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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Leviticus 23:33

Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Leviticus 23:33

And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying,

33 36. The Feast of Tabernacles (P). Cp. Num 29:7-11; Deu 16:13-15; Ezr 3:4. Deu 31:10 f. directs that in the sabbatical year the Law should be publicly read at this Feast, the carrying out of which regulation is recorded in Neh 8:18.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

And the Lord spake unto Moses,…. Concerning the feast of tabernacles here repeated and enlarged upon:

saying; as follows.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

On the fifteenth of the same month the feast of Tabernacles was to be kept to the Lord for seven days: on the first day with a holy meeting and rest from all laborious work, and for seven days with sacrifices, as appointed for every day in Num 29:13-33. Moreover, on the eighth day, i.e., the 22nd of the month, the closing feast was to be observed in the same manner as on the first day (Lev 23:34-36). The name, “feast of Tabernacles” (booths), is to be explained from the fact, that the Israelites were to dwell in booths made of boughs for the seven days that this festival lasted (Lev 23:42). , which is used in Lev 23:36 and Num 29:35 for the eighth day, which terminated the feast of Tabernacles, and in Deu 16:8 for the seventh day of the feast of Mazzoth, signifies the solemn close of a feast of several days, clausula festi , from to shut in, or close (Gen 16:2; Deu 11:17, etc.), not a coagendo, congregando populo ad festum , nor a cohibitione laboris, ab interdicto opere , because the word is only applied to the last day of the feasts of Mazzoth and Tabernacles, and not to the first, although this was also kept with a national assembly and suspension of work. But as these clausaulae festi were holidays with a holy convocation and suspension of work, it was very natural that the word should be transferred at a later period to feasts generally, on which the people suspended work and met for worship and edification (Joe 1:14; Isa 1:13; 2Ki 10:20). The azareth, as the eighth day, did not strictly belong to the feast of Tabernacles, which was only to last seven days; and it was distinguished, moreover, from these seven days by a smaller number of offerings (Num 29:35.). The eighth day was rather the solemn close of the whole circle of yearly feasts, and therefore was appended to the close of the last of these feasts as the eighth day of the feast itself (see at Num 28 seq.). – With Lev 23:36 the enumeration of all the yearly feasts on which holy meetings were to be convened is brought to an end. This is stated in the concluding formula (Lev 23:37, Lev 23:38), which answers to the heading in Lev 23:4, in which the Sabbaths are excepted, as they simply belonged to the moadim in the more general sense of the word. In this concluding formula, therefore, there is no indication that Lev 23:2 and Lev 23:3 and Lev 23:39-43 are later additions to the original list of feasts which were to be kept with a meeting for worship. (to offer, etc.) is not dependent upon “holy convocations,” but upon the main idea, “feasts of Jehovah.” Jehovah had appointed moadim , fixed periods in the year, for His congregation to offer sacrifices; not as if no sacrifices could be or were to be offered except at these feasts, but to remind His people, through these fixed days, of their duty to approach the Lord with sacrifices. is defined by the enumeration of four principal kinds of sacrifice-burnt-offerings, meat-offerings, slain (i.e., peace-) offerings, and drink-offerings. : “ every day those appointed for it, ” as in Exo 5:13.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

      33 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,   34 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD.   35 On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.   36 Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: it is a solemn assembly; and ye shall do no servile work therein.   37 These are the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD, a burnt offering, and a meat offering, a sacrifice, and drink offerings, every thing upon his day:   38 Beside the sabbaths of the LORD, and beside your gifts, and beside all your vows, and beside all your freewill offerings, which ye give unto the LORD.   39 Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the LORD seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.   40 And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.   41 And ye shall keep it a feast unto the LORD seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month.   42 Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths:   43 That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.   44 And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the LORD.

      We have here, I. The institution of the feast of tabernacles, which was one of the three great feasts at which all the males were bound to attend, and celebrated with more expressions of joy than any of them.

      1. As to the directions for regulating this feast, observe, (1.) It was to be observed on the fifteenth day of the seventh month (v. 34), but five days after the day of atonement. We may suppose, though they were not all bound to attend on the day of atonement, as on the three great festivals, yet that many of the devout Jews came up so many days before the feast of tabernacles as to enjoy the opportunity of attending on the day of atonement. Now, [1.] The afflicting of their souls on the day of atonement prepared them for the joy of the feast of tabernacles. The more we are grieved and humbled for sin, the better qualified we are for the comforts of the Holy Ghost. [2.] The joy of this feast recompensed them for the sorrow of that fast; for those that sow in tears shall reap in joy. (2.) It was to continue eight days, the first and last of which were to be observed as sabbaths, days of holy rest and holy convocations, Lev 23:35; Lev 23:36; Lev 23:39. The sacrifices to be offered on these eight days we have a very large appointment of, Num. xxix. 12, c. (3.) During the first seven days of this feast all the people were to leave their houses, and the women and children in them, and to dwell in booths made of the boughs of thick trees, particularly palm trees, Lev 23:40Lev 23:42. The Jews make the taking of the branches to be a distinct ceremony from the making of the booths. It is said, indeed (Neh. viii. 15), that they made their booths of the branches of trees, which they might do, and yet use that further expression of joy, the carrying of palm-branches in their hands, which appears to have been a token of triumph upon other occasions (John xii. 13), and is alluded to, Rev. vii. 9. The eighth day some make a distinct feast of itself, but it is called (John vii. 37) that great day of the feast; it was the day on which they returned from their booths, to settle again in their own houses. (4.) They were to rejoice before the Lord God during all the time of this feast, v. 40. The tradition of the Jews is that they were to express their joy by dancing, and singing hymns of praise to God, with musical instruments: and not the common people only, but the wise men of Israel, and their elders, were to do it in the court of the sanctuary: for (say they) the joy with which a man rejoices in doing a commandment is really a great service.

      2. As to the design of this feast,

      (1.) It was to be kept in remembrance of their dwelling in tents in the wilderness. Thus it is expounded here (v. 43): That your generations may know, not only by the written history, but by this ocular tradition, that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths. Thus it kept in perpetual remembrance, [1.] The meanness of their beginning, and the low and desolate state out of which God advanced that people. Note, Those that are comfortably fixed ought often to call to mind their former unsettled state, when they were but little in their own eyes. [2.] The mercy of God to them, that, when they dwelt in tabernacles, God not only set up a tabernacle for himself among them, but, with the utmost care and tenderness imaginable, hung a canopy over them, even the cloud that sheltered them from the heat of the sun. God’s former mercies to us and our fathers ought to be kept in everlasting remembrance. The eighth day was the great day of this feast, because then they returned to their own houses again, and remembered how, after they had long dwelt in tents in the wilderness, at length they came to a happy settlement in the land of promise, where they dwelt in goodly houses. And they would the more sensibly value and be thankful for the comforts and conveniences of their houses when they had been seven days dwelling in booths. It is good for those that have ease and plenty sometimes to learn what it is to endure hardness.

      (2.) It was a feast of in-gathering, so it is called, Exod. xxiii. 16. When they had gathered in the fruit of their land (v. 39), the vintage as well as the harvest, then they were to keep this feast in thankfulness to God for all the increase of the year; and some think that the eighth day of the feast had special reference to this ground of the institution. Note, The joy of harvest ought to be improved for the furtherance of our joy in God. The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, and therefore whatever we have the comfort of he must have the glory of, especially when any mercy is perfected.

