Feast: Teachings from Tabernacles
#FT24-02
David C. Grabbe
Given 18-Oct-24; 67 minutes
description: Prophetically, the harvest symbolizes a time when people's lives are judged or evaluated. When we analyze the Feast of Ingathering from the present-spiritual view, we look for God's intent of His spirit-led children following the instruction of the New Covenant. If we have been faithfully seeking God, cooperating with and yielding to Him, His work in us will have produced fruit. Likewise, if we neglect our cultivation of spiritual fruit during the year, the spiritual harvest will reflect that. The fruit of one's labors will be evident at harvest time because we reap what we have sown. The temporary dwellings we inhabit remind us that nothing on earth is permanent, and that our focus and faith must be on what God is doing, because the things of this life are not our true inheritance. The temporary dwellings teach us to trust in God's providence, and to temper our innate drive to live life on our terms rather than on God's terms. In the harvest symbolism, we work with Him, day by day, for the cultivation of spiritual fruit. While we have our daily responsibilities for spiritual cultivation, Christ is the Giver of spiritual gifts, as well as the One that gives the increase. Our gifts may not be ones that set the world on fire, but if we faithfully and consistently use then, Christ will give an increase that will cause rejoicing.
transcript:
In the last few years, we have learned that COVID-19 can wreak havoc on memory. Many of us learned this through personal experience. Well, today I intend to make good use of that negative side effect of degraded memory. You see, I gave this message originally as a split-sermon at the Feast in 2021. At that Feast, I had Covid, you had Covid, everybody had Covid that year, and because of Covid, we all had some degree of a memory wipe. I couldn’t remember what I said in that split-sermon so I am banking on the probability that most of you will not remember, either. That means I can give that message again for the first time, if you will, and also expand it somewhat.
Speaking of memory, some of you remember that Herbert Armstrong often began the Feast with the question, “Why are we here?” It is a good and necessary question. These last few years, and this year in particular, have been intense and have weighed down many of us. Stress tends to blur our focus and our understanding of God’s purpose for us. So, it is good for us ask this question, and to be reminded of what God has set forth in His word. To this end, today we will examine the main Feast passages, and evaluate them from various perspectives, so we can glean as much from them as possible.
We will begin with the first mention of this Feast, which is found in Exodus 23:
Exodus 23:14-16 “Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; none shall appear before Me empty); and the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors which you have sown in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field.
This first mention gives a basic outline of the three festival seasons, and here the present Feast is called “the Feast of Ingathering.” It is a harvest festival, and this sets the tone because it evokes thoughts of abundance as all the produce has been gathered in, and there is a break from the work.
As mentioned, we will be looking at these passages from various angles. The literal view is exactly what is written. Israel was to keep a harvest festival when they had gathered in the crops from the field. God later gave further instructions that constitute the letter of this law. With the introduction of the New Covenant, not every jot and tittle have a physical application for us, so we do our best to understand the intent and follow that.
Now, we will switch angles and look at this verse prophetically. The Feast of Ingathering is a festival for the final harvest of the year. Symbolically, harvest imagery is often tied to the end of this age. For example, Jesus defines the harvest In the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares as the end of the age when the wheat is gathered into the barn (Matthew 13:39).
In addition, Revelation 14:14-20 contains another harvest reference. We won’t go through it, but that prophecy shows both Christ reaping the harvest of the earth and then an angel also reaping the grapes of wrath in judgment. So, in the prophetic view, the harvest symbolizes a time when people’s lives are judged. The Feast of Ingathering has been interpreted as pointing to Christ’s Millennial reign, which is really the next age, not this one. So, those two harvest references don’t actually apply to the Millennium. Even so, the principle (that a harvest symbolizes a time of God’s evaluation of people’s lives) does apply to those who will be alive during the Millennium.
Verse 16 here also mentions the fruit of your labors. In the prophetic view, that could correlate with the work we will be doing, working with the people in the Millennium. In Luke 10:2, Jesus talks about the harvest taking place during His ministry, and He says to “pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” So, even though the harvest is God’s, He uses laborers within it, and that can include us.
The prophetic view gives us a glimpse of the future. We like to know what lies ahead and where things are going. However, because of human nature, a danger with looking at everything prophetically is that often there is no immediate application. It may not help at all with growth into God’s image. You might remember that one of God’s indictments of Israel was that the people came away from the Feast unchanged. Nothing was significantly different in their lives afterward. Similarly, understanding prophecy, by itself, does not always translate into spiritual growth. It can simply be an intellectual exercise.
So, next we will consider what we will call the present-spiritual view. With this lens, we interpret the instructions spiritually, and especially with the New Covenant in view, even as we retain what we can of the letter of the law. We look for God’s intent for His Spirit-led children today. So, in this angle, we still keep the Feast according to the various instructions, but the application is more spiritual than physical.
