was called either the Feast of Harvest,3 because it celebrated the completion of the grain harvest, or the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, because it took place seven weeks or fifty days (pentēkostos means ‘fiftieth’) after the Passover, which was when the grain harvesting began.4 Towards the end of the inter-testamental period, however, it began also to be observed as the anniversary of the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, because this was reckoned as having happened fifty days after the Exodus.