Jewish Feasts: The Feast of Sukkot

Jewish Feasts: The Feast of Sukkot

This is the BIGGEST PARTY of the year for Judaism.  It's Christmas and Thanksgiving wrapped into one with a block party thrown in for fun.  

The symbols of Concluding time, Light, Water, and Celebration permeate so much of our Christian faith, that you really don't understand all that the Bible means you to understand about Jesus' life without a knowledge of this feast.  We'll take two weeks to walk through the outline that follows.  I'll post the videos both on this blog, so check back next week for part 2.

My Handout

1. OT Instructions:
1. Lev 23:33-36
2. Num 29:12-28
1. For all the nations
1. Gen 12:3
2. Deut 28:10
3. Isa 56:7
2. Sacrificed 70 bulls across the 7 days, one for each of the original nations of men (Gen 10-11)
3. The branches that were waved before the Lord were from the 4 corners of Israel, symbolizing the four corners of the Earth, all the nations.
4. Greeting given during this feast: Peace to you and joy to the nations. It was to celebrate that God has blessed the whole earth through his residence among the Jews, Abrahamic covenant.
5. This joy, 5 days after the solemn Day of Atonement, was often called “wiping the tears from the eye.”
3. Deut 16:13-17
1. Fulfillment of time.
2. Precursor to thanksgiving as a harvest festival
3. The reading of the Torah  ended and began again on the eighth day (Simkat Torah)
4. Called the “First and the Last”
4. God with us
1. Tabernacles: temporary housing.  Israelite tents or the tent of meeting.
2. Isa 7:14
3. When the temple was dedicated (1 Kings 8:2)
5. Symbols:
1. Water
1. Everyone entering the temple needed to mikvah at the pool of siloam (be baptized).  Afterward, a white robe.
2. Libation ceremony
1. Every day, the priests would go down to the pool of Siloam, which signified cleansing to the Jews, and would gather about ½ L of water.  This would be poured out on the temple at sunrise each day.
2. It symbolized purification of their sins
3. It reminded the Israelites of their provision in the wilderness (The rock that was struck)
4. On the last day, they would pour the water into a silver bowl with a regulated hole in the bottom of it.  A similar bowl would be filled with wine.  The valves were opened and the water and wine would flow off the edge of the altar and strike the base of the altar at the same time.
5. This resulted in a huge celebration “You have not experienced joy unless you have participated in the water ablation ceremony.”
3. Rain Zech 14: 8, 16-20
2. Light
1. Birth of the Paschal Lamb
1. Lambs sacrificed at Passover need to be 1 year old.  Middle of the year, 1.5 years old. 18 months. (Ex 12:5)
2. Lambs to be sacrificed at a passover are born during Sukkot two years before (born now, sacrificed April 2017).
3. Lambs needed to be born near Jerusalem.  Biggest lamb-producing region was Bethlehem.
4. Shepherds kept pregnant Ewes in caves to protect them and would signal when the FIRST passover lamb was born.
1. Wrapped in linnen by a levitical shepherd if fit for sacrifice. Killed immediately if not.
2. It was the shepherd’s job to get word back to Jerusalem that the lamb had been born.
5. A unique location: Migdal Eder Genesis 35:21
1. Name means “Tower of the Flock”
2. Rachel dies near here, in hard labor.
3. Her child is named by her “Son of my Sorrow.”
4. Jacob calls the child, “Son of my Right Hand.”
5. Prophecy of the future suffering of Israel looks back to that moment, Jer 31:15.
6. This prophecy fulfilled in the slaughter of children 2 yrs old and under in Bethlehem and the surrounding area by Herod in an attempt to exterminate Jesus.  Quoted in Matthew 1:18
7. The land between the tower and Bethlehem was believed by the Rabbis to be the land that Boaz bought when he married Ruth.
8. This land would then have passed down to his descendants, including Jesse and David.
9. It is possible that David watched his father’s sheep from this tower, about 1Km out of town, which is why he was not present when his other brothers were presented to Samuel and why he had to be fetched.
10. Mica 4:8, just a few verses before the prophecy that Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, states that he would be announced from Migdal Eder.
11. Several of the Rabbis taught that Messiah will announce his arrival from the top of the tower based on this verse.
2. Temple Candelabra The festival of lights Took place on the last day as well. Just as the day’s light was fading
