Feast of Tabernacles
The Feast of Tabernacles known also as Sukkot or the Feast of the Ingathering, is a biblical Jewish holiday celebrated on the 15th day of the seventh month, Tishrei, on the ecclesiastical Hebrew calendar varying from late September to late October and lasts seven days.
“Biblical holidays given to the Jewish people had three aspects. Israel was to observe the holiday in the present in order to remember something God had done in the past, while looking forward to some future prophetic purpose hidden within each festival.” (https://feast.icej.org/about)
The Feast of Tabernacles is one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals, the other two being Passover and Pentecost. The Pilgrimage Festivals are when the Israelites were commanded to complete a religious journey to the Temples in Jerusalem. The temple structures were located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. These successive temples stood at this location and functioned as a site of ancient Israelite and later Jewish worship. It is also called the Holy Temple.
During this the Feast of Tabernacles, the Jewish people were to gather and remember the provisions God had made during their time in the wilderness but also to look forward to that promised Messianic age when all nations will flow to this city to worship the Lord.
Sukkot is the name of the temporary dwelling or booth in which farmers would live during harvesting, a fact connecting to the agricultural significance of the holiday stressed in the Book of Exodus 34:22 (NIV).
“Celebrate the Festival of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering at the turn of the year.[b]23 Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord, the God of Israel.”
This festival was intended as a reminiscence of the type of fragile dwellings in which the Israelites dwelt during their 40 years of travel in the desert after the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. Throughout the holiday, meals are eaten inside the sukkah booths and many people slept there as well as stated in Leviticus 23:42-43 (NET):
“42 You must live in temporary shelters for seven days; every native citizen in Israel must live in temporary shelters, 43 so that your future generations may know that I made the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’”
During the festival, both the first and last days are days of rest but on the days in between it is mandatory that the people perform a waving ceremony of the Four Species; fruit of a beautiful tree, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook. The waving ceremony provides an opportunity to rejoice and give thanks to God for the provision and cares for our lives.
Water and light were two other elements used during this feast. The first morning of Sukkot a procession of priests went down to the pool and retrieved a golden container of water sufficient to last throughout the seven days of the feast. The water was brought up with great ceremony. The shofar was blown and the pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem for the feast waved their lulavs (a closed frond date of the palm tree) as the priests carried the water around the altar. At night, huge menorahs were lit in the middle of the tent city, illuminating it. Then there was a procession with lit torches as the people walked around the stonewall of the temple all the while people danced and played harps, lyres, cymbals and lutes.
Zechariah foretold of a time when all nations will ascend to Jerusalem each year to "worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles” (14:16). This feast will mark the day of Christ when Jesus will return to the earth. Many Christians today journey to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles affirming our faith in demonstrating that they believe the day of Christ is coming.
In the Gospel of John chapter 7 and 8, it is record that Jesus also celebrated this festival and He uses the two traditional elements of the celebration, water and light, applying them to His own life and mission. Jesus uses these two traditional symbols to help the people understand who He is and what He offers.
John 7:37 (NKJV)
37 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. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
John 8:12 (NKJV)
12 Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
You can read about this feast in the Book of Leviticus 23:33-44 and Jesus’ accounts in John chapters 7 and 8.
Happy Sukkot!!