      (3.) It was a typical feast. It is supposed by many that our blessed Saviour was born much about the time of this feast; then he left his mansions of light above to tabernacle among us (John i. 14), and he dwelt in booths. And the worship of God under the New Testament is prophesied of under the notion of keeping the feast of tabernacles, Zech. xiv. 16. For, [1.] The gospel of Christ teaches us to dwell in tabernacles, to sit loose to this world, as those that have here no continuing city, but by faith, and hope and holy contempt of present things, to go out to Christ without the camp,Heb 13:13; Heb 13:14. [2.] It teaches us to rejoice before the Lord our God. Those are the circumcision, Israelites indeed, that always rejoice in Christ Jesus, Phil. iii. 3. And the more we are taken off from this world the less liable we are to the interruption of our joys.

      II. The summary and conclusion of these institutions.

      1. God appointed these feasts (Lev 23:37; Lev 23:38), besides the sabbaths and your free-will offerings. This teaches us, (1.) That calls to extraordinary services will not excuse us from our constant stated performances. Within the days of the feast of tabernacles there must fall at least one sabbath, which must be as strictly observed as any other. (2.) That God’s institutions leave room for free-will offerings. Not that we may invent what he never instituted, but we may repeat what he has instituted, ordinarily, the oftener the better. God is well pleased with a willing people.

      2. Moses declared them to the children of Israel, v. 44. He let them know what God appointed, and neither more nor less. Thus Paul delivered to the churches what he had received from the Lord. We have reason to be thankful that the feasts of the Lord, declared unto us, are not so numerous, nor the observance of them so burdensome and costly, as theirs then were, but more spiritual and significant, and surer sweeter earnests of the everlasting feast, at the last in-gathering, which we hope to be celebrating to eternity.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Verses 33-44:

The Feast of Tabernacles followed Yom Kippur by five days. It began on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and lasted for seven days. The first day of the Feast, and the day following, were designated as special sabbaths.

“Feast” in verse 34 is chaq (see comments on verse 5).

“Tabernacles,” sukkah, “booth, covering, covert.”

This was the most joyous of all Israel’s festivals. It came at the time of year when all crops were gathered and stored, the vintage was past, and the land awaited the “latter rains,” to prepare it for the new crop. It afforded opportunity for the people to reflect on the bountiful mercies of God, in providing their needs through another year.

This festival was known by four various names:

1. Feast of Ingathering, Ex 23:16; 31:10; 2Ch 8:13; Ezr 3:4, commemorating Israel’s wilderness trek.

2. Feast of Tabernacles, text; De 16:13-16; 31:10; 2Ch 8:13; Ezr 3:4, commemorating Israel’s wilderness trek. 3. The Feast, 1 Kings 8:2; 1Ch 5:2; 7:8, 9.

4. Feast of Jehovah, so literally in Le 23:39.

This festival was to be observed by all Israeli males. Boughs of trees were to be cut, and used to fashion “booths” or arbors. Seven days the people lived in these booths. This was to remind them of Israel’s wilderness wandering and the fact that Jehovah had delivered them from Egypt. See Ne 8:15-17.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 23:3344
TEXT 23:3344

33

And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying,

34

Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto Jehovah.

35

On the first day shall be a holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work.

36

Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto Jehovah: on the eighth day shall be a holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto Jehovah: it is a solemn assembly; ye shall do no servile work.

37

These are the set feasts of Jehovah, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto Jehovah, a burnt-offering, and a meal-offering, a sacrifice, and drink-offerings, each on its own day;

38

besides the sabbaths of Jehovah, and besides your gifts, and besides all your vows, and besides all your freewill-offerings, which ye give unto Jehovah.

39

Howbeit on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruits of the land, ye shall keep the feast of Jehovah seven days: on the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest.

40

And ye shall take you on the first day the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before Jehovah your God seven days.

41

And ye shall keep it a feast unto Jehovah seven days in the year: it is a statute for ever throughout your generations; ye shall keep it in the seventh month.

42

Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are home-born in Israel shall dwell in booths;

43

that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am Jehovah your God.

44

And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the set feasts of Jehovah.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 23:3344

555.

Review again on the chart the feasts in the seventh month. Name them in order. Where does the feast of Jubilee fit?

556.

When we read of an offering made by fire of what do we think?

557.

God is trying to teach us something in the absorption of so much of the time of Israel by the many sacrifices. What is it?

558.

Does Lev. 23:39 begin a description of another feast or is this a continuation of the feast of tabernacles?

559.

What is the fruit of the trees as mentioned in Lev. 23:40?

560.

Just what form did these booths take? i.e. what did they look like?

561.

What was the purpose of such strange dwellings?

PARAPHRASE 23:3344

The Festival of Tabernacles: Five days later, on the last day of September, is the Festival of Shelters to be celebrated before the Lord for seven days. On the first day there will be a sacred assembly of all the people; dont do any hard work that day. On each of the seven days of the festival you are to sacrifice an offering by fire to the Lord. The eighth day requires another sacred convocation of all the people, at which time there will again be an offering by fire to the Lord. It is a joyous celebration, and no heavy work is permitted. (These, then, are the regular annual festivalssacred convocations of all peoplewhen offerings to the Lord are to be made by fire. These annual festivals are in addition to your regular giving and normal fulfillment of your vows.) This last day of September, at the end of your harvesting, is the time to celebrate this seven-day festival before the Lord. Remember that the first and last days of the festival are days of solemn rest. On the first day, take boughs of fruit trees laden with fruit, and palm fronds, and the boughs of leafy treessuch as willows that grow by the brooksand (build shelters with them), rejoicing before the Lord your God for seven days. This seven-day annual feast is a law from generation to generation. During those seven days, all of you who are native Israelites are to live in these shelters. The purpose of this is to remind the people of Israel, generation after generation, that I rescued you from Egypt, and caused you to live in shelters. I am Jehovah your God. So Moses announced these annual festivals of the Lord to the people of Israel.

COMMENT 23:3344

Among the several accounts we have read on this feast, we have found the following of superior worth. We gladly share it with our readers:

How and where these tabernacles are to be erected the law here gives no directions. The details, as in many other enactments, are left to the administrators of the Law. From the account of the first celebration of this festival after the return from Babylon, the Jews, according to the command of Ezra, made themselves booths upon the roofs of houses, in the courts of their dwellings, and of their sanctuary, in the streets of the Water-gate and the gate of Ephraim. These tabernacles they made of olive branches, pine branches, myrtle branches, palm branches, and branches of thick trees (Neh. 8:15-18). The construction of these temporary abodes, however, was more minutely defined by Ezras successors. It was ordained during the second Temple that the interior of each tabernacle must not be higher than twenty cubits, and not lower than ten palms, it must at least have three walls, with a thatched roof partially open so as to admit a view of the sky and the stars. It must not be under a tree, nor must it be covered with a cloth, or with any material which contracts defilement. Only branches of shrubs which grow out of the ground are to be used for the covering. These booths the Israelites began to erect on the morrow after the Day of Atonement. On the fourteenth, which was the day of preparation, the pilgrims came up to Jerusalem, and on the even of this day the priests proclaimed the approach of the holy convocation by the blasts of trumpets. As on the feasts of Passover and Pentecost, the altar of burnt-offering was cleansed in the first night watch, and the gates of the Temple, as well as those of the inner court, were opened immediately after midnight, for the convenience of the priests who resided in the city, and for the people, who filled the court before the cock crew, to have their sacrifices duly examined by the priests.