In the present-spiritual view, the fruit of our labors is the spiritual fruit produced by using God’s Spirit. If we have been seeking God, cooperating with God, and yielding to Him, His work in us will have produced fruit. Whether we are aware of it or not, we bring this spiritual fruit with us, which we will look at more later. So, this present-spiritual view reminds us of the spiritual labor God has given each of us to do, and that the Feast of Ingathering is a culmination of what that cooperation with God has produced.
There is one final lens we will use today, which is the view of God and especially the Messiah. Even as all the offerings and much of the Temple ritual pointed to the Messiah in some way, so also the feasts and holy days point to Him. In this passage, He says that the feasts shall be kept to Him. They are not just for the sake of rejoicing, but rejoicing with God as the focus and object. If that focus becomes obscured, it is no longer a feast “to Him.” It is just a weeklong party or vacation with a religious covering.
As an extreme example, you might recall the Supernova Sukkot festival that took place in Israel last year on the 8th Day. It was a desert rave with psychedelic trance music, drugs, drunkenness, lewdness, and dancing before a giant statue of Buddha. It was at Feast time, and it included the name of the Feast, but it was the farthest thing from a feast to God.
So, we will look at some more passages with these various perspectives in mind. We will move ahead a few chapters and see this basic command repeated:
Exodus 34:22-24 “And you shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end. Three times in the year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the LORD God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the LORD your God three times in the year.
Here God gives a promise of protection of the land while the nation travelled to appear before Him. Now, this does not mean that there will never be trials involving one’s property while one is keeping the Feast. If our spiritual walls are down, things may happen.
God does not suspend all laws and consequences. But He does give a general promise of protection while we appear before Him. We don’t have to be concerned that everything will disappear while we are away.
The present Feast is called “the Feast of Ingathering” in these instructions as well. There is a definite harvest theme in this observance. Going back to our present-spiritual view, the fruit and the labor that God is most interested in is the fruit of our lives. He evaluates our spiritual labors on behalf of Him and His people.
Even though hardly any of us make our livelihood directly from the land, the basics of agriculture are not difficult. There are times when certain work must be performed, and if we procrastinate, the harvest will suffer. There are natural laws at work, and growing seasons cannot be shortened. It takes time for plants to go through their growing periods and to mature so there can be a harvest. The harvest itself takes a relatively short time compared to the preparation, the planting, the cultivation, the weeding, and so forth. Thus, a successful farmer is never lazy or haphazard because he knows he must do specific things within the laws of nature. He knows that if he loses focus and puts off the work that needs to be done, the harvest will be a disaster.
In the same way that a landowner who wastes his time won’t have much in his hands at the end of the year, so also if we neglect the spiritual works God is looking for throughout the year, the Feast likely will not be one of spiritual abundance. If we neglect our cultivation of spiritual fruit during the year, the spiritual harvest will reflect that. The fruit of one’s labors will be evident at harvest time because we reap what we have sown. It has been mentioned over the years that we get out of the Feast what we put into it. That’s true, but when we use the patterns of agriculture, it means that we get out of the Feast what we have been putting our time and effort into during the previous months, and not just this week.
As mentioned, whether we realize it or not, we bring to the Feast the fruit of our cooperative work with God during the previous seasons, because fruit is produced through our attachment to the Vine. So, we bring the results of our experiences with God, our seeking God, our time with God. We bring what that relationship has produced in us. Who we are at the Feast is who we have been throughout the rest of the year, though with more money and maybe with new clothes. But we are the same people.
So, if we have good daily spiritual habits and a steadfast walk of faith, the fruit of those things will come with us to the Feast. We don’t even have to think about packing them. On the other hand, if we have been focused on material things during the growing season, we may show up, but the Feast will lack spiritual abundance for us.
Along similar lines, God had strong rebukes of Israel and Judah in the books of Amos and Isaiah regarding the festivals. His people appeared before Him with music and songs of praise. They made abundant sacrifices and eloquent prayers, and yet God calls them rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah. He says they were spiritually unclean, oppressive and rarely gave Him a second thought, even though He is supposed to be the object of the Feasts. Therefore, it was incongruous for the people to appear before Him as though they were righteous, because the real harvest that they reaped was rotten. The physical harvest may have been abundant because it is God’s nature to bless, and to send rain even on the unjust. But the fruit of their lives—which is what He was really interested in—was evil.
