Introduction
In Leviticus 23, Jehovah described to Moses the
“set feasts of Jehovah” (Lev. 23: 2)—seven annual holy convocations
in which God’s people were to draw near to him. These are not just
Old Testament curiosities, but events pregnant with meaning,
“written for our instruction” (Rom. 15: 4). Moreover, as a
series, the seven feasts are a prophecy—that
is, they set out successive pictures of real events that have
occurred (or will occur) in the history of Israel as a nation in
relation to their Messiah. The
final feast in the Jewish calendar was the Feast of Tabernacles (or
Booths) in the seventh month and this, in the purpose of God, flows
out of the preparation of Jewish hearts on the Day of Atonement five
days earlier. What Leviticus 23 sets out prophetically about these
two feasts will be fulfilled in the same calendar year in a
soon-coming day.
In taking up the Feast of Tabernacles,
we must therefore briefly consider what Leviticus 23 has to say
about the Day of Atonement first:
The Day of Atonement
In its setting within the seven feasts, this is
the instruction concerning the Day of Atonement: “And Jehovah spoke
to Moses, saying, Also on the tenth of this seventh month is the Day
of the Atonement: a holy convocation shall it be unto you; and ye
shall afflict your souls, and present an offering by fire to
Jehovah. And ye shall do no manner of work on that same day; for it
is a Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before Jehovah your
God. For every soul that is not afflicted on that same day, shall be
cut off from among his peoples. And every soul that doeth any manner
of work on that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among
his people. No manner of work shall ye do: [it is] an everlasting
statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings. A Sabbath
of rest shall it be unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls. On
the ninth of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye
celebrate your Sabbath” (Lev. 23: 26-32).
The details of the Day of Atonement, the
scapegoat and the goat of the sin–offering were, of course, given
earlier—in Leviticus 16. The high priest, alone and unseen,
sprinkling the blood on the mercy–seat, (see v17) is a picture of
the Lord Jesus dealing with sin in the three hours of darkness on
the cross (see Matt. 27: 45). When the high priest came out again,
it was then (and then only) that the scapegoat was taken up. Upon
its head the high priest placed the sins of the children of Israel
and sent it out into the desert never to return (see Lev. 16: 21).
Now as a nation, the last view that Israel had of the Lord Jesus was
on the cross. In the type, this answers to the high priest going
into the presence of God on the Day of Atonement. They have
not yet seen Him come out. However, just as the high priest
came out of the sanctuary having dealt with the question of sins for
another year, so Christ, “having been once offered to bear the sins
of many, shall appear to those that look for him the second time
without sin for salvation” (Heb. 9: 28). He will come out of the
presence of God, and Israel “shall see the Son of man coming on the
clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matt. 24: 30). At this
juncture, the command to “afflict your souls” (Lev.
23: 27, my emphasis) in connection with the feast will take on its
full reality as the Jews “look on me whom they pierced” (Zech. 12:
10)—for the emphasis in Leviticus 23 in relation to the Day of
Atonement is not on the actions of the high priest (as in chapter
16), but on the divine instructions to the people.
Now the Day of Atonement was celebrated
on the tenth day (see Lev. 23: 27), and the number
ten is connected with man’s responsibility to God—as seen
in the ten commandments (see Exod. 20: 2–17), the ten virgins (see
Matt. 25: 1–13) and the ten lepers (see Luke 17: 11–19) and many
other Scriptures. Thus Israel (as a nation rather than as
individuals) will one day finally confront their sin
in crucifying their own Messiah. This is the emphasis given to the
feast in Leviticus 23. It was to be “a sabbath of rest” (v32) on
which no work was to be done (see vs. 28, 30, 31). Instead, the
Israelites were to answer to the work of God in their hearts, and
afflict their souls (see vs. 27, 29, 32). This affliction
is what Zechariah speaks of as taking place in a day yet to come:
“And I will pour upon the house of
David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and
of supplications; and they shall look on me whom they pierced, and
they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for an only [son], and
shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for
[his] firstborn. In that day shall there be a great mourning in
Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadad-rimmon in the valley of Megiddon.
