The Feast of Booths
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Recap: Moses’ instructions to Israel. Keeping the commandments, including the ordained feast days the Lord has declared. Passover, feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and now feast of weeks. Prior to this, he addressed tithing and the Sabbatical year. Remember the theme through all of these: Enjoy God. Be thankful, be glad in your participation with him, whether in your giving, or in your keeping the feasts, or the sabbatical year. All of these were opportunities for the people to express real joy at the Lord’s provision, protection, and promises to them. In fact, they are promised his protection even during the feasts, when they would all come to Jerusalem and leave their homes, and in some cases their women and children, to keep the feasts.
A person with any military or protective experience may rightly have a concern in a normal situation when all the men were away and women an children left. IN fact, history teaches this can be a dangerous time for those more vulnerable, when the protectors are not around to protect. But God promised that he would protect, so long as His people faithfully did what he commanded, including keeping the feasts, when all the men would have to go.
You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end.
Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel.
For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
Now that is an amazing promise!
So now we come back to our passage this morning, as Moses reminds the people to keep the festival of booths, and the others as well.
“You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress.
You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns.
For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.
“Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed.
Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.
Related passages:
You shall keep the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor.
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
“Speak to the people of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month and for seven days is the Feast of Booths to the Lord.
On the first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work.
For seven days you shall present food offerings to the Lord. On the eighth day you shall hold a holy convocation and present a food offering to the Lord. It is a solemn assembly; you shall not do any ordinary work.
“These are the appointed feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim as times of holy convocation, for presenting to the Lord food offerings, burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each on its proper day,
besides the Lord’s Sabbaths and besides your gifts and besides all your vow offerings and besides all your freewill offerings, which you give to the Lord.
“On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate 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 you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.
You shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month.
You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths,
that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
Thus Moses declared to the people of Israel the appointed feasts of the Lord.
“On the fifteenth day of the seventh month you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall keep a feast to the Lord seven days.
Numbers 29 goes on in great detail about the day by day requirements of the feast, and I will leave that for you to digest later in your personal study time.
But for this morning, let us focus mostly on what Deuteronomy says, since that is our main text:
“You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress.
So here is the timing. Pentecost was celebrated at the beginning of the harvest, Feast of Booths at the end of harvest, when the people had worked hard to bring in that harvest, and could look at the fruits of their labor, yes, but more importantly are those the fruits of God’s provision. He gives people labor to do, but he ultimately gives the fruit. This is true in food production just as it is in gospel work. One difference is that gospel work does not have always have consistent fruit. But when fruit comes, it is God’s fruit. As Paul said, gospel workers are merely hired hands. Some plant, some water, but God gives the growth. Yet, there continues to be a harvest out there yet to be brought in, so as scripture says, we pray for more workers to go out into that harvest.
The feast of booths, then, is not entirely unlike Thanksgiving, or at least what Thanksgiving ought to be, and that is a celebration of gratitude to God for his good provision. Obviously we do not go and live in tents or booths during Thanksgiving, at least most of us, but the celebration ought to be joyful and God focused. This is what we hope to accomplish this year, when we have our first annual Thanksgiving Dinner here at Oasis Church.
So we have the when, and that is when the harvest is completed. Now let’s look a little at the who:
You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns.
Who? Well, basically everyone. your family, your workers, the priests, anyone visiting or traveling through on planes, trains, or automobiles, people without families of their own, as well as widows. All should come, all should rejoice, all should share in gratitude to God. And see that key word? Rejoice! This is not a time to be depressed or sad. Even though most certainly on any given year there are people who have had tragedy and hard times, at this time of coming together there is to be great joy and celebration.
And now the why:
For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.
This God, the one who had proven himself to them through the Exodus and into the promised land, this God would see them have something to harvest, so long as they kept covenant with him. That is important. This scripture promises blessing in produce, but this is in light of the covenant, and that is part of the context. It isn’t just that God will bless them no matter how they interact with God, but they are to be faithful to him, and not to neglect the worship of God, especially not neglecting His worship while worshiping other gods.
But ideally, the people were to come and keep the feast because they had been blessed, and they would be altogether joyful!
And this section wraps up with Moses give a short recap:
“Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed.
Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.
Just as a subject of a King would bring a gift when approaching their king, God’s people are to always offer something to him. First off, we offer our bodies as liing sacrifices, holy and acceptable to him. But we also give as we are able, according to the blessing of the LORD. Remember who attends the feast? The wealthy will have the most to contribute, and can give much more freely, and those less fortunate are supplied in part by the generosity of God as it pours through the hands of others. Yet even the person with the least should bring something to the Lord. He looks at the heart more than the object given, and he wants hearts that are altogether joyful.
Again, we see the concept that the motivation for one to give is not based on fear, but on gratitude and joy. We love because He first loved us, and those who have been forgiven much, love much. I listened to a podcast yesterday in which they were talking about sanctification, and it was mentioned that Paul progressed in his self-description. Early, he called himself the last of the apostles (#12 of 12). Then, he called himself the least of the saints. Finally, he called himself the chief of sinners. The guy on the podcast pointed out that this progression is the grace of God. Paul, as he grew deeper in the faith and closer to God in his journey of sanctification, grew to understand more and more his wretchedness and unworthiness.