But the people, of course, blamed others. They accused Amos of treason, and they killed Isaiah for his faithful service. Sadly, Israelites are not known for taking correction, except for taking correction as an affront. In the book of Lamentations, it says that God caused the appointed feasts to be forgotten in Zion. The Israelites’ harvest was so abhorrent to God that He stopped the observance of His holy times altogether rather than allow the Israelites to continue to trample them. Israel’s record shows that God required consistency and sincere obedience, even for a carnal people who only had the letter of the law.
As we can see, the harvest theme has a ready application for us. Our real preparation for the Feast of Ingathering is spiritual, and it cannot wait until the days or weeks before. It takes time to sow, to cultivate, and to work with God to produce the spiritual fruit.
Now, we will switch angles again and notice the Messianic view here. Verse 23 points out that we are appearing “before the Lord, the LORD God of Israel.” We are coming before the Sovereign with a recognition and remembrance of all He did for Israel. He has the power to cast out whole nations so His people can dwell in peace, as He promises here. While the mention here is brief, it is also filled with gravity. God must remain at the forefront of our minds as the reason we are here. Exodus 23 says we keep the Feast to Him, and this reminds us that we are coming before Him and not just gathering at a specified location.
We will move forward to Leviticus 23, where God adds more details:
Leviticus 23:39-43 ‘Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the LORD for seven days; on the first day there shall be a sabbath-rest, and on the eighth day a sabbath-rest. And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.’”
In the instructions we saw in Exodus, God simply says to appear before Him as the year is winding down and the harvest is brought in, but now He specifies the precise dates and length of time. These instructions again mention the harvest or ingathering aspect, but they also bring in the temporary dwellings—the tabernacles or booths.
This is also the first time God gives a reason for this observance. Of course, God is under no obligation to give a reason for any of His commands—if He says to do something, that should be sufficient. But when He does give an explanation, we want to pay careful attention so we can be of the same mind as He. Here we learn that a significant part of this Feast is to remember the Israelites’ experience with God when He brought them out of Egypt. Again, this is God’s own reason for tabernacles.
We will look at this from the present-spiritual angle first so we can start getting the application. Notice that God puts the focus on the journey to the inheritance rather than on the inheritance. When the Israelites got to the Land, then they could build houses with foundations—they could have a measure of permanence.
But that is not what God says this Feast is about. Instead, it is about the pilgrimage and moving toward our inheritance. God intends for this Feast to remind us about the impermanence and transitoriness of life as we follow Him on a narrow and difficult way to our destination. It teaches us about complete dependence on Him to supply the need during times of unsettledness and uncertainty.
Our keeping of the Feast requires contemplating the wilderness journey. Our observance is not complete without remembering the journey and reflecting on our own lifelong pilgrimage. Like the Israelites’, our journey requires that we give up some material stability for the sake of following God to the end He has in mind for us.
We will come back to the present-spiritual angle, but think for a moment about the prophetic view. God’s command here involves temporary dwellings and remembering the pilgrimage and moving toward the inheritance, while the common prophetic view is that this week pictures the end of the pilgrimage when we are in our inheritance and our temporariness is over.
The prophetic view holds that this Feast pictures the Millennium, when we will enter God’s rest, and mankind under Christ will have more stability and be more settled than he ever has since the Garden of Eden. Yet in this passage, God says the Feast is a reminder of temporariness and of being on the move. Perhaps the best that can be said of the prophetic angle here is that the journey and the temporariness make us look forward to permanence and our inheritance as a contrast. Yet God’s command here is to rehearse the pilgrimage, and to reflect on His providence within the temporariness because that points us to Him.
The Hebrew word for tabernacle, tent, or booth is sukkah. It is related to the first place the Israelites camped after leaving Ramses in Egypt. They camped in a place named Succoth, which is just the plural form of sukkah. The name Succoth comes from Genesis 33:17, which says that Jacob made booths for his livestock. So, the Israelites stayed in booths in the place that had been previously named, “booths,” by Jacob.
In other words, the place the Israelites camped after God delivered them from Egypt was named after the dwellings Jacob made for his animals. Maybe that seems a little degrading to us, but God does this for a reason. God likens His people to sheep. Among domesticated animals, sheep are the most dependent on their owners for their well-being. Other animals, like cats, can take care of themselves if they are forced to. You don’t have to do much for cats, aside from stroking their egos. But sheep require constant oversight, and care, and rescuing from circumstances they get themselves into. Yet even as the Shepherd of Israel housed Israel in temporary dwellings as He led them to their inheritance, so also the Good Shepherd provides abundantly for us.
Notice, though, that there is no promise that He will provide our every wish. He provides what is fitting and adequate, and even more than adequate. But self-sufficiency is a grave danger to us all. If we received everything we wanted, or if every circumstance of our lives were perfect, we would probably start taking God for granted, which is deadly for salvation. Therefore, it is good for us to be reminded of our dependence on Him.
