Main components of feast
1. Live in booths (tabernacles) for 7 days
What did these booths (sukkot) look like?--3 sides and a roof, temporary in nature, in appearance much like what you would picture a stable in a nativity scene
2. Wave palm branches/tree branches
(side note--traditional psalm at sukot is "'Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord-hosanna, hosanna!")
-- Who is to celebrate this feast?
all generations to come (KJV says "to be celebrated forever")
--Reason for feast/spiritual principle
Reminder that God brought children of Israel out of and took them into the blessing/promise/covenant that he had made with them.
Tabernacles was a physical reminder of a spiritual truth: this world is just our temporary home." God has set us free from the s of sin and death (Egypt) and is taking us on a journey into the fullness of his blessing and promise (Canaan). In the wilderness, the children of Israel lived in temporary homes (tabernacles) because they had not yet arrived where God was taking them." If we become too "rooted" in where we are, we will never move on into the fullness of what God has for us.
Other components of tabernacles:
Deut. 16:13-17 Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Be joyful at your Feast--you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites, the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns. For seven days celebrate the Feast to the LORD your God at the place the LORD will choose. For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. No man should appear before the LORD empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the LORD your God has blessed you.
Tabernacles was to be celebrated in the fall, after the harvest, and was to be a joyful festival (a party).
It represented the blessing of God, the fall/final harvest (wine and grain).
It was one of the three pilgrimage feasts, when the heads of each household were to go up to Jerusalem to worship (families were customarily taken as well). Considered the greatest of all the feasts, it was the one that would always be attended even if one couldn't go up to Jerusalem for the other two.
When King David brought the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, he placed it in a sukot until the temple could be built. For the first time the presence of God was open for all to come and see. This time in the history of Israel is the greatest worship we find recorded in scripture. This was a picture of what was to come, when God "tabernacled" with men in the form of messiah.
Joel 2:1-27 is a call to Israel to return to the principles of the fall feast: Trumpets-a call to worship; atonement-a call to repentance; and tabernacles-God's blessing and provision, which always follows the first two.
Jeremiah 30&31 echo the same themes in the pictures/language of the fall feast, particularly sukot-"they will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion: they will rejoice in the bounty of the Lord-the grain, the new wine, and the oil..."
Fulfillment in Christ--
The Children of Israel were going up to Jerusalem for the feasts every year. Because of the number of people, many could not fit in the city, so they would stay in surrounding cities, and then go into Jerusalem during the day. It was during this time that Ceaser Augustus took a census.; Although the command of God was to live in a sukot for 7 days, many of the people would go and stay in hotels which built sukot outside and only have their meals in the sukot. The inn was full however, so Mary and Joseph were forced to stay outside, in the Sukot as God had commanded. There Jesus was born, and laid in a manger--even as a newborn infant, he perfectly fulfilled the law.
Jesus did not live in Jerusalem, but in Galilee, yet much of his teaching recorded in scripture occurred while he was in Jerusalem. This is because he kept the feasts faithfully, and used them as visual illustrations of the truths he was presenting. He was the fulfillment of the promise of God, the fullness of God's blessing and covenant. During the triumphant entry, which happened during Passover, the people recognized this fact and began to wave palm branches and cry out "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord-Hosanna, Hosanna!" This angered the scribes, because the people were celebrating the wrong feast-tabernacles, not passover. It was during Sukot, that Jesus told his followers that he would give "streams of living water" to whoever was thirsty (John 7) - this was a reference to the prophecy of Zechariah 14:8 of the return of messiah.
Tabernacles is also the only feast scripture specifically says we will celebrate during the millenium.
Zechariah 14:1-21 A day of the LORD is coming when your plunder will be divided among you. I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city. Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south. You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake [1] in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. On that day there will be no light, no cold or frost. It will be a unique day, without daytime or nighttime--a day known to the LORD. When evening comes, there will be light. On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea [2] and half to the western sea, [3] in summer and in winter. The LORD will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name. The whole land, from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem, will become like the Arabah. But Jerusalem will be raised up and remain in its place, from the Benjamin Gate to the site of the First Gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the royal winepresses. It will be inhabited; never again will it be destroyed. Jerusalem will be secure. This is the plague with which the LORD will strike all the nations that fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while they are still standing on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.
On that day men will be stricken by the LORD with great panic. Each man will seize the hand of another, and they will attack each other. Judah too will fight at Jerusalem. The wealth of all the surrounding nations will be collected--great quantities of gold and silver and clothing. A similar plague will strike the horses and mules, the camels and donkeys, and all the animals in those camps. Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, they will have no rain. If the Egyptian people do not go up and take part, they will have no rain. The LORD [4] will bring on them the plague he inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. This will be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. On that day HOLY TO THE LORD will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the LORD's house will be like the sacred bowls in front of the altar. Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the LORD Almighty, and all who come to sacrifice will take some of the pots and cook in them. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite [5] in the house of the LORD Almighty. _
All the earth will worship and acknowledge the fulfillment of God's promise is only through
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