On the first day shall be an holy convocation. At daybreak of this day one of the priests, accompanied by a jubilant procession and a band of music, went with a golden pitcher to the pool of Siloam, and having filled it with water, returned with it to the Temple in time to join his brother-priests in the morning sacrifices. He entered from the south through the water-gate, when he was welcomed by three blasts of the trumpets. He then ascended the steps of the altar with another priest, who carried a pitcher of wine for the drink offering. The two priests turned to the left of the altar, where two silver basins were fixed with holes at the bottom, and simultaneously poured into their respective basins the water and the wine in such a manner that both were emptied at the same time upon the base of the altar. This ceremony of drawing the water was repeated every morning during the seven days of the festival. Another jubilant multitude, who went outside Jerusalem at the same time to gather willows, now returned. With great rejoicings and amidst blasts of trumpets they carried the willows into the Temple, and placed them at the altar in such a manner that their tops overhung and formed a kind of canopy.

Seven days ye shall offer. The special sacrifices for this day consisted of a burnt offering of thirteen bullocks, two rams, and fourteen lambs, with an appropriate meat and drink offering, and a goat for a sin offering (Num. 29:12-38). Whereupon were offered the peace offerings, the vows and the free-will offerings which constituted the repasts of the people. Whilst these sacrifices were being offered up the Levites chanted the festive Hallel, as on the feasts of Passover and Pentecost. This was repeated every day during the seven days of the festival, only that the number of animals offered as sacrifices diminished daily during the middle days of the festival, according to the prescription in Num. 29:12-38. On the eve of the second day, or what is called the lesser festival, and on each of the five succeeding nights, was celebrated the Rejoicing of the water-drawing in the court of the Temple. Four huge golden candelabra were lighted in the centre of the court, and the light emanating from them was visible to the whole city. Around these lights pious men danced before the people with lighted flambeaux in their hands, singing hymns and songs of praise, whilst the Levites, who were stationed on the fifteen steps which led into the womens court, and which corresponded to the fifteen psalms of degrees, i.e., steps (Psa. 120:1-7; Psa. 121:1-8; Psa. 122:1-9; Psa. 123:1-4; Psa. 124:1-8; Psa. 125:1-5; Psa. 126:1-6; Psa. 127:1-5; Psa. 128:1-6; Psa. 129:1-8; Psa. 130:1-8; Psa. 131:1-3; Psa. 132:1-18; Psa. 133:1-3; Psa. 134:1-3), accompanied the songs with instrumental music. It is supposed that on the last evening of the festival, when the splendid light of this grand illumination was to cease, Christ called attention to himself, I am the light of the world (Joh. 8:12), which is to shine for ever, and illuminate not only the Temple and the holy city, but all the world.

On the eighth day shall be an holy convocation. That is, like the first day, since no servile work is to be done on it. As it is not only the finishing of the feast of Tabernacles, but the conclusion of the whole cycle of festivals, the dwelling in tabernacles is to cease on it.

Ye shall offer. For this reason the sacrifices offered on this day are to be distinct, and unlike the sacrifices of the preceding days. The burnt sacrifice is to consist of one bullock, one ram, and seven lambs, with the appropriate meat and drink offerings, and one goat for a sin offering. (Num. 29:36-38.) Being, however, attached to the feast of Tabernacles, the two festivals are often joined together, and spoken of as one festival of eight days.

These are the feasts of the Lord. That is, the above named six festivals, viz.(1) the Passover (Lev. 23:4-14), (2) Pentecost (Lev. 23:15-22), (3) New Year (Lev. 23:23-25), (4) Day of Atonement (Lev. 23:26-32), (5) Tabernacles (Lev. 23:33-36 a), and (6) the concluding festival (Lev. 23:36 b). Thus the list of these festivals concludes with the formula by which they were introduced in Lev. 23:4.

To offer an offering. On these festivals sacrifices are to be offered as prescribed in Num. 28:1-31; Num. 29:1-40.

Beside the sabbaths. By a figure of speech called metonymy, which is frequently used both in the Old and New Testaments, the expression sabbaths stands here for the sacrifices of the sabbaths, just as in chapter Lev. 25:6 sabbath of the land denotes the produce of the sabbath of the land, or of the sabbatic year, and as the phrase it is written in the prophets (Mar. 1:2) is used for it is written in the writings of the prophets. (Comp. also Mat. 5:17; Mat. 7:12; Mat. 22:40, etc.) The meaning, therefore, of the passage before us is that the sacrifices ordered for each of these festivals are to be in addition to the sacrifices appointed to each weekly sabbath in the year; so that when one of these festivals falls on a sabbath, the sacrifices due to the latter are not set aside by the former. Both must be offered in their proper order.

Beside your gifts. Nor are they to interfere with the voluntary offerings which each individual brought privately (Deu. 16:10; Deu. 16:17, 2Ch. 25:7-8), or with the performance of vows (Deu. 12:6-12).

Also in the fifteenth day. After the list of festivals discussed in this chapter has been summed up in Lev. 23:37-38, the next five verses recur to the feast of Tabernacles. The regulations are supplementary to those given before, and embody a separate enactment.

When ye have gathered in the fruit of the land. That is, those productions which ripen in the autumnal season, as wheat, barley, oil, wine, etc.

Ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord. The Israelites are then to keep a festival in which they are to acknowledge the bounties of the Lord and express their gratitude to the Giver of all good things. For this reason this festival is also called the Feast of Ingathering (Exo. 23:16, Exo. 23:22).

On the first day shall be a sabbath. Both on the first and last days of this festival there is to be abstention from all servile work. (See Lev. 23:35-36.)

And ye shall take you on the first day. The four species of vegetable production here ordered are a distinctive feature of this festival. They have been most minutely defined during the second Temple.

Boughs of goodly trees. Better, the fruit of goodly trees, as the margin rightly renders it. As this phrase is too indefinite, and may simply denote the fruit of any choice fruit-tree, there can hardly be any doubt that in this instance, as in many other cases, the lawgiver left it to the administrators of the Law to define its precise kind. Basing it therefore upon one of the significations of the term here translated goodly, which is to dwell, to rest, the authorities during the second Temple decreed that it means the fruit which permanently rests upon the tree, i.e. the citron, the paradise-apple. If it came from an uncircumcised tree (see chap. Lev. 19:23), from an unclean heave-offering (comp. Num. 18:11-12), or exhibited the slightest defect, it was ritually illegal.

Branches of palm trees. During the second Temple this was defined as the shoot of the palm-tree when budding, before the leaves are spread abroad, and whilst it is yet like a rod. It is technically called lulab, which is the expression whereby it is rendered in the ancient Chaldee version. The lulab must at least be three hands tall, and must be tied together with its own kind.