So, returning to our present-spiritual perspective on these verses, the reminder of the Israelites’ experience while they followed God helps us to approach the Feast with the right mindset. Our temporary dwellings today are definitely more lavish than the Israelites’, so we may have to work harder to remember these things. God does not demand asceticism, but He does require that we remember this reason He gives for this Feast.
The temporary dwellings keep us a little off balance, and that’s good. They help us not to think so highly of ourselves, as we would tend to if we had everything just the way we wanted it. The temporary dwellings remind us that nothing on earth is permanent, and that our focus and faith must be on what God is doing, because the things of this life are not our true inheritance. The temporary dwellings teach us to trust in God's providence, and to temper our innate drive to live life on our terms rather than God’s terms.
The tabernacles God commanded were not an image of privation or austerity, but simply temporariness. When you consider the variety of materials used, it is evident that God intended these to be sufficient dwellings, and to be attractive, at least at the beginning of the week. They started out green, but as each day passed and the branches started to dry out and the leaves turned brown, the people caught a glimpse of the relentless march of time and the deterioration of all physical things. As the Feast progressed, the Israelites were reminded that all things wear out because God subjected the creation to futility.
This is part of what God wants us to reflect on. We should rejoice in the abundance that God gives, yet also remember that this life is temporary. Like the temporary dwellings, we eventually wear out. But with God involved, we know that is not the end. Our Creator has more and better in store for us than life under the sun.
The length of the Feast has an interesting correlation with the length of human life. The Israelites kept the Feast for 7 days in their temporary dwellings. If their houses were nearby, they could return to their homes on the 8th Day. If they had to travel, they would remain in their booths another day because the 8th Day is not a travel day. Similarly, we are generally allotted 70 years, or maybe 80. Seven or eight days in a booth, 70 or 80 years in our body. So, each day of the Feast corresponds to a decade of life. We start the Feast with strength and energy, even as we do our physical life. But as the days of the Feast and the decades of life progress, there is a decline. We start feeling more worn out. We experience our limits.
Now, we have looked at the present-spiritual view and some of its applications for us, and we briefly considered the prophetic view. What remains in our analysis is the view of God as it relates to the temporary dwellings. We will come back to that aspect after we have seen some other passages, but there is still something we can bring in regarding God being the focus of the Feast. At the end of verse 40, it says to “rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days,” again showing that He is the object of the Feast.
It could be said that all rejoicing is “before Him” in the sense that He is aware of everything. But in another sense, not all rejoicing is “before Him” if He isn’t at the forefront of our minds and the reason for the rejoicing. Israel and Judah rejoiced in their feasts, but they didn’t really have God in mind. And the revelers at the Supernova Sukkot festival last year in modern Judah certainly weren’t rejoicing before the true God. Rejoicing before God has a deliberate focus on Him, His work, and His providence.
This week, it would be good to evaluate if our rejoicing is truly before God so it does not slip into just having a good time under the canopy of the Feast. I believe this is something for us to really think about, given the significant Feast disruptions the greater church of God has experienced over the last handful of years, disruptions such as widespread contagion and hurricanes. If we believe God is sovereign and we believe He is guiding the conditions in which the greater church operates, then we dare not blame time and chance, or the schemes of men, for what may well be God tapping us on the shoulder.
Now, just before entering the Land, God gave further instructions for the Feast in Deuteronomy 16, if you would turn there:
Deuteronomy 16:13-15 “You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days, when you have gathered from your threshing floor and from your winepress. And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant and the Levite, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, who are within your gates. Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the LORD your God in the place which the LORD chooses, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you surely rejoice.
While the previous instructions mentioned booths, this is the first time the observance is officially called “the Feast of Tabernacles.” This underlines that the dominant theme of this Feast is the temporary dwellings. The theme is right in the name, just as the theme of Unleavened Bread is the true Unleavened Bread, and the theme of the Day of Atonement is the atonement God provided through Christ, and so on.
This passage also does not give us much that connects with the prophetic view, so we will focus mostly on the applications in the present-spiritual view.
In this passage, we are reminded of the temporary dwellings. We are also reminded of the ingathering. We are reminded that it is a feast of seven days, and verse 15 calls it a sacred feast, which means it is dedicated to God. He does not want it to stray from our minds that we are here because of Him.
These instructions also reiterate the work of the individual, again showing that it isn’t God’s intent that we merely show up at the place He chooses, but that we labor in the time leading up to it. For a physical people, the harvest was agricultural, but even so, God did not accept their rejoicing when there was blatant unrighteousness throughout the rest of the year. For God’s spiritual nation, the emphasis is on a harvest of spiritual fruit, produced through our connection to the Vine.
