees and Sadducees were more visible than ever, and ceased not even in the temple and on the holy night.
The gates were opened, and among the rest who filled the courts before the crowing of the cock, Iddo, Selumiel, Abisuab, and Elisama presented their victims to the priests; and Sulamith with the wife of Iddo and her own sister-in-law were in the court of the Women. The ordinary morning-sacrifice was first offered, then the special offering of the festival, consisting of seven lambs of the first year, a young bullock and two rams for a burnt-offering, a goat for a sin-offering, and two yearling sheep for a thank-offering. The difference between the offerings on this occasion and at the Passover was, that there were then two bullocks and one ram offered, and now two rams and one bullock.[95] When the drink-offering was poured out, the priests blew upon their pillars, the Levites sung on the fifteen steps, and the whole congregation sung the great Hallel.
Now came the special-offering of the Pentecost. It consisted of two loaves and a tenth of an epha of fine wheat flour, the first-fruits of the harvest, which a priest had waved before Jehovah towards all the four winds of heaven, in the open space between the altar and the sanctuary. When this offering had been presented to Jehovah, the sacrifices of individuals began. Selumiel, his son, and Elisama, brought their noble victims; thousands followed them, and among the rest, Helon offered his thank-offering, and paid to the Lord the vow which he had formed in the happy hour of his betrothment. Selumiel’s son offered for the purification of his wife, as it chanced to be the fortieth day from her delivery, a lamb of the first year as a burnt-offering and a turtle-dove as a sin-offering. She prayed while they were slain, and a priest, bringing the blood of the sin-offering in a dish, sprinkled her with it, and thus she became clean. She had brought her first-born in her arm, and presented him before Jehovah; and her husband redeemed him, according to the law, by the payment of five shekels.[96] For thus said Jehovah, “Behold I have taken the Levites unto myself among the children of Israel, instead of all the first-born; therefore the Levites shall be mine. For the first-born are mine, since the time when I slew all the first-born in Egypt: then did I set apart all the first-born in Israel, both of man and beast, that they should be mine. I am Jehovah.”[97]