The boughs of thick trees. This, according to the same authorities, denotes the myrtle branch, whose leaves thickly cover the wood. To make it ritually legal it must have three or more shoots round the stem, and on the same level with it. If it is in any way damaged it is illegal. This accounts for the ancient Chaldee version rendering it by myrtle branch.

Willows of the brook. That species, the distinguishing marks of which are dark wood and long leaves with smooth margin. The palm, the myrtle, and the willow, when tied together into one bundle, constitute the Lulab. Whilst the psalms are chanted by the Levites during the sacrifices, the pilgrims, who held the Lulabs or palms, shook them thrice, viz., at the singing of Psa. 118:1, then again at Lev. 23:25, and at Lev. 23:29. When the chant was finished, the priests in procession went round the altar once, exclaiming, Hosanna, O Lord, give us help, O Lord! Give prosperity! (Psa. 118:25). Whereupon the solemn benediction was pronounced by the priests, and the people dispersed amidst the repeated exclamations, How beautiful art thou, O altar! It is this part of the ritual which explains the welcome that the multitude gave Christ when they went to meet Him with palm branches and shouts of hosanna (Mat. 21:8-9; Mat. 21:15; Joh. 12:12-13).

Seven days in the year. These seven days denote the feast of Tabernacles proper, whilst the eight days in Lev. 23:39 include the concluding festival of the last day. (See Lev. 23:36.)

In your generations. Better, throughout your generations, as the Authorized version renders it in Lev. 23:14; Lev. 23:21; Lev. 23:31 of this very chapter. (See chap. Lev. 3:17.)

Dwell in booths seven days. Because the eighth day was a separate festival, when the booths were no more used. (See Lev. 23:36.)

That your generations may know. When their posterity are securely occupying the land of Canaan, the temporary dwelling in booths once a year may remind them of the goodness of God vouch-safed to their fathers in delivering them from the land of bondage, and sheltering them in booths in the wilderness.

And Moses declared. In accordance with the command which Moses received (see Lev. 23:2), he explained to the children of Israel the number and motive of these festivals. This verse therefore forms an appropriate conclusion to the whole chapter.

FACT QUESTIONS 23:3344

568.

How and where were these tabernacles to be built?

569.

When did the Israelites begin to erect these booths?

570.

When were the gates of the Temple opened for the beginning of the day?

571.

Tell in your own words of the ceremony of the golden pitcher.

572.

There were four huge golden candelabra used. Where and when?

573.

Show how this ceremony related to our Lord and the New Testament.

574.

What was the feast of the ingatherings?

575.

The fruit of some trees was acceptable and some was not. Which was which?

576.

Mention three trees whose branches were used for the booths.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(33) And the Lord spake unto Moses.Like the festivals of new year and the day of Atonement (see Lev. 23:23; Lev. 23:26), the feast of Tabernacles, which is discussed in Lev. 23:34-43, is introduced by this special formula, thus indicating that it was a separate communication.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

The Feast of Tabernacles ( Lev 23:33-36 ).

Lev 23:33-34

‘And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the feast of tabernacles for seven days to Yahweh.”

In the seventh month, when the moon was at its full, there would in fact be a few days of bright moonlight, the Feast of Tabernacles was to begin. If the Day of Atonement was a day of gloom, the feast of Tabernacles was the opposite. It was a time of joy and feasting, of making merry and enjoying the vintage harvest. It was a time for giving thanks for the harvests that had been, and for praying for the coming of the rains for the new series of harvests for the following year, the rain that would soften and prepare the ground, and which if it failed to appear would mean heartbreak for the days to come. It paralleled the other seven day feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread, which came six months before, as a seven day period of worship and praise for both past and future blessings.

Lev 23:35

“On the first day shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no servile work.”

The first day of the feast was a holy ‘gathering-together’. It was a sabbath. During it no servile work (work not associated with the feast) was to be done. All concentration was to be on God and His call to worship and thanksgiving. None was to be prevented from its full enjoyment.

Lev 23:36

“Seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh, On the eighth day shall be a holy convocation to you; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh. It is a solemn assembly. You shall do no servile work.”

And then for seven days the joyous feast would continue, with offerings being made every day by fire to Yahweh. The full count of these munificent offerings can be found in Num 29:13-34, including the whole burnt offerings over the week of seventy bull oxen, fourteen rams and ninety eight lambs of the first year (all multiples of seven) together with their accompanying grain offerings. And each day the necessary he-goat for a purification for sin offering. And this would be followed by another sabbath on the eighth day, with special offerings (one bull ox, one ram and seven lambs, and the compulsory he-goat), no servile work performed, and all attention on Yahweh.

This feast is the climax of all the others. It is a reminder to us of all that God has given through the year in which we can rejoice and be glad, it reminds us that we are but strangers and pilgrims in the earth who should abstain from all worldly desires which war against our souls (1Pe 2:11), living in tents and in temporary booths because here we have no continuing city but seek one to come (Heb 13:14; Heb 11:8-10), and it points us forward to seek the ‘rain’ of the Spirit from the new season that will produce a further harvest of men and women to the glory of God (Joh 4:35-36).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Feast of Tabernacles

v. 33. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

v. 34. Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month, of the month Tishri, corresponding to the latter part of our September and the first part of our October, shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord, named the Feast of Booths on account of the temporary structures in which the children of Israel lived during that week, as described below.

v. 35. On the first day shall be an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work therein, as on the other great festivals.

v. 36. Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, in addition to the daily burnt offerings, as described Num 29:13-38. On the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord; it is a solemn assembly, concluding the festivities of the week in a manner befitting their importance; and ye shall do no servile work therein.

v. 37. These are the feasts of the Lord, as enumerated in this Chapter, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, this being the feature which is stressed here, to offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, a burnt offering, and a meat-offering, a sacrifice, and drink-offerings, the libations of wine, every thing upon his day;

v. 38. beside the Sabbaths of the Lord, and beside your gifts, and beside all your vows, and beside all your free-will offerings which ye give unto the Lord.

v. 39. Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days, for the Feast of Tabernacles was the festival of the completed harvest, not only of grain, but also of fruit. On the first day shall be a Sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a Sabbath, as stated above.

v. 40. And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, literally, “fruit of ornamental trees. ” whose long composite leaves would serve well for purposes of decoration, branches of palm-trees, and the boughs of thick trees, such with heavy foliage, and willows of the brook, all these being used in the construction of booths; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord, your God, seven days. Cf Neh 8:15 ff.

v. 41. And ye shall keep it a feast unto the Lord seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations; ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month.

v. 42. Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths, the strangers being excluded in the ordinance, since the second purpose of the festival was to remind the Israelites of their dwelling in tents in the wilderness,

v. 43. that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord, your God. The keynote of the festival, therefore, was joy to the point of exultation, since the contrast between the fullness of the blessings enjoyed in Palestine, as it appeared in every harvest, and the desolation of the wilderness was so marked. Cf Deuteronomy 8.

v. 44. And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord. The Feast of Tabernacles is probably symbolic of the everlasting festival of joy which we shall celebrate with all the elect in heaven, where our hosannas will rise to the throne of the Lamb in endless refrain.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

