The First Sickle and the Last: Pentecost and the Harvest of the Earth
Old Testament: Deuteronomy 16:9-10
Thou shalt number unto thee seven weeks from that day, wherein thou didst put the sickle to the corn. And thou shalt celebrate the festival of weeks to the Lord thy God, a voluntary oblation of thy hand, which thou shalt offer according to the blessing of the Lord thy God.
Old Testament, also: Joel 3:13
Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe: come and go down, for the press is full, the fats run over: for their wickedness is multiplied.
New Testament: Acts 2:1, 4, 41; Apocalypse 14:14-16
And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place: ... And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak. ... They therefore that received his word, were baptized; and there were added in that day about three thousand souls. ... And I saw, and behold a white cloud; and upon the cloud one sitting like to the Son of man, having on his head a crown of gold, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the temple crying with a loud voice to him that sat upon the cloud: Thrust in thy sickle, and reap, because the hour is come to reap: for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust his sickle into the earth, and the earth was reaped.
The connection
Israel's feast of Weeks was counted from a sickle: "Thou shalt number unto thee seven weeks from that day, wherein thou didst put the sickle to the corn" (Deuteronomy 16:9). Fifty days after the first sheaf, the harvest was offered to the Lord as "two loaves of the firstfruits" (Leviticus 23:16-17). The Greek-speaking Jews called the day Pentecost, the fiftieth. "When the days of the Pentecost were accomplished" (Acts 2:1), the Holy Ghost came down on the Apostles, Peter preached, and "there were added in that day about three thousand souls" (2:41). The feast of the first harvest became the day of the Church's first harvest. Christ had told them it was ready: "lift up your eyes, and see the countries; for they are white already to harvest" (John 4:35). The sickle comes back at the end. Joel had called for it over the nations: "Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe: come and go down, for the press is full" (Joel 3:13). Christ took Joel's words for the kingdom, "he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come" (Mark 4:29), and said plainly that "the harvest is the end of the world. And the reapers are the angels" (Matthew 13:39). John sees it done: one "like to the Son of man" sits on a white cloud "and in his hand a sharp sickle", and "he that sat on the cloud thrust his sickle into the earth, and the earth was reaped" (Apocalypse 14:14, 16). Then, as in Joel, the vintage follows, and the grapes go into "the great press of the wrath of God" (Apocalypse 14:19). St John Chrysostom reads Pentecost as the type fulfilled: "Dost thou perceive the type? What is this Pentecost? The time when the sickle was to be put to the harvest ... for here, as the sickle, keen-edged, came the Spirit down" (Homilies on Acts IV). A commentary on Mark once credited to St Jerome says of Mark 4:29, "the sickle is death or the judgment ... the harvest is the end of the world." The Catechism teaches that at Pentecost, when the seven weeks of Easter had run their course, Christ's Passover was fulfilled in the outpouring of the Spirit (CCC 731).
Moral sense
At Pentecost the sickle was the word, and the Apostles held it. The harvest is still standing: "The harvest indeed is great, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth labourers into his harvest" (Matthew 9:37-38). The reaper is paid in something that lasts: "he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life everlasting" (John 4:36).
Anagogical sense
The chapter of the last harvest begins with its firstfruits: those who "follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth ... were purchased from among men, the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb" (Apocalypse 14:4). Christ Himself is "the firstfruits of them that sleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). The first sheaf is already in the barn, and it is the pledge of the whole field.
The Fathers
St John Chrysostom, Homilies on Acts IV: "Dost thou perceive the type? What is this Pentecost? The time when the sickle was to be put to the harvest, and the ingathering was made. See now the reality, when the time was come to put in the sickle of the word: for here, as the sickle, keen-edged, came the Spirit down." Pseudo-Jerome, on Mark 4:29 (Catena Aurea): "The sickle is death or the judgment, which cuts down all things; the harvest is the end of the world."
Warrant
Patristic. St John Chrysostom names Pentecost's sickle a type fulfilled when the Spirit came down (Homilies on Acts IV), citing John 4:35. The end of the entry is Christ's own reading: Matthew 13:39 makes the harvest the end of the world, and Mark 4:29 is in Joel's words. Checked in the Greek: the Septuagint of Deuteronomy 16:9 has drepanon, sickle, and Joel 3:13 exaposteilate drepana, hoti paresteken, put forth the sickles, for it is come; Mark 4:29 has apostellei to drepanon, hoti paresteken ho therismos, the simple form of the same verb and the same paresteken, and drepanon stands seven times in Apocalypse 14:14-19. The Apocalypse follows Joel's order, the reaping and then the vintage, and takes his lenos, the winepress, and his word for the grape harvest, trygetos, as the verb trygao at Apocalypse 14:18-19. The comment on Mark 4:29 is from the Catena Aurea, which gives it to Pseudo-Jerome, a commentary on Mark once credited to St Jerome but not his. Dunk found the entry from Deuteronomy 16:9 and the sickles of Apocalypse 14. Isaias 2:4, spears into sickles, is a separate thread of peace among the nations, and was left out.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 731.
The verses
Deuteronomy 16:9 · Deuteronomy 16:10 · Joel 3:13 · Acts 2:1 · Acts 2:4 · Acts 2:41 · Apocalypse 14:14 · Apocalypse 14:15 · Apocalypse 14:16