Verse 15 gives a second explanation for this Feast. We saw that Leviticus 23 had God’s explanation that the temporary dwellings are a memorial of the wilderness journey. Here God adds that the Feast is about God’s blessing on our produce and all the work of our hands. This verse contains the expectation of cooperation between man and God throughout the seasons, and the result will be rejoicing during this week. That is, as we are faithful in our labors, God then gives an increase.
We who are under the New Covenant can apply all the New Testament verses and principles concerning good works and spiritual fruit to these instructions. What we see is that as we are faithful in our spiritual labors, God will bless the effects of those labors such that there will be rejoicing. But if there hasn’t been much in the way of spiritual labors during the year, the harvest and the rejoicing at the Feast may only be physical. What we have sown during the year in terms of our focus and efforts will be what we reap and bring with us. If we have sown mostly material things during the year, the Feast may be a good time, but it will not contain the rejoicing that God intends, which depends on our relationship with Him on an ongoing basis.
Godly rejoicing is not dependent on whether the Festival location is exciting or Millennial, because the source of true rejoicing is what is above the sun. We can rejoice regardless of the circumstances under the sun, if our focus is right. Think about Paul and Silas singing hymns at midnight while in prison with their feet in stocks. They could rejoice because the spiritual reality meant more to them than their circumstances, which indeed were miserable.
We have a number of old timers in the faith here, and you might seek them out and ask them about their experiences with God. Ask them about seeing prayers answered, and seeing deliverances and blessings coming from a God who is pleased to respond to us. When you experience this sort of spiritual cultivation, and when you recognize the Creator blessing your efforts and giving the increase, you understand rejoicing in a way that this world cannot. The world only understands happiness that fades, but we can rejoice with elation and heart-singing that comes from receiving a generous and reassuring response from the Most High God.
Now, we will continue to consider the temporary dwellings, because they carry through into the New Testament in a way that fits with the present-spiritual angle:
II Peter 1:13-14 Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.
Peter equates the human body to a tent—a temporary dwelling. The human body was not designed to be eternal. It is made of flesh and subject to entropy. It eventually wears out in the 70-80 year range. It serves its purpose, but this mortal life is not the ultimate in existence. That comes in the resurrection, if God chooses to grant immortality.
The tents the Israelites used during the wilderness journey were temporary dwellings, not only in the sense that they could be packed up and moved, but also in the sense that the animal skins they were made of would wear out and had to be replaced. When the Israelites then got into the land and built booths out of branches for the Feast, those, too, were not intended to be permanent.
So, even as we rejoice in remembrance of God’s work in our lives, we are also reminded of how fleeting is life. But this contemplation does not need to be depressing. Because of what we have already experienced with God, we can look forward to something even better when the time comes to put off this tent, as Peter puts it. This tent is quite suitable for the pilgrimage, for 7 or 8 days, but God has given us the expectation of putting on immortality and incorruption in the resurrection. Then, we will be permanent.
Paul uses the same terminology in II Corinthians 5:
II Corinthians 5:1-5 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
So, Paul says the same thing as Peter. Our earthly houses—our bodies—are temporary dwellings, and we look forward to the time when mortality is swallowed up by life—eternal life—and the problems of this physical existence have ceased.
This perspective on life is one reason the Jews have linked Tabernacles with the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon, more than any other person, was given the means to explore and experience physical life in its totality. He got to try as much as he wanted of everything life has to offer. Yet we know his conclusion: that life under the sun—life apart from the heavenly and eternal reality—is ultimately just vanity and grasping for the wind. If this is all there is, then all we have is toil and adversity and a sense of futility.
But when we remember what is above the sun, and that there is infinitely more going on than the natural man can discern, we can responsibly use the time we have in these temporary dwellings in preparation for what lies ahead. We will still experience toil and adversity, but not futility. We can reframe our challenges as part of the work the Master Potter is doing in molding something incredible and eternal out of something temporary.
And so, we can rejoice in the Feast, not simply because we have time off from work and we have money to spend, but because we understand what the Great Creator is doing, and because He is intimately involved in our lives, both in the good and in the hardship. The most abundant harvest of wheat or grapes is nothing compared with the rare and priceless opportunity we have to know the Father and the Son, and to be known by Them.
Now we will bring in the Messianic view. Romans 10:4 tells us that “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness . . ..” That translation gives the impression that the law ended with Christ, but there are many Scriptures that prove that interpretation to be false. The NIV does a better job here with its rendering that “Christ is the culmination of the law.” The Complete Jewish Bible is even better—it says, “the goal at which the Torah aims is the Messiah.”