This feast of tabernacles, which was one of the highest in point of enjoyment to Israel, very mercifully follows five days after the day of atonement. And is there not this gospel mercy typified in it, that the conviction of sin by the SPIRIT is sweetly followed by the conviction of the righteousness of CHRIST; whereby the soul is made glad in righteousness, and peace, and, joy in the HOLY GHOST. This was the feast which our LORD attended, and in which he discoursed so sweetly, Joh 7:37 . It is the same feast which the Jews now observe, when they leave their dwellings and live in their courts or outhouses, dressing them up with branches of trees, and boughs, and the like. And it was intended to remind Israel of their dwelling in tents in the wilderness. But the true Christian’s view of this feast, beheld through a spiritual medium, leads him to see, that the feast of tabernacles is a lively type of JESUS tabernacling in our nature; and that so strong is his love towards us while in our wilderness state, that he not only set up a tabernacle service, but came himself and dwelt with us, and in our nature. Blessed JESUS! oh may I ever keep this spiritual feast with an eye to this unspeakable mercy; and do thou remember that sweet promise, which John the beloved apostle heard for the church’s comfort, during her wilderness state; behold the tabernacle of GOD is with men; and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and GOD himself shall be with them and be their GOD. Rev 21:3 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Leviticus

THE CONSECRATION OF JOY

Lev 23:33 – Lev 23:44 .

These directions for the observance of the great festival at the close of harvest are singularly arranged. Lev 23:33 – Lev 23:36 give part of the instructions for the Feast, Lev 23:37 – Lev 23:38 interrupt these with a summary of the contents of the chapter, and Lev 23:39 – Lev 23:44 pick up the broken thread, and finish the regulations for the feast. Naturally, this apparent afterthought has been pointed out as clear evidence of diversity of authorship. But a reasonable explanation may be given on the hypothesis of the unity of the section, by observing that Lev 23:33 – Lev 23:36 deal only with the sacrificial side of the feast, as worship proper, and thus come into line with the previous part of the chapter, which is occupied with an enumeration of the annual ‘feasts of the Lord’ Lev 23:4. It was natural, therefore, that, when the list had been completed by the sacrificial prescriptions for the last of the series, the close of the catalogue should be marked, in Lev 23:37 – Lev 23:38 , and that then the other parts of the observances connected with this feast, which are not sacrificial, nor, properly speaking, worship, should be added. There is no need to invoke the supposition of two authors, and a subsequent stitching together, in order to explain the arrangement. The unity is all the more probable because, otherwise, the first half would give the name of the feast as that of ‘tabernacles,’ and would not contain a word to account for the name.

We need not, then, include the separating wedge, in Lev 23:37 , in our present consideration. The ritual of the feast is broadly divided by it, and we may consider the two portions separately. The first half prescribes the duration of the feast as seven days the perfect number, with an eighth, which is named, like the first, ‘an holy convocation,’ on which no work was to be done, but is also called ‘a solemn assembly,’ or rather, as the Revised Version reads, in margin, ‘a closing festival,’ inasmuch as it closed, not only that particular feast, but the whole series for the year. The observances enjoined, then, are the public assembly on the first and eighth days, with cessation from labour, and a daily offering. We learn more about the offering from Num 29:12 et seq. , which appoints a very peculiar arrangement. On each day there was to be, as on other feast days, one goat for a sin offering; but the number of rams and lambs for the burnt offering was doubled, and, during the seven days of the feast, seventy bullocks were offered, arranged in a singular diminishing scale,-thirteen on the first day, and falling off by one a day till the seventh day, when seven were sacrificed. The eighth day was marked as no part of the feast proper, by the number of sacrifices offered on it, dropping to one bullock, one ram, and seven lambs. No satisfactory account of this regulation has been suggested. It may possibly have meant no more than to mark the first day as the chief, and to let the worshippers down gradually from the extraordinary to the ordinary.

The other half of the regulations deals with the more domestic aspect of the festival. Observe, as significant of the different point of view taken in it, that the first and eighth days are there described, not as ‘holy convocations,’ but as ‘sabbaths,’ or, as the Revised Version gives it better, ‘a solemn rest.’ Observe, also, that these verses connect the feast with the ingathering of the harvest, as does Exo 23:16 . It is quite possible that Moses grafted the more commemorative aspect of the feast on an older ‘harvest home’; but that is purely conjectural, however confidently affirmed as certain. To tumble down cartloads of quotations about all sorts of nations that ran up booths and feasted in them at vintage-time does not help us much. The ‘joy of harvest’ was unquestionably blended with the joy of remembered national deliverance, but that the latter idea was superadded to the former at a later time is, to say the least, not proven. Would it matter very much if it were? Three kinds of trees are specified from which ‘the fruit,’ that is branches with fruit on them, if the tree bore fruit, were to be taken: palms, ‘thick trees,’ that is thick foliaged, which could give leafy shade, and willows of the brook, which the Rabbis say were used for binding the others together. Lev 23:40 does not tell what is to be done with these branches, but the later usage was to carry some of them in the hand as well as to use them for booths. The keynote of the whole feast is struck in Lev 23:40 : ‘Ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God.’ The leafy spoils come into view here as tokens of jubilation, which certainly suggests their being borne in the hand; but they were also meant to be used in building the booths in which the whole nation was to live during the seven days, in commemoration of God’s having made them ‘dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.’ This is all that is enjoined by Moses. Later additions to the ceremonial do not concern us here, however interesting some of these are. The true intention of the feast is best learned from the original simple form. What, then, was its intention? It was the commemoration of the wilderness life as the ground of rejoicing ‘before the Lord.’ But we must not forget that, according to Leviticus, it was appointed while the wilderness life was still present, and so was not to be observed then. Was it, then, a dead letter, or had the appointment a message of joy even to the weary wanderers who lived in the veritable booths, which after generations were to make a feast of mimicking? How firm the confidence of entering the land must have been, which promulgated such a law! It would tend to hearten the fainting courage of the pilgrims. A divinely guaranteed future is as certain as the past, and the wanderers whom He guides may be sure of coming to the settled home. All words which He speaks beforehand concerning that rest and the joyful worship there are pledges that it shall one day be theirs. The present use of the prospective law was to feed faith and hearten hope; and, when Canaan was reached, its use was to feed memory and brighten godly gladness.

The feast of tabernacles was the consecration of joy. Other religions have had their festivals, in which wild tumult and foul orgies have debased the worshippers to the level of their gods. How different the pure gladness of this feast ‘before the Lord’ ! No coarse and sensuous delights of passion could live before the ‘pure eyes and perfect witness’ of God. In His ‘presence’ must be purity as well as ‘fullness of joy.’ If this festival teaches us, on the one hand, that they wofully misapprehend the spirit of godliness who do not find it full of gladsomeness, it teaches us no less, on the other, that they wofully misapprehend the spirit of joy, who look for it anywhere but ‘before the Lord.’ The ritual of the feast commanded gladness. Joy is a duty to God’s children. There were mourners in Israel each year, as the feast came round, who would rather have shrunk into a corner, and let the bright stream of merriment flow past them; but they, too, had to open their heavy hearts, and to feel that, in spite of their private sorrows, they had a share in the national blessings. No grief should unfit us for feeling thankful joy for the great common gift of ‘a common salvation.’ The sources of religious joy, open to all Christians, are deeper than the fountains of individual sorrow, deep as life though these sometimes seem.

