The firstfruits of the wheat harvest were to be treated differently from the barley firstfruits. Two tenths of an ephah of fine wheat flour (4.4 L; 4 dry qt) along with leaven was to be baked into two loaves. They were to be “out of your dwelling places,” which meant that they were to be loaves like those made for the daily use of the household and not expressly for holy purposes. (Le 23:17) Burnt offerings and a sin offering went along with this, and as a communion offering two male lambs. The priest waved the loaves and the lambs before Jehovah by putting his hands underneath the loaves and the pieces of the lambs and waving them back and forth, signifying that they were presented before Jehovah. After the loaves and the lambs were offered, they became the priest’s for him to eat as a communion offering.​—Le 23:18-20.

These followers, then, with the 3,000 added that day (Ac 2:41) and others later, were not the very first firstfruits to God, for this was Jesus Christ himself, resurrected on Nisan 16 of 33 C.E. (1Co 15:23), when the barley sheaves were waved. Rather, they were like the firstfruits of the wheat, a second crop, “certain firstfruits” to God. (Jas 1:18) They now became God’s new nation, God’s “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for special possession.”​—1Pe 2:9.