In other words, all of God’s instructions point to the Messiah in some way, whether in teaching how to live like Him, demonstrating His character, or showing our need for Him. This includes all the sacrifices, but also the holy days. He is their object. When we read the instructions, we should look for how they point to Him.
Now, one way that the Feast of Tabernacles points to Christ is found in John 1:
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
The word “dwelt” is the verb form of the words translated as “tent” that Peter and Paul used. The Word, who was God, tented or tabernacled among us, His creation. We should never lose our sense of awe at what the Creator did in divesting Himself of glory. He had an immortal existence He enjoyed without pain or weariness or a troubled heart. This God Being gave that up to experience life in the same sort of temporary dwelling, the same flesh, that we do. This is something to marvel at and rejoice in, because we are assured that He understands life on human terms.
He can identify with the limitations of temporary dwellings because He experienced the very same sorts of things we do. He was made like His brethren in all things, and as a result, He is a merciful and faithful High Priest.
But it all began with this second God Being, through whom all things were created, made Himself of no reputation and took on the form of a bondservant. He became clothed in a temporary dwelling. What the Israelites experienced in the wilderness was a foreshadow of something so incredible that they could not have imagined it—that God would give up His glorified existence to take on human flesh.
When you think about the constant murmuring the Israelites did because of their dissatisfaction with God’s providence, and remember that their time in temporary dwellings was a feeble type of what God Himself would later do—and do without a single complaint —that remarkable contrast really makes their complaining, and our complaining, seem petty. I’m sure their complaints seemed justified to them, but in reality, the Israelites sacrificed and endured less than nothing compared to what God would later sacrifice and endure.
Several years back, Clyde Finklea mentioned the calculations of E.W. Bullinger that Jesus was born on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles. We can’t say for certain, but it seems quite plausible. It is at least in the proper time of year, rather than the dead of winter. Of course, we are not told specifically, nor are we instructed by word or example to celebrate His birthdate.
But if it was on the first day, consider how fitting it was that He should be born in a manger. A manger is a dwelling for animals, just like what Jacob made, and which served as the prototype for the tabernacles or booths that the Israelites dwelled in. A manger is a sukkah.
Jesus was not born into a palace or any sort of luxury, even though that would have been fitting in one sense. But in another sense, it was even more fitting that He should begin life in this humble way, in a shelter that was adequate but the farthest thing from extravagant. The purpose of His life was not to have the best of everything, nor to experience the heights of everything, the way Solomon did.
The purpose of His life was to do His Father’s will, and He was entirely content with how His Father provided for His life, beginning with His birth in a dwelling for animals. It’s an incredible example of submission to living on the Father’s terms.
There is one more teaching about the Feast we will look at, this time in John 7:
John 7:37-39 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
For this passage, we will begin with the prophetic view. The Worldwide Church of God taught that this took place on the final holy day, the 8th Day. In their view, Christ’s words here foreshadowed the opportunity for salvation and the pouring out of God’s Spirit during the Great White Throne judgment period, after the Second Resurrection. However, a number of church of God groups now understand that this took place on the 7th day of the Feast rather than the holy day. In view of this adjustment, it has been suggested that Christ’s words here will be most relevant in the last century or so of the Millennium, although His words could also fit with the Millennium in general.
There are several prophecies of pure water, or the water of life, flowing from under God’s throne and flowing out from Jerusalem in the Millennium (Ezekiel 47:1-23; Zechariah 14:8; Revelation 7:17; 21:6; 22:1). There are prophecies of God pouring out His Spirit like water on a thirsty ground (Isaiah 44:3; 58:11). And because those prophecies primarily have to do with the time after Christ’s return, this passage in John now tends to be viewed within a Millennial context, and perhaps toward the end of it since this took place on the last day of the Feast.
However, we should notice that Christ does not speak about a specific time period at all. A time context does not seem to have been on His mind. Instead, His focus was on whether people believe in Him, and those who do will receive the Holy Spirit.
As we know, this did not wait until the Millennium. There was a type of it later in the book of John, when Christ appeared to the disciples after His resurrection and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” It began to be fulfilled then.
The events of Acts 2 were a very dramatic installment of the fulfillment of Christ’s words, when 3,000 were baptized after hearing Peter’s inspired sermon and witnessing the miracles of that Pentecost. Through the prophet Joel, God foretold that He would pour out His Spirit “before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the Lord” (Joel 2:28).
As we can see, then, Christ’s statement here in John 7 is not bound by time. It is not limited to the Millennium, let alone after. It has been applicable for the last 2,000 years. For 2,000 years, those called by the Father have believed in Christ and have received the Holy Spirit.