The wilderness life came into view in the feast as a wandering life of privation and change. The booths reminded of frail and shifting dwellings, and so made the contrast with present settled homes the sweeter. They were built, not of such miserable scrub as grew in the desert, and could scarcely throw shade enough to screen a lizard, but of the well-foliaged branches of trees grown by the rivers of water, and so indicated present abundance. The remembrance of privations and trials past, of which the meaning is understood, and the happy results in some degree possessed, is joy. Prosperous men like to talk of their early struggles and poverty. This feast teaches that such remembrance ought always to trace the better present to God, and that memory of conquered sorrows and trials is wholesome only when it is devout, and that the joy of present ease is bracing, not when it is self-sufficient, but when it is thankful. The past, rightly looked at, will yield for us all materials for a feast of tabernacles; and it is rightly looked at only when it is all seen as God’s work, and as tending to settled peace and abundance. Therefore the regulations end with that emphatic seal of all His commands, to impress which on our hearts is the purpose of all His dealings with us as with Israel, ‘I am the Lord your God.’

III. We may note our Lord’s allusions to the feast. There are probably two, both referring to later additions to the ceremonies. One is in Joh 7:37 . We learn from the Talmud that on each of the seven days and according to one Rabbi on the eighth also a priest went down to Siloam and drew water in a golden pitcher, which he brought back amid the blare of trumpets to the altar, and poured into a silver basin while the joyous worshippers chanted the ‘Great Hallel’ Psa 113:1 – Psa 118:29, and thrice waved their palm branches as they sang. We may venture to suppose that this had been done for the last time; that the shout of song had scarcely died away when a stir in the crowd was seen, and a Galilean peasant stood forth, and there, before the priests with their empty vessels, and the hushed multitude, lifted up His voice, so as to be heard by all, and cried, saying: ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.’ What increased force is given to the extraordinary self-assertion of such words, if we picture this as the occasion of their utterance! Leviticus gives no preeminence to any one day, but John’s expression, ‘that great day of the feast,’ may well have been warranted by later developments.

The other allusion is less certain, though it is probable. It is found in the saying at Joh 8:12 : ‘I am the Light of the world,’ etc. The Talmud gives a detailed account of the illuminations accompanying the feast. Four great golden lamps were set up in the court, each tended by four young priests. ‘There was not a court in Jerusalem that was not lit up by the lights of the water-drawing.’ Bands of grave men with flashing torches danced before the people, while Levites ‘accompanied them with harps, psalteries, cymbals, and numberless musical instruments,’ and another band of Levites standing on the fifteen steps which led to the women’s court, chanted the fifteen so-called ‘songs of degrees,’ and yet others marched through the courts blowing their trumpets as they went. It must have been a wild scene, dangerously approximating to the excitement of heathen nocturnal festivals, and our Lord may well have sought to divert the spectators to higher thoughts. But the existence of the allusion is doubtful.

We have one more allusion to the feast, considered as a prophecy of the true rest and joy in the true Canaan. The same John, who has preserved Christ’s references, gives one of his own in Rev 7:9 , when he shows us the great multitude out of every nation ‘with palms in their hands.’ These are not the Gentile emblems of victory, as they are often taken to be. There are no heathen emblems in the Apocalypse, but all moved within the circle of Jewish types and figures. So we are to think of that crowd of ‘happy palmers’ as joyously celebrating the true feast of tabernacles in the settled home above, and remembering, with eyes made clear by heaven, the struggles and fleeting sorrows of the wilderness. The emblem sets forth heaven as a festal assembly, as the ingathering of the results of the toils of earth, as settled life after weary pilgrimage, as glad retrospect of the meaning and triumphant possession of the issues of God’s patient guidance and wise discipline. Here we dwell in ‘the earthly house of this tabernacle’; there, in a ‘building of God . . .eternal.’ Here we are agitated by change, and wearied by the long road; there, changeless but increasing joy will be ours, and the backward look of thankful wonder will enhance the sweetness of the blessed present, and confirm the calm and sure hope of an ever-growing glory stretching shoreless and bright before us.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

the Feast of Tabernacles

Lev 23:33-44

The annual Feast of Tabernacles was a beautiful custom, when the whole people removed from their dwellings to spend the days and nights in the booths, constructed out of the verdant boughs gathered from woodland and forest. How the children must have reveled in the experience, and what a healthy change it made for them all! The great lesson, of course, was to recall the Wilderness experience of their fathers, during which the Almighty was their fellow-pilgrim.

In figure they confessed that they were still pilgrims and strangers on the earth, and had no abiding city, but sought one to come. It was the custom of the feast in later years to pour water, drawn from Siloam, on the Temple pavement, in memory of the water supplies of the Wilderness-the rock that followed them. And it was on that occasion that Jesus uttered His memorable appeal. See Joh 7:37.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Reciprocal: Num 29:12 – the fifteenth day 1Ki 12:32 – like unto Eze 45:25 – In the seventh Zec 14:16 – and to

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Lev 23:33-44. The Festival of Tents (pp. 1021).This the final harvest home (fruit and vintage). It would naturally be, as elsewhere, of a joyous character. The Hebrew countryside, indeed, had turned the vintage into an organised picnic and camped out for a week; the celebrations are referred to in Jdg 21:19, 1Ki 8:2; 1Ki 12:32 (Jeroboam fixed the celebration in N. Israel, not unnaturally, a month later) and Eze 45:25, Ezr 3:4 etc. It is definitely ordained in Deu 16:13 f. Here two descriptions of the festival are given, broken by Lev 23:37 f., which is properly the conclusion of the whole section.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

7. The Feast of Tabernacles 23:33-44

This feast (Heb. Sukkot) was another very joyous occasion for the Israelites. It was the third fall festival. It commemorated the Israelites’ journey from Egyptian bondage to blessing in Canaan. Its other names were the Feast of Booths and the Feast of Ingathering (CEV the Festival of Shelters). The people built booths out of branches and lived under these for the duration of this eight-day festival as a reminder of their life in the wilderness. They presented many offerings during this holiday (Num 29:12-38). In this feast the Israelites’ looked backward to the land of their slavery and forward to the Promised Land of blessing. The feast opened and closed with a Sabbath. It was primarily a time of joy since God had provided atonement. It was the only festival in which God commanded the Israelites to rejoice, and it revolved around the harvest of grapes and other fall field products.

". . . in the later postexilic period [it] took on something of a carnival atmosphere." [Note: Harrison, p. 220.]

The Israelites will enjoy a similar prolonged period of rejoicing in the Millennium when they will enjoy national blessing as a result of Jesus Christ’s atoning work for them (Zec 14:16). Then the Jews in the millennial kingdom will be believers in Him and therefore redeemed and adopted as His chosen people. However there will be greater blessings on ahead for them in the eternal state.

God designed this feast primarily as a time of anticipation as well as reflection. Similarly our worship should include the element of anticipation as we look forward to entering into all that God has promised us in the future. The Puritans patterned their Thanksgiving Day feast in New England after this Jewish festival. [Note: Harris, p. 629.]