And the land shall mourn, every family apart: the family of the
house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house
of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of
Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and
their wives apart; all the families that remain, every family apart,
and their wives apart” (Zech. 12: 10-14). God will answer Israel’s
repentance by taking away their sins (see Rom. 11: 27) and never
remembering their lawlessnesses anymore (see Heb. 10: 17)—the
wonderful filling out of the type in which the scapegoat, with the
sins of Israel upon its head, was sent out into a “land of
forgetfulness” (Ps. 88: 12). They will, at last, come into the good
of the death of their Christ, as “a day of atonement, to make
atonement for you before Jehovah your God” (Lev. 23: 28). How
fitting then is the place of the Day of Atonement in the seven
feasts of Leviticus 23, setting out the death of the Lord in
relation to the future repentance of His earthly people!
With this as background, we are now
ready to consider the Feast of Tabernacles:
The Timing of the Feast of Tabernacles
Less than a week after the Day of Atonement we
have the Feast of Tabernacles: “on the fifteenth day of the seventh
month, when ye have gathered in the produce of the land, ye shall
celebrate the feast of Jehovah seven days: on the first day there
shall be rest, and on the eighth day there shall be rest” (Lev. 23:
39). What is the significance of the fifteenth day?
Careful readers of the Word will have noted that there are two
feasts in Leviticus 23 that commence on the fifteenth day, and that
both are of seven days. The first of these is the Feast of
Unleavened Bread, closely associated with the Passover. The second
is the Feast of Tabernacles, a celebration that follows the other
two feasts in the seventh month: the Feast of Trumpets (speaking of
Israel’s regathering as a nation) and the Day of Atonement.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread, with its
strict avoidance of leaven (leaven typifying sin) speaks of the
moral state of soul that is required of those who know “Christ our
Passover” (1 Cor. 5: 7; AV). Hence, Paul’s exhortation to the
Corinthians: “let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor
with leaven of malice and wickedness, but with unleavened [bread] of
sincerity and truth” (v8). The seven days of the feast would speak
of a spiritually complete period of time—picturing how Christians
need to be in moral accord with the death of Christ all of
their lives. How fitting then that the Feast of Unleavened
Bread should begin on the “fifteenth day” (v6)—the day after
Passover, when the dead Christ lay in the tomb. The Hebrew for
fifteen is literally five and ten, and the
significance of fifteen may be a combination of the
significance of five and ten. Five is the
number of human weakness—as seen in the five stones that
David took up out of the brook (see 1 Sam. 17: 40), the five
husbands of the Samaritan woman (see John 4: 18) and the five
porches of Bethesda (see John 5: 2) in which “lay a multitude of
sick, blind, lame, withered” (v3). As for ten, it has already
been shown that this is the number signifying man’s
responsibility before God. Connect these thoughts of weakness
and responsibility and we have a picture of how God’s people stand
in relation to the Passover—frail but accountable. Interestingly,
fifteen is also three multiplied by five, where
the number three brings in the idea of what is complete or
entire in relation to God. Thus sanctification applies threefold:
“Now the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly: and your whole
spirit, and soul, and body be
preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1
Thess. 5: 23, my emphasis). The lesson arrived at is the same:
Christ has died for us, and thus we are to live in moral accord with
that fact.
Now if, in the Feast of Unleavened
Bread, Christ is before the soul as One who has been into death, in
the Feast of Tabernacles, he is presented as the One on the throne
(more on this in a moment). Both feasts, as commencing on the
fifteenth day, demand a moral accord in the heart. In the Feast
of Unleavened Bread, the Israelites were to refrain from leaven; in
the Feast of Tabernacles, the Israelites were to “dwell in booths”
(Lev. 23: 42). Booths (or tents) were what the nation of Israel
dwelt in as they passed through the wilderness before they got into
the land. We shall come back to this again, but the lesson seems to
be that the dependence upon God in the desert is to be carried
through in heart into the bountiful scene of the
kingdom. As we have seen already, Israel as a nation will be morally
prepared for their entrance into the kingdom through the affliction
of soul associated with the Day of Atonement, and the Gentile
nations will also have been brought in subjection to the Lord.
However, this right relationship with God will need to be maintained
by every individual through the thousand years of Christ’s kingdom.
This is because while it is true that “A king shall reign in
righteousness” (Is. 32: 1) and God “will rejoice over Jerusalem”
(Is. 65: 19), the kingdom will not be a sinless scene. Hence, we
read that “the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed”
(v20). Indeed, the diminishing number of sacrifices
offered over the period of the feast (see Num. 29: 1-39) might
suggest a parallel diminishing in the affection of the people for
their king, and a lessening appreciation of the value of His work at
Calvary.
The Harvest Festival
The Feast of Tabernacles took place, “when thou
hast gathered in [the produce] of thy floor and of thy winepress.
And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy
daughter, and thy bondman, and thy handmaid, and the Levite, and the
stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are in thy gates.
Seven days shalt thou hold a feast to Jehovah in the place which
Jehovah will choose; for Jehovah thy God will bless thee in all thy
produce, and in all the work of thy hands, and thou shalt be wholly
joyful (Deut. 16: 13–15). Again, “ye shall take on the first day the
fruit of beautiful trees, palm branches and the boughs of leafy
trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before Jehovah
your God seven days. And ye shall celebrate it as a feast to Jehovah
seven days in the year: [it is] an everlasting statute throughout
your generations; in the seventh month shall ye celebrate it” (Lev.
23: 40–41). The predominant theme of the feast is therefore the
joy and celebration that marks the end of labour and the gathering
in of God’s blessing (comp. 2 Chron: 7: 8-10)—in Exodus 23, the
feast is referred to as “the feast of in–gathering, at the end of
the year, when thou gatherest in thy labours out of the field”
(v16). As a result, the occasion is also marked by deep thankfulness
to God who has provided all—a thought emphasised by the
extraordinary number of sacrifices to be offered every day over the
period of the feast (see Num. 29: 12–39)—thirteen young bullocks,
two rams and fourteen yearling rams on the first day alone (see
v13). As always, Christendom has not been slow to copy this idea of
a ‘harvest festival’, although the roots of such supposedly
‘Christian’ occasions are as much pagan as they are drawn from the
Mosaic law. There are no such feasts in true
Christianity, and those who go down the line of a ‘church calendar’
of ‘special days’ have sadly “turned away” (2 Tim. 1: 15) from the
distinctive teaching concerning the Assembly. Thus Paul rebuked the
Galatians: “Ye observe days and months and times and years. I am
afraid of you, lest indeed I have laboured in vain as to you” (Gal.
4: 10, 11).
Now the length of the Feast of
Tabernacles was “seven days to Jehovah” (Lev. 23: 34,
my emphasis) and this complete week is a prophetic representation of
the coming age when Christ will be on the throne for a millennium.
Christ, as it were, will then be in His rightful place—just as
earlier, the ark had been brought up by Solomon into the temple “at
the feast in the month Ethanim, that is, the seventh month” (1 Kings
8: 2). Hence, in Zech. 14: 16 we read that, “it shall come to pass,
that all that are left of all the nations which came against
Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, Jehovah
of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles”. Indeed, in the
light of Romans 11: 16-24, the people making booths with
“olive-branches, and wild olive branches” (Neh. 8: 15) may be
suggestive of Jew and Gentile woven together in the kingdom.
However, Zech. 14 goes on to say that “it shall be, that whoso goeth
not up of the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the
King, Jehovah of hosts, upon them shall be no rain” (v17). Hence,
there can be no entrance into millennial blessing without an
acknowledgment of the God who has brought it all about. At the
present juncture, God sends rain on just and unjust (see Matt. 5:
45), but in that day God will compel all people to
acknowledge Him. That is why in Ezekiel 45, the Feast of Tabernacles
(along with the Passover) is to form part of the priest’s
offering calendar (see v25)—and that for a thousand years
until Christ gives up the Kingdom to His God and Father (see 1 Cor.
15: 24).
Booths and Branches
On the first day of the
Feast of Tabernacles, the children of Israel were to take “the fruit
of beautiful trees, palm branches and the boughs of leafy trees, and
willows of the brook” (Lev. 23: 40). All this is representative of
earthly productivity—the feast could hardly be celebrated in the
wilderness where such leafy foliage would be scarce at best (see
v39—“when ye have gathered in the produce of the land”—where the
reference is clearly to Canaan). Having gathered in what was
required, they were to use the branches “to make booths” (Neh. 8:
15) in which they were to dwell “seven days … that your generations
may know that I caused the children of Israel to dwell in booths,
when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am Jehovah your God”
(Lev. 23: 42, 43). Thus, though celebratory in character, the feast
also acted as a memorial to remind the children of Israel of the
faithfulness of God in bringing to fulfilment that which He had
promised. In the wilderness they had been wholly dependent on God
for everything—and in the feast they put themselves back into that
dependence in a pictorial way by dwelling in booths. In the
fulfilment of the type, however, that dependence will be no
longer pictorial but real, for Israel will again be in
right relationship with God. In terms of the history of Israel on
this earth, the Feast of Tabernacles is therefore very fittingly
placed at the end of the feasts of Jehovah, as the seventh and final
feast. It is the culmination of God’s dealings with His earthly
people.
However, although the children of Israel were
told that, “in booths shall ye dwell seven days” (Lev. 23: 42), it
is also important to note that the feasting did not end when they
returned to their houses. There was also an eighth
day: “on the eighth day shall be a holy convocation unto you; and ye
shall present an offering by fire to Jehovah: it is a solemn
assembly; no manner of servile work shall ye do” (v36; see also Num.
29: 35–38). Now eight is the number of a new beginning (for
example, circumcision was to be performed on the eighth day, and the
eighth day is the first day of a new week—see Gen. 17: 12; John 20:
1). There is, therefore, something about the seven days of the Feast
of Tabernacles that is carried over and beyond it into a new era,
and this is seen in the Millennium being superseded by the new
heavens and the new earth (see Is. 65: 17; 66: 22; 2 Pet. 3: 13;
Rev. 21: 1). That eighth day has no end, for it is the eternal state
in which “night shall not be any more” (Rev. 22: 5). However,
although it will have no end, there is never any thought even in
eternity of the fragrance and value of the death of Christ being
forgotten—hence sacrifices were also offered on the eighth day (see
Num. 29: 35-38).
The New Testament Connections
There are also references or allusions to the
Feast of Tabernacles in the New Testament that should not be
overlooked. Hence, for example, Peter’s action on the Mount of
Transfiguration was not wholly out of keeping with the particulars
of the feast, for he saw the King in His glory and so expressed a
desire to “let us make here three tabernacles” (Matt. 17: 4). Up to
a point, he acted intelligently.
Another New Testament link can be seen
in John 12 where “On the morrow a great crowd who came to the feast,
having heard that Jesus is coming into Jerusalem, took branches of
palms and went out to meet him, and cried, Hosanna, blessed [is] he
that comes in the name of [the] Lord, the King of Israel” (vs. 12,
13). This crowd were acting as if it were the Feast of Tabernacles,
when in fact it was the lead up to Passover (see v1). There was a
lack of discernment regarding their condition before God. Only when
Israel has passed in spirit through the Day of Atonement will they
be fitted to enjoy the Feast of Tabernacles. On an earlier occasion
in His ministry, when the Jews were actually celebrating the Feast
of Tabernacles (see John 7: 2) the Lord declared, “Ye, go ye up to
this feast, I go not up to this feast, for my time is not yet
fulfilled” (v8). He knew He was not accepted by the nation. Hence
when His brethren had gone up to Jerusalem, the Lord went up “as in
secret” (v10), the complete opposite of the public display of glory
that the feast typified. In “the middle of the feast” he “taught”
(v14), but His teaching was rejected. Accordingly, in “the last, the
great day of the feast” (v37) the Lord appealed to individual
Jews to come to Him but sadly, “every one went to his home” (v53).
For the nation, the feast was over and yet Christ was not on the
throne. “My feasts” (Lev. 23: 2; AV) were now their
feasts—“the Tabernacles, the feast of the Jews” (John 7: 2). It was
the eighth day, and the Lord was offering blessing for eternity, but
for that generation, “The harvest is past … and we are not saved”
(Jer. 8: 20).
Conclusion
Some looked on Zerubbabel’s rebuilt temple “as
nothing” (Hag. 2: 3), but the word to Haggai “in the seventh
[month], on the one and twentieth [day] of the month” (v1)—the
Feast of Tabernacles—was that “I will fill this house
with glory, saith Jehovah of hosts” (v7, my emphasis). Then
as now, there was much to cause spiritual depression, but the answer
is always to look on towards what God will certainly bring about.
May this short consideration of the Feast of Tabernacles therefore
stir up our hearts in expectation, “awaiting the blessed hope and
appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ”
(Titus 2: 13)!