When we dig deeper into this passage, it becomes clear that the primary focus here is the Messianic one. It does have a present-spiritual aspect because it calls to mind our belief in Christ and what that enables. A great deal could be said about evaluating the depth of our belief in Christ because the degree to which we believe becomes manifest in the way we live. But for our purposes today, we will focus on the Messianic view of this passage because it has overwhelming evidence.
The Jews had a water ceremony during the Feast that you have probably heard of. As we know, the water ceremony was something that they added to the instructions for the Feast. It wasn’t a bad practice, but neither is it one that we are instructed or encouraged to follow. Yet it is critical to understand this ceremony because it was significant to Christ’s audience, and because He responded to it on the 7th Day of the Feast.
A basic reason for their ceremony was the importance of water for a good agricultural year. The early rains were supposed to start just shortly after the Feast. In fact, the 7th month when this took place is named Ethanim in Hebrew. The Jews picked up the name Tishri while in Babylon, but the biblical name is Ethanim, and it means, “permanent streams.” The month is named for streams that would never dry up. The ceremony, then, was a supplication to God for water. But the Jews recognized from Scripture the link between water and salvation. Even as the ceremony centered around water, they were also asking for salvation.
In the ceremony, the high priest would draw water from the Pool of Siloam and carry it up to the Temple in a long procession of priests and worshippers, and then he would pour the water on the altar.
The word “Siloam” means “sent” (John 9:7). That’s significant because it is also a way that Christ identified Himself. He was sent by the Father. Just keep that in mind because the evidence will keep piling up.
So, the high priest would take water from Siloam and pour it on the altar. He did this each day for seven days. But on the 7th day, the procession would circle the Temple 7 times before pouring the water on the altar, kind of like the Israelites did at Jericho. And as an aside, there was no water ceremony on the 8th Day. The culmination of the ceremony was on the 7th Day, so if Christ had spoken the words here on the 8th Day, as we formerly believed, it really would not have made sense. It would have been a day late and a shekel short.
The high priest would not only pour water on the altar, but he would also pour wine. These are well-known symbols for us. We understand water as a symbol for the Holy Spirit, as Christ says, as well as for divine cleansing. Wine is symbolic of blood, and especially the blood of the covenant. Also significant is that when the soldier pierced Jesus Christ during the crucifixion, it says that water and blood came out. The Jews had their own reasons for the elements of their ceremony, but notice how the elements keep pointing to their unrecognized Messiah.
During the daily procession from the Pool of Siloam to the Temple, the people would sing a verse about drawing water from the wells of salvation. That verse is found in Isaiah 12, if you would turn there:
Isaiah 12:2-3 Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; ‘For YAH, the LORD, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation.’” Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
Verse 3, which is about drawing water from the wells of salvation, was the essence of what the people would sing in their procession. Now, notice what follows:
Isaiah 12:4-6 And in that day you will say: “Praise the LORD, call upon His name; declare His deeds among the peoples, make mention that His name is exalted. Sing to the LORD, for He has done excellent things; this is known in all the earth. Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in your midst!”
Each day for a week, the people sang about drawing water from the wells of salvation, quoting from a prophecy about the Holy One of Israel being in their midst. Then, during the water ceremony, Jesus stood and cried out that those who were thirsty for the water of salvation should come to Him and drink. Notice how these things connect. Verse 2 says that God, or YAH, or the LORD, is salvation, while Jesus said the people had to come to Him and believe in Him if they wanted that water of salvation. In other words, when Christ invited people to come to Him in this way, He was identifying Himself with YAH, as the LORD, and saying that He was the Holy One of Israel in their midst that day. Maybe it dawned on some who knew of Him that His name, Yeshua, or Joshua, even means, “God is salvation.”
There is another element in the Jews’ tradition that relates. This is obscure, with very little written about it, but the procession apparently included a man who played a flute made from a reed. The reed was pierced to make the flute, and the man was referred to as “The Pierced One.” This also ties to a Messianic prophecy. Please turn to Zechariah 12:
Zechariah 12:10 And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.
At Christ’s crucifixion, His head was pierced with thorns and His side was pierced by a spear. The Messiah is the true “Pierced One.”
We will go one more step. There is something in this verse that is hidden in English translations. You have to use an interlinear with the Hebrew to see this. Notice in the middle of the verse, where it says, “They shall look upon Me . . ..” In the Hebrew, after that phrase, there are two letters. The letters don’t make a word, and thus they cannot be translated. The letters are “Aleph” and “Tav.” “Aleph” and “Tav” are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. They are the Hebrew equivalent of Alpha and Omega in Greek. So, the verse basically reads, “they will look on Me—the Aleph and the Tav—whom they pierced.”
This construction is echoed in Revelation 1:7-8, which says, “every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. . . . [And then…] I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
The Jews had a flute player, a “pierced one,” who led the procession and who inadvertently prefigured the Messiah, the First and the Last and everything in between, whose own blood and water would be poured out.