"The people of God must preserve in memory how the LORD provided for them throughout the year and how he provided for their ancestors as he led them to the fulfillment of the promises." [Note: Ross, p. 437.]

"The dozen feasts of the Hebrew calendar [counting those added later in Israel’s history] are pitifully few when compared with the fifty or sixty religious festivals of ancient Thebes, for example." [Note: Kenneth Kitchen, The Bible In Its World, p. 86.]

Feasts & Fasts in the Early History of Israel

Season

Month

Day(s) of Month

Feast or Fast

Attendance by Adult Males

Sacred

Civil

Modern

Spring

1

7

March/April

14

Passover

Optional

Spring

1

7

March/April

14-20

Unleavened Bread

Required

Spring

1

7

March/April

The day after the Sabbath following Passover

Firstfruits

Optional

Spring

3

9

May/June

4

Pentecost (a.k.a. Harvest, Weeks)

Required

Fall

7

1

September/ October

1

Trumpets

Optional

Fall

7

1

September/
October

10

Day of Atonement (the only fast)

Optional

Fall

7

1

September/
October

15-21

Tabernacles (a.k.a. Booths, Ingathering)

Required

"When we celebrate Good Friday we should think not only of Christ’s death on the cross for us, but of the first exodus from Egypt which anticipated our deliverance from the slavery of sin. At Easter we recall Christ’s resurrection and see in it a pledge of our own resurrection at the last day, just as the firstfruits of harvest guarantee a full crop later on (1Co 15:20; 1Co 15:23). At Whitsun (Pentecost) we praise God for the gift of the Spirit and all our spiritual blessings; the OT reminds us to praise God for our material benefits as well." [Note: Wenham, The Book . . ., p. 306.]

Leviticus does not mention the Feast of Purim (lit. lots) that the Jews added to their calendar later in their history (cf. Est 9:20-32). Neither does the Old Testament refer to the Feast of Dedication (Heb. Hanukkah) because the Jews instituted it much later in their history. Purim celebrates the Jews’ deliverance from the Persians in Esther’s time. Hanukkah, often called the Feast of Lights, commemorates the revolt and victory of the Maccabees (Hasmoneans) against Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria and the rededication of the temple in 165 B.C. [Note: For an interesting article giving the historical background, institution, and customs of this feast plus suggestions for using it as an opportunity to witness to Jews, see Charles Lee Feinberg, "Hanukkah," Fundamentalist Journal 5:1 (December 1986):16-18.] During the Babylonian captivity the Jews began to celebrate other fasts as well (cf. Zec 7:1-8)

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES

Lev 23:33-43

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord. On the first day shall be a holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work. Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord: on the eighth day shall be a holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord: it is a solemn assembly; ye shall do no servile work. These are the set feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, a burnt offering, and a meal offering, a sacrifice, and drink offerings, each on its own day: beside the sabbaths of the Lord, and beside your gifts, and beside all your vows, and beside all your freewill offerings, which ye give unto the Lord. Howbeit on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruits of the land, ye shall keep the feast of the Lord seven days: on the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest. And ye shall take you on the first day the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. And ye shall keep it a feast unto the Lord seven days in the year: it is a statute forever in your generations: ye shall keep it in the seventh month. Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are homeborn in Israel shall dwell in booths: that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

The sin of Israel having been thus removed, the last and the greatest of all the feasts followed the feast of tabernacles or ingathering. It occupied a full week (Lev 23:34), from the fifteenth to the twenty-second of the month, the first day being signalised by a holy convocation and abstinence from all servile work (Lev 23:35). Two reasons are indicated, here and elsewhere, for the observance: the one, natural (Lev 23:39), the completed ingathering of the products of the year; the other, historical (Lev 23:42-43), -it was to be a memorial of the days when Israel dwelt in booths in the wilderness. Both ideas were represented in the direction (Lev 23:40) that they should take on the first day “the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook,” fitly symbolising the product of the vine and the fruit trees which were harvested in this month; and, making booths of these, all were to dwell in these tabernacles, and “rejoice before the Lord their God seven days.” And to this the historical reason is added, “that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.”

No one need feel any difficulty in seeing in this a connection with similar harvest and vintage customs among other peoples of that time. That other nations had festivities of this kind at that time, was surely no reason why God should not order these to be taken up into the Mosaic law, elevated in their significance, and sanctified to higher ends. Nothing could be more fitting than that the completion of the ingathering of the products of the year should be celebrated as a time of rejoicing and a thanksgiving day before Jehovah. Indeed, so natural is such a festivity to religious minds, that-as is well known-in the first instance, New England, and then, afterward, the whole United States, and also the Dominion of Canada, have established the observance of an annual “Thanksgiving Day” in the latter part of the autumn, which is observed by public religious services, by suspension of public business, and as a glad day of reunion of kindred and friends. It is interesting to observe how this last feature of the day is also mentioned in the case of this Hebrew feast, in the later form of the law: {Deu 16:13-15} “After that thou hast gathered in from thy threshing floor and from thy winepress thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates, and thou shalt be altogether joyful.”

The chief sentiment of the feast was thus joy and thanksgiving to God as the Giver of all good. Yet the joy was not to be merely natural and earthly, but spiritual; they were to rejoice (Lev 23:40) “before the Lord.” And the thanksgiving was not to be expressed merely in words, but in deeds. The week, we are elsewhere told, was signalised by the largest burnt offerings of any of the feasts, consisting of a total of seventy bullocks, beginning with thirteen on the first day, and diminishing by one each day; while these again were accompanied daily by burnt offerings of fourteen lambs and two rams, the double of what was enjoined even for the week of unleavened bread, with meal offerings and drink offerrings in proportion. Nor was this outward ritual expression of thanksgiving enough; for their gratitude was to be further attested by taking into their glad festivities the Levite who had no portion, the fatherless and the widow, and even. the stranger.

It is not hard to see the connection of all this with the historical reference to the days of their wilderness journeyings. Lest they might forget God in nature, they were to recall to mind, by their dwelling in booths, the days when they had no houses, and no fields nor crops, when, notwithstanding, none the less easily the Almighty God of Israel fed them with manna which they knew not, that He might make them to “know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every thing that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Deu 8:3.” There is, indeed, no better illustration of the intention of this part of the feast than those words with their context as they occur in Deuteronomy.

The ceremonies of the feast of tabernacles having been completed with the appointed seven days, there followed an eighth day, -an holy convocation, a festival of solemn rest (Lev 23:36, Lev 23:39). This last day of holy solemnity and joy, to which a special name is given, is properly to be regarded, not as a part of the feast of tabernacles merely, but as celebrating the termination of the whole series of sabbatic times from the first to the seventh month. No ceremonial is here enjoined except the holy convocation, and the offering of “an offering made by fire unto the Lord,” with abstinence from all servile work.

