Exodus 23:14-16
Three times a year
you are to celebrate a festival to me.
Celebrate the
Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days
eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded
you. Do this at the appointed time in the month
of Abib, for in that month you came out of
Egypt. ...
Celebrate the
Feast of Harvest [Pentecost] with the
firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field.
Celebrate the
Feast of Ingathering [Tabernacles/Booths] at
the end of the year, when you gather in your
crops from the field.
For the most complete
overview in the Bible regarding the whole collection
of biblical Feasts and Holy Days,
see These are My Appointed
Feasts..."elsewhere on this Times of Refreshing
website. For clarification of these terms see the
articles What is a "Feast"?
and What is a "Holy Day"?.
The following
are the key passages in the Old and New Testaments
directly referring to the observance of
The Feast of Tabernacles
See the
article What is a "Tabernacle"?
for an explanation of the term.
The Feast of
Tabernacles is also called the Feast of Booths and
Feast of Ingathering, in English, and Sukkot in
Hebrew.
Old Testament
Leviticus 23:33-43
The original commandment
to keep this Feast
The LORD said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites: 'On the
fifteenth day of the seventh month the LORD's Feast of
Tabernacles begins, and it lasts for seven days. The first day
is a sacred assembly; do no regular work. For seven days present
offerings made to the LORD by fire, and on the eighth day hold a
sacred assembly and present an offering made to the LORD by
fire. It is the closing assembly; do no regular work. So
beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you
have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to
the LORD for seven days; the first day is a day of rest, and the
eighth day also is a day of rest.
On the first day you are to take
choice fruit from the trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and
poplars, and rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days.
Celebrate this as a festival to the LORD for seven days each
year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to
come; celebrate it in the seventh month. Live in booths for
seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in booths
so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in
booths when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the LORD your
God.' "
Isaiah 4:5-6
Isaiah prophesies of a symbolic
tabernacle/shelter from God over all His people
Then the LORD will create over all
of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke
by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over all the glory
will be a canopy . It will be a shelter [Hebrew sukkah:
tabernacle] and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and
hiding place from the storm and rain.
Zechariah 14:16-19
Prophecy of the Feast of
Tabernacles being observed by all nations in the earthly Millennium
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 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.
I Kings
12:26-33
King Jeroboam of the northern Kingdom of Israel fears the
influence on his subjects of attending the Feast of
Tabernacles, and institutes a substitute feast of his own.
Jeroboam thought to himself, "The kingdom will now likely revert
to the house of David. If these people go up to offer sacrifices
at the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem, they will again give
their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They
will kill me and return to King Rehoboam." After seeking advice,
the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, "It is
too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O
Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." One he set up in
Bethel, and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin; the
people went even as far as Dan to worship the one there.
Jeroboam
built shrines on high places and appointed priests from all
sorts of people, even though they were not Levites. He
instituted a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month,
like the festival held in Judah [the Feast of Tabernacles
started on the fifteenth day of the seventh month], and offered sacrifices on the
altar. This he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had
made. And at Bethel he also installed priests at the high places
he had made. On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a month
of his own choosing, he offered sacrifices on the altar he had
built at Bethel. So he instituted the festival for the
Israelites and went up to the altar to make offerings.
New Testament
John
1:14
John compares Jesus' presence on Earth to "tabernacling."
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt [the Greek word here
implies “encamped” or tabernacled] among us (and we
beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the
Father), full of grace and truth.
John 7:2-9, 37-40
Jesus preaches at the Feast of
Tabernacles in Jerusalem, making allusions to the customs of the
Feast in reference to Himself.
...
when the
Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus' brothers
said to him, "You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that
your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to
become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these
things, show yourself to the world." For even his own brothers
did not believe in him. Therefore Jesus told them, "The right
time for me has not yet come; for you any time is right. The
world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that
what it does is evil. You go to the Feast. I am not yet
going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has
not yet come." Having said this, he stayed in Galilee. However,
after his brothers had left for the Feast, he went also, not
publicly, but in secret. ...
On the last and greatest day of the Feast
[many commentators believe Jesus' comments here to be related to
an elaborate water ceremony taking place right at this time on
this day], Jesus stood and said
in a loud voice, "If anyone 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." By this he
meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to
receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since
Jesus had not yet been glorified. On hearing his words, some of
the people said, "Surely this man is the Prophet."
2 Corinthians 5:1-5
Paul speaks of our body as a
tabernacle, a temporary dwelling.
Now we know that if the earthly tent [Greek
skenos: tabernacle]
we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal
house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan,
longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when
we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in
this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to
be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so
that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God
who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the
Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