1. Huge lamps with bowls of oil containing 10 gal of oil each were attached in groups of four to one pillar that raised them 75 feet in the air. The wicks were made of worn-out priestly garments.  There were four of these in the temple courtyard.
2. When they were lit, it was said that there could be no darkness in the whole temple square. Shadows were driven away.
3. One set of these lamps would be kept lit from the time of Migdal Eder’s signal.  The others would be lit on the last twilight.
4. This would be the moment at which “Simkat Torah” occurred. The last passage from the Torah would be read in the fading moments of daylight, and Genesis 1 would be read after sunset.
3. God as light:
1. Zech 14:6-7
2. Rev 21:23
2. NT pictures
1. The Birth of Christ (luke 2)
1. Timing:
1. “Those days,” The days of Herod (1:5) Herod died in 4 BC
2. Decree that the world should be taxed, given by Cesar Augustus in 8 BC.  Herod resisted, fearing a riot by the Jews. Herod’s resistance pushed the execution of the census back until at least 6BC.
3. “Quirinius was governor of Syria,” Bible vindicated. He was in power and functioning as governor under Varus, who was a drunkard.  Then, he came to full power in AD 6, after spending some time in Rome.
4. Joseph fled Israel during the slaughter of the children under Herod and stayed in Egypt for a time, so the Birth of Christ must have been before 4BC.
5. The best guess is that Jesus was born in 5 BC.
6. We know the timing during that year.  Zacharias was in the 8th course of priests, which serves during the 10th week of the year.  Elizabeth conceived shortly after his return from service.  40 weeks later, John was born.  Six months later, Jesus was born.
7. This puts his birth at the feast of Tabernacles, 5BC, which was Sept 14-22 on our calendar.  He was born during this week.
2. Swaddled him, normal.  Manger, unusual.  Parallel to newborn sacrificial lambs. He was fit for sacrifice!
3. Shepherds—levitical shepherds waiting for the birth of the first Passover lamb on top of Migdal Eder
4. Cognate Accusatives: Use of the adverbal and verbal forms of a word to express a deeper meaning than the verb alone carries, almost always used to describe extreme emotion.  2x in this passage:
1. Watchfully watching
2. Fearfully gripped with fear Mega!
5. Glory to God.  This is the ever-true situation of the universe.  God seeks to magnify his own glory, and Creation sees to it that this is done.
6. The Angels don’t have to tell the Shepherds where Jesus is.  Perhaps they knew that his mother had been forced to use a nearby “birthing cave.”
7. They spread the news of the birth of Jesus, the last and greatest Passover Lamb.
8. Light the fires? Perhaps. The star was God’s trump card there.
9. The shepherds left their post, left their “watchful watching.”  They had found what they had been looking for all along, and they returned rejoicing.
10. Jesus came to Tabernacle among us Jn 1:14
2. Jesus at the feast: John 7-8
1. At the peak of the final day’s water libation ceremony, Jesus cries out that he is the source of living water and the light of the whole world!  
2. Water: John 7:37-38 (Exek 45:25; 47:1-10)
3. Light: John 8:12 (While reading Ps 118?)
3. Jesus at Transfiguration:
1. Mark 9.
2. Peter’s outburst is not only characteristic speaking before thinking.
3. Peter is recognizing that God is among his people, and his mind goes to this feast.
4. Celebration of Sukkot in heaven! Rev 7
1. White Robes
2. Palm branches
3. All nations
4. In the presence of God (rather than God among men), vs 9, 15
5. Shelter them: verbal form of the greek word used to translate the hebrew Sukka in septuagint.  “build a tabernacle over them.”
6. No more sun.  God is light (16)
7. No thirst, living water (vs 16, 17)
8. Lamb and shepherd (vs17)
5. Rev 21-22. The ultimate fulfillment of the feast.  THE GREAT DAY!
1. The dwelling of God is with man
1. 21:3 He will tabernacle (verbal form)  with them.
2. No temple (21:22) Perfect intimacy. No mediation
2. 21:4 Wipe away every tear from every eye.  Universal joy, not just for a few any longer.
3. Water
1. 21:6- living water for everyone.
2. River of life, 22:1
3. Water of life without price 22:17
4. Light, radiance, glory
1. 21:10-11.
2. 21:23. No sun or moon.  God is light (also 22:4)
5. For all the nations: 21:24-26
6. Jesus “first and last, beginning and end” Rev 22:12-13
7. Washed robes 22:14

The Feasts: Introduction and the Feast of Trumpets

The Feasts of Israel: 

Introduction and The Feast Of Trumpets

Our homegroup is going to study the Jewish Feasts as they come this year.  This study introduces the Jewish feasts in broad strokes and talks about what we, as gentile New-Testament Christians, are doing talking about/celebrating the feasts at all.  We need to find a balance between ignoring them entirely as part of the "Old" covenant and falling into the error of looking to the law to somehow gain us greater favor with God.  Christianity is built on the Bible... the Whole Bible.  A Christian can and should study, know about, and honor the spirit of the feasts, but we shouldn't try to fulfill them literally.  Christ already has.  

Having this perspective, we then begin by studying the Feast of Trumpets which, at the time of this post's publication, starts tomorrow.  We look at how the Feast of Trumpets points to the rapture and use this as an opportunity to teach about the pre-tribulational rapture of the church. 

The following video is of me teaching the class.  My notes follow. 

1. Introduction: What we should and should not do with the feasts.
1. Should do:
1. Know all that we can know about them!
1. Part of the spoken word of God, recorded in scripture, and given to us, as is all scripture, “breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2Tim 3:16-17)
2. Part of salvific history
3. Historical Markers, ceremonial reminders of the goodness of God in the past.
4. Prophetic Messianic markers, looking forward (at that time, and today) to the work of Messiah.  Some has been accomplished, some has not yet.
2. Celebrate them in Spirit, not in letter.
1. We know that the law is good (Rom 7:12); and that it will not cease to be the word of God until the cosmos goes away (Matt 5:18)
2. We are told that at least the feasts of Passover and Tabernacles will be celebrated in the Messianic Kingdom.  
1. Exek 45: 21-26

21“In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall celebrate the Feast of the Passover, and for seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten. 22On that day the prince shall provide for himself and all the people of the land a young bull for a sin offering. 23And on the seven days of the festival he shall provide as a burnt offering to the LORD seven young bulls and seven rams without blemish, on each of the seven days; and a male goat daily for a sin offering. 24And he shall provide as a grain offering an ephah for each bull, an ephah for each ram, and a hinj of oil to each ephah. 25In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month and for the seven days of the feast, he shall make the same provision for sin offerings, burnt offerings, and grain offerings, and for the oil.

2. Zech 14:16-19

“16 Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. 17 And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain on them.18 And if the family of Egypt does not go up and present themselves, then on them there shall be no rain; there shall be the plague with which the LORD afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. 19 This shall be the punishment to Egypt and the punishment to all the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths.”

3. There may be others celebrated in the Messianic Kingdom, Ezek 46:9

9“When the people of the land come before the LORD at the appointed feasts, he who enters by the north gate to worship shall go out by the south gate, and he who enters by the south gate shall go out by the north gate: no one shall return by way of the gate by which he entered, but each shall go out straight ahead.

4. We are encouraged in the New Testament to accept the festivals as part of our faith, as having been fulfilled (or to be imminently fulfilled) in Christ (from http://doctorwoodhead.com/jewish-festivals-in-the-millennial-kingdom/2/):

1. Passover was fulfilled in the death of Christ the Redeemer, but clearly continues to the Millennium as a ceremony. (I Corinthians 5:7)

2. The Feast of Unleavened Bread is being fulfilled in the holy separate walk of the believer who fellowships with our Savior (I Corinthians 5:6-8; II Corinthians 7:1; Galatians 5:7-9)

3. The Feast of Firstfruits was fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ (I Corinthians 15:23)

4. The Feast of Pentecost was fulfilled in the establishment of the Church at Pentecost fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus (I Corinthians 10:16; 12:12-13)

5. The Feast of Trumpets will be fulfilled in the future regathering of Israel at the beginning of the Kingdom (Isaiah 18:3, 7; 27:12-13; Ezekiel 37:1-14) AND IN THE RAPTURE

6. The day of Atonement will be fulfilled in its prophetic features in the final conversion of “all Israel” at the Second Coming Zechariah 12:10-13; 13:1 Romans 11:26)

2. However, we CANNOT celebrate them in letter, because:
1. EVERY festival requires a sacrifice to be made at the temple (Numbers 28-29).  
2. Three of the festivals need to be celebrated at the temple in Jerusalem.
3. God, wanting to make sure that His people knew that the temple services no longer were valid, destroyed His temple in AD 70, and it no longer provides this option to His people.  Christ is the only mediator.
4. Jesus has done away with the need for all animal sacrifice (Heb 10)
5. We are strictly warned not to look to the law for purity from sin. Gal 5:2-6:

“2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

6. Also, as a blanket statement, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, Romans 10:4
6. Also, we are not to look down on the Christian traditional holidays of Easter and Christmas, forsaking them in favor of the Jewish festivals, simply because they are “Biblical” and Christmas and Easter are not.
1. As stated above, any celebration of the Jewish festivals today are NOT strictly Biblical.  They can’t be without a temple and sacrifices.
2. The Jewish celebrations of these holidays have morphed so much over time adding tradition and additional practice that they are no more Biblical than Christmas trees and Easter eggs today.
3. The point is to honor and worship God and His Son, who instilled and fulfilled these holidays, and be edified by them.