The further along his path he got, the more he realized his sinfulness. It isn’t that Paul was growing in sanctification, it is that he was growing in sanctification in such a way where he became more cognizant of his sins. You can see this happening, and the more he realized his own fallen nature, the more he recognized the grace of God, the more he recognized the love of God, the more recognized this, the more he loved God, and his gratitude and praise increased.
Sometimes it seems like believers start out thankful for their salvation, but over time they seem to think they have arrived, and forget they were wretched in their sins. But someone going through true sanctification, as they move forward in their faith, they actually see more and more the sin in their life, and hate the sin even more, and regret it even more, and fight it even more. Yet, as we advance in our sanctification and become more aware of our sin, we do not become crippled by the sin, but even more, we look to the cross!
Jesus died for those sins, they are reckoned to him, He took them, he died once for all, he is Savior, Lord, Prophet, priest, and King! How much more should a believer today be altogether joyful in gratitude and thanksgiving to the Lord! And how much more, then, should we each come to the feast of the Lord, which is daily and spiritual, and bring an offering as we are able, most especially to bring ourselves, presented as living sacrifices:
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
You have probably heard it said that the problem with living sacrifices is they are always trying to crawl off the altar. But when we get a grasp of what Christ did for us on the cross, when we understand how vile our sin is and how awful our predicament would be outside of Christ, when we grow in faithfulness and appreciation for all of the good gifts of God, when we take note of how he did this for us from before the foundation of the world, when we realize he decided to save us before we even had a concept of time or who God is, when we begin to grasp that the only way we can even know true love is because he loved us first, when we consider that He died for us while we were yet sinners, when we consider that He sealed us through the Holy Spirit when we believed so that the true believer can never be lost, but has that blessed assurance, when we recognize that He not only saved us from the penalties of sin, but also rewards us for the faith he gave us; when we realize all these things, we will not want to crawl off the altar, but we will want to fully and joyfully dedicate our lives to him.
Every breath, every action, every word, every physical blessing, we will want to lay back at his feet, just as we will one day lay our crowns at his feet. Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow!
If God’s people were to keep these feasts Moses reminded them of, how much more should the one in Christ celebrate likewise. We should always be altogether joyful.
Finally, I want to mention that Jesus himself used the symbolism of these feasts to point out who he was. You see, over time, as is usually the case, traditions of men get added to the statutes of God, and the feast of booths was no different. I quote from Daniel Fuchs’ book about Israel’s holy days as he describes some of the things that happened on the way to and during the feast of booths:
As the pilgrims journeyed, they sang the songs of Zion, the psalms. On one side of the road, a family would sing from Psalm 121: “I lift my eyes to the hills.” Across the road, the response would come: “Where does my help come from?” And all together: “My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth.”
Others would sing: “I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD.’ Our feet are standing in your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is built like a city that is closely compacted together. That is where the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, to praise the name of the LORD according to the statute given to Israel” (Psalm 122:1-4).
He goes on to describe much more, but then he notes this:
One of the ceremonies of the Sukot service was the libation of water procession each morning. Abraham Millgram aptly describes it this way:
The water was brought in a golden flask from the fountain of Siloam and poured by the officiating kohen into the basin near the altar. This was the most joyous of the temple ceremonies. The Mishnah says that "he who has not seen the rejoicing at the place of water-drawing has never seen rejoicing in his life" (Sukkah 5:1). The ceremony was accompanied by a torch-light procession, dances, singing and chanting by the Levitical choir of the fifteen pilgrim psalms, the songs of ascents (Psalms 120–134), to the accompaniment of musical instruments. . . . It was a symbolic act performed in compliance with the prophetic verse, "With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation" (Isaiah 12:3).
Picture this scene from the life of Jesus: It was Hoshana Rabba, on the last and greatest day of the Feast. See the crowds in the temple courts, watch the white-robed priests as they climb the steep ascent from Siloam to the Temple. They are carrying a golden vase of the water they just drew with joy from the well of Siloam. The water was poured into the basin near the altar. Then, as the priest stood with his empty flask, a Man who had been watching cried with a loud voice: "If a man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him" (John 7:37-38).
These were strange words to say, anywhere, at any time. But in the Temple on Hoshana Rabba, they were not just strange, they were audacious. The entire libation-of-water ceremony celebrated God's provision of life-giving water to the Israelites when they were dying of thirst in the wilderness. "If a man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink." Our Lord was claiming that the miracle in the wilderness, when the rock gushed forth water, pointed to Himself! This is one of the messages of John's Gospel, where we also find our Lord claiming to be the fulfillment of other incidents under the Law: Jacob's ladder, the brazen serpent in the wilderness, and the manna.
There is a future Feast of Tabernacles that is described in the New Testament:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
Christ our Passover became Christ the Firstfruits from the dead. At Pentecost, the firstfruits of Israel's ripened harvest were presented to the Lord. The first sheaves were reaped from Israel. But Israel did not keep the harvest to herself. The gospel, which was to the Jew first, has been proclaimed to the uttermost parts of the earth. It has been a long time since Pentecost, and we longingly listen for the sound of the trumpet, the return of our Lord. Then after that we look for Israel's Day of Atonement and the nations of our Lord keeping the Feast of Tabernacles.
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
How can we not be altogether joyful with this good news? And we have the Spirit to help us. When Jesus spoke of rivers of living water, he was speaking of the Holy Spirit, who would be given to all believers:
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”
Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
I am going to close with 2 Psalms of Ascent. Please stand and join me in reading them:
A Song of Ascents.
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
A Song of Ascents.
Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord!
Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord!
May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth!