Now, the seventh day has a special name. For some 2,000 years, the Jews have called it, “Hoshana Rabbah.” The Hebrew word hoshana means “please save” or “Lord, save now.” You may be more familiar with the Greek form of the Hebrew word, which is hosanna—essentially the same word. And the Hebrew word rabbah means, “great.” So, the 7th day was the day of great supplication for salvation and divine blessing. It was the great day of the Feast. The Jews never referred to the 8th Day this way.
Now, as the priests and the people circled the Temple 7 times on the 7th day, they would sing and chant from Psalm 118, if you would turn there:
Psalm 118:25-26 Save now, I pray, O LORD; O LORD, I pray, send now prosperity. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! . . .
The word translated “save now” is hoshana. The 7th day was the great day of asking for salvation, and this is what they would chant.
Please turn back to John 7:37 and we will paint a mental picture. One source says that on Hoshana Rabbah there could be 100,000 people on the Temple Mount, which was an extensive area. Part of their practice was to wave branches—thousands of branches—which would cause a breeze, if not a significant wind, which is another symbol of God’s Spirit. And they were chanting, “O LORD, save us. Send now prosperity”—over and over on this great day of asking for salvation. They were asking for water and for God’s favor. They were asking for Joshua. And then the priest began his ritual of pouring the water and the wine on the altar.
John does not give us the specifics here—and this is speculative—but it seems fitting that as the crowd grew silent while the priest poured out the water and the wine that pointed to the Messiah that Jesus chose that time of quiet to stand and to cry out as only God, sent in the flesh, could cry out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
We know that He was heard because verse 40 says that many from the crowd—a crowd of tens of thousands—many of them said, “Truly this is the Prophet” and others said, “This is the Christ”—meaning, the Anointed One. His electrifying words garnered enough attention that the chief priests and the Pharisees rebuked the officers for not arresting Jesus. His standing and crying out was not some sideshow—it captured the attention of everyone.
Before the arrival of the Messiah, the Jews had developed this ceremony to beseech God, both for their physical needs and also for their spiritual needs. Jesus used this occasion to point out to His people that He was what they were looking for, whether they realized it or not. They were asking for and anticipating salvation during the Feast of Tabernacles, but they had missed the fact that the Holy One of Israel and His salvation were in their midst.
Even though the chief priests and the Pharisees resisted, many of the people believed to some extent. There is an interesting rhyme with this during Christ’s triumphal entry to Jerusalem before His crucifixion. The crowds had gathered, and they had cut branches again. That is interesting, because the branches are associated with Tabernacles, not the week before Passover. But perhaps the people were remembering the Hoshana Rabbah on which Jesus cried out and offered salvation. The gospel accounts say they cut leafy branches and palm branches, which are the same descriptions of branches used for the temporary dwellings. For Christ’s entry, though, they didn’t just wave them. They also laid them down on the road the way people today roll out the red carpet for a dignitary. Well, this was a green carpet.
And as Christ came along this green carpet on the donkey that symbolized both royalty and the prophesied Messiah, bringing salvation, the crowds again cried out the words of Psalm 118, just as they did on Hoshana Rabbah. They cried,
Matthew 21:9 “Hosanna [Hoshana] to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ Hosanna—[Lord, save us]—in the highest!”
They could see that Psalm 118, which they chanted on the Great Day of the Feast, pointed to the Messiah, and now they were rightly applying it to Him.
All of this illustrates the centrality of Jesus Christ, not only as the hidden object of the Jews’ tradition of the 7th Day, but also of the Feast as a whole.
In the harvest symbolism, we work with Him, day by day, for the cultivation of spiritual fruit. While we have our daily responsibilities for spiritual cultivation, Christ is the Giver of spiritual gifts, as well as the One that gives the increase. Our gifts may not be ones that set the world on fire, but if we faithfully and consistently use them, Christ will give an increase that will cause rejoicing.
In terms of temporary dwellings and our pilgrimage journey, Christ is the Good Shepherd, leading the sheep, providing for us at every turn. We are on the move, hopefully not entangled in unnecessary diversions that would keep us from following Him. He is with us every step of the way.
And though the temporary dwellings of our bodies perish a little each day, by the Holy Spirit—which of course can refer to Christ Himself—we are also being renewed internally, day by day. That Spirit is also a guarantee that when this tent wears out, He will give us a body that conforms to His glorious body. It is by the Spirit, which we received because we believe in Him, that we are being transformed, from the glory of man—such as it is—to the glory of the Lord Himself. Jesus Christ is making all this happen, which is why this is a Feast to Him.
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