II. Rosh Hashana (The Jewish New Year, Feast of Trumpets)

1. Lev 23:23
1. First day of the 7th month (according to the sacred year).
1. Became the first day of the civil year
2. Believed to be the anniversary of Creation
2. A blast on the trumpet to alert the people that the fall festivals have begun.
3. Begins a 10-day window of fasting and mourning over sin.
4. Heights of legalism and pious observance of the law.
5. Required a day of solemn rest and sabbath.
6. Called to gather together and worship (but not necessarily at Jerusalem)
7. Called to bring a food offering (this begins the time of fall Harvest.  Food is not yet plentiful.)
2. Numbers 29
1. The sacrifices listed
2. Normal daily offering, PLUS the new moon offering, PLUS several additional sacrifices.
3. A "pleasing aroma," literally meaning "to be made into smoke."
1. Completely consumed.  
2. A time of complete devotion is coming.
3. The kind of trumpet is not specified "A day for blasting"
1. The sound is what is signified.  H: Teruwah N. a loud shout, alarm or blast of a trumpet.
2. Verbal form is Ruwah, which is used in Job 38:7 regarding creation.
1. This is why the Jews believe that this is the day of creation.
2. If so, and if their calendar is correct in counting years, then Rosh Hashanah this year (2015) will begin year 5776 since creation.
3. Silver Trumpets of Numbers 10
1. To be blown to call people together for worship
2. To send them out
3. To sound the alarm to prepare them for battle.
4. To proclaim feasts.
5. Used for this holiday until the captivity to Babylon. Then, they were lost.
4. Shofar, Rams' horns
1. Pictures of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac.
2. They believe that the shofar proclaims that God will save the Jews and restore them to greatness at the last moment, when all hope is lost... and they're right! Matt 24
5. Both trumpets’ symbolisms are conveyed in the holiday.
4. Trumpets and the Rapture:
1. Jesus has fulfilled one aspect of Sukkot, the late fall feast, and he has fulfilled all of the Spring feasts.  
1. Note: He fulfilled them all on the actual days.
2. Trumpets is next.
2. The rapture will accomplish several things:
1. The “last trumpet” will be the rapture
1. 1Cor 15:51-52
2. 1Thes 4:16-18
2. The church (Bride of Christ) will consummate its marriage to Christ
1. At the beginning of a wedding feast, a trumpet is blown before the bridegroom as he comes to take his bride.
2. During the 7-day wedding feast, the bride and bridegroom are intimate, the guests rejoice, and those who were not ready mourn
1. Gen 29:22-28
2. Judges 14
3. Mat 25:1-13
4. Matthew 25
5. Joel 2:15-16
6. This 7-day feast represents the 7-year tribulation period, when the church is finally with her bridegroom in true intimacy, and those outside are tormented.
3. At the end of the 7-day feast is a marriage supper, the height of the party. The bride and groom are pronounced one.  Rev 19
3. On the feast of trumpets, the East gate of the temple (normally closed) was opened (Ezek 46)
1. Rev 3:8
2. Rev 4:1
3. Matt 25:10
4. John 10:7-9
5. Isa 26:19-21
6. Luke 13:24
7. Ps 27:5
4. Those who are raptured are hidden from the wrath of God.
1. a derivation of the same root word used to describe this feast in the OT can also mean “hidden.”  Some Jews call this the “hidden” feast.
2. We will be hidden from the wrath of God.
1. Psalm 27:5
2. Psalm 47
3. Isa 26:20
4. Joel 2:1, 32
5. Zeph 1:14-16; 2:3
5. Those not raptured who should have known better (those cultural Christians, and especially the Jews) will repent in large numbers, seek the Lord, and be the tribulation church.  This is also a feature of the feast of trumpets.
1. Neh 8:1-3
2. Ezra 3:5-8
3. Dan 12:1-2
3. I thought the rapture’s date was unknown?
1. The Feast of Trumpets’ fulfillment in the rapture will happen on this feast, but which which day of the feast and which year is hidden.
2. 1Thes 5:1-11 & 2Pet 3:10

1. The unsaved will be caught off guard.  The saints will not.
2. We are not to be “in the dark” about the rapture.
3. “Like a thief in the night” phrase was frequently used of the bridegroom, who would shout gather the guests hurriedly and unexpectedly for the wedding feast.

3. Matt 25:13

1. First sight of the first sliver of the crescent moon over Jerusalem. Don’t know when.  Even now, with Google’s astronomy tools, you don’t know when it will be seen.   
2. Notice it doesn’t say that you won’t know the season (ref above).
3. Also, we are to look at the signs of his coming and know that it approaches (Matt 24)