Verses 26-31 deal with the offerings at the Harvest Festival and are largely parallel to Lev 23.15-22. Translators may begin a new paragraph here with a subheading (see the introductory comments on this section). Good News Translation‘s heading for these six verses is “The Offerings at the Harvest Festival.”
On the day of the first fruits refers to the first yield of the harvest, which is the best part. The Hebrew only refers to one day (the day), not to “the first day” (Good News Translation). This day “marked the end of the Passover season, coming seven weeks and a day afterward” (Cole, page 476). The Hebrew word rendered first fruits (bikurim) is literally “first ones” or “firstborn” (see 18.13).
When you offer a cereal offering of new grain to the LORD at your feast of weeks: The Hebrew pronoun for you is plural, referring to the Israelites. For the Hebrew verb rendered offer (hiqrib), see the comments on verse 2. A cereal offering of new grain is literally “a new grain offering” (NET Bible), but the context indicates that this grain belongs to the first yield of the new harvest. Offering the first produce to the LORD symbolized that the whole harvest belonged to him. For cereal offering, see 4.16; for grain see 18.12 even though a different Hebrew word is used there. The name feast of weeks (shavuʾoth in Hebrew) does not refer to the duration of the festival itself, but to the seven weeks counted from the beginning of the Passover to this festival (so Alter, page 833). It is referred to as “the feast of harvest” in Exo 23.16. Good News Translation translates it here and throughout the Old Testament as “the Harvest Festival.” Later it became known as Pentecost (which means “fiftieth day” in Greek) and this is the name that was eventually adopted by Christians (Acts 2.1).
You shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work: See verse 18.
Quoted with permission from de Regt, Lénart J. and Wendland, Ernst R. A Handbook on Numbers. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .