Deuteronomy 16:9-10 - Count off 7 weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain. Then celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the LORD your God has given you.
Deuteronomy 16:13 - Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for 7 days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress.
It would make sense for all the Israelites to celebrate the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles at the same time. So I wonder who decided when to start counting off the 7 weeks and the 7 days. Certainly one farmer might have started harvesting his grain a few days before another. Did they communicate with each other throughout the land to find out who had already started the harvest? Did they have to come to a consensus as to which week to start counting from? Was everyone's crop normally ready to be harvested within a 7-day period or less? Was that always the same week each year or did the festival vary according to harvest time? Did they agree to celebrate it at the same time from one year to the next? That would seem to go against God's command for calculating the festival.
I wonder similar things about the Feast of Tabernacles. Did they all celebrate it at the same time? Did each community start counting off the 7 days from when the first harvest was gathered, from when most had been collected, or from when all of it was in? Again, was this variable from year to year (like Easter today) or did they agree on a date (like Christmas)?
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