TYPICAL MEANING OF THE FEASTS OF THE SEVENTH MONTH

We have already seen that the earlier feasts of the year were also prophetic; that Passover and Unleavened Bread pointed forward to Christ, our Passover, slain for us; Pentecost, to the spiritual ingathering of the first fruits of the worlds harvest, fifty days after the presentation of our Lord in resurrection, as the wave sheaf of the first fruits. We may therefore safely infer that these remaining feasts of the seventh month must be typical also. But, if so, typical of what? Two things may be safely said in this matter. The significance of the three festivals of this seventh month must be interpreted in harmony with what has already passed into fulfilment; and, in the second place, inasmuch as the feast of trumpets, the day of atonement, and the feast of tabernacles all belong to the seventh and last month of the ecclesiastical year, they must find their fulfilment in connection with what Scripture calls “the last times.”

Keeping the first point in view, we may then safely say that if Pentecost typified the first fruits of the worlds harvest in the ingathering of an election from all nations, the feast of tabernacles must then typify the completion of that harvest in a spiritual ingathering, final and universal. Not only so, but, inasmuch as in the antitypical fulfilment of the wave sheaf in the resurrection of our Lord, we were reminded that the consummation of the new creation is in resurrection from the dead, and that in regeneration is therefore involved resurrection, hence the feast of tabernacles, as celebrating the absolute completion of the years harvest, must typify also the resurrection season, when all that are Christs shall rise from the dead at His coming. And, finally, whereas this means for the now burdened earth permanent deliverance from the curse, and the beginning of a new age thus signalised by glorious life in resurrection, in which are enjoyed the blessed fruits of lifes labours and pains for Christ, this was shadowed forth by the ordinance that immediately upon the seven days of tabernacles should follow a feast of the eighth day, the first day of a new week, in celebration of the beginning season of rest from all the labours of the field.

Most beautifully, thus regarded, does all else connected with the feast of tabernacles correspond, as type to antitype, to the revelation of the last things, and therein reveal its truest and deepest spiritual significance: the joy, the reunion, the rejoicing with son and with daughter, the fulness of gladness also for the widow and the fatherless; and this, not only for those in Israel, but also for the stranger, not of Israel, -for Gentile as well as Israelite was to have part in the festivity of that day; and, again, the full attainment of the most complete consecration, signified in the tenfold burnt offering-all finds its place here. And so now we can see why it was that our Saviour declared {Mat 13:39} that the end of this present age should be the time of harvest; and how Paul, looking at the future spiritual ingathering, places the ingathering of the Gentiles {Rom 11:25} as one of the last things. In full accord with this interpretation of the typical significance of this feast it is that in Zec 14:1-21 we find it written that in the predicted day of the Lord, when (Zec 14:5) the Lord “shall come, and all the holy ones” with Him, and (Zec 14:9) “the Lord shall be King over all the earth; the Lord one, and His name one,” then (Zec 14:16) “everyone that is left of all the nations shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles”; and, moreover, that so completely shall consecration be realised in that day that (Zec 14:20) even upon the bells of the horses shall the words be inscribed, “HOLY UNTO THE LORD!” But before the joyful feast of tabernacles could be celebrated, the great, sorrowful day of atonement must be kept, -a season marked, on the one hand, by affliction of soul throughout all Israel; on the other, by the complete putting away of the sin of the nation for the whole year, through the presentation of the blood of the sin offering by the high priest, within the veil before the mercy seat. Now, if the feast of tabernacles has been correctly interpreted, as presignifying in symbol the completion of the great world harvest in the end of the age, does the prophetic word reveal anything in connection with the last things as preceding that great harvest, and, in some sense, preparing for and ushering in that day, which should be the antitype of the great day of atonement?

One can hardly miss of the answer. For precisely that which the prophets and apostles both represent as the event which shall usher in that great day of final ingathering and of blessed resurrection rest and joy in consummated redemption, is the national repentance of Israel, and the final cleansing of their age-long sin. In the type, two things are conspicuous: the great sorrowing of the nation and the great atonement putting away all Israels sin. And two things, in like manner, are conspicuous in the prophetic pictures of the antitype, namely, Israels heartbroken repentance, and the removal thereupon of Israels sin; their cleansing in the “fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness.” As Zechariah puts it, {Zec 12:10; Zec 13:1} “I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look unto me whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son”; and “in that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.” And the relation of this cleansing of Israel to the days of blessing which follow is most explicitly set forth by the Apostle Paul, in these words concerning Israel, {Rom 11:12; Rom 11:15} “If their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? If the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?”

So far, then, all seems clear. But the feast of trumpets yet remains to be explained. Has Holy Scripture predicted anything falling in the period between Pentecost and the repentance of Israel, but specially belonging to the last things, which might with reason be regarded as the antitype of this joyful feast of trumpets? Here, again, it is not easy to go far astray: For the essential idea of the trumpet call is announcement, proclamation. From time to time all through the year the trumpet call was heard in Israel; but on this occasion it became the feature of the day, and was universal throughout their land. And as we have seen, its special significance for that time was to announce that the day of atonement and the feast of ingathering, which typified the full consummation of the kingdom of God, were now at hand. One can thus hardly fail to think at once of that other event which, according to our Lords express word, {Mat 24:14} is immediately to precede “the end,” namely, the universal proclamation of the Gospel: “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come.” As throughout the year, from time to time, the trumpet call was heard in Israel, but only in connection with the central sanctuary; but now in all the land, as the chief thing in the celebration of the day which ushered in the final sabbatic month, precisely so in the antitype. All through the ages has the Gospel been sounded forth, but in a partial and limited way; but at “the time of the end” the proclamation shall become universal. And thus and then shall the feast of trumpets also, like Passover and Pentecost, pass into complete fulfilment, and be swiftly followed by Israels repentance and restoration, and the consequent reappearing, as Peter predicts, {Act 3:19-21 R.V} of Israels High Priest from within the veil, and thereupon the harvest of the world, the resurrection of the just, and the consummation upon earth of the glorified kingdom of God.

Of many thoughts of a practical kind which this chapter suggests, we may perhaps well dwell especially on one. The ideal of religious life, which these set times of the Lord kept before Israel, was a religion of joy. Again and again is this spoken of in the accounts of these feasts. This is true even of Passover, with which we oftener, though mistakenly, connect thoughts of sadness and gloom. Yet Passover was a feast of joy; it celebrated the birthday of the nation, and a deliverance unparalleled in history. The only exception to this joyful character in all these sacred times is found in the day of atonement; but it is itself instructive on the same point, teaching most clearly that in the Divine order, as in the necessity of the case, the joy in the Lord, of which the feast of ingathering was the supreme expression, must be preceded by and grounded in an accepted expiation and true penitence for sin.

So it is still with the religion of the Bible: it is a religion of joy. God does not wish us to be gloomy and sad. He desires that we should ever be joyful before Him, and thus find by blessed experience that “the joy of the Lord is our strength.” Also, in particular, we do well to observe further that, inasmuch as all these set times were sabbatic seasons, joyfulness is inseparably connected with the Biblical conception of the Sabbath. This has been too often forgotten; and the weekly day of sabbatic rest has sometimes been made a day of stern repression and forbidding gloom. How utterly astray are such conceptions from the Divine ideal, we shall perhaps the more clearly see when we call to mind the thought which appears more or less distinctly in all these sabbatic seasons, that every Sabbath points forward to the eternal joy of the consummated kingdom, the sabbath rest which remaineth for the people of God. {Heb 4:9}

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary