Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Parallel Translations
-
Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
-
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
-
And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying:
Cross-references
No cross-references for this verse.
Explain this verse (20 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Lev 23:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Ver. 1. And the Lord spake.] {See Trapp on "Lev 7:22"}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Here is, I. A general account of the holy…
Here is, I. A general account of the holy times which God appointed (Lev 23:2), and it is only his appointment that can make time holy; for he is the Lord of time, and as soon as ever he had set its wheels a-going it was he that sanctified and blessed one day above the rest, Gen 2:3. Man may by his appointment make a good day (Est 9:19), but it is God's prerogative to make a holy day; nor is any thing sanctified but by the stamp of his institution. As all inherent holiness comes from his special grace, so all adherent holiness from his special appointment. Now, concerning the holy times here ordained, observe, 1. They are called feasts. The day of atonement, which was one of them, was a fast; yet, because most of them were appointed for joy and rejoicing, they are in the general called feasts. Some read it, These are my assemblies, but that is co-incident with convocations. I would rather read it, These are my solemnities; so the word here used is translated (Isa 33:20), where Zion is called the city of our solemnities: and, reading it so here, the day of atonement was as great a solemnity as any of them. 2. They are the feasts of the Lord (my feasts), observed to the honour of his name, and in obedience to his command. 3. They were proclaimed; for they were not to be observed by the priests only that attended the sanctuary, but by all the people. And this proclamation was the joyful sound concerning which we read, Blessed are the people that know it, Psa 89:15. 4. They were to be sanctified and solemnized with holy convocations, that the services of these feasts might appear the more honourable and august, and the people the more unanimous in the performance of them; it was for the honour of God and his institutions, which sought not corners and the purity of which would be best preserved by the public administration of them; it was also for the edification of the people in love that the feasts were to be observed as holy convocations.
II. A repetition of the law of the sabbath in the first place. Though the annual feasts were made more remarkable by the general attendance at the sanctuary, yet these must not eclipse the brightness of the sabbath, Lev 23:3. They are here told, 1. That on that day they must withdraw themselves from all the affairs and business of the world. It is a sabbath of rest, typifying our spiritual rest from sin, and in God: You shall do no work therein. On other holy days they were forbidden to do any servile work (Lev 23:7), but on the sabbath, and the day of atonement (which is also called a sabbath), they were to do no work at all, no, not the dressing of meat. 2. On that day they must employ themselves in the service of God. (1.) It is a holy convocation; that is, "If it lie within your reach, you shall sanctify it in a religious assembly: let as many as can come to the door of the tabernacle, and let others meet elsewhere for prayer, and praise, and the reading of the law," as in the schools of the prophets, while prophecy continued, and afterwards in the synagogues. Christ appointed the New Testament sabbath to be a holy convocation, by meeting his disciples once and again (and perhaps oftener) on the first day of the week. (2.) "Whether you have opportunity of sanctifying it in a holy convocation or not, yet let it be the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. Put a difference between that day and other days in your families. It is the sabbath of the Lord, the day on which he rested from the work of creation, and on which he has appointed us to rest; let it be observed in all your dwellings, even now that you dwell in tents." Note, God's sabbaths are to be religiously observed in every private house, by every family apart, as well as by many families together in holy convocations. The sabbath of the Lord in our dwellings will be their beauty, strength, and safety; it will sanctify, edify, and glorify them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... Much about the…
And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... Much about the same time as before; and having delivered to him various laws concerning the holiness of the people of Israel, who were to serve him, and of the holiness of the priests, that were to minister in holy things to him, and of the purity and perfections of their sacrifices, he here appoints various times and seasons, for the more special worship and service of him:
saying; as follows.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Directions concerning the sabbath, ver. 1-3. The passover, ver.…
Directions concerning the sabbath, ver. 1-3. The passover, ver. 4-8. The first fruits, ver. 9-14. The feast of pentecost, ver. 15- 22. of trumpets, ver. 23-25. Of atonement, ver. 26-32. Of tabernacles, ver. 33-44.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain The feast of the Lord, 1, 2.
CHAPTER XXIII
The feast of the Lord, 1, 2.
Read full note →
The Sabbath, 3.
The passover and unleavened bread, 4-8.
The feast of first-fruits, 9-14.
The feast of pentecost, 15-21.
Gleanings to be left for the poor, 22.
The feast of trumpets, 28-25.
The great day of atonement, 26-32.
The feast of tabernacles, 33-44.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXIII
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Lev 23:1-2. In this chapter Moses, by divine appointment,…
Lev 23:1-2. In this chapter Moses, by divine appointment, gives more particular directions about the observation of those solemnities which were before instituted. These, in our translation, are termed feasts; but the word מועדי, mognadee, here used, rather means solemn seasons, or meetings, and as the day of atonement was comprehended in them, which was not a feast, but a fast, they certainly are improperly termed feasts. The literal translation of the words is, solemnities of Jehovah, which ye shall proclaim for holy convocations, these are the solemnities. They are termed holy convocations, because on these days they were called together and assembled to hear the law, to offer sacrifices, and to address prayers and thanksgivings to God.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The specified times for public worship according to the…
The specified times for public worship according to the Law were;
(1) The daily morning and evening sacrifices, sometimes called “the continual burnt-offering.”
Read full note →
(2) The weekly Sabbath.
(3) the day of the new moon.
(4) the “set feasts” Num 29:39 or appointed times of annual observance, of which there were five, the Passover, the Day of Pentecost, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles. For each of these occasions special sacrifices were appointed Num. 28; 29.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Sanctification of the Feasts
PART THIRD
Sanctification of the Feasts
Read full note →
“Keeping holy the theocratic times and places, the feasts and their cultus, the most holy name of the covenant God and His holy land.”—Lange.
Chaps. 23–25
FIRST SECTION
Of the Sabbaths and Annual Feasts
“The Holy Seasons, Laws of the Feasts. Sabbath, Easter, Pentecost, the Seventh New-Moon or Sabbath of the Year, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles.”—Lange.
Lev_23:1-44
_____________________
PRELIMINARY NOTE
The following, under Lange’s Exegetical, may properly be placed here. “The foundation of these developed ordinances for the feasts has already presented itself in Exo_20:8-11; Exo_31:14” [add Exo_23:14-19; Exo_34:21-26, and in regard to the Passover, the full account of its institution, Exo_12:3-27; Exo_12:43-50,—F. G.]; “the section, Numbers 28, 29, contains more specific directions about the sacrifices which were to be offered on the feast days.” [The three great festivals are also described in Deu_16:1-17, and the reading of the law required at the feast of tabernacles in the Sabbatical year, Deu_31:10-13.—F. G.]. “Here the treatment is of the organic appearance of the whole festivity of Israel in the unity of its collective holy feasts, with the ordinance of the festal cultus (“Feast-calendar,” Knobel says, which is set aside by Keil); in the Book of Numbers the sacrifices are plainly specified as the requirements of the theocratic state, an indication that they were not the principal things in the ideas of the cultus.
“Upon this important section the article Feste in Winer and others, is to be compared, as well as the rich literature in Knobel, p. 541, to which add Kranold, commentatio de anno Hebræorum Jubilæo. Gottingæ, Dietrich, 1838.” [See also Philo περὶ τῆς ‛Εβδόμης; Baehr, Symbolik bk. iv.; Ewald Alterthümer; Kalisch on Exodus 20, etc.; Michaelis Laws of Moses, Art. 74–76, 194–201; Bochart, Hieroz.; and the appropriate articles in Smith’s Bible Dict., Kitto’s Cyclop. of Bib. lit., Herzog’s Real-Encykl., and the various literature cited in these.—F. G.].
“The Hebrew festivals are to be regarded especially in a two-fold aspect: 1. The holy seasons (מוֹעֲדֵי יְהוָֹה). 2. The ideas of the different feasts, the holy convocations (מִקְרָאֵי קֹדֶשׁ).
“The holy seasons are, according to their prevalent fundamental number, the number seven, collectively, memorial feasts of the creation; the Sabbath, as the seventh day; Pentecost, as the feast of the seventh week; the seventh new moon, with its following Day of atonement and feast of tabernacles, as the feast of the seventh month; the Sabbatical year, as the festival of the seven Sabbath years; and the Praise year or year of Jubilee; the 50th year, as the festival of the completed seven, the seven times seven, the prophetic festival of the new eternal festal season, (Leviticus 25).
“Even through the single feasts the number seven runs again: seven days of unleavened bread, seven days in tabernacles, and no less indeed is it reflected in the sevenfold number of the festal sacrifices.
“The datum, however, from which the whole construction of the festal season proceeds, on which the whole building rests, is the datum of the typical deliverance of Israel (Lev_23:15). The line of feasts culminates indeed in a festival [Tabernacles, the last feast of the year] which plainly, as a symbol of the completed deliverance stands over against the [Passover as a symbol of the] beginning of deliverance.” [From another point of view the Passover (which, as such, is not mentioned in this chapter) is generally regarded as a memorial of the deliverance from Egypt in its totality, and in its typical significance it points forward to the deliverance from sin through the death of Christ; and this again has its memorial in the Lord’s Supper, pointing forward to the feast of the Lamb in heaven. The feast of tabernacles, on the other hand, was expressly commemorative of the very temporary dwelling in booths (סֻכּוֹת = huts made of branches; the סֻכָּה is to be distinguished from the אֹהֶל = tent, the comparatively permanent dwelling of the wilderness) see Lev_23:42-43, and comp. Exo_12:37; Exo_13:20.—F. G.]. * * *
“With regard to the natural aspect of the Israelitish feasts, they are divided into pre-Mosaic, Mosaic (for that the feasts here appointed belong to the original Mosaic legislation is admitted by Knobel), and later feasts.
“In the first class, however, can only be placed with certainty a tradition of the Sabbath, the feast of the new moon, and the harvest feast. Upon the heathen festal seasons see the full notes of Knobel, p. 537 sqq.
“It is however in the highest degree noteworthy, that the Israelitish ordering of the feasts forms an unmistakable contrast to the heathen customs. At the time of the Spring feast the Jewish Easter was kept, which, in connection with its unleavened bread, expresses a very solemn meaning, and is not at all to be judged by the Christian Easter. At the time of the autumnal equinox, however, when the Syrians (and the Egyptians) mourned over the death of Adonis the summer sun (like the Germanic Baldur), the Jews kept their most joyful feast, and freely used the green branches of summer before they faded.” [The contrast would bear to be even more strongly expressed, for the feast of Tabernacles occurred more than a month later than the autumnal equinox.—F. G.]. “It was as if they had wished to celebrate the triumph of the theocratic spirit over the natural sadness for the death of beautiful nature; as they certainly accent the blessing of God and His judgment in this present life in contrast to the dark Egyptian necromancy with its prophecy inspired this side the grave, and in contrast to the melancholy cultus of the world of death beyond the grave.
“As to the explanation of the apparently superfluous days in the seven day feasts, the eighth day of unleavened bread, and the eighth day of the feast of Tabernacles (a question which also concerns the 50th week of the 50th year as a year of Jubilee), it is certainly sufficient to say, that the festal close of such great days or weeks and years was to be particularly emphasized. (Comp. Knobel, p. 549).
“The second Easter day as the feast of the first beginning of the harvest, the beginning of the barley harvest, the feast of the ears (Abib, ear month), corresponds to the completed wheat harvest which was celebrated at the feast of Tabernacles (later, Pentecost because fifty days were reckoned from Easter to its celebration), and both these harvest feasts, of the necessities of life and of the abundance of life, form a contrast to the harvest feast of joy [feast of Tabernacles] for the refreshing and comforting gifts of God, the fruit, the oil and the wine.
“A strikingly isolated position is given to the feast of Pentecost between the other feasts. Since as the chief harvest feast it seems to be only a natural feast, there was sought, and later, there was also found, in addition to its natural aspect, a holy and theocratic aspect also, in that this feast has been described as the feast of the law (since Maimonides. See on the other hand Keil, p. 151”) [Translation p. 444, note]. * * *
“The increased sacrifices of the yearly feasts must form a symbolical expression of the self-surrender of the nation to Jehovah, renewed by the feasts, as it was elevated by the thanksgiving for His gifts,—the ever new gifts of creation, the ever new gifts of atonement and of deliverance.
“That which makes feasts to be feasts is as follows: 1) They are high seasons appointed by God, seasons of the fulfilment of Divine promise and of human hope. 2) Seasons in which the union of God and man, as well as of men with one another, and thus fellowship with God and brotherhood with man was celebrated. 3) Seasons in which nature, together with man, appears in the dress of theocratic sanctification. 4) In which the highest happiness of human fellowship arises from the highest joyfulness of sacrifice to Jehovah. 5) Seasons which have a great sequence, and form a chain from the feast of deliverance in the night of judgment and of fear (Passover) to the feast of holy freedom and joy (Tabernacles).” Lange.
In regard to the times of the festivals, it is to be remembered that God in His dealings with man always shows a tender regard for the nature with which He has constituted man. The Hebrew festivals were therefore so arranged as to combine the most important religious memorials and types with the occasions of national and social need. The Passover was the greatest of all the annual festivals of the Hebrews, and was the only one resting upon a distinct historical and miraculous event, and the only one, too, the neglect of which was accompanied with the penalty of excision (Num_9:13). The obligation to observe it was so urgent upon every adult circumcised Israelite, that alone of all the feasts it had attached to it a second observance at the same time in the following month for those who were prevented from keeping it by absence on a journey, or by defilement from contact with a dead body—the only causes which interfered with the eating of the paschal lamb. Historically, it was far more generally observed than either of the other festivals. Attached to this, and often included in the general name of Passover, was the week of unleavened bread; but the strictness of the command for the observance of the Passover itself did not apply to this. See Deu_16:7. The Passover was celebrated in the month Abib or Nisan; and this month, as the month of the great national deliverance from Egypt, became the first of the ecclesiastical year. Just at this time occurred the beginning of the barley harvest, and the festival for this was accordingly so associated with the Passover, that a sheaf of the first-fruits was to be waved before the Lord on the morrow after the Sabbath. The time of the feast of weeks, or Pentecost, was determined by the Passover, from which it was distant just fifty-two days, as we still reckon from Good-Friday to Whitsunday; for seven weeks complete, or forty-nine days were reckoned from “the morrow after the Sabbath,” or the second day after the eating of the Paschal lamb itself, making fifty-one days, and then the feast was to be held on the following day. The symbolism of the sevens is therefore to be sought rather in the means of computing the time than in the relation of the festivals to one another. Pentecost occurred at the close of the grain harvest, and was celebrated as a thanksgiving, with especial liberality to the poor and needy in remembrance that the Israelites themselves had been bondmen in Egypt. (Deu_16:9-12). This feast continued but a single day, and its distinguishing rite was the waving before the Lord of two leavened loaves prepared from the first fruits of the wheat.
With the coming in of the seventh month the civil year began. Of the existence of this year as distinguished from the ecclesiastical year, there can be no reasonable doubt. It has indeed been called in question; “but the form of expression in Exo_12:2, the commencement of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years in the month Ethanim, or Tisri, the tradition of both the rabbinical and Alexandrian Jews, and the fact that the new moon festival of Tisri is the only one—not excepting that of Nisan—which is distinguished by peculiar observance, seem to bear sufficient testimony to a more ancient computation of time than that instituted by Moses in connection with the Passover. Another argument is furnished by Exo_23:16.” Clark. Accordingly, as generally in all times and among all nations, the New Year was ushered in by a special observance. Among the Hebrews this took the form of “the Feast of Trumpets.” This was marked by “an holy convocation;” but attendance upon it was not obligatory. On the tenth day of the same month occurred the solemn fast of the Day of Atonement already treated in Leviticus 16. Both these continued but a single day. On the fifteenth day of the same month (which was thus far more marked by religious solemnities than any other), began the Feast of Tabernacles, continuing for seven days with “an holy convocation” following on the eighth day. The attendance obligatory at this would naturally have led to a large presence of the people on the Day of Atonement, only five days before. It was the great harvest festival at the close of the agricultural season, corresponding to our Thanksgiving day, and was very joyfully celebrated. It was also connected with the theocratic system by the injunction to dwell in booths in memory of the Exodus from Egypt.
With all these, and pervading them, was the weekly Sabbath, a remembrance in its recurrence of God’s rest from the work of creation (Exo_20:11), and in its determination to the seventh day of the week of the deliverance from Egypt (Deu_5:15).
In regard to the detail of these several festivals, see the Exegetical.
The Jews were prohibited by the law from all work only on the fifty-two weekly Sabbaths and on the Day of Atonement; they were also prohibited from all servile work on the days of holy convocation, viz. two each in connection with the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles, one at the Feast of Pentecost, and one at the New Moon of Tisri, the seventh month. There is no prescription in the law in regard to cessation of work on the other New Moons; but from Amo_8:5 they appear to have been, at least in later times, observed as Sabbaths. These would make in all seventy days, which would be reduced somewhat by the occurrence of some of the other days, and especially of the festival Sabbaths, one year with another, upon the weekly Sabbath; but on several of these days the prohibition extended only to servile work, and the feasts were probably largely used like European fairs, for purposes of trade. See a slightly different computation in Michaelis, Laws, Art. 201.
The three greater festivals, Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, were required to be observed by the assembling of the whole adult male population at the place of the sanctuary. This was doubtless fully carried out during the life in the wilderness, but does not appear to have been ever completely observed in subsequent history. All these festivals were, however, attended by large numbers, and the devouter part of the people went up to the sanctuary at least once in the year (1Sa_1:3; 1Sa_1:21; Luk_2:41, etc.), which appears to have been most commonly at the Passover. The women were not obliged, but were allowed to attend, and frequently did so, as well as partake of the Paschal lamb.
Besides these annual feasts, there were the Sabbatical years, when the land was required to lie fallow, and all fruits were common property. This command could hardly have been complied with at all until after the return from the captivity (see 2Ch_36:21), and the existence of such an unobserved law is a strong proof of the genuineness of the Mosaic legislation. There was also the Year of Jubilee, the fiftieth year, which as it affected the tenure of land that had been sold, is likely to have been more continuously observed. It certainly was recognized in the days of Jeremiah (Jer_32:6-15). On the question whether it had continued to be observed in the intervening time, see Maimonides and Ewald in the affirmative, Michaelis (Laws, Art. 76) and Winer (sub voce), who are in doubt, and Kranold (p. 80) and Hupfeld (pt. iii., p. 20), who confidently deny that the provisions for this year ever came into actual operation.
Precisely what was meant by an holy convocation we have no means of ascertaining, except from the word itself. Doubtless in the wilderness life it would have meant a general assembling of the people for the purposes of the day, and the same sense may be held to apply to the three great festivals when all males were required to appear at the place of the sanctuary, but this cannot be true, after the settlement in Canaan, of the weekly Sabbath and of the Day of Atonement. Probably there were on these days gatherings for religious edification accompanied with rest from work in the various towns and villages throughout the land, just as there were in the Synagogues after the return from the Captivity. There were also probably such gatherings at the time of the Convocations of the greater festivals of those who did not go up to the Sanctuary.
Besides the weekly Sabbaths, there were in all seven Convocations in the year: the first and last days of the feasts of unleavened bread, and of Tabernacles, the days of Pentecost and of Atonement, and the Feast of Trumpets.
23.1–44
1And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 2Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts [unto them, The appointed times of the Lord which ye shall proclaim as holy convocations, these are my appointed times1].
3Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest,2 an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.
4These3 are the feasts of the Lord, even [These appointed times1 of the Lord are] holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons [appointed times1].
5In the fourteenth day4 of the first month at even is the Lord’s passoLev Lev_23:6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. 7In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile5 work therein. 8But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
9And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 10Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf6 of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: 11and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb [a ram7] without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Lord. 13And the meat offering [oblation8] thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savour: and the9 drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin. 14And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn [grain], nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
15And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths10 shall be complete: 16even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath10 shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering [oblation8] unto the Lord. 17Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves11 of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Lord. 18And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs [rams7] without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two [full-grown12] rams: they shall be for a burnt offering unto the Lord, with their meat offering [oblation8], and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savour unto the Lord. 19Then ye shall sacrifice one kid [buck13] of the goats for a sin offering, and two lambs [rams7] of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings. 20And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs [rams7]: they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. 21And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
22And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the Lord your God.
23And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 24Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath [a sabbath rest14], a memorial of blowing of trumpets,15 an holy convocation. 25Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord.
26And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 27Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be [only the tenth of this seventh month Isaiah 16] a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. 28And ye shall do no work in that same day.: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the Lord your God. 29For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people. 30And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people. 31Ye shall do no manner of work: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations 32in all your dwellings. It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest,2 and ye shall afflict your souls; in the ninth day of the month at even,17 from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath [your rest18].
33And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 34Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord. 35On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. 36Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord: it is a solemn assembly,19 and ye shall do no servile work therein.
37These are the feasts [appointed times1] of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, a burnt offering, and a meat offering [an oblation8], a sacrifice, and drink offerings, every thing upon his day: 38beside the sabbaths of the Lord, and beside your gifts, and beside all your vows, and beside all your freewill offerings, which ye give unto the Lord.
39Also [Only16] in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered [at your gathering in20] in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath. 40And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs [fruit21] of goodly trees,22 branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees,23 and willows of the brook; 41and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. And ye shall keep it a feast unto the Lord seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month. 42Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths: 43that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
44And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts [appointed times1] of the Lord.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lev_23:2. The word מועֵד according to all authorities means primarily a fixed, appointed time (Gen_21:2; Jer_8:7, etc.) and it is so translated in Lev_23:4 in their seasons. Thence it came to be used for the festivals occurring at set times (Zec_8:19). Besides these meanings the word has the divided signification of the assembly which came together at these times, and then the assembly or congregation generally (whence the expression Tabernacle of congregation), and then also the place of the assembly. The derivative significations are here out of the question. It occurs in this chapter five times, and is not elsewhere used in Lev. except in the phrase Tabernacle of congregation. With the same exception, it is uniformly translated time or season (set or appointed) in Gen. and Ex., and generally in Num. The translation four times by feasts in this chap. is therefore exceptional and supported only by a few instances in Num. It is better therefore to conform the translation here to the usage. There is a difficulty with either translation in the fact that a holy convocation was not proclaimed on the Day of Atonement;—that is broadly applied to all, which was strictly true of nearly all the particulars mentioned. But feasts labors under the further disadvantage that the Day of atonement was a fast.
Lev_23:3. The translation necessarily fails to convey the full force of the Heb. שַׁכַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן a very strong expression used only of the days and years of rest appointed in the Mosaic legislation.
Lev_23:4. The Heb. has אֵלֶּה, the Sam. prefixes ו. According to Houbigant the former refers to what has preceded, the latter to what follows. In this case the Sam. reading is preferable.
Lev_23:5. The missing יוֹם is supplied in 15 MSS. and the Sam.
Lev_23:7. “מְלֶאכֶת עֲבֹדהָ, occupation of a work, signifies labor at some definite occupation, e.g., the building of the tabernacle, Exo_35:24; Exo_36:1; Exo_36:3; hence occupation in connection with trade or one’s social calling, such as agriculture, handicraft, etc.; whilst מְלָאכָה is the performance of any kind of work, e.g., kindling fire for cooking food (Exo_35:2-3).” Keil.
Lev_23:10. עֹמֶר. The A. V. is probably right in translating here sheaf, which according to the lexicographers is the primary meaning of the word. See Deu_24:19; Rth_2:7; Rth_2:15, etc. It is so translated by the LXX., Vulg., and Luther, as well as by Gesen., Fürst, Lee, and others. On the other hand Josephus (Ant. iii. 10, 5), and the Mishna, take it in its de rived and more usual sense of an Omer, viz., of the flour from the grain, offered with oil and frankincense as an oblation. Perhaps in later times the omer of the flour was substituted for the original sheaf of the grain.
Lev_23:12. כֶּבֶשׂ. See Textual Note 5 on Lev_3:7. Here the sex is indicated.
Lev_23:13. מִנְחָתוֹ. See Textual Note 2 on Lev_2:1. The pronoun is masc. with reference to the sex of the sacrifice.
Lev_23:13. The A. V. here and in the previous clause substitutes the def. art. for the masc. pronoun. The Heb, text נִסְכּה is pointed in accordance with the k’ri נסכו which is also the Sam. reading.
Lev_23:15. Some critics (Keil, Clark, and others) would render here and in Lev_25:8 seven weeks, in accordance with the use of שַׁבָּת in the Talmud, and of σάββατον in the N. T. The word seems to be used here, however, rather by a figure of speech as in Lev_25:2; Lev_25:4, etc., and the definite meaning of week to be of later origin. The תְּמִימֹת on which Keil relies, agrees with the main idea.
Lev_23:17. The Sam. here supplies the word חַלּוֹת which is uniformly translated cakes in the A. V., and may indicate the kind of bread used.
Lev_23:18 אֵילִם indicates strong and full-grown rams of maturer age than the כְּבָשׂים of the first clause. The Sam. 3 MSS. and LXX. add “without blemish.”
Lev_23:19. שְׂעִיר־עִזִּים. See Textual Note21 on Lev_4:23.
Lev_23:24. שַׁבָּתוֹן here stands by itself without the שַׁבָּת used in Lev_23:3. When thus used by itself Rosenmüller says “de iis tantum feriis dicitur, quæ non in septimum hebdomadis diem, qui שַׁבָּת, cessatio ab opere κατ’ ἐξοχὴν dicitur, incidit.” It should therefore be rendered by another term, and the one suggested by Clark is adopted.
Lev_23:24. There is nothing in the Heb. corresponding to the words of trumpets, which should therefore be in italics. The Heb. reads simply זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה = a memorial of a joyful noise. תְּרוּעָה is frequently used in connection with various kinds of trumpets and other instruments (Num_31:6; Lev_25:9; Psa_150:5), denoting the clangor of those instruments, but it is also quite as frequently used without reference to an instrument of any kind (Num_23:21; Job_8:21; Job_33:26; Ezr_3:11; Ezr_3:13, etc.). The silver trumpets of the temple were however blown on all the festivals, including the new moons (Num_10:10), and there is no reason to question the tradition that on “the feast of trumpets” horns or cornets of some kind were blown generally throughout the land. The LXX. has μνημόσυνον σαλπίγγων, the Vulg. memoriale clangentibus tubis.
Lev_23:27. אַךְ is a particle of limitation, and thus in this case of emphasis. It is better to omit the italicised words there shall be, and translate according to the usual construction of a Heb. clause ending with הוּא.
Lev_23:32. The word בָּעֶרֶב = at even is omitted in one MS., LXX., and Vulg.
Lev_23:32. The margin of the A. V. is more correct than the text. The Heb. is תִּשְׁבְּתוּ שַׁבַּתְּכֶם.
Lev_23:36. עֲצֶרֶב is a word the signification of which has been much questioned. The translation of the LXX. ἐξόδίόν ἐστι, meaning the close of the festival, is defended by Fürst, and adopted by Patrick; so also Theodoret, referring not only to this feast, but to the whole cycle of feasts, τὸ τέλος τῶν ἑορτῶν, and so also Keil. Michaelis, using an Arabic etymology, interprets it of pressing out the grapes. The sense of the margin of the A. V. day of restraint is said to be advocated by Iken in a special dissertation (Con. Ikenii Dissertatt. Ludg. Batav. 1749) and is adopted by Abarbanel and other Jewish writers. The text of the A. V. assembly is defended by Rosenmüller (3d Ed.), advocated by Gesenius, and is that given by onkeios, the Vulg., and Syr. The LXX. also elsewhere translates the word πανήγυρις (Amo_5:2) and σύνοδος (Jer_9:2). The word occurs but ten times, in five of which it refers to the last day of one of the great feasts, and in one other (Jer_9:2 [1]) it clearly means assembly. Josephus (Ant. iii. 10, 6) applies it as a customary phrase to the feast of Pentecost. It is the day referred to in Joh_7:37 as “the last day, that great day of the feast.”
Lev_23:39. בְּאָסְפְכֶם. It is better to preserve the indefiniteness of the original which does not determine whether the harvest was already fully gathered. Clark thinks that this could rarely have been the case.
Lev_23:40. The Heb., as noted in the margin of the A. V., is fruit, and it is better to retain the word even if it be explained (Keil) of “the shoots and branches of the trees.” According to the most ancient traditions, however, it was customary at this feast to carry in one hand some fruit, and the word is retained in all the ancient versions.
Lev_23:40. עֵץ הָדָר, lit. ornamental trees, a generic word including the various kinds specified just below. So the Sam., LXX., Syr., and Vulg., the lexicons, and most interpreters. Jewish tradition, however, incorporated into the Targums and Josephus (Ant. xiii. 13, 5) understands it specifically of the Citron.
Lev_23:40. עֵץ־עָבֹת. The rendering of the A. V. is sustained by almost all authorities, meaning trees of various kinds having thick foliage. The Targums all interpret it specifically of myrtles, which cannot be right, as in the account of the celebration of this feast in Neh_8:15 the myrtle and the thick trees are distinguished.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
This chapter consists of five Divine communications to Moses, beginning respectively with Lev_23:1; Lev_23:9; Lev_23:23; Lev_23:26; Lev_23:33, all of which, except that concerning the day of Atonement, Lev_23:26, he is directed to speak unto the children of Israel. The first of these (1–8) relates to the weekly Sabbath, the Passover, and the following feast of unleavened bread; the second (9–22) to the wave sheaf in connection with the last feast, and the feast of weeks, or Pentecost; the third (23–25) to the civil New Year, or the New Moon of the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year; the fourth (26–32) to the great Day of Atonement; the last (33–44) to the feast of tabernacles.
Lev_23:2 forms the heading or introduction to the whole chapter. This is a full list of all those days and years, all the appointed times which the Lord had marked out as to be separated and distinguished from the ordinary course of the daily life; yet it does not include the ordinary new moons on which special sacrifices were also to be offered. Num_28:11-15.
Lev_23:3. First of all comes the weekly Sabbath, a day to be observed by a total cessation from all work and by an holy invocation. On the last expression see the close of the preliminary note. The weekly Sabbath is placed in the same way before the annual appointed times in Exo_23:12-17; Num_28:9—29. No reason is here given for this observance. It was certainly pre-Mosaic, and in the fourth commandment is made to rest upon the example of the Divine cessation from the works of creation. But this refers only to the observance of rest in a proportionate part of the time—one day in every seven, and therefore has no bearing upon the actual length of the creative work. In the repetition of the commandments in Deuteronomy 5, the observance of this rest on the particular day of the week, Saturday, is grounded on the deliverance from Egypt, that great mark of the Divine favor and national birth-day which enters more or less into nearly all the feasts.
A great part of Lange’s Exegetical under this chapter has been already given in the preliminary note. All that follows what is given there will be found below.
“1. The Sabbath.—The six days of work are the foundation and the condition of the rest of the seventh day. The prohibition not only of servile labor (עֲבֹדָה), but also of the higher and freer business (מְלָאכָה), forces the nobler sort of men directly to look in upon themselves, to devotion, and so to celebrate the feast. The Sabbath Sabbathon (the Sabbath feast) has, however, been here already appointed for the assembling in the Sanctuary, a thing which was possible in the desert journeys, and later in Canaan, was fulfilled by the substitution of the synagogues (see Winer, Synagogen), and thus was the germ of all festivals.” Lange. On the interval of nearly a thousand years between the desert journeys and the institution of Synagogues, see preliminary note.
The weekly Sabbaths are in a sense included among the appointed times of Lev_23:2, but yet are distinguished from them by the fresh heading of Lev_23:4 and by Lev_23:37-38. They were indeed appointed times, but appointed from the creation of man, not first prescribed by the Mosaic law. The expression at the close of the verse in all your dwellings is interpreted by the Jewish writers to mean everywhere, in or out of the Holy Land. Certainly it is thus comprehensive; but the expression is more important as distinguishing the convocation of these days from those of the annual festivals. These were to be celebrated at home, in each town and village and hamlet, and thus “kept alive the knowledge and piety of the simple yeoman in all the land.… This single verse affords an interesting prospect of the unwritten history of Israel’s rural piety.” Murphy.
Lev_23:4-8. Lev_23:4 is simply the heading in substance of Lev_23:2 repeated to distinguish the annual from the weekly festival. Lev_23:5-8 relate to the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread, which are here, as in Exodus 12 and Num_28:16-17, clearly distinguished from each other. The same distinction is observed by Josephus (Ant. III. 10, 5), but both names came to be used interchangeably as in the New Test., especially in St. John. Of all the annual festivals the Passover came first in the cycle of the ecclesiastical year, first in the great historic event it commemorated, first in its obligation, and first in its spiritual and typical significance. The Paschal lamb was to be slain on the 14th Nisan “between the evenings,” and eaten in the following evening, i.e. according to the Hebrew division of the days, on the beginning of the 15th. But with the 15th began the first day of holy convocation, so that the two feasts were thus actually blended into one. Lange: “2. The feast of unleavened bread.—With this begin the feasts in the more peculiar sense, which were proclaimed, and in Canaan are also feasts of convocation of Israel at the sanctuary (for the male youth and men).… The 15th day is particularly the feast of Mazzoth, which lasts seven days, but in such wise that only the first and last day are in the more strict sense festival days which exclude all business. To these two feasts was appended in a certain sense as a third the preliminary feast of the harvest. It speaks for the antiquity of the text that this feast was postponed to the future. Not until they came into Palestine could Israel gather in harvests and offer sheaves of the first fruits. The first sheaf cut from the first field produce is meant, viz. barley (on the barley harvest in Palestine, see Keil, p. 148).” [Trans., p. 439. Keil refers to Philo and Josephus for the statement that the sheaf was of barley, and says this is not expressly mentioned because it was a matter of course. “In the warmer parts of Palestine the barley ripens about the middle of April, and is reaped in April or the beginning of May, whereas the wheat ripens two or three weeks later (Seetzen; Robinson’s Pal. ii. 263, 278).” F. G.] “The sheaf was to be waved before Jehovah. Does this mean: hallowed indeed to Jehovah, but given to the priest? So it seems from Lev_23:20. But according to Exo_29:24; Exo_29:27, that which was waved was in part brought to the altar and in part designated as for Moses [i.e. for Aaron and his sons]. So the sanctification to Jehovah was to be the principal idea of the waving, but certainly with the secondary idea that it was only ideally offered to Jehovah for the use of the priest. The first day of the Mazzoth was reckoned as a Sabbath, and the sheaf of the first fruits was presented on the second of the seven days. That day was distinguished by a festal sacrifice. But the sacrifice is small, for the year is yet poor—of less value than the later sacrifices: one lamb for the burnt offering, two tenths (of an Ephah) of wheat flour moistened with oil for the oblation, to which was added the fourth part of an hin for a drink offering. Under this condition only was Israel acceptable in its preliminary feast of the harvest, and the prohibition is a very prominent thing: before Jehovah has received His sheaf of the first, fruits nothing of the new bread can be eaten. A law for posterity! says the legislation in the wilderness.” [The first Divine communication of this chapter closes with Lev_23:8. It contains the command for the observance of the Sabbath, of the Passover, and the general direction for the observance of the feast of unleavened bread. Here it ends, and a new communication begins with Lev_23:9, and extends to Lev_23:22 containing the commands for the wave sheaf, which was a part of the feast of unleavened bread, and for the feast of Pentecost. The reason for this apparent dislocation of the logical arrangement is obvious: what was directed in the first communication was to be immediately observed during the wilderness life, while the wave sheaf and Pentecost could not be, and were not intended to be observed until the entrance upon the land of Canaan. There is here therefore an incidental, but very strong evidence of the date of this legislation. At any other time than during the wilderness-life, all the precepts for the feast of unleavened bread would certainly have been arranged in the same paragraph. Lev_23:11. On the morrow after the Sabbath.—Various opinions have been held in regard to this Sabbath. According to the Bœthoseans (see Lightfoot on Luk_6:1) the beginning of the ecclesiastical year was so arranged that the Passover always fell on the Sabbath, and consequently “the morrow after the Sabbath” and the feast of Pentecost were always observed on the first day of the week. This opinion has been adopted by several modern authorities, as Hitzig, Hupfeld, Knobel, Kurtz. The two former of these think that the sheaf was waved after the conclusion of the feast on the 22d of the month; the two latter, on the 15th, the first day of holy convocation. It has been confuted by Bähr and Weiseler, and is rejected by Keil and Clark on the ground that such an arrangement would involve a broken or partial week almost invariably at the close of the year, which is of course inadmissible. It may be added further that the first day and the seventh day of the feast could not possibly have both fallen upon the weekly Sabbath, and that the provision for both is the same (Lev_23:7-8) forbidding only servile work. Another opinion is that the Sabbath was that weekly Sabbath which must occur on one of the days of the feast. This was the view of the Sadducees and of the Karaite Jews, but while it rests upon no positive support, seems sufficiently refuted by the argument of Keil (note, p. 440) that “if the Sabbath was not fixed, but might fall upon any day of the seven days’ feast of Mazzoth, and therefore as much as five or six days after the Passover, the feast of Passover itself would be forced out of the fundamental position which it occupied in the series of annual festivals (comp. Ranke, Pentateuch II. 108).” The better view is that found in the LXX., Philo, Josephus, the Targums, and the Rabbinical writers generally, and which seems most in accordance with the text itself, that the Sabbath was simply the festival Sabbath, the 15th Abib, on whatever day of the week it might happen to fall. So Lange below. The sheaf of first fruits was then waved on the 16th, and from that day the time was reckoned to the feast of Pentecost. “By offering the sheaf of first fruits of the harvest, the Israelites were to consecrate their daily bread to the Lord their God, and practically to acknowledge that they owed the blessing of the harvest to the grace of God.” Keil. The offerings of Lev_23:12-13, were especially connected with the wave sheaf, and were additional to the regular feast day sacrifices prescribed in Num_28:19-24. The oblation was doubled (see Exo_29:40; Num_15:4; Num_28:21) as was appropriate to a harvest festival; but the drink offering (which in Leviticus is mentioned only here and in Lev_23:18; Lev_23:37) remained as usual. Lev_23:14. Bread .… parched grain .… green ears are the three forms in which grain was commonly eaten, and the expression is equivalent to forbidding its use in any form whatever before the waving of the sheaf of first-fruits.—F. G.].
“3. The Feast of Weeks. [Lev_23:15-22]. Determination of the time: From the second day of the Mazzoth seven Sabbaths were counted, i.e., forty-nine days. The following day, the fiftieth, is the feast of weeks (הַג שָׁבֻעֹת). The leading thought is the new oblation which was brought to Jehovah from the completed grain harvest. It was to be brought out of all dwellings, and thus not out of the regular temple revenues: two wave loaves of two-tenths (of an Ephah) of fine wheaten flour. The baked bread must be leavened, which shows that leaven does not, in and of itself, signify the evil (comp. Comm. on Matt. p. 197) [Lev_11:33, Am. Ed., p. 245]. This was the first-fruits of the whole grain harvest which must be hallowed to Jehovah before the bread from the new harvest might be eaten.” [This is not stated in the Text, and while it was undoubtedly true in regard to the wheat, must not be understood to include also the barley which it became lawful to use immediately after the offering of the wave sheaf during the feast of unleavened bread.—F. G.]. “The year has now become richer, and hence seven lambs must be offered for a burnt offering besides a young ox (bullock) and two rams, and with all these the proportionate drink offerings. Besides these there was a he-goat for the sin offering—hardly with reference to the unleavened bread (according to Keil, p. 151), but certainly with reference to the sins which were wont to accompany the harvesting.” [The precise remark of Keil, (trans. p. 443) is as follows: “The sin offering was to excite the feeling and consciousness of sin on the part of the congregation of Israel, that whilst eating their daily leavened bread they might not serve the leaven of their old nature, but seek and implore from the Lord their God the forgiveness and cleansing away of their sin.” It is to be observed that this sin offering was neither that required for a definite sin of the whole congregation, a bullock (Lev_4:14), nor yet that for an individual, a she-goat (ib. 28), but was the same as that required for a prince (ib. 23). The reason for it is to be sought, not in any especial and definite sin, but in that general and continual sinfulness which the chosen people were commanded to recognize on all occasions of especial solemnity.—F. G.]. “Finally two lambs as a peace offering, or thank offering, closed the feast. These peace offerings were waved with the loaves of first-fruits, i.e., were sanctified to Jehovah, and then fell to the priest. A principal direction for even this day is that it was proclaimed as a convocation of the sanctuary, and that on it even domestic work itself was forbidden as well as servile labor.” [The text however (Lev_23:21) contains only the prohibition of servile work. It is noticeable that this Pentecostal offering of two young rams was the only peace offering required of the whole congregation in the Mosaic ritual.—F. G.]. “With this memorable religious command is connected the humane one, that the reaper of the harvest must let some remain in the borders of the field, and that gleaning was forbidden in favor of the poor (comp. Ruth). It is plainly said again with this command: I am the Lord your God.” [This feast was not to be observed until ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and Theodoret (Qu. 32 in Lev.), says that it then “renewed the memory of the entrance into the land of promise.” Since Maimonides (see Lange above) it has been customary to connect it with the giving of the law. Neither of these associations, however, rest on any sure foundation. In Exo_34:22 this festival is more particularly described, as indeed is implied here, as the first-fruits of the wheat harvest. The loaves differed from all ordinary oblations in being leavened, as an offering from the people’s daily bread to the Lord who had blessed the harvest (comp. Lev_2:11-12), but in accordance with the general law, they were not to be placed upon the altar. “The injunction out of your habitations is not to be understood, as Calvin and others suppose [so also Corn. a Lapide, and Lange above], as signifying that every householder was to present two such loaves; it simply expresses the idea, that they were to be loaves made for the daily food of a household, and not prepared expressly for holy purposes.” Keil. A moment’s reflection upon the immense mass of bread that would be required from the 600,000 men of Israel to be eaten only by the priests and their families, is sufficient to show that Keil’s explanation must be right. The victims to be offered, according to Lev_23:18-19, differ from those prescribed in Num_28:28-31 for the same occasion in two particulars: there is no mention there of the peace offerings required here (Lev_23:19), but this is merely a difference in the particularity of the command which frequently occurs; and there two young bullocks and one ram are required, while here it is one of the former and two of the latter, the offerings in all other respects being the same. On this account many commentators have supposed that the offerings in Num. were simply a festival enlargement of the daily burnt offering, while those here commanded were additional sacrifices accompanying the special rites of the festival. It can hardly, however, be considered a rash conjecture that in one place or the other the numerals may have changed places in the hands of the scribes. Josephus (Ant. iii. 10, 5) follows the statement in Num. Lev_23:19-20. The sin and peace offerings were to be waved. According to Jewish tradition this was accomplished by leading the animals backwards and forwards according to an established custom. With the waving of the sin offering comp. the waving of the leper’s trespass offering, Lev_14:12. The flesh of both these offerings, unlike the ordinary peace offerings, was to belong to the priest. Lev_23:21. On the selfsame day. The feast of weeks is distinguished from the two other great festivals in lasting but a single day; but it is said to have been the custom in later times to give a festal character to the six days following, and to continue to offer abundant sacrifices upon them. The feast is only described here as an holy convocation, and is called the feast of harvest in Exo_23:16, the feast of weeks, of the first-fruits of wheat harvest,Exo_34:22; Deu_16:10, day of the first-fruits Num_28:26. The name Pentecost belongs to a later time, and appears in the Apocrypha (Tob_2:1; 2Ma_12:32), and in the N. Test. (Act_2:1; Act_20:16; 1Co_16:8). By Jewish writers it is frequently called עֲצֶרֶת (see Text. Note 19 on Lev_23:36), Gr. Ἀσαρθά. As in nature the ripening of the later grain was connected with that of the earlier, so in the law the time of the festival for the one was made dependent upon that of the other; just as when the type was absorbed in the Antitype the descent of the Holy Ghost was dependent upon the Resurrection of Christ, the First-fruits from the dead on the morrow after the Sabbath of the Passover; and the commemoration festival of Whitsunday has ever been observed by the Christian Church in dependence upon Easter. In Lev_23:22 the command already given in Lev_19:9-10, is appropriately repeated in connection with the harvest feast, and this is again reiterated in Deu_24:19 in connection with precepts of kindness to the needy.
Lev_23:23-25. Here begins a fresh Divine communication (the third of this chapter) because the present feast was, like those of the first, to come into immediate use. Lange: “4. The feast of Trombones, or the new-moon feast of the seventh day of the first month.” [This is apparently a slip of the pen for the first day of the seventh month.—F. G.]. “The lesser new moon feasts are not mentioned here: they belong more to the ordinary life of the people and to the State (hence Num_28:11). Also the seventh new moon is here only very briefly mentioned, and significantly described as Sabbathon Zikron, as a feast Sabbath which was to be a Sabbath of memorial. The festal remembrance, however, had respect to the new holy season which dawned with the seventh month. Thus as the first feasts—Easter, Mazzoth, and First-fruits—form a trilogy, so the great new moon feast makes also a trilogy with the following Day of Atonement and Feast of Tabernacles. It is a feast of joyous sounds (תְּרוּעָח) to awaken a national festal disposition by means of a festival blowing, not however with ‘trumpets’ which were not ordered till Numbers 10, and with their clear piercing tone were fitted for the march of the army of God; but with the deep droning of horns, trombones, which like bells, rather affect deeply than arouse.” There is nothing said in the text of any instrument, see Textual Note 15 on Lev_23:24 : but as the silver trumpets were to be blown on all the new moons, and on all other festal occasions (Num_10:10), they must have been blown also on this new moon, whatever other instruments may have been used besides. “In the modern service of the Synagogue, Psalms 81 is used at the feast of Trumpets.” Clark. The general view of the Rabbinists is said to have been that it was a commemoration of the creation when “all the sons of God shouted for joy,” Job_38:7. Other commemorations, equally fanciful, have been proposed, but it is unnecessary to look beyond the fact that it was New Year’s day. This being a feast when it was not required that all the people should appear at the Sanctuary, the “holy convocation” was probably observed, like the weekly Sabbath, in each town and village throughout the land. Nevertheless a special burnt offering (Lev_23:25) was to be offered at the Sanctuary, and this is specified in Num_29:1-6, as consisting of a bullock, a ram, and seven lambs, with their oblations and drink offerings.
Lev_23:26-32. A new communication is made in regard to the Day of Atonement, not for the reasons given before, but to mark the importance of the day. This subject has been so fully treated in Leviticus 16 that little need be said here. It was on this day and not on the first of the month that the year of Jubilee was to be proclaimed (Lev_25:9). On this day also the people were not required to assemble at the Sanctuary, and the holy convocation must have been kept at their homes. Lange: “5. The Day of Atonement. It is a noticeable anomaly that it falls upon the tenth day. Ten is the number of the closed history, the reckoning up of the double five, the well-used or badly-used freedom, the number of judgment. The Day of Atonement forms the climax as a day of purification, Leviticus 16; here it is an introduction, a preliminary condition for the great feast of Tabernacles (this relation is shown by the אַךְ Lev_23:27.” [“By the restrictive אַךְ, the observance of the day of atonement is represented a priori as a peculiar one. The אַךְ refers less to the tenth day, than to the leading directions respecting this feast.” Keil]. Num_29:7 supplies still a third meaning, as a social or political fast day. It was named the day of expiation (הַכִּפֻרִים). Ye shall afflict your souls; Luther translates arbitrarily: ‘Ye shall afflict your body, mortify your body, mortify your bodies.’ Certainly from the expression of the original text, the fast is meant in Isa_58:3, etc. In order that the neglect might be visible and could be punished, and that the limits might be fixed, it is said: from even unto even. For this feast also, as well as the former one, every business (not only labor) was forbidden.” [This cannot be meant of the new moon of the seventh month, on which only servile work (Lev_23:25) was forbidden.—F. G.]. “The great rigor is to be noticed with which the penalty of death was threatened for every transgression against the rest of the Sabbath and against the fast.”
Lev_23:33-36. The ordinance for the feast of Tabernacles is given in a separate communication since this was not to be observed until the entrance into the land of Canaan. Lange: “6. The feast of Tabernacles (הַגּ הַסֻּכּוֹת). The feast is made prominent by being celebrated upon the 15th and not on the 14th day.” [Just as the feast of unleavened bread began on the 15th of the first month.—F. G.]. “And moreover, by being completed by an eighth day (עֲצֶרֶת), the closing festal assembly, see Joh_7:37.” [There is here also an analogy to the feast of unleavened bread, the seven days of which were preceded by the day of the Passover. In strictness the eighth day was not a part of the feast which, in Lev_23:34; Lev_23:40, is declared to be of seven days, and in Deu_16:13-15, and Eze_45:25, there is no mention at all of the eighth day; and it is also distinguished from the days of the feast proper by the much smaller number of the victims to be offered in sacrifice, Num_29:36. Moreover on this day among the Hebrews the booths were dismantled and the people returned to their houses.—F. G.]. “The first and eighth days are holy Sabbaths which exclude every kind of work.” [The text, however, Lev_23:35-36, only forbids servile work.—F. G.]. “But everything else which distinguishes the feasts of the Lord, burnt offerings, oblations, etc., (Lev_23:37-38) distinguish this feast abundantly.” [These offerings are specified in Num_29:12-38. They consisted of a he-goat for a sin offering and a burnt offering on each day. The latter included two rams and fourteen lambs on each of the days, with a varying number of bullocks. Beginning with thirteen on the first day, they were diminished by one on each successive day, until on the seventh only seven were offered. The burnt offering of the eighth day was only one bullock, one ram, and seven lambs. In all seventy-one bullocks were wholly consumed upon the altar, together with fifteen rams and one hundred and five lambs.—F. G.]. “It is also again a double feast: in the first place the feast of the garnered harvest, the third harvest, which includes both the former ones, and especially hallows to the Lord the noblest produce of the land: the inspiriting fruits, for the children (fruit), for the old (wine), and for the priests (oil).” [The fruit, the oil, and the wine, were however all alike used by all classes in the community.—F. G.]. “And then, in the second place, it was the feast of the memorial of the booths in which Israel had dwelt in the wilderness. The sojourn in the wilderness must have been a hardship during a great part of the year, and they usually dwelt in tents; but then came the Spring and Summer time, when they could build booths, and such a time would be particularly festive, a picture of a paradisaical life of nature. And it is plain that here the subject must be neither the lasting sufferings of the wilderness nor the settlement in Canaan. Hence also the tents must be made from goodly trees.” [The feast of Tabernacles did not itself occur in the Spring or Summer, but late in the fall. a month or more after the autumnal equinox. No evidence is adduced to show that the Israelites in the wilderness at any time lived otherwise than in tents, and indeed during a large part of their wanderings the construction of booths would have been impossible from the scarcity of trees. The reference to the booths (succoth) seems to be rather to the first encampments of the Exodus (comp. Exo_12:37; Exo_13:20), when they must have been as yet very imperfectly supplied with tents.—F. G.]. “So the feast of tabernacles was the highest feast in Israel (a bright contrast to the feast of Purim introduced afterwards, which was darkened by fanaticism), and was a type of the highest and most beautiful Christian popular feasts. Upon the single feast comp. the Lexicons, also Keil (p. 153 [Trans. p. 446]), and Knobel (p. 549). That this feast could readily bring in peculiar temptations is shown by the story of the adulteress, John 8.” [This inference must depend upon the decision that the passage referred to is a genuine part of the Gospel, and is found in its proper place. It is also further to be noticed that the women of Israel were not required to dwell in the booths.—F. G.]. “But we may see also partially from John 7, how it had been in the course of time endowed with the richest symbolism, as a preacher-feast, as a fountain-feast, as a feast of lights, the culmination of the Old Testament festival seasons.” [It is noticeable that this feast was the time chosen by Solomon for the dedication of the temple, 1Ki_8:2.—F. G.].
“Upon the observance of the line of feasts in the sabbatical year and year of Jubilee, see Leviticus 25. On the later Jewish feasts, see Bibl. Wörterbuch für das Christl. Volk under the article Feste. So too the feasts of the later Jews in Herzog’s Real-Encyclopädie.” For additional matter concerning this feast, see under verses 39–42.
In Lev_23:37-38, is a summary distinctly specifying that these appointed times, with their offerings, are additional to the weekly Sabbaths mentioned in Lev_23:3, and their offerings. Beside the Sabbaths is comprehensive, including both the day and the sacrifice offered upon it. It means beside them in regard to the other appointed days, and beside their offerings as regards the offerings belonging to these.
Lev_23:39-43 contain additional directions for the feast of Tabernacles. Nothing has been said in the previous verses of the dwelling in booths, as the object there was only to treat of it as an appointed time with its days of holy convocation. Here, however, this is introduced by itself, as a necessary direction, yet so as not to disturb the singleness of view in which the whole cycle of feasts has been presented. There is no occasion, therefore, to suppose that this is a distinct document subsequently added. As this precept has reference simply to the dwelling in booths, there is no repetition of the command for the holy convocations, or for the sacrifices, and no mention of the eighth day, on which they returned to their houses. It was pre-eminently a joyous festival (Lev_23:40), as comported with its character as a harvest feast. On the Sabbatical year at this time the law was to be publicly read in the hearing of all the people of all classes, including the “strangers,” Deu_31:9-13; Neh_8:18.
In later times two significant customs were added to the daily observances of the feast. At the time of the morning sacrifice on each day a priest drew water from the pool of Siloam in a golden pitcher and bringing it in to the altar poured it out with the libation of wine. This probably suggested the words of our Lord in Joh_7:37-38. Also in the evening the men and women assembled together in the court of the women to rejoice over the ceremony of the morning, the occasion being marked by great hilarity. At this time two tall stands were set up in the court, each bearing four lamps of large size, the wicks being made of the cast off garments of the priests, and the oil supplied by the sons of the priests. Many of the people also carried flambeaux, and the light is said to have been cast over nearly the whole city. This ceremony seems to have called forth our Lord’s words in Joh_8:12, “I am the Light of the world.” During both these ceremonies the choirs of Levites chanted appropriate psalms, and the people participated by carrying in their hands green branches and fruit. There is a curious contrast between the cycle of annual festivals in the Jewish and in the Christian Church; in both of them the festivals extend through about six months, but in the former, in which earthly blessings are everywhere prominent, it began with the 14th Nisan, and extended through the summer; in the latter, in which the thought is more directed to spiritual blessings, it begins with the early winter and extends round to the summer.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
I. The weekly Sabbath is the beginning and foundation of all the festivals, for herein God is acknowledged as the Creator of all things and of man. By that the people were joined to God, and so made ready for keeping the other festivals of His appointment. This was fixed for the older church upon the seventh day, in memorial of their deliverance from Egypt, the era of their national existence; just as for the Christian Church it is fixed upon the first day in memorial of Christ’s resurrection, on which rests the whole existence and constitution of that Church.
II. By the offering of the first-fruits to God the whole harvest was sanctified, comp. Rom_11:16. Until this had been done, no Israelite might partake of the harvest at all. God’s gifts are freely bestowed upon men; but they may not lawfully appropriate them to their own use until they have acknowledged the Giver.
III. In the three harvest festivals the dominion of God over nature is emphatically asserted. It is asserted in opposition alike to that Pantheism which underlay so much of the ancient heathen mythology, and which would worship the earth itself as the giver of its fruits, while here the homage is rendered to the Lord of the earth as distinct from and infinitely exalted above the earth; and it is asserted in opposition to Deism, which would so separate the Deity from His works as to make them in a sense independent of Him, while here He is recognized as their immediate Ruler and the Author of every earthly blessing.
IV. Leaven, which is for the most part forbidden in oblations, and altogether prohibited from coming upon the altar, is here commanded for the wave offering of the first-fruits of the wheat harvest, very plainly for the express object of teaching that the ordinary food of the people is to be sanctified by an offering to God, and thus in all things He is first of all to be recognized.
V. The peculiarity of a peace offering from the whole congregation marks the Pentecostal feast alone. At the beginning of the wheat harvest, the principal harvest of human food, it was peculiarly appropriate that it should be marked by the sacrifice of communion with God.
VI. In connection with the feast of the harvest comes again into prominence the care for the poor in the prohibition of gleaning. God leaves the poor always with us that man may learn through them to imitate Himself in giving freely to those who need out of the abundance He has given to us.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Lange: “The feasts of the Lord and the festal ordinances (Leviticus 23). Their double basis: 1) the work, 2) the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the end of the trouble of labor, as Sunday is the beginning of festal work. The Old Testament feasts in the light of the New Testament. The Jewish Passover is a double feast; a type of Christmas and of Easter. The Jewish and the Christian Pentecostal feast. The Jewish feast of Atonement and the Christian Ascension-Day (comp. Heb_9:24). The Jewish feast of Tabernacles and the Christian harvest feast. The threefold Jewish harvest feast, Easter, Pentecost and Tabernacles, a threefold type of the Divine blessing in the kingdom of nature, and in the kingdom of grace (the first-fruits, the daily bread, the festival wine). The great Day of Atonement, as a day of repentance, and as a day of the Gospel. Comparison between the Day of Atonement and Good-Friday, between Christmas and the feast of Tabernacles. How all feasts by their historical significance are linked with one another, and by their spiritual significance play into one another. The feast is made gay with green boughs.”
As the Sabbath is made the foundation of all festivals, so must the sanctification of the weekly day of rest ever be the condition of all acceptable consecration of “appointed times” to the Lord. The days on which no work at all might be done are only the weekly Sabbaths and the Day of Atonement; but the additional days on which no servile work might be done were nearly half as many more. These last therefore were days of rest to the slave and the hired laborer. The law would have days when the hard labor of life must cease without suspending its activity altogether, and gives its most numerous days of rest to those who must be employed in life’s drudgery.
The rejoicing before the Lord which is here, Lev_23:40, and in Deu_16:11 commanded with especial reference to the feasts of Tabernacles and of Pentecost, is elsewhere made into a more general duty, Deu_12:12; Deu_12:18; Deu_27:7. If joy was a commanded duty under the Old Dispensation, how much more under the Christian. See Php_4:4, etc.
The three great festivals were occasions of gathering all the males of Israel together, and promoting the sense of their common brotherhood. The effect in this regard of united worship is very plain. But especially at the feast of Tabernacles, all were required to dwell in booths, and for the time distinctions of rank and social position were levelled. Thus, as everywhere under the Old Dispensation, principles of the Gospel were taught by symbolical acts, and the brotherhood of all the people of God presented in sensible type and act.
Footnotes:
[1]Lev_23:2. The word מועֵד according to all authorities means primarily a fixed, appointed time (Gen_21:2; Jer_8:7, etc.) and it is so translated in Lev_23:4 in their seasons. Thence it came to be used for the festivals occurring at set times (Zec_8:19). Besides these meanings the word has the divided signification of the assembly which came together at these times, and then the assembly or congregation generally (whence the expression Tabernacle of congregation), and then also the place of the assembly. The derivative significations are here out of the question. It occurs in this chapter five times, and is not elsewhere used in Lev. except in the phrase Tabernacle of congregation. With the same exception, it is uniformly translated time or season (set or appointed) in Gen. and Ex., and generally in Num. The translation four times by feasts in this chap. is therefore exceptional and supported only by a few instances in Num. It is better therefore to conform the translation here to the usage. There is a difficulty with either translation in the fact that a holy convocation was not proclaimed on the Day of Atonement;—that is broadly applied to all, which was strictly true of nearly all the particulars mentioned. But feasts labors under the further disadvantage that the Day of atonement was a fast.
[2]Lev_23:3. The translation necessarily fails to convey the full force of the Heb. שַׁכַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן a very strong expression used only of the days and years of rest appointed in the Mosaic legislation.
[3]Lev_23:4. The Heb. has אֵלֶּה, the Sam. prefixes ו. According to Houbigant the former refers to what has preceded, the latter to what follows. In this case the Sam. reading is preferable.
[4]Lev_23:5. The missing יוֹם is supplied in 15 MSS. and the Sam.
[5]Lev_23:7. “מְלֶאכֶת עֲבֹדהָ, occupation of a work, signifies labor at some definite occupation, e.g., the building of the tabernacle, Exo_35:24; Exo_36:1; Exo_36:3; hence occupation in connection with trade or one’s social calling, such as agriculture, handicraft, etc.; whilst מְלָאכָה is the performance of any kind of work, e.g., kindling fire for cooking food (Exo_35:2-3).” Keil.
[6]Lev_23:10. עֹמֶר. The A. V. is probably right in translating here sheaf, which according to the lexicographers is the primary meaning of the word. See Deu_24:19; Rth_2:7; Rth_2:15, etc. It is so translated by the LXX., Vulg., and Luther, as well as by Gesen., Fürst, Lee, and others. On the other hand Josephus (Ant. iii. 10, 5), and the Mishna, take it in its de rived and more usual sense of an Omer, viz., of the flour from the grain, offered with oil and frankincense as an oblation. Perhaps in later times the omer of the flour was substituted for the original sheaf of the grain.
[7]Lev_23:12. כֶּבֶשׂ. See Textual Note 5 on Lev_3:7. Here the sex is indicated.
[8]Lev_23:13. מִנְחָתוֹ. See Textual Note 2 on Lev_2:1. The pronoun is masc. with reference to the sex of the sacrifice.
[9]Lev_23:13. The A. V. here and in the previous clause substitutes the def. art. for the masc. pronoun. The Heb, text נִסְכּה is pointed in accordance with the k’ri נסכו which is also the Sam. reading.
[10]Lev_23:15. Some critics (Keil, Clark, and others) would render here and in Lev_25:8 seven weeks, in accordance with the use of שַׁבָּת in the Talmud, and of σάββατον in the N. T. The word seems to be used here, however, rather by a figure of speech as in Lev_25:2; Lev_25:4, etc., and the definite meaning of week to be of later origin. The תְּמִימֹת on which Keil relies, agrees with the main idea.
[11]Lev_23:17. The Sam. here supplies the word חַלּוֹת which is uniformly translated cakes in the A. V., and may indicate the kind of bread used.
[12]Lev_23:18 אֵילִם indicates strong and full-grown rams of maturer age than the כְּבָשׂים of the first clause. The Sam. 3 MSS. and LXX. add “without blemish.”
[13]Lev_23:19. שְׂעִיר־עִזִּים. See Textual Note21 on Lev_4:23.
[14]Lev_23:24. שַׁבָּתוֹן here stands by itself without the שַׁבָּת used in Lev_23:3. When thus used by itself Rosenmüller says “de iis tantum feriis dicitur, quæ non in septimum hebdomadis diem, qui שַׁבָּת, cessatio ab opere κατ’ ἐξοχὴν dicitur, incidit.” It should therefore be rendered by another term, and the one suggested by Clark is adopted.
[15]Lev_23:24. There is nothing in the Heb. corresponding to the words of trumpets, which should therefore be in italics. The Heb. reads simply זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה = a memorial of a joyful noise. תְּרוּעָה is frequently used in connection with various kinds of trumpets and other instruments (Num_31:6; Lev_25:9; Psa_150:5), denoting the clangor of those instruments, but it is also quite as frequently used without reference to an instrument of any kind (Num_23:21; Job_8:21; Job_33:26; Ezr_3:11; Ezr_3:13, etc.). The silver trumpets of the temple were however blown on all the festivals, including the new moons (Num_10:10), and there is no reason to question the tradition that on “the feast of trumpets” horns or cornets of some kind were blown generally throughout the land. The LXX. has μνημόσυνον σαλπίγγων, the Vulg. memoriale clangentibus tubis.
[16]Lev_23:27. אַךְ is a particle of limitation, and thus in this case of emphasis. It is better to omit the italicised words there shall be, and translate according to the usual construction of a Heb. clause ending with הוּא.
[17]Lev_23:32. The word בָּעֶרֶב = at even is omitted in one MS., LXX., and Vulg.
[18]Lev_23:32. The margin of the A. V. is more correct than the text. The Heb. is תִּשְׁבְּתוּ שַׁבַּתְּכֶם.
[19]Lev_23:36. עֲצֶרֶב is a word the signification of which has been much questioned. The translation of the LXX. ἐξόδίόν ἐστι, meaning the close of the festival, is defended by Fürst, and adopted by Patrick; so also Theodoret, referring not only to this feast, but to the whole cycle of feasts, τὸ τέλος τῶν ἑορτῶν, and so also Keil. Michaelis, using an Arabic etymology, interprets it of pressing out the grapes. The sense of the margin of the A. V. day of restraint is said to be advocated by Iken in a special dissertation (Con. Ikenii Dissertatt. Ludg. Batav. 1749) and is adopted by Abarbanel and other Jewish writers. The text of the A. V. assembly is defended by Rosenmüller (3d Ed.), advocated by Gesenius, and is that given by onkeios, the Vulg., and Syr. The LXX. also elsewhere translates the word πανήγυρις (Amo_5:2) and σύνοδος (Jer_9:2). The word occurs but ten times, in five of which it refers to the last day of one of the great feasts, and in one other (Jer_9:2 [1]) it clearly means assembly. Josephus (Ant. iii. 10, 6) applies it as a customary phrase to the feast of Pentecost. It is the day referred to in Joh_7:37 as “the last day, that great day of the feast.”
[20]Lev_23:39. בְּאָסְפְכֶם. It is better to preserve the indefiniteness of the original which does not determine whether the harvest was already fully gathered. Clark thinks that this could rarely have been the case.
[21]Lev_23:40. The Heb., as noted in the margin of the A. V., is fruit, and it is better to retain the word even if it be explained (Keil) of “the shoots and branches of the trees.” According to the most ancient traditions, however, it was customary at this feast to carry in one hand some fruit, and the word is retained in all the ancient versions.
[22]Lev_23:40. עֵץ הָדָר, lit. ornamental trees, a generic word including the various kinds specified just below. So the Sam., LXX., Syr., and Vulg., the lexicons, and most interpreters. Jewish tradition, however, incorporated into the Targums and Josephus (Ant. xiii. 13, 5) understands it specifically of the Citron.
[23]Lev_23:40. עֵץ־עָבֹת. The rendering of the A. V. is sustained by almost all authorities, meaning trees of various kinds having thick foliage. The Targums all interpret it specifically of myrtles, which cannot be right, as in the account of the celebration of this feast in Neh_8:15 the myrtle and the thick trees are distinguished.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain THE FEASTS OF THE LORD, Lev_23:1-2.
THE FEASTS OF THE LORD, Lev_23:1-2.
These festivals of Jehovah were by no means secular banquets, but religions assemblies convened at an appointed time and place.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) And the Lord spake unto Moses.—The regulations about…
XXIII.
(1) And the Lord spake unto Moses.—The regulations about the holiness of the sanctuary and the sacrifices, the holiness of the priests and the people, are now followed by statutes about holy seasons.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain Leviticus 23
Leviticus 23
One of the most profound and comprehensive chapters in the inspired volume now lies open before us, and claims our prayerful study. It contains the record of the seven great feasts or periodical solemnities into which Israel’s year was divided. In other words, it furnishes us with a perfect view of God’s dealings with Israel, during the entire period of their most eventful history.
Read full note →
Looking at the feasts separately, we have the Sabbath, the Passover, the feast of unleavened bread, the first-fruits, Pentecost, the feast of trumpets, the day of atonement, and the feast of tabernacles. This would make eight, altogether; but it is very obvious that the Sabbath occupies quite a unique and independent place. It is first presented, and its proper characteristics and attendant circumstances fully set forth; and then, we read "These are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons." (Ver. 4) so that, strictly speaking, as the attentive reader will observe, Israel’s first great feast was the Passover, and their seventh was the feast of tabernacles. That is to say, divesting them of their typical dress, we have, full, redemption; and, last of all, we have the millennial glory. The paschal lamb typified the death of Christ; (1 Cor. 5: 7;) and the feast of tabernacles typified "the times of the restitution of all things, of which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets, since the world began." (Acts 3: 21)
Such was the opening and such the closing feast of the Jewish year. Atonement is the foundation, glory the top-stone; while, between these two points, we have the resurrection of Christ, (ver. 10-14,) the gathering of the Church, (ver 15-21,) the waking up of Israel to a sense of their long-lost glory, (ver. 24-25) their repentance and hearty reception of their Messiah. (Ver. 27-32.) And that not one feature might be lacking in this grand typical representation, we have provision made for the Gentiles to come in at the close of the harvest, and glean in Israel’s fields. (Ver. 22.) All this renders the picture divinely perfect, and evokes from the heart of every lover of Scripture the most intense admiration. What could? be more complete? The blood of the Lamb and practical holiness founded thereon - the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and His ascension into heaven - the descent of the Holy Ghost, in Pentecostal power, to form the Church - the awakening of the remnant - their repentance and restoration - the blessing of "the poor and the stranger" - the manifestation of the glory - the rest and blessedness of the kingdom. Such are the contents of this truly marvellous chapter, which we shall, now, proceed to examine in detail. May God the Holy Ghost be our Teacher!
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts. Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings." The place which the Sabbath here gets is full of interest. The Lord is about to furnish a type of all His dealings in grace with His people; and, ere He does so, He sets forth the Sabbath as the significant expression of that rest which remaineth for the people of God. It was an actual solemnity, to be observed by Israel; but it was also a type of what is yet to be, when all that great and glorious work which this chapter foreshadows shall have been accomplished. It is God’s rest, into which all who believe can enter now in spirit; but which, as to its full and actual accomplishment, yet remains. (Heb. 4) we work now. We shall rest by and by. In one sense, the believer enters into rest; in another sense, he labours to enter into it. He has found his rest in Christ; he labours to enter into his rest in glory. He has found his full mental repose in what Christ has wrought for him, and his eye rests on that everlasting Sabbath upon which he shall enter when all his desert toils and conflicts are over. He cannot rest in the midst of a scene of sin and wretchedness. "He rests in Christ, the Son of God, who took the servant’s form." And, while thus resting, he is called to labour as a worker together with God, in the full assurance that, when all his toil is over, he shall enjoy unbroken, eternal repose in those mansions of unfading light and unalloyed blessedness where labour and sorrow can never enter. Blessed prospect! May it brighten more and more each hour in the vision of faith! May we labour all the more earnestly and faithfully, as being sure of this most precious rest at the end! True, there are foretastes of the eternal Sabbath; but these foretastes only cause us to long more ardently for the blessed reality - that Sabbath which shall never be broken - that "holy convocation" which shall never be dissolved.
We have already remarked that the Sabbath occupies quite a unique and independent place in this chapter. This is evident from the wording of the fourth verse, where the Lord seems to begin afresh with the expression, "These are the feasts of the Lord," as if to leave the Sabbath quite distinct from the seven feasts which follow, though it be, in reality, the type of that rest to which those feasts so blessedly introduce the soul.
"These are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons. In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord’s Passover." (Ver. 4, 5) Here, then, we have the first of the seven periodical solemnities - the offering of that paschal lamb whose blood it was that screened the Israel of God from the sword of the destroying angel, on that terrible night when Egypt’s firstborn were laid low. This is the acknowledged type of the death of Christ; and, hence, its place in this chapter is divinely appropriate. It forms the foundation of all. We can know nothing of rest, nothing of holiness, nothing of fellowship, save on the ground of the death of Christ. It is peculiarly striking, significant, and beautiful to observe that, directly God’s rest is spoken of, the next thing introduced is the blood of the paschal lamb. As much as to say, "There is the rest, but here is your title." No doubt, labour will capacitate us, but it is the blood that entitles us to enjoy the rest.
"And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord: seven days ye must eat unleavened breed. In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein." (Ver. 6-8.) The people are here assembled round Jehovah, in that practical holiness which is founded upon accomplished redemption; and, while thus assembled, the fragrant odour of the sacrifice ascends from the altar of Israel to the throne of Israel’s God. This gives us a fine view of that holiness which God looks for in the life of His redeemed. It is based upon the sacrifice, and it ascends in immediate connection with the acceptable fragrance of the Person of Christ. "Ye shall do no servile work therein. But ye shall offer an offering made by fire." What a contrast! The servile work of man’s hands, and the sweet savour of Christ’s sacrifice! The practical holiness of God’s people is not servile labour. It is the living unfolding of Christ, through them, by the power of the Holy Ghost. "To me to live is Christ." This is the true idea. Christ is our life; and every exhibition of that life is, in the divine judgement, redolent with all the fragrance of Christ. It may be a very trifling matter, in man’s judgement; but, in so far as it is the outflow of Christ our life, it is unspeakably precious to God. It ascends to Him and can never be forgotten. "The fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ" are produced in the life of the believer, and no power of earth or hell can prevent their fragrance ascending to the throne of God.
It is needful to ponder deeply the contrast between "servile work," and the outflow of the life of Christ. The type is very vivid. There was a total cessation of manual labour throughout the whole assembly; but the sweet savour of the burnt offering ascended to God. These were to be the two grand characteristics of the feast of unleavened bread. Man’s labour ceased, and the odour of the sacrifice ascended; and this was the type of a believer’s life of practical holiness. What a triumphant answer is here to the legalist, on the one side, and the antinomian on the other! The former is silenced by the words, "no servile work;" and the latter is confounded by the words, "Ye shall offer an offering made by fire." The most elaborate works of man’s hands are "servile; "but the smallest cluster of "the fruits of righteousness" is to the glory and praise of God. Throughout the entire period of the believer’s life, there must be no servile work; nothing of the hateful and degrading element of legality. There should be only the continual presentation of the life of Christ, brought out and exhibited by the power of the Holy Ghost. Throughout the "seven days" of Israel’s second great periodical solemnity, there was to be "no leaven;" but, instead thereof, the sweet savour of "an offering made by fire" was to be presented to the Lord. May we fully enter into the practical teaching of this most striking and instructive type!
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest; and ye shall wave the sheaf Before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. And ye shall offer that day, when ye wave the sheaf, an the lamb without blemish of the first year, for a burnt offering unto the Lord. And the meat offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin. And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations, in all your dwellings." (Ver. 9-14)
"But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept." (1 Cor. 15: 20) The beautiful ordinance of the presentation of the sheaf of first fruits typify the resurrection of Christ, who, "at the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week," rose triumphant from the tomb, having accomplished the glorious work of redemption. His was a "resurrection from among the dead;" and, in it, we have, at once, the earnest and the type of the resurrection of His people. "Christ the first fruits; afterwards they that are Christ’s at his coming." When Christ comes, His people will be raised from among the dead;" (ek nekron) that is those of them that sleep in Jesus. "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." (Rev. 20: 5) When, immediately after the transfiguration, our blessed Lord spoke of His rising "from among the dead," the disciples questioned among themselves what that could mean. (See Mark 9) Every orthodox Jew believed in the doctrine of the "resurrection of the dead," (anastasis nekron) But the idea of a "resurrection from among the dead," (anastasis ek nekron) was what the disciples were unable to grasp and, no doubt, many disciples since then have felt considerable difficulty with respect to a mystery so profound.
However, if my reader will prayerfully study and compare 1 Cor. 15 with 1 Thess. 4: 13-18, he will get much precious instruction upon this most interesting and practical truth. He can also look at Romans 8: 11, in connection. "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead (ek nekron) dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." From all these passages it will be seen that the resurrection of the Church will be upon precisely the same principle as the resurrection of Christ. Both the Head and the body are shown to be raised "from among the dead." The first sheaf and all the sheaves that follow after are morally connected.
It must be evident to any one who carefully ponders the subject, in the light of scripture, that there is a very material difference between the resurrection of the believer and the resurrection of the unbeliever. Both shall be raised; but Revelation 20: 5, proves that there will be a thousand years between the two, so that they differ both as to the principle, and as to the time. Some have found difficulty, in reference to this subject, from the fact that, in John 5: 28, our Lord speaks of "the hour in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice." "How," it may be asked, "can there be a thousand years between the two resurrections when both are spoken of as occurring in an ’hour’?" The answer is very simple. In verse 28, the quickening of dead souls is spoken of as occurring in an "hour;" and this work has been going on for over eighteen hundred years. Now, if a period of nearly two thousand years can be represented by the word "hour," what objection can there be to the idea of one thousand years being represented in the same way? Surely, none whatever, especially when it is expressly stated that "the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished."
But, furthermore, when we find mention made of "a first resurrection," is it not evident that all are not to be raised together? Why speak of a "first" if there is but the one? It may be said that "the first resurrection" refers to the soul; but where is the scripture warrant for such a statement? The solemn fact is this: when the "shout of the archangel and the trump of God" shall be heard, the redeemed who sleep in Jesus will be raised to meet Him in the glory. The wicked dead, whoever they be, from the days of Cain down, will remain in their graves, during the thousand years of millennial blessedness; and, at the close of that bright and blissful period, they shall come forth and stand before "the great white throne," there to be "judged every man according to his works," and to pass from the throne of judgement into the lake of fire. Appalling thought!
Oh! reader, how is it in reference to your precious soul Have you seen, by the eye of faith, the blood of the paschal Lamb shed to screen you from this terrible hour? Have you seen the precious sheaf of firstfruits reaped and gathered into the heavenly garner, as the earnest of your being gathered in due time? These are solemn questions, deeply solemn. Do not put them aside. See that you are, now, under the cover of the blood of Jesus. Remember, you cannot glean so much as a single ear in the fields of redemption until you have seen the true sheaf waved before the Lord. "Ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the self-same day that ye have brought an offering unto your God." The harvest could not be touched until the sheaf of first fruits had been presented, and, with the sheaf, a burnt offering and a meat offering.
"And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be complete: even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord. Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves, of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Lord." (Ver. 15-17) This is the feast of Pentecost - the type of God’s people, gathered by the Holy Ghost, and presented before Him, in connection with all the preciousness of Christ. In the Passover, we have the death of Christ; in the sheaf of first fruits, we have the resurrection of Christ; and in the feast of Pentecost, we have the descent of the Holy Ghost to form the Church. All this is divinely perfect. The death and resurrection of Christ had to be accomplished, ere the Church could be formed. The sheaf was offered and then the loaves were baked.
And, observe, "They shall be baken with leaven." Why was this? Because they were intended to foreshadow those who, though filled with the Holy Ghost, and adorned with His gifts and graces, had, nevertheless, evil dwelling in them. The assembly, on the day of Pentecost, stood in the full value of the blood of Christ, was crowned with the gifts of the Holy ghost; but there was leaven there also. No power of the Spirit could do away with the fact that there was evil dwelling in the people of God. It might be suppressed and kept out of view; but it was there. This fact is foreshadowed in the type, by the leaven in the two loaves; and it is set forth in the actual history of the Church; for, albeit God the Holy Ghost was present in the assembly, the flesh was there likewise to lie unto Him. Flesh is flesh, nor can it ever be made ought else than flesh. The Holy Ghost did not come down, on the day of Pentecost, to improve nature or do away with the fact of its incurable evil, but to baptise believers into one body, and connect them with their living Head in heaven.
Allusion has already been made, in the chapter on the peace offering, to the fact that leaven was permitted in connection therewith. It was the divine recognition of the evil in the worshipper. Thus is it also in the ordinance of the "two wave loaves;" they were to be "baken with leaven," because of the evil in the antitype.
But, blessed be God, the evil which was divinely recognised was divinely provided for. This gives great rest and comfort to the heart. It is a comfort to be assured that God knows the worst of us; and, moreover, that He has made provision according to His knowledge, and not merely according to ours. "And ye shall offer with the bread, seven lambs without blemish, of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams; they shall be for a burnt offering unto the Lord, with their meat offering and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord. (Ver. 18) Here, then, we have, in immediate connection with the leavened loaves, the presentation of an unblemished sacrifice, typifying the great and all-important truth that it is Christ’s perfectness and not our sinfulness that is ever before the view of God. Observe, particularly, the words, "ye shall offer with the bread, seven lambs without blemish." Precious truth! Deeply precious, though clothed in typical dress! May the reader be enabled to enter into it, to make his own of it, to stay his conscience upon it, to feed and refresh his heart with it, to delight his whole soul in it. Not I, but Christ.
It may, however, be objected that the fact of Christ’s being a spotless lamb is not sufficient to roll the burden of guilt from a sin-stained conscience - a sweet-savour offering would not, of itself, avail for a guilty sinner. This objection might be urged; but our type fully meets and entirely removes it. It is quite true that a burnt offering would not have been sufficient where "leaven "was in question; and hence we read, "Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings." (Ver. 19) The "sin offering" was the answer to the "leaven" in the loaves - "peace" was established, so that communion could be enjoyed, and all went up in immediate connection with the "sweet savour" of the "burnt offering" unto the Lord.
Thus, on the day of Pentecost, the church was presented, in all the value and excellency of Christ, through the power of the Holy Ghost. Though having in itself the leaven of the old nature, that leaven was not reckoned, because the divine Sin Offering had perfectly answered for it. The power of the Holy Ghost did not remove the leaven, but the blood of the Lamb had atoned for it. This is a most interesting and important distinction. The work of the Spirit in the believer does not remove indwelling evil. It enables him to detect, judge, and subdue the evil; but no amount of spiritual power can do away with the fact that the evil is there - though, blessed be God, the conscience is at perfect ease, inasmuch as the blood of our Sin Offering has eternally settled the whole question; and, therefore, instead of our evil being under the eye of God, it has been put out of sight for ever, and we are accepted in all the acceptableness of Christ, who offered Himself to God as a sweet-smelling sacrifice, that He might perfectly glorify Him in all things, and be the food of His people for ever.
Thus much as to Pentecost - after which a long; period is entered to roll on ere we have any movement amongst the people. there is, however, the notice of "the poor and stranger" in that beautiful ordinance which has already been referred to in its moral aspect. Here we may look at it in a dispensational point of view. "And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest; thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the Lord your God." (Ver. 22) Provision is here made for the stranger to glean in Israel’s fields. The Gentile is to be brought in to participate in the overflowing goodness of God. When Israel’s storehouse and winepress have been fully furnished, there will be precious sheaves and rich clusters for the Gentile to gather.
We are not, however, to suppose that the spiritual blessings with which the Church is endowed in the heavenlies with Christ are set forth under the figure of a stranger gleaning in Israel’s fields. These blessings are as new to the seed of Abraham as they are to the Gentile. They are not the gleanings of Canaan, but the glories of heaven - the glories of Christ. The Church is not merely blessed by Christ, but with and in Christ. The bride of Christ will not be sent forth to gather up, as a stranger, the sheaves and clusters in the corners of Israel’s fields, and from the branches of Israel’s vines. No; she tastes of higher blessings, richer joys, nobler dignities, than ought that Israel ever knew. She is not to glean as a stranger on earth, but to enjoy her own wealthy and happy home in heaven to which she belongs. This is the "better thing" which God hath, in His manifold wisdom and grace, "reserved" for her. No doubt, it will be a gracious privilege for "the stranger" to be permitted to glean after Israel’s harvest is reaped; but the church’s portion is incomparably higher, even to be the bride of Israel’s king, the partner of His throne, the sharer of His joys, His dignities, and His glories; to be like Him, and with Him, for ever. The eternal mansions of the Father’s house on high, and not the ungleaned corners of Israel’s fields below, are to be the church’s portion. May we ever bear this in mind, and live, in some small degree, worthy of such a holy and elevated destination!
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation. Ye shall do no servile work; but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord." (Ver. 23-25) A new subject is introduced here, by the words, "the Lord spake unto Moses," which, let me remark in passing, affords an interesting help in classifying the subjects of the entire chapter. Thus, the Sabbath, the Passover, and the feast of unleavened bread, are given under the first communication. The wave sheaf, the wave loaves, and the ungleaned corners, are given under the second; after which we have a long unnoticed interval, and then comes the soul-stirring feast of trumpets, on the first day of the seventh month. This ordinance leads us on to the time, now fast approaching, when the remnant of Israel shall "blow up the trumpet" for a memorial, calling to remembrance their long-lost glory, and stirring up themselves to seek the Lord.
The feast of trumpets is intimately connected with another great solemnity, namely, "the day of atonement." "Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. And ye shall do no work in that same day; for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the Lord your God . . . . . it shall be unto you a Sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbath." (Ver. 27-32) Thus, after the blowing of the trumpets, an interval of eight days elapses, and then we have the day of atonement, with which these things are connected, namely, affliction of soul, atonement for sin, and rest from labour. All these things will find their due place in the experience of the Jewish remnant, by and by. "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." (Jer. 8: 20) such will be the pathetic lament of the remnant when the Spirit of God shall have begun to touch their heart and conscience. "And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall Be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for her firstborn. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn, every family apart," &c. (Zech. 12: 10-14)
What deep mourning, what intense affliction, what genuine penitence there will be, when, under the mighty action of the Holy Ghost, the conscience of the remnant shall recall the sins of the past, the neglect of the Sabbath, the breach of the law, the stoning of the prophets, the piercing of the Son, the resistance of the Spirit! All these things will come in array on the tablets of an enlightened and exercised conscience, and produce keen affliction of soul.
But the blood of atonement will meet all. "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness." (Zech. 13: 1) They will be made to feel their guilt and be afflicted, and they will also be led to see the efficacy of the blood and perfect peace - a sabbath of rest unto their souls.
Now, when such results shall have been reached, in the experience of Israel, in the latter day, for what should we look? Surely, THE GLORY. When the "blindness" is removed, and The veil is taken away, when the heart of the remnant is turned to Jehovah, then shall the bright beams of the "Sun of righteousness" fall, in healing, restoring, and saving power upon a truly penitent, afflicted, and poor people. To enter elaborately upon this subject would demand a volume in itself. The exercises, the experiences, the conflicts, the trials, the difficulties, and the ultimate blessings of the Jewish remnant are fully detailed throughout the Psalms and Prophets. The existence of such a body must be clearly seen, ere the Psalms and Prophets can be studied with intelligence and satisfaction. Not but that we may learn much from those portions of inspiration, for "all scripture is profitable." But the surest way to make a right use of any portion of the Word of God, is to understand its primary application.. If, then, we apply scriptures to the Church or heavenly body which belong, strictly speaking, to the Jewish remnant or earthly body, we must be involved in serious error as to both the one and the other. In point of fact, it happens, in many cases, that the existence of such a body as the remnant is completely ignored, and the true position and hope of the Church are entirely lost sight of. These are grave errors which my reader should sedulously seek to avoid. Let him not suppose, for a moment, that they are mere speculations fitted only to engage the attention of the curious, and possessing no practical power whatever. There could not be a more erroneous supposition. What! is it of no practical value to us to know whether we belong to earth or heaven? Is it of no real moment to us to know whether we shall be at rest in the mansions above, or passing through the apocalyptic judgements down here? Who could admit ought so unreasonable? The truth is, it would be difficult to fix on any line of truth more practical than that which unfolds the distinctive destinies of the earthly remnant and the heavenly Church. I shall not pursue the subject further, here; but the reader will find it well worthy of his calm and prayerful study. We shall close this section with a view of the feast of tabernacles - the last solemnity of the Jewish year.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord . . . . . .Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days: on the first day shall be a Sabbath, and on the eighth shall be a sabbath. And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. And ye shall keep it a feast unto the Lord seven days in the year: it shall be a statute for ever in your generations; ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month. Ye shall dwell in booths seven days: all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths; that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." (Ver. 33-43)
This feast points us forward to the time of Israel’s glory in the latter day, and, therefore, it forms a most lovely and appropriate close to the whole series of feasts. The harvest was gathered in, all was done, the storehouses were amply furnished, and Jehovah would have His people to give expression to their festive joy. But, alas! they seem to have had but little heart to enter into the divine thought in reference to this most delightful ordinance. They lost sight of the fact that they had been strangers and pilgrims, and hence their long neglect of this feast. From the days of Joshua down to the time of Nehemiah, the feast of tabernacles had never once been celebrated. It was reserved for the feeble remnant that returned from the Babylonish captivity to do what had not been done even in the bright days of Solomon. "And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths: for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun, unto that day, had not the children of Israel done so. and there was very great gladness." (Neh. 8: 17) How refreshing it must have been to those who had hung their harps on the willows of Babylon, to find themselves beneath the shade of the willows of Canaan! It was a sweet foretaste of that time of which the feast of tabernacles was the type, when Israel’s restored tribes shall repose within those millennial bowers which the faithful hand of Jehovah will erect for them in the land which He sware to give unto Abraham and to his seed for ever. Thrice happy moment when the heavenly and the earthly shall meet, as intimated, in "the first day" and "the eighth day" of the feast of tabernacles! "The heavens shall hear the earth, and the earth shall hear the corn and the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel."
There is a fine passage in the last chapter of Zechariah which goes to prove, very distinctly, that the true celebration of the feast of tabernacles belongs to the glory of the latter day. "And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles." (Lev. 14: 16) What a scene! Who would seek to rob it of its characteristic beauty by a vague system of interpretation falsely called spiritualizing? Surely, Jerusalem means Jerusalem; nations mean nations; and the feast of tabernacles means the feast of tabernacles. Is there anything incredible in this? Surely, nothing save to man’s reason which rejects all that lies beyond its narrow range. The feast of tabernacles shall yet be celebrated in the land of Canaan, and the nations of the saved shall go up thither to participate in its glorious and hallowed festivities. Jerusalem’s warfare shall then be accomplished, the roar of battle shall cease. The sword and the spear shall be transformed into the implements of peaceful agriculture; Israel shall repose beneath the refreshing shade of their vines and fig-trees; and all the earth shall rejoice in the government of "the Prince of Peace." Such is the prospect presented in the unerring pages of inspiration. The types foreshadow it; the prophets prophesy of it; faith believes it; and hope anticipates it.
NOTE. - At the close of our chapter we read, "And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord." This was their true character, their original title; but in the Gospel of John, they are called "feasts of the Jews." They had long ceased to be Jehovah’s feasts. He was shut out. They did not want Him; and, hence, in John 7, when Jesus was asked to go up to "the Jews’ feast of tabernacles," He answered," My time is not yet come;" and when He did go up it was "privately," to take His place outside of the whole thing, and to call upon every thirsty soul to come unto Him and drink. There is a solemn lesson in this. Divine institutions are speedily marred in the hands of man; but, oh! how deeply blessed to know that the thirsty soul that feels the barrenness and drought connected with a scene of empty religious formality, has only to flee to Jesus and drink freely of His exhaustless springs, and so become a channel of blessing to others.
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain THIS Part consists of chapters 23, and 25, with…
THIS Part consists of chapters 23, and 25, with chapter 24 parenthetically introduced.
Every religion must have its round of holy days and seasons:
Read full note →
1. To give occasion for manifesting joyous thankfulness to the Giver of all good things.
2. To keep alive the memory of past events around which religious associations cling.
3. To impress upon the hearts of the worshippers those sacred mysteries which are regarded as essential characteristics of the system.
1. The duty and happiness of rejoicing before the Lord find a prominent place under the Mosaic dispensation, as they must in any religion where man feels himself in a covenant relation with God, brought nigh to him by himself, and no longer estranged from him who is his only true life and happiness. Accordingly, the first thought of the annual Jewish festivals is that of joyous thankfulness, such as is becoming to reconciled children grateful to their Father for the many bounties that they receive at his hands. The first gift of God of which man becomes conscious is that of the daily sustenance provided for him, and therefore we should expect holy days to be appointed to commemorate the goodness of God in bestowing the gifts of the earth. The first aspect, therefore, in which to regard the three great annual festivals the Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles is that they were days of thanksgiving for the fruits of the earthdispensed by God to man.
First, with regard to the Passover. We read at verses 10, 11, "When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf or an omer of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. The words, "the morrow after the sabbath," mean, as we shall see, the day after the first day of Unleavened Bread, that is, the second day of the feast, Nisan 16, which fell early in April, when the first barley was ripening in Palestine. On the 14th day of Nisan (the day of the Paschal sacrifice) a certain quantity of standing barley was marked off, by men specially appointed for the purpose, in a field ploughed the previous autumn and sown at least ten weeks before the Passover, but not prepared artificially in such a way as to hasten the crop. On the following day, Nisan 15, at sunset, three men were sent to the selected field, and, in the presence of witnesses, cut the ears of corn before marked, and brought them into the temple. On the next day, Nisan 16, this corn, whether in the form of a sheaf or of flour, was offered to the Lord by being waved before him, and then consigned to the priest. Here, by the presentation of the firstfruits of the year, an acknowledgment is made that the products of the earth are by right God"s. This is one of the objects of the Feast of the Passover.
Secondly, as to Pentecost. After the sheaf, or omer, had been offered on Nisan 16, it was allowable to make the new year"s barley into bread, but the dedication of the grain crops was not complete until a portion of the wheat crop had also been offered. This was done a week of weeks later, at the Feast of Pentecost, forty-nine days after the presentation of the barley, and fifty days after the first day of Unleavened Bread. On this day, two leavened loaves, of the same size as the shewbread loaves, were waved before the Lord, and then delivered to the priest. These loaves were made out of ears of corn selected and reaped as the barley had been seven weeks before, and then threshed and ground in the temple. They were regarded as the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, though they were not made of the first cut wheat; and from their presentation the festival has the name of the Feast of Harvest; (Exo_23:16) the Feast of the Firstfruits of the Wheat Harvest; (Exo_24:2) the Day of the Firstfruits; (Num_28:26) while, from its date relatively to the Passover, it is called the Feast of Weeks. (Exo_34:22 Deu_16:10) The name, Feast of Pentecost, is found only in the Apocrypha, (RAPC Tob 2:1 2Ma 12:32) and in the New Testament. (Act_2:1 Act_20:16 1Co_16:8) The meat offerings might not be made of the new year"s flour until these two loaves had been offered.
Thirdly, with regard to the Feast of Tabernacles. The festivals connected with the seasons of the year and the products of the soil were not ended until the Feast of Ingathering, (Exo_23:16 Exo_34:22) or Tabernacles (verse 34; Deu_16:13; Ezr_3:4; Zec_14:16; Jer_7:2), had been celebrated. This festival occurred about the beginning of October, and commemorated the final gathering in of all the fruits of the year, specially of the olives and the grapes. It was observed by a general dwelling in booths made of the branches of palms, willows, olives, pines, myrtles, and other close-growing trees, (verse 40; Neh_8:15) in which all the Israelite males, with the exception of the sick, lived for seven days, and kept harvest home.
2. The second aspect in which to regard the annum festivals is the historical one. The Passover is characterized by its historical associations to a greater degree than either of the other festivals. The whole national life of the Israelites received its character from the Egyptian Exodus, and accordingly the anniversaries of their religious year began with its commemoration. It was the events which had taken place in Egypt which gave to the Paschal sacrifice and the Paschal feast their primary signification; and while to us the Passover festival serves as a proof of the truth of those events, to the Jew it served as a memorial of them, preventing them from ever being forgotten or disregarded. (cf. Exo_13:3-16) The ancient Christian Fathers suggested that the Feast of Pentecost commemorated the institution of the old dispensation at Sinai, as, to Christians, it recalled the institution of the new Law by the gift of the fiery tongues at Jerusalem. This suggestion was adopted by Maimonides and the later school of Hebrew commentators, and it is a very probable conjecture; but as no appearance of it is found in the Old or New Testaments, nor even in early Hebrew writers, it cannot be regarded as a certainty. Historically, the Feast of Tabernacles is generally considered to commemorate the dwelling in tents throughout the forty years" wandering in the wilderness; but if this were so, it would have been called the Feast of Tents, for the words "tent" and "tabernacle" differ, and the Israelites did not dwell in tabernacles in the wilderness. Rather, it commemorates the first encampment of the Israelites after setting forth from Egypt, which took place at "Succoth," the meaning of which word is "tabernacle". (Exo_12:37) Thus, as the event historically associated with the first harvest festival, the Passover, was the setting forth from Egypt, that associated with the last, the Feast of Tabernacles, was the resting at the end of the first day"s journey at Succoth, where the people now felt that they were free, and began to rejoice in their freedom.
3. The typical character of the feasts, as well as their historical character, is more apparent in the Passover than in the other two feasts. St. Paul"s testimony on this point is sufficient: "For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth". (1Co_5:7) Here we have the typical character of the Paschal lamb, and of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, authoritatively declared to us. The blood of the lamb slain on the night before the Exodus, being the means whereby the Israelites were delivered from the destruction which fell on all the rest of the inhabitants of the land, typified the still more efficacious bloodshedding by which the redemption of Christ"s people was wrought. The Feast of Pentecost, if it commemorated the gift of the Law at Mount Sinai, pointed thereby to the giving of the better Law on the day when the Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles in Jerusalem; and in any case, as a Feast of Firstfruits, it was emblematic of those firstfruits of the Christian Church presented to God on that day. (Act_2:41) The Feast of Tabernacles, in which God"s people commemorated their rejoicing in their newly found liberty after the slavery of Egypt, awaits its full typical fulfillment in the spiritual joy of the redeemed after they have been delivered from the burden of the flesh and the sufferings of the world; but its typical meaning is partially fulfilled in the blessed peace and joy spread abroad in the hearts of the children of God by reason of their adoption in Christ, whereby we have obtained an inheritance with the saints. (Eph_1:11, Eph_1:18)
In the annual fast held on the 10th of Tisri, the great Day of Atonement, the typical element outweighs any other. The present and the past sink away in comparison with the future. The day suggests no thought of the seasons or of the products of the earth, and it recalls no event of past history. It teaches a lesson the need of reconciliation; and by the entrance of the high priest into the holy of holies with sacrificial blood, and by the ceremony of the scapegoat, it typically foreshadows how that reconciliation is to he effected.
The monthly festivals had a purpose different from the annual. They occurred on the new moon, or the first day of each month, and their intention was to dedicate each month to God. Only one of these monthly festivals is mentioned in this chapter the Feast of Trumpets. It is the feast of the new moon of the sacred seventh month, with which the civil year began. Because it was New Year"s Day, it had more ceremonies attached to it than the first days of the other months. Whereas the feasts of the new moons in other months only sanctified the special month which they began, the Feast of Trumpets sanctified also the whole year, and was therefore an annual as well as a monthly feast.
The weekly festival was the sabbath. (see Exo_20:10 Deu_5:15) This feast sanctified each week, as the monthly feasts sanctified each month; and like the annual festivals, it looked both backwards and forwards: backwards, to the sanctification bestowed upon it "Because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made"; (Gen_2:3) forwards, to the great sabbath in which Christ rested in the grave, and yet further onwards to another sabbath still to be enjoyed by the people of God.
The sabbatical year and the jubilee were extensions of the sabbatical principle certain civil and religious institutions and regulations being attached to each of them.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Chapter Gen_2:2, Gen_2:3; cf. Exo_16:22 Exo_20:8-11 Mar_2:23-28 Rev_1:10. In the sacrificial worship we come across what is essentially different as an offering from the sacrifice of an animal or of any palpable possession, and yet is a real sacrifice all the while we mean that of time. The sabbath, as an offering of rest, has consequently a very high place among the Jews. As Ewald has remarked, it is the only sacrifice which finds a place among the ten commandments. No wonder he regards it as "the greatest and most prolific thought" in the Jewish religion. And here let us notice
I THE HIGH VALUE MAN USUALLY SETS ON HIS TIME. It is indeed said to be money. Many will make almost any other sacrifice more willingly than that of their tinge. They will give money, valuables, almost anything you like to ask, except their precious time. What a fuss made about an evening devoted to you by a busy friend, or half an evening, or sometimes half an hour!
Hence, in demanding from man a proportion of his time, God asks for what man esteems highly and is loth to give. Time is regarded as so peculiarly man"s own, to do what he likes in, that it becomes no light sacrifice, but rather the crown of all sacrifices, when a considerable portion of time is made over unto God.
II THE DEMAND GOD MAKES IS IN MAN"S INTEREST, FOR IT IS FOR REST AFTER LABOUR. Six days of work, and then, saith God, one day of rest. The body needs it. Seven days" unceasing toil would soon take the heart out of all workers, and bring on premature decay. God himself has set the example. After the untold labours of the creation, after the hard work if we may reverently use such terms of God of the creative periods, he has entered into the long sabbath of human history. He is in the midst of it now. This is implied by the words of Jesus, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work", (Joh_5:17) in their connection. And so a restful Father in heaven calls upon his toiling children upon earth to rest, as he has done, one day out of seven, and not sink through unceasing labour. So consonant is this weekly rest with the laws of our physical nature, that some, who do not see clearly the scriptural proof and obligation of a holy day, believe that it might safely be allowed to rest upon the foundation of physical need. But the needs of others, alas! constitute no sufficient sanction with selfish men. God must speak and make his demand, else men will run counter to their general welfare in their self-indulgence.
III GOD"S REST IS TO BE CHARACTERIZED BY SOCIAL WORSHIP. Man is not to spend his seventh day in inactivity. He is not to loiter about his tent or gossip at its door all the day. There is to be "a holy convocation" ( The day is to be celebrated by social worship. The people were expected to gather in their thousands to praise the Lord. Were it not for such a regulation as the sabbath, with its public services, even Judaism could not have survived.
The same reason still holds for a holy sabbath. In the interests of religion it must be observed. What would become of our holy religion if a set time for its weekly observance were not generally kept? Men need these "trysting times" and "trysting places" (as yrewOm, in verse 2, might very properly be translated), that religion may keep its position among us.
We may imagine what our land "would be if no Lord"s day were kept, if no sabbath bells summoned people to public prayer, and no preachers got their weekly opportunities. It would soon be an irreligious land, carelessness and indifference reigning throughout it in a measure infinitely greater than they do even now.
IV THE DAY OF REST IS TO BE REGARDED AS THE LORD"S. "It is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings." The Jew regarded the sabbath as "the Lord"s day." It was the day of the week that God regulated, and all whose hours he claimed as his. We claim as much for "the first day of the week" under our dispensation. We ask men to lay the day as a hearty offering on God"s altar. They are not doing so while they spend it as they like. It is to be a holy day, not a holiday; a holy day, and therefore to a holy soul a happy day, the day in which we can rejoice and be glad. When we can say with John, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord"s day," we are sure to have most precious visions of the Lord"s beauty and glory. (cf. Rev_1:10, etc.)
It is no contention, therefore, about something Jewish, but simply about something honestly dedicated as a day to God. Those who contend against the strict observance of the Lord"s day either labour under a total misapprehension about the way some people spend it, or are really bent upon devoting the day to their own purposes instead of to God"s. If we are commonly honest, we shall esteem it only right to surrender as the highest offering of our religious life the seventh of our time to him who deserves it all.
"Man, then," says Ewald, "shall release his soul and body from all their burdens, with all the professions and pursuits of ordinary life, only in order to gather himself together again in God with greater purity and fewer disturbing elements, and renew in him the might of his own better powers. If, then, the interchange of activity and rest is already founded in the nature of all creation, and is the more beneficial and health-bringing the more regular its recurrence, so should it be found here too; yet not as when, in the night and in sleep, the body is cared for, but as when, in a joyous day of unfettered meditation, the spiritual man always finds his true rest, and thereby is indeed renewed and strengthened. R.M.E.
HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD Vers. 1-3. The sabbath.
This is here classed amongst the "feasts of the Lord." The greater number of these were first observed after the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan; but the Passover was an exception, which was held at the time of the Exodus, forty years earlier. The sabbath also was an exception. We have to consider
I THE OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH.
1. It is not altogether a Mosaic institution.
(1) Its original enactment took place at the close of the creation week. The words are these. (see Gen_2:1-3)
(2) It was, therefore, an Adamic law, and was obligatory upon mankind at large more than twenty centuries before the Israelites had an existence,
(3) It was by the Israelites themselves recognized as a patriarchal law. For, in the wilderness of Sin, probably three months before they were fully constituted into a nation by receiving their own Law at Sinai, the double portion of manna which they gathered on the sixth day had respect to the sabbath to follow on the seventh. (see Exo_16:22-30)
2. It was incorporated in the Sinai code.
(1) It formed the fourth commandment of the Decalogue. (Exo_20:8-11) But even here it is introduced with the word "Remember," as a law already known to exist. The reason for its observance also is that given at the original institution.
(2) As a Levitical law, however, it has an additional reason, viz. the deliverance of the children of Israel from the cruel servitude in Egypt, where they could not enjoy the rest of the ancient institution. (Deu_5:15; see also Heb_4:8, margin)
(3) In this relation also death was made the penalty of its transgression. (see Exo_31:13-15 Num_15:32-36)
3. The Levitical law of the sabbath is repealed.
(1) The body is of Christ, who fulfilled the type of the deliverance from the bondage of Egypt in emancipating us from the bondage of sin.
(2) The Levitical penalty of death for the transgression of the Law is, of course, removed with the obligation of the Law itself.
4. But the Adamic law remains.
(1) As Gentiles, we were never under the Levitical Law. The institution of the Levitical sabbath, or the incorporation of the patriarchal sabbath in the Mosaic code, left us still where we were, under the Adamic law.
(2) And as the enactment of the Mosaic Law, which mainly concerned the Hebrew people and their land, left us where we were, so do we remain there after the abrogation of the Mosaic Law.
(3) But what effect has that abrogation upon the Hebrew? It leaves him where he was before the publication of his Law, viz. in common with mankind at large, still under obligation to observe and keep the sabbath of the Adamic law.
(4) This reasoning is equally good, whether we identify the sabbatic law as set out in the Decalogue with the Adamic law on the one hand, or with the Levitical on the other.
II HOW IT SHOULD BE KEPT. It should be kept:
1. As a day of rest from business.
(1) The idea of rest is expressed in its name. It was the most obvious idea in the injunction from the beginning. God hallowed it, or separated it from the six days of the week, because on the seventh day he rested from the work of the creation.
(2) The rest of God does not imply that he was weary from his work, but that he ceased from the action of creating. This is the import of the word (twb The teaching is that God so constituted his creation that his active creatures need a hebdomadal pause or rest.
(3) To ensure this to them he mercifully constituted it into a law. He foresaw that otherwise it would be refused under the influence of cupidity, avarice, tyranny, and stupidity.
2. As a day of holy convocation.
(1) Rest being secured from the toil of business, the activities of the soul have now to be turned into another course. Change really constitutes the rest of an essentially active nature. So the rest of God from creation is his work in providence and redemption. This our Lord taught us when he said, "My Father worketh hitherto," or until now (ewv arti ). (comp. Joh_5:16, 17 Psa_31:19)
(2) That change which is the greatest from the activities of business is communion with God in his worship and service. This seems to have constituted the blessing of the seventh day, for on that day God visited his children in Eden. Ever since it has been the season sacred to religious services.
(3) Men must not be diverted from this noblest of pursuits by seeking their own pleasure on the sabbath day. (Isa_58:13)
3. As a day of prophetic anticipation.
(1) Barnabas (in his Epistolae, cap. 15.) puts this subject thus: Attend, my children, to what he say finished in six days that is to say, in six thousand years the Lord God will consummate all things, for with him the day is a thousand years, as he himself testifies, saying, "Behold, this day shall be as a thousand years." Therefore, children, in six days that is, in six thousand years all things shall be consummated. And he rested the seventh day, that is, when his Son shall come and make an end of the time of the wicked one, and shall judge the ungodly, and shall change the sun, and moon, and stars; then shall he rest gloriously in the seventh day.
(2) These views seem to be in harmony with the sacred calendar of prophecy. And Paul in particular refers to the "sabbath-keeping which remaineth for the people of God". (Heb 4) J.A.M.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD Vers. 1-44. The festivals.
Verses Num_28:9, Num_28:10) elsewhere it was observed only by the holy convocation and rest from all labour. It commenced at sunset on Friday evening, and continued till sunset on Saturday evening. In later days the hour at which it began was announced by three blasts of the priests" trumpets, immediately after which a new course of priests entered on their ministry.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Ver. 3. Aspects of the sabbath.
We are reminded of
I ITS ORIGIN IN EARLIEST HUMAN HISTORY. "The seventh day is the sabbath of rest". (see Gen_2:2, Gen_2:3)
II THE SPECIAL OBLIGATION RESTING ON ISRAEL, AS A REDEEMED PEOPLE, TO OBSERVE IT. "The Lord thy God brought thee out thence... therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day". (Deu_5:15) We, also, as those redeemed at far greater cost, may feel ourselves on this ground constrained to observe it.
III ITS PLACE IN THE PROPHETIC TESTIMONY. It is deeply significant that the prophets, who were the rebukers of mere ritualism and the advocates of the moral and spiritual elements in religion, should have given so high a place as they did to the observance of the sabbath. (see Isa_1:10-15, comp. with Isa_56:2 Isa_58:13, Isa_58:14)
IV ITS CHRISTIAN ASPECT.
1. It commemorates the greatest fact in human history the resurrection of our Lord. The crowning act of redemption is more to us than the crowning act of creation.
2. Its obligation rests not on any one positive precept, but on the known will of Christ.
3. It meets the two great wants of man his bodily and his spiritual requirements.
4. It is to be observed:
(1) in the Church, it is to be "a holy convocation;
(2) in the home, all your dwellings." As individual souls we shall seek to honour our Lord and gain access of spiritual strength in the sanctuary; as parents we shall do our best to make the sabbath a holy, happy, welcome day to the children in our homes. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain IT is ever an instinct of natural religion to…
THE SET FEASTS OF THE LORD
Lev_23:1-44
Read full note →
IT is ever an instinct of natural religion to observe certain set times for special public and united worship. As we should therefore anticipate, such observances are in this chapter enjoined as a part of the requirement of the law of holiness for Israel.
It is of consequence to observe that the Revisers have corrected the error of the Authorised Version, which renders two perfectly distinct words alike as "feasts"; and have distinguished the one by the translation. "set feasts," the other by the one word, "feasts." The precise sense of the former word is given in the margin "appointed seasons." and it is naturally applied to all the set times of special religious solemnity which are ordained in this chapter. But the other word translated "feast,"-derived from a root meaning "to dance," whence "feast" or "festival,"-is applied to only three of the former six "appointed seasons," namely, the feasts of Unleavened Bread, of Pentecost, and of Tabernacles; as intended to be, in a special degree, seasons of gladness and festivity.
The indication of this distinction is of importance, as completely meeting the allegation that there is in this chapter evidence of a later development than in the account of the feasts given in Exodus 34, where the number of the "feasts," besides the weekly Sabbath, is given as three, while here, as it is asserted, their number has been increased to six. In reality, however, there is nothing here which suggests a later period. For the object of the former law in Exodus was only to name the "feasts" (haggim); while that of the chapter before us is to indicate not only these, -which here, as there, are three, -but, in addition to these, all "appointed seasons" for "holy convocations," which, although all moadim, were not all haggim.
The observance of public religious festivals has been common to all the chief religions of the world, both ancient and modern. Very often, though not in all cases, these have been determined by the phases of the moon; or by the apparent motion of the sun in the heavens, as in many instances of religious celebrations connected with the period of the spring and autumnal equinoxes; and thus, very naturally, also with the times of harvest and ingathering. It is at once evident that of these appointed seasons of holy convocation, the three feasts (haggim) of the Hebrews also fell at certain points in the harvest season; and with each of these, ceremonies were observed connected with harvest and ingathering; while two, the feast of weeks and that of tabernacles, take alternate names, directly referring to this their connection with the harvest; namely, the feast of firstfruits and that of ingathering. Thus we have, first, the feast of unleavened bread, following passover, which was distinguished by the presentation of a sheaf of the firstfruits of the barley harvest, in the latter part of March, or early in April; then, the feast of weeks, or firstfruits, seven weeks later, marking the completion of the grain harvest with the ingathering of the wheat; and, finally, the feast of tabernacles or ingathering, in the seventh month, marking the harvesting of the fruits, especially the oil and the wine, and therewith the completed ingathering of the whole product of the year.
From these facts it is argued that in these Hebrew feasts we have simply a natural development, with modifications, of the ancient and widespread system of harvest feasts among the heathen; to which the historical element which appears in some of them was only added as an afterthought, in a later period of history. From this point of view, the idea that these feasts were a matter of supernatural revelation disappears; what religious character they have belongs originally to the universal religion of nature.
But it is to be remarked, first, that even if we admit that in their original character these were simply and only harvest feasts, it would not follow that therefore their observance, with certain prescribed ceremonies, could not have been matter of Divine revelation. There is a religion of nature; God has not left Himself without a witness, in that He has given men "rains and fruitful seasons," filling their hearts with food and gladness. And, as already remarked in regard to sacrifice, it is no part of the method of God in revelation to ignore or reject what in this religion of nature may be true and right; but rather to use it, and build on this foundation.
But, again, the mere fact that the feast of unleavened bread fell at the beginning of barley harvest, and that one-though only one-ceremony appointed for that festive week had explicit reference to the then beginning harvest, is not sufficient to disprove the uniform declaration of Scripture that, as observed in Israel, its original ground was not natural, but historical; namely, in the circumstances attending the birth of the nation in their exodus from Egypt.
But we may say more than this. If the contrary were true, and the introduction of the historical element was an afterthought, as insisted by some, then we should expect to find that in accounts belonging to successive periods, the reference to the harvest would certainly be more prominent in the earlier, and the reference of the feast to a historical origin more prominent in the later, accounts of the feasts. Most singular it is then, upon this hypothesis, to find that even accepting the analysis, e.g., of Wellhausen, the facts are the exact reverse. For the only brief reference to the harvest in connection with this feast of unleavened bread is found in this chapter 23, of Leviticus, composed, it is alleged, about the time of Ezekiel; while, on the other hand, the narrative in Exodus 12, regarded by all the critics of this school as the earliest account of the origin of the feast of unleavened bread, refers only to the historical event of the exodus, as the occasion of its institution. If we grant the asserted difference in age of these two parts of the Pentateuch, one would thus more naturally conclude that the historical events were the original occasion of the institution of the festival, and that the reference to the harvest, in the presentation of the sheaf of firstfruits, was the later introduction into the ceremonies of the week.
But the truth is that this naturalistic identification of these Hebrew feasts with the harvest feasts of other nations is a mistake. In order to make it out, it is necessary to ignore or pervert most patent facts. These so-called harvest feasts in fact form part of an elaborate system of sacred times, -a system which is based upon the Sabbath, and into which the sacred number seven, the number of the covenant, enters throughout as a formative element. The weekly Sabbath, first of all, was the seventh day; the length of the great festivals of unleavened bread and of tabernacles was also, in each case, seven days. Not only so, but the entire series of sacred times mentioned in this chapter and in chapter 25 constitutes an ascending series of sacred septenaries, in which the ruling thought is this: that the seventh is holy unto the Lord, as the number symbolic of rest and redemption; and that the eighth, as the first of a new week, is symbolic of the new creation. Thus we have the seventh day, the weekly Sabbath, constantly recurring, the type of each of the series; then, counting from the feast of unleavened bread, -the first of the sacred year, -the fiftieth day, at the end of the seventh week, is signalised as sacred by the feast of firstfruits or of "weeks"; the seventh month, again, is the sabbatic month, of special sanctity, containing as it does three of the annual seasons of holy convocation, -the feast of trumpets on its first day, the great day of atonement on the tenth, and the last of the three great annual feasts, that of tabernacles or ingathering, for seven days from the fifteenth day of the month. Beyond this series of sacred festivals recurring annually, in chapter 25, the seventh year is appointed to be a sabbatic year of rest to the land, and the series at last culminates at the expiration of seven sevens of years, in the fiftieth year, -the eighth following the seventh seven, -the great year of jubilee, the supreme year of rest, restoration, and release. All these sacred times, differing in the details of their observance, are alike distinguished by their connection with the sacred number seven, by the informing presence of the idea of the Sabbath, and therewith always a new and fuller revelation of God as in covenant with Israel for their redemption.
Now, like to this series of sacred times, in heathenism there is absolutely nothing. It evidently belongs to another realm of thought, ethics, and religion. And so, while it is quite true that in the three great feasts there was a reference to the harvest, and so to fruitful nature, yet the fundamental, unifying idea of the system of sacred times was not the recognition of the fruitful life of nature, as in the heathen festivals, but of Jehovah, as the Author and Sustainer of the life of His covenant people Israel, as also of every individual in the nation. This, we repeat, is the one central thought in all these sacred seasons; not the life of nature, but the life of the holy nation, as created and sustained by a covenant God. The annual processes of nature have indeed a place and a necessary recognition in the system, simply because the personal God is active in all nature; but the place of these is not primary, but secondary and subordinate. They have a recognition because, in the first place, it is through the bounty of God in nature that the life of man is sustained; and, secondly, also because nature in her order is a type and shadow of things spiritual. For in the spiritual world, whether we think of it as made up of nations or individuals, even as in the natural, there is a seedtime and a harvest, a time of firstfruits and a time of the joy and rest of the full ingathering of fruit, and oil, and wine. Hence it was most fitting that this inspired rubric, as primarily intended for the celebration of spiritual things, should be so arranged and timed, in all its parts, as that in each returning sacred season, visible nature should present itself to Israel as a manifest parable and eloquent suggestion of those spiritual verities; the more so that thus the Israelite would be reminded that the God of the Exodus and the God of Sinai was also the supreme Lord of nature, the God of the seed time and harvest, the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens and the earth, and of all that in them is.
THE WEEKLY SABBATH
Lev_23:1-3
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, The set feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are My set feasts. Six days shall work be done: but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation; ye shall do no manner of work: it is a sabbath unto the Lord in all your dwellings."
The first verse of this chapter announces the purpose of the section as not to give a complete calendar of sacred times or of seasons of worship, -for the new moons and the sabbatic year and the jubilee are not mentioned, - but to enumerate such sacred times as are to be kept as "holyconvocations." The reference in this phrase cannot be to an assembling of the people at the central sanctuary which is elsewhere ordered {Exo_34:23} only for the three feasts of passover, weeks, and atonement; but rather, doubtless, to local gatherings for purposes of worship, such as, at a later day, took form in the institution of the synagogues.
The enumeration of these "set times" begins with the Sabbath (Lev_23:3), as was natural; for, as we have seen, the whole series of sacred times was sabbatic in character. The sanctity of the day is emphasised in the strongest terms, as a shabbath shabbathon, a "sabbath of sabbatism,"-a sabbath of solemn rest, as it is rendered by the Revisers. While on some other sacred seasons the usual occupations of the household were permitted, on the Sabbath "no manner of work" was to be done; not even was it lawful to gather wood or to light a fire.
For this sanctity of the Sabbath two reasons are elsewhere given. The first of these, which is assigned in the fourth commandment, makes it a memorial of the rest of God, when having created man in Eden, He saw His work which He had finished, that it was very good, and rested from all His work. As created, man was participant in this rest of God. He was indeed to work in tilling the garden in which he had been placed; but from such labour as involves unremunerative toil and exhaustion he was exempt. But this sabbatic rest of the creation was interrupted by sin; Gods work, which He had declared "good," was marred; man fell into a condition of wearying toil and unrest of body and soul, and with him the whole creation also was "subjected to vanity". {Gen_3:17-18 Rom_8:20} But in this state of things the God of love could not rest; it thus involved for Him a work of new creation, which should have for its object the complete restoration, both as regards man and nature, of that sabbatic state of things on earth which had been broken up by sin. And thus it came to pass that the weekly Sabbath looked not only backward, but forward; and spoke not only of the rest that was, but of the great sabbatism of the future, to be brought in through a promised redemption. Hence, as a second reason for the observance of the Sabbath, it is said {Exo_31:13} to be a sign between God and Israel through all their generations, that they might know that He was Jehovah which sanctified them, i.e., who had set them apart for deliverance from the curse, that through them the world might be saved.
These are thus the two sabbatic ideas; rest and redemption. They everywhere appear, in one form or another, in all this sabbatic series of sacred times. Some of them emphasise one phase of the rest and redemption, and some another; the weekly Sabbath, as the unit of the series, presents both. For in Deuteronomy {Deu_5:15} Israel was commanded to keep the Sabbath in commemoration of the exodus, as the time when God undertook to bring them into His rest; a rest of which the beginning and the pledge was their deliverance from Egyptian bondage; a rest brought in through a redemption.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Israel’s Holy Festivals
Israel’s Holy Festivals
SUGGESTIVE READINGS
Read full note →
Lev_23:2.—Concerning the feasts of the Lord. Religion has its joy seasons, its festive aspects. Israel’s sacred feasts symbolised the festivals of the Christian soul, those holy delights which believers now realise in their life of faith and fellowship.
(a) Sacred festivals, breaking in upon the monotony of the year, and arresting society amidst its common worldly employ, confer valued benefits on humanity; they are a temporary reprieve from the clamour of secular toils, and set men free for refreshment and rest; while they also incite to some degree of religious interest and gratitude, for they witness to gracious events in God’s redeeming purposes for the world, and summon the multitudes to gladness in commemoration.
(b) Spiritual joyousness, that sacred gladness we inher it in Christ, and of which those festivals were but suggestions and scintillations, has its special and more emphatic seasons within the experience of the Christian; for although religion brings into the soul an enduring happiness and a perennial feast of love, there are times when richer enjoyment of divine fellowship and privilege delights the godly man, and his holy relationship to Christ and the Church fills him with profounder satisfaction and bliss. The sun’s light shines steadily on throughout the entire day, but there are occasional intervals when his beams burst forth in more resplendant glory.
Lev_23:2.—Holy convocations, even these are my feasts. Heathenism had its wild, licentious orgies; Christianity claims sanctity for all its festivities. On all pleasures and delights it inscribes “Holiness to the Lord.” Happiness must be holy. God sends gladness into the soul He redeems, and its joy must be always kept pure.
Yet, in this arrangement that the feasts should be “convocations,” emphasis is placed on the fact that our joy should be sympathetic and communicative, not isolate and selfish. Redeemed men have common reasons for happiness and praise; God would have them meet together in grateful celebration, fostering a sacred friendship, entering into each other’s joy. Sin has drawn society together in the sympathy of sorrow and degradation; religion re-unites those it blesses in the fellowship of sacred gladness.
Lev_23:3.—The sabbath of rest. As the oldest of all sacred festivals, and the most frequent in recurrence, God places the sabbath in the front; it brings to toil-worn lives a day of “rest,” it announces to weary souls that sacred rest which Jesus gives, it foreshadows to life’s pilgrims Zionwards the “rest which remaineth” when heaven is reached.
The sabbath rest is to be enjoyed, not in selfish ease, but as a time for meeting with God’s people in sacred assembly, “a holy convocation”, and as a season for devout social fellowship; “it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.”
Lev_23:5.—The Lords passover. A commemoration of grand events: spared from the angel’s stroke of death, freed from the cruelty of oppressive slavery. Redemption and emancipation—such truths are proclaimed now to man through the “sacrifice of Christ our Passover.” Christians who have experienced the deliverance, and escaped into the “glorious liberty” of faith, should celebrate with joy this work of God’s salvation; for if Israel kept holy festival in memory of the Egyptian rescue, surely we should “keep the feast” (1Co_5:7-8).
Lev_23:7-8.—Ye shall do no servile work; but ye shall offer an offering made by fire. They who are gathered under the merits of the Paschal Atonement are set free from “servile” toils. No more “servile work” now for the sinner, no weary efforts, no fruitless endeavours, no degrading labours; for the “offering made by fire,” the sweet incense offering of Christ, has gone up to God, and it is enough. The soul is set free from legal “work,” and now stands an observer of the meritorious offering which rises to heaven as “by fire.” Not the labours of our hands but the offering on Calvary: with that “sweet savour of Christ” God is well pleased; and sinners stand acquitted with their trust fixed on the accepted sacrifice.
Lev_23:10.—Bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest. The paschal offering foreshadowed the death of Christ, the “sheaf of first-fruits” His resurrection. And equally is symbolised the risen and renewed life into which all Christians emerge from their death in sin, under the quickening of God’s Spirit. Further, it predicts the final resurrection of those who “sleep in Christ.” “Christ the first-fruits, afterwards they that are Christ’s at His coming.” And as our resurrection body at the last day will be “fashioned like unto his own glorious body,” so, meanwhile, should our resurrection life be graced with all the perfections of His character. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.” Surely every soul called from sin to grace, raised from death unto life, should seal the outset (see Lev_23:14) of His spiritual career by an act of “first-fruits” consecration, which should be the pledge of an after “harvest” of devoted service to the Lord.
Lev_23:16.—Number fifty days, and offer a new meat offering. This was the feast of Pentecost, which opened with the presentation of the first-fruits barley sheaf, and was to be closed with the offering of a loaf made from the ingathered wheat harvest. It celebrated the completion of the harvest season. It thus testified that God had given an abundant ingathering, and had blessed His people with bread. In the Christian Church the “first-fruits” were the foretoken of harvest abundance; for Christ’s resurrection guaranteed a great ingathering of souls; and on the day of Pentecost the spiritual harvest was brought in unto the Lord. It was exactly “fifty days” after Christ arose from the dead that the Holy Ghost was given, and the bountiful ingathering of converts was secured for the church (Acts 2).
Lev_23:24.—A memorial of blowing of trumpets. It was the rallying note amid the camp and throughout Israel, making known the opening of a new era. The “Feast of Trumpets” proclaimed the arrival of “New Year’s Day,” for the civil year began on “the first day of the seventh month.” With a great outburst of joy-strains the new epoch opened. Suggestive of the new era upon which a redeemed soul enters, the Christian convert starts forth as with music and gladness upon a holy career. The trumpet notes are typical of the Gospel call, by which men are aroused to regard and seize the first opportunity presented them. It prefigures also that mighty trumpeting at the end of time, which will summon living and dead to the day of God, to which those in Christ will first respond (1Th_4:16), but which will awaken all who sleep to a new era for universal humanity (1Co_15:51-52).
Lev_23:27.—A day of atonement. In chap. 16 the ritual of the great day is elaborately given; here the spirit and temper of the people is described, the whole congregation was to bow before God abased and penitential. It is well if only once every year we chasten “and afflict” our souls with humiliating thought of our sin, and bend before Jehovah with contrite hearts. Alas, there is need that we bemoan our demerit, and thus contemplate the “Atonement.” Yet how precious the fact that, while like a penitent we stand in shame for our sin, the “Day of Atonement” proclaims redeeming efficacy and grace for all who lay their hand and hope on the sacrificial Lamb.
Lev_23:34.—The Feast of Tabernacles. It is minutely directed in Lev_23:40 that they were to take “boughs of goodly trees,” affording shade and shelter and suggestive of God’s overshadowing care and covenant; “branches of palm trees,” emblematic of victory (Rev_7:9), for they were the triumphant host of God marching onward to possess Canaan; and “willows of the brook, “symbols of plenitude and prosperity (Isa_44:4). This dwelling in booths seven days every year (Lev_23:42) would perpetuate the memory of their pilgrim career, their dependence on divine care and providence, and God’s unfailing sufficiency for them from the outset to the close of their journey to Zion. And shall not we also keep in remembrance the years in which we have been “strangers and pilgrims on the earth,” through which the Lord has surely led us, never failing in the watchfulness of His providence or the sufficiency of His grace? “Thou shalt remember all the ways the Lord thy God has led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what is in thine heart” (Deu_8:2).
SECTIONAL HOMILIES
Topic: THE SABBATH OF REST (Lev_23:3)
Levitical enactments, its rites and regulations, its festivals and solemnities, were all transient and Jewish. The Sabbath is not to be classified with these: it is not one of many institutes of Israel. It preceded the wilderness encampment, was anterior to the enactments of Sinai. The Sabbath dates with man’s creation, it began in Eden. It is primeval law. Its origin preceded sin.
If thus remote its origin, what of its permanency?
It was recognised through Antediluvian times. Noah kept it within the ark, sending forth his dove after seven days’ interval. Moses urges its observance, and this, not after its promulgation on Sinai, but at the outset of the encamping of the Israelites in the desert (Exo_16:23), as being an institute well understood; it had, therefore, been known to them through their Egyptian bondage. It was no novel statute, therefore, when incorporated in the decalogue on Sinai.
In Jewish history it became re-inforced with all the solemnities of the giving of the law, the Sabbath’s sanctity was inscribed on stone with the finger of God.
The line of prophets in succession urged its solemnity, and denounced its neglect and violation.
Our Lord re-asserted its authority, “The Sabbath was made for man” (Mar_2:27), for all men, for all ages. And now—
Sabbaths are threefold, as St. Austin says:
The first of time, or Sabbath here of days;
The second is a conscience trespass free;
The last a Sabbath of eternity.—Herrick.
I. THE WEARY LIFE OF MAN CALLS FOR THIS INTERVAL OF SABBATH REST.
1. Each individual life requires it. Toil wastes our physical fabric, the strain on nerve and brain wears away the energy of life. The rush of daily duties consumes all leisure, allows no pause for bodily rest, no repose for thought, or attention to the soul’s great concerns.
2. Family life demands it. Amid the eagerness of worldly work parents and children are scattered, each to a separate scene and diverse tasks. Yet home is a unity; family life is a blended harmony. There is need for a lull in the clamour; a truce for the rallying together of the scattered ones; that home might quietly re-construct itself, and family life be realised.
3. Moral life calls for it. A worn and spent state of body, nerve, and brain, brings with it a relaxed will, an enfeebled moral purpose. With recouped physical energy comes reaffirmed force of mind and character. A pause for bodily rest is essential for this moral resuscitation.
4. Spiritual life cries out for it. Amid the arid scenes of the world the soul droops and thirsts. It pants for the living streams And as Christ called His disciples apart to rest awhile, so does the Sabbath; giving to overtaxed lives the sacred joy of going apart with Jesus.
Enquire: Is this inflexible command of God necessary in order to conserve the Sabbath?
If man so greatly needs it, would not his need assert itself, and lead men to perpetuate the beneficent institute without a divine command?
Answer: (a) Man’s greed would lead him to deny a Sabbath to himself. His lust of gain, and clamour for success, would drive him on to ruinous absorption in earthly schemes and lucrative pursuits. “The love of money” urges on to suicidal indifference to all higher interests. He would never let a day go each week from his eager life. “Time is money”; and if a Sabbath brings no gain to his grasping hands it is a day lost.
(b) Nor would selfish men concede the Sabbath’s rest to weary toilers. Already the oppressed and overwrought workers find it difficult to arrest the encroachments of trade on the sanctities of the Lord’s Day. Heartless employers would snatch precious hours from the Sabbath, and force their servants to labour. Men would not give the holy day to their fellows if no divine law interposed to check such infringements.
Every interest, therefore, of human life, is bound up with the maintenance of the Sabbath as a day of rest. [See Addenda to chapter; SABBATH.]
II. THE SIN-WORN SPIRIT OF MAN SIGHS FOR THE CONSOLATIONS OF SABBATIC SACRED REST.
The Sabbath is but typical of the rest of faith which the gospel brings to burdened souls.
1.All trials cease when the spirit enters into the Sabbatic rest which Jesus gives. The sinner “ceases from his own works” (Heb_4:10). Worn with labour, and heavy laden with the burdens of conscious unrighteousness, the toiling soul comes to the Saviour (Mat_11:28). A heavenly day, a serene Sabbatic life, dawns upon him at once, and in the restfulness of faith, trusting all to Jesus, he desists from fruitless efforts to “establish his own righteousness,” and sits down at the feet of Jesus. It is the Sabbath rest of his life begun.
2.Our daily conflicts and crosses render the Sabbath privilege a precious consolation to the believer. Resting in Jesus does not render the world a restful scene to the Christian. Nor does human life cease to know the common griefs and struggles of existence. Whereas also, the keen longings of the soul for fellowship with Christ finds few occasions for gratification amid the busy hours of the week. How welcome, therefore, to the believer is the day of rest! By “still waters” and amid “green pastures” he roams, in all the solemn delights of leisurely meditation: and his soul is “restored” (Psalms 24). To his troubled heart comes the solace of the “peace” which only Jesus gives (Joh_14:1; Lev_14:27). Within the sanctuary, “soothed with holy hymn and psalm,” quickened by fellowship with saints, and renewed through waiting upon God, he gains “times of refreshing” and strengthening of soul. He drinks of the brook by the way and lifts the head with freshened vigour for life’s journey. Full oft the rejoicing soul, glad in Christ, and refreshed by the Sabbath privileges, has to say,
Thou art a cooling fountain
In life’s dry, dreary sand;
From thee, like Pisgah’s mountain,
We view the promised land;
A day of sweet reflection
Thou art, a day of love—
A day of resurrection
From earth to things above.
III. THE LIFE-TIRED SOUL OF MAN LONGS FOR THE SABBATH OF HEAVENLY REST.
All sabbath repose and refreshing on earth; all realisations of the rest of soul Christ gives to the believer, all sanctuary consolations enjoyed on the Lord’s day, are but foretastes and foreshadowings of heaven’s eternal peace, and joy, and love.
1. As the sabbath day dawns after the night is spent, so heaven’s sabbath follows death’s dark night.
We have to live our life’s day of duty and service to confront the responsibilities of worldly trusts and opportunities to “work while it is called day.” “This is not our rest.” But the shadows at length fall; a hush spreads over the tumult of existence; the hand slackens its hold on the instruments of labour; darkness comes gently down upon earthly scenes. But a “lively hope” fills the Christian soul; a vision of a glorious dawn sweeps across the dimming human gaze.
And a voice, while earth cares fly,
With the closing hours is blending—
“Rest is coming, rest is nigh!”
Night wraps itself around the life: the day of eternity breaks upon the spirit: Heaven’s rest is gained. And “there shall be no night there,” “neither sorrow, nor crying, neither any more pain; for the former things are passed away.” Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord: yea, from henceforth, saith the “Spirit, for they rest.”
2. As the sacred rest of faith is gained by the sinner only when he comes unto Jesus so the heavenly rest is gained only when the Christian reaches the very presence of his Lord.
“Come unto me,” says Jesus, “and I will give you rest!” Blessed the experience of reaching Him now by faith: but when the soul bursts through the barrier of death and passes the gates of the heavenly city, and finds itself within the “Everlasting Arms,” leaning on Jesus’ bosom, never more to leave the radiant presence of his Lord, then, indeed, will the full rest of heaven be known.
No rough billows heave on the serene ocean of life eternal. No shadow falls on the bright sky of heaven’s bliss. No distance ever more divides the redeemed soul from the rapture of Christ’s presence. “For ever with the Lord”: and therefore there remaineth a keeping of sabbaths for the people of God
Rest, spirit free!
In the green pastures of the heavenly shore,
Where sin and sorrow can approach no more,
With all the flock, by the Good Shepherd fed,
Beside the streams of life eternal led,
For ever with thy God and Saviour blest,
Rest, sweetly rest!
Topic: THE SABBATH (Lev_23:3)
Placed first among the Hebrew festivals, the sabbath becomes invested with peculiar honour and importance. It claimed priority, dating back to the completion of creation, and reaching forward throughout all time, to be consummated in eternity. The institution and perpetuation of the sabbath secured time for the full observance of sacred duties; and, by its weekly advent, called attention to them. No institution of the Hebrew economy was more frequently referred to, or its observance more strictly enforced. Part of the badge that distinguished Israel from surrounding nations was cessation from worldly toil and complete consecration to sacred service one day in seven. The Hebrew Sabbath was—
I. A SACRED MEMORIAL, of the original institution of a special season for rest and undisturbed attention to divine things. It would be a perpetual reminder of the fact that “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,” therefore, a constant rebuke to every form of heathenism, where the true God was ignored or unknown. Under the Christian dispensation observance of “the Lord’s Day” is a perpetual memorial of the fundamental fact of Christianity, that the Redeemer’s atoning work was completed on earth when He rose from the grave on the morning of the third day.
II. A SACRED FESTIVAL.
In it God took special delight. He demanded it as a sacrifice of time from those whose days really all belonged to Him. Though all secular work was to be discontinued, works of mercy, piety, and necessity were to be performed. The Hebrews were to gather together for divine worship and the cultivation of personal holiness. Though God did not need the rest—for He never grows weary—yet man needed it; and God rejoiced in it, as its claims were recognised, its duties discharged. It was a festival, not a fast; for man to use, not abuse; to be made a delight, not a burden; for, in sanctifying time and strength to the Lord according to His gracious will, man finds his highest and truest joy.
The transfer of the sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week has not diminished its sacredness, or relaxed its claims. It is still a feast of the Lord, to be devoted to sacred purposes. It proclaims to all the right of freedom from exacting toil, and places all upon a level as the Lord’s free men.
III. A SACRED TYPE.
The law of the sabbath, re-published in the wilderness, pointed to the time when Israel would be able fully to observe it in the land of Canaan. The peculiar sanctity and blessedness of the day may fitly be regarded as typical of the perfect rest of heaven, where all the toils and trials of time will—for those who keep His commandments—issue in the rest and recompense of eternity. In observing the sabbath, we not only obey the divine command, but we follow the divine example (Gen_2:2-3). Thus God is pleased and man is blessed. Thus time becomes hallowed, life worth living, and heaven won. [See also preceding Homily on chap. 19 Lev_23:3.]—F. W.B.
Topic: SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PASSOVER (Lev_23:5-8)
“The first Passover was the commencement of the special privileges of the chosen nation, every subsequent Passover became a pledge of the continuance of those privileges” (Cave).
(a) The feast was RETROSPECTIVE and commemorative.
Israel’s deliverance from the destroying angel, and from Egyptian bondage, was an event unparalleled in human history. God would perpetuate the memory of so wondrous an incident as a testimony for all time that “salvation is of the Lord,” and that mightiest deliverances can be wrought for His people by our Redeemer.
Thus the Lord’s Supper, as a commemorative feast, also “shows forth the Lord’s death,” leading back our thoughts and faith to “Christ our Passover, sacrificed for us,” and the wondrous redemption wrought for an enslaved Church and a death-doomed world.
(b) The feast was PROSPECTIVE and typical.
The lamb of the paschal feast foreshadowed “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.” For the lamb employed at this commemorative feast was more than a symbol of the victim whose blood was sprinkled on the doorposts in Egypt, it was a sacrifice. It meant substitution. It typically “put away sin.”
At the Lord’s Supper, Christ said to His followers, “My body is broken for you, my blood is shed for you.” And Paul adds the testimony that “our Passover is sacrificed for us.”
The Identification of the Paschal Victim with Jesus Christ:—
I. With regard to the SELECTED VICTIM.
1. Was it a lamb? Christ is often so called on account of His innocence, meekness, and resignation (Isa_53:7; Joh_1:29; 1Pe_1:19; Rev_5:6).
2. Was it taken from the flock? Christ was chosen from among His brethren, was one of us (Act_3:22-23).
3. Was it a male of the first year? (Exo_12:5). Because the “male,” being the stronger, symbolised energy and excellence; and in “its first year” was at its fullest and most perfect development; so was Christ all “comely,” in the fulness and perfection of His days.
4. Was it without blemish? Christ was altogether spotless and faultless (1Pe_1:10; Heb_7:25).
II. With regard to its SACRIFICIAL OBLATION.
1. As the lamb was set apart four days before it was slain, so Christ was, during the last four days of His life, under examination, preparatory to His death (Mat_21:1).
2. As the lamb was eventually slain, so was Christ (Rev_5:9).
3. As its death was witnessed by the entire assembly, so was Christ publicly crucified (Luk_23:18).
4. As the time of the sacrifice was “at even” (Lev_23:5), so was our Saviour’s death (Mat_27:45; Luk_23:44-46). [Comp. Sleigh’s Aids to Reflection.]
III. With regard to the PASCHAL FEAST.
1. The eating of the passover typified that we find in Christ our life, our nourishment, and sufficiency (Joh_6:35; Joh_6:53-56).
2. The spirit in which the feast was to be partaken is indicated in the significance of the “bitter herbs,” suggesting a penitential spirit and bitter mourning, in remembrance of our sin (Zec_12:10).
3. The regulations for partakers of the feast are significant. Eaten “with haste,” indicates the urgency with which we should receive Christ; with “loins girded,” denotes our willingness to quit the past for a pilgrim life of faith; with “feet shod,” suggestive of rough ways to be resolutely trod; “staff in hand,” declares our defence and support.
4. The feast being eaten in companies, teaches the Christian law of union in Church fellowship, that religion may not be isolate. Christ gathers His disciples together at the feast of His Supper, and says, “Eat ye all of it, drink ye all of it.”
O wondrous emblems! setting forth His death from whom our life doth flow;
Never can finite reason sound such depths of love, such depths of woe.
Topic: THE PASSOVER (Lev_23:5-8)
The Exodus of Israel from Egypt, one of the most prominent landmarks in the history of the nation. The feast of the Passover was the significant memorial by which the memory of that event was perpetuated (Exodus 12). Not only individual, but national deliverance ought to be remembered.
I. THE HALLOWED MEMORIES IT EMBALMED.
The final plague with which Pharaoh and his people were visited led to the emancipation of Israel, and their departure from Egypt. The miraculous preservation of Israel, the destruction of the firstborn of Egypt, and the means employed to accomplish both were brought to mind when the Passover was observed as the anniversary of the solemn night of death that gave birth to the Hebrew nation.
II. THE SACRED DUTIES IT INCULCATED.
(a) Humility. Their own arm had not gotten them the victory, they had been redeemed from abject poverty and slavery. They had nothing in themselves to boast of when they remembered the hole of the pit from which they had been digged. (b) Thankfulness: seeing Jehovah had interposed in such a critical juncture for their race, He deserved their heartfelt gratitude, jubilant as the song of Moses, bright as the beautiful sea. (c) Gladness that they had escaped exacting toil, cruel oppression, bitter bondage; before them was a career of honour and blessedness, well might their hearts leap for gladness and their feet move with joyful steps. (d) Consecration. At the Exodus, Israel started on a new life. Henceforth the people were to be known as the servants of Jehovah, set apart and sanctified for His glory. They were not their own; to them His divine will would be communicated, and through them made known to the world.
In the Gospels the Passover is identified with the feast of unleavened bread, which began and closed with a Sabbath, suggesting the idea of a complete consecrated life. Only unleavened bread was to be eaten at the feast; in all our Christian service the leaven of evil is to be scrupulously avoided. Christ Our passover is sacrificed for us, let us keep the feast with humility, solemnity, thankfulness, gladness, devoutness, and consecration.
III. THE GLORIOUS EVENT IT FORESHADOWED.
About the typical character of the feast there is no room for doubt (see 1Co_5:7-8). (a) In the deliverance it affected; from slavery, degradation misery, death. (b) In the means employed for deliverance; sacrifice of appointed lamb, sprinkling of its blood, etc. (c) In the co-operation the means demanded; the people were to believe, obey, fulfil the conditions laid down. (d) All who embraced the opportunity, and adopted the means, were saved. Not one house was visited by death where the blood had been sprinkled upon the doorposts and lintel. The above considerations may all be applied to what Christ has done and is for us, and to our duty in relation to His great atonement.
Conclusion. (a) There was but one way of deliverance. (b) It was not invented or suggested by man, but by God. (c) Only practical faith availed. So in relation to the Gospel. The excellence of Christ our Passover is seen in that while many victims were slain in Egypt and they were only efficacious for a select people and one period of time, the Lamb of God by one offering atoned for the whole world and all time. Indifference, as well as unbelief in, and rejection of the world’s Redeemer, will be visited with sore punishment, for “how can we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”—F.W.B.
Topic: THE SHEAF OF THE FIRST FRUITS (Lev_23:10-11)
The book of nature is a fruitful study. In all God’s works He strives to fix attention on Himself. In feeding the body He would show Himself to the soul.
Harvest time nears. The early promise is fulfilled (Gen_8:22). The firstlings of the grain are ripe. The fields of barley wave their golden heads. But shall the gatherers heedlessly reap, and thoughtless hands store the garner! No. On the altar the first sheaf must be laid.
I. THE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF GOD MUST PRECEDE EVERY WORK.
The first act of harvest adores the harvest’s Lord. The first sickle cuts an offering for God.
1. Thought of God should precede all. Let morning dawn with Him. Let adoration introduce each task. Nothing is well done unless begun with God. All is disorder except the First be first.
2. The priest uplifts the sheaf on high. The first-fruits represent the entire produce of the fields. The act is a confession that all earth yields is from God, and belongs to God. Man’s toil and care may be employed, but all results are divine.
3. The offering of the sheaf is but small. He who might justly claim the harvest, takes but one sheaf. The large abundance remains for man’s supply. Thus, while a bounteous Hand fills our garners, while valleys bend with corn and clouds distil their fatness, the Giver makes His small demand. But the little God asks is an acknowledgment of His claim. He is no hard task master; but He requires that He be first in our thoughts; He then gives abundantly into our lives and hearts.
4. But in this demand He shows that all must not be consumed on self. We cannot take a sheaf to God now: but the poor need food: famished souls cry for the Word; the heathen perish for the bread of life. Such are the claims on our first fruits.
II. IN THIS HARVEST SHEAF CHRIST IS SET BEFORE THE SEEKING HEART.
1. The name of “first fruits” leads by a straight path to Him. The Spirit’s voice is very clear: “Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept”; “Christ the first fruits: afterwards they that are Christ’s at His coming” (1Co_15:20; 1Co_15:23).
2. The day of offering next seals this truth. On the morning which succeeds the Paschal Sabbath the sheaf is waved. On this same dawn Jesus arose.
Following this clue, let us gaze on this type. That sheaf—
(a) Brings back thought of the seed cast into the ground. Buried in the earth: the frost imprisoned it: storms sealed its interment: but at last it rose into life: victory over death.
Thus Christ descended to the grave: life seemed extinct: the grave made fast its bars: but in vain. He came forth—the First fruit from the dead.
(b) That sheaf relates a tale of triumph. It symbolises success. Death fails to hold Him. He is “declared the Son of God with power by His resurrection.” Raise high before God, therefore, your sheaf. It is the exultation of the believer. “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more”: and “because I live, ye shall live also.”
Though that sheaf is alone before God, yet it predicts and guarantees the after harvest.
III. THE HARVEST INGATHERING IS SURE TO FOLLOW THE FIRST FRUITS.
1.Already it is fulfilled in the harvest of upraised souls. Believers have been “raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
2.The rising dead as they quit their graves shall perfect the fulfilment of this sign. How changed shall they come forth! Decay will bloom into unfading youth: the mortal will be robed in immortality. “We shall be like Him!” The first sheaf predicts your resurrection.
3. A world-wide harvest, a glorious prospect is promised; when the whole mass of sanctified and ripened souls shall be reaped from earth’s fields and garnered in glory.—Based on Dean Law’s “CHRIST IS ALL.” [See Addenda to Chapter Harvest First fruits].
Topic: PENTECOST AND THE SPIRIT (Lev_23:15-16)
The feast of Pentecost was celebrated on the fiftieth day after that in the Passover week on which the wave sheaf was presented to the Lord, and was marked by offering to Jehovah two loaves. It was also known by the name of the “Feast of Harvest,” from its coming at the close of the wheat harvest.
It was attended by vast multitudes (comp. Acts 2), was “a holy convocation,” and it was a day of gladness and joy (Deu_16:14).
I. GRATITUDE EXPRESSING ITSELF IN JOYOUS DEDICATION.
I. Of themselves;
1. Of their property. For Israel not only renewed their self-consecration in worship and sacrifices laid on God’s altar, but also their possessions in the harvest reaped, as expressed by the waving of the baked loaves before Him.
(a) Pentecost thus reminded Israel of their dependance on God for the produce of their fields, as well as for higher good. God is the God of providence as well as of grace. He is supreme alike in the natural and spiritual worlds. Laws are everywhere the action of His power. “He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things” (Act_17:25).
(b) But God will be acknowledged in His gifts and doings. Pentecost, therefore, excited a spirit of thankfulness; it kept alive in Israel the feeling of being God’s in what they possessed as well as in what they were. Yet what belongs to Him He claims. It is not only ourselves, therefore, that we are to yield to Him, but what we have. The burnt offering must not only be laid on the altar, but the baked loaves waved before Him as alike His property.
II. SACRED ASSOCIATIONS CONNECTED WITH THE PENTECOST FESTIVAL.
1. Historic. It was commemorative on the giving of the law on Sinai. With the chronological data of Exodus 19 before us, it is clear that it was on the fiftieth day after the departure of Israel from Egypt, i.e., after the first Passover, that the law was given, and the national existence of the Hebrews was inaugurated. Thus God’s manifestation of Himself to Israel on Sinai, and His words to Moses, effected for His wilderness Church what His Spirit’s advent and the gift of new tongues effected for the Christian Church at Jerusalem.
2. Typical. It looked forward as well as backward. As the Passover fore-shadowed the death of Christ, so did the Pentecost the Spirit’s descent. At the Feast of Pentecost the Holy Ghost, who writes the law of God, not on tables of stone, but on “the fleshy tables of the heart,” was poured out.
III. THE HARVEST BOUNTY SUGGESTS THE FULNESS OF THE SPIRIT WHICH MARKED THE CHRISTIAN PENTECOST.
1. The endowments of the Christian Pentecost were first for the apostles, giving them qualification for their life-work, and ensuring the maintenance of their joy of faith. For “the promise of the Father” they were bidden by Christ to wait at Jerusalem. Until the Holy Ghost came upon them they were not “endowed with power,” not prepared to be “witnesses for Christ in Jerusalem and all Judea,” etc.
2. But this baptism of power is what every child of grace needs and may possess. Discipleship is not of itself sufficient for all that we are required to be in character and service. For these we want the fulness of the Spirit’s indwelling
What the Spirit was, in the fulness of His indwelling presence, to the first disciples, He is, in a very real and blessed sense, to all so possessed by Him now: “strengthened with might in the inner man,” and equipped for a life-work of witness for Christ Jesus.
The bountiful harvest shows God’s plenitude, and His joy in enriching man. Certainly He is as willing to bestow the abundance of His Spirit. We receive Him by faith, and according to the degree of such faith. The promise of the Spirit, and the bestowment, are both Christ’s, and He will never allow the desire for Him to remain unmet. He is too anxious to see us what the Spirit’s indwelling alone will make us, to delay or refuse the answer to prayer for this holy gift.
Then will come into our souls grace in increasing supplies, fulness of assurance of faith and hope, and strength added to strength. So endowed and enriched, we shall “yield ourselves unto God, and our members instruments for righteousness.” “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, and faith” (Gal_5:22).—Outlined from “Gospel in Leviticus,” by Jas. Fleming, D.D.
Topic: “A MEMORIAL OF BLOWING OF TRUMPETS” (Lev_23:23-25)
With reverberating tones of joy this blast of trumpets ushered in Israel’s civil year. At earliest dawn of the “first day of the month” the exhilarating notes sounded forth throughout the camp, or the land, of Israel. The music strains were continued all day. It was “a Sabbath,” for rest from work, for “an holy convocation,” but it was a Sabbath of praise, of music, of delight.
I. TRUMPET TONES AWAKEN ATTENTION.
Sleepers would start from their slumbers at that early blast of the trumpets. What need is there that sleepers should awake! Drowsiness is on the souls of multitudes. They dream on heedlessly, letting life glide away, and salvation lie in neglect. Thought sleeps, interest sleeps, spiritual claims and gospel realities are ignored. Eyes are closed from the “Day Dawn,” they see not that the Sun of Righteousness has arisen. “It is high time to awake out of sleep.”
Clarion notes startle drowsy souls. Providence sends out trumpet blasts. The preacher’s words may startle sleeping consciences. God’s Spirit may sound the note of arousing in the soul “Awake, O sleeper: arise and call upon thy God!”
II. This “blowing of trumpets” ANNOUNCED THE END OF A YEAR.
1. A year gone! A cause for joy, for glad trumpet tones. Yes! if the year has been spent well. Yes! if God has been known by us as a Refuge and a Faithful Friend; having kept us by His grace, and magnified His sufficiency for us. Yes! if we have escaped perils and conquered foes, and in review can cry, “O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength; now thanks be to God who always causeth us to triumph in Christ.” Yes! if our “salvation is nearer,” heaven nearer, the reward of faithful service nearer, the goal at hand.
2. A year gone! A startling fact; shrill trumpet notes should stir us to alarm. If not saved, if time has run to waste, if we have let slip from us the opportunities of grace, if we are yet in the bonds of iniquity, if still the door of our hearts is closed upon the knocking Christ, if we are without hope and without God in the world, “redeem the time.”
III. The Feast of Trumpets proclaimed A NEW YEAR OPENED.
The past is past. Opportunities unused are gone beyond recall. Penitential tears cannot bring back the misspent year. Verily God might “cut us down as cumberers of the ground.”
1. But a respite is announced. Another year opens. The Intercessor has pleaded “Let be this year also.” It is an extension of opportunity to seek the Lord, for sinners to forsake their ways, and unrighteous men their thoughts, to “flee from the wrath to come,” to haste to the “hope set before us,” to claim the salvation in Christ offered to the penitent and believing. O use the precious respite mercy gives. The trumpets sound; they tell of hope prolonged: seize the precious hour “while it is called to-day.”
2. A new era is set before Israel. Gratitude for past mercies, the memory of God’s great goodness, the experiences of redeeming and sustaining grace, incite to service, to consecration. “How much owest thou unto thy Lord? Take thy bill and write quickly.” “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” Let love and thankfulness urge to more diligence, more self-sacrifice, more eagerness in use of privileges, more fervent culture of holiness. “Go up higher.” “Press to the mark.” “Repent, and do thy first works.” The trumpet sounds; it rallies the hosts of the Lord to their ranks, to the battle, to brave achievements, to victories for the King.
IV. Those trumpet blasts were A MEMORIAL OF SINAI.
When God came down on the cloud-robed peak of the mount, it was a scene of appalling splendour and solemnity. The myriad observers below trembled, “so terrible was the sight” When suddenly a weird trumpet note swelled out on the air, filling all hearts with amaze: and “the voice of the Trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder” (Exo_19:19). This “blowing of trumpets” was “a memorial.”
1. It led them back to solemn thoughts of God. Because Jehovah was now more graciously dwelling among them in the Holy place, He was still the God of Sinai. We must not presume on His grace. How august and dreadful is He with whom we have to do. “Fear before Him, all ye saints.”
2. It recalled the law, as the basis of their covenant relationship. “Do this and live.” Such were the terms on which they stood to Jehovah. Transgress, and you die. “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.” But who can? Is the trumpet blast, therefore, a summons to judgment? It need not be. It declares the standard for righteousness, only to emphasize the mercy which has provided sacrifice that the sinner might propitiate and live.
V. Assuredly the trumpet is A SYMBOL OF THE GOSPEL.
“Blessed are the people that know the joyful sound” (Psa_89:15). “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega” (Rev_1:10).
1. Christ’s voice should be heard in that “blowing of trumpets.” It sounds forth in the announcements of the gospel through the Scriptures, through all who tell the message of hope and grace. Jesus speaks to the heart affrighted by the clamour of Sinai’s awful peals. The Gospel is the silvery note sending a thrill of comfort and gladness into condemned souls. It is as “music in our ears.”
2. Christianity is a trumpet-toned herald: hastening through the heavens with the calls of grace to all mankind. “I saw an angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach” (Rev_14:6). All who know the good news should take up the trumpet of Truth and send out the tidings over all the earth.
3. The Gospel is a joy note to the world. Not “a voice of thunder,” but of sweet melody. It brings “good tidings of great joy”; salvation to the utter-most; cleansing of all sin; a precious Saviour; an upraised cross; a “new covenant” of redemption; of an opened door in heaven for all who cleave to Jesus. Glad indeed are these trumpet tones; they calm the sinner’s fears; allure the troubled to peace, win the anxious to faith.
All around us are sad notes: O sorrow, O oppression, O anguished prayer, O dark despair. Earth is a scene of Babel discord. The air clangs with confusion.
But let the Gospel trumpet blow. Its sweet harmonies float, as did the songs of angels over Bethlehem fields, soothing unrest, heralding “peace and good will,” thrilling hearts with joy.
And still its heavenly music floats
Oe’r all this weary world.
VI. A prophetic thought is stirred by those trumpets: they foretell THE RESURRECTION SCENE.
The close of time will arrive; the great white throne will be set; the mighty angel will set his foot on the sea and another on the land, and declare that time shall be no more. And then “the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God” (1Th_4:16). From opened graves the dead shall arise; and you with them.
Listen expectantly for that trumpet blast. At such an hour as ye think not it will sound. Sleepers were awoke when at early dawn the priests blew their trumpets on this Hebrew festival. And sleepers will awake at the judgment blast. And “all that are in their graves shall come forth.” Be ye therefore ready, so that that day should not overtake you unawares.
Fill the interval with a wise use of life. The Gospel trumpet offers you a perfect righteousness; the judgment trumpet will demand it. The Gospel trumpet bids you robe yourself in spotless garments: the judgment trump will call to condemnation those who are not “white and clean,” covered with the robe of salvation. Such will arise from death’s sleep glad “to meet the Lord in the air, and so to be for ever with the Lord.” [See Addenda to chapter “BLOWING OF TRUMPETS.”]
Topic: THE FEAST OF TRUMPETS (Lev_23:24-25)
The feast of trumpets is mentioned here for the first time. It was kept on the first day of Tisri, with which the civil year began. It was a time of holy rest, and communion with the Lord through an offering made by fire unto Him. The feast was kept by Israel when they took possession of Canaan, and was characterised by great joy and gladness. The feast was suggestive of—
I. THE COMPLETION OF THE WORK OF CREATION.
The earth (fitted to be the abode of man) was clad in beautiful garments; presented an aspect of great fertility and richness. The Lord pronounced it good; “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” The beginning of the civil year, when the harvest was ripe, and the air was ringing with the shouts of harvest home, would seem suggestive of the beginning of human history, which began amid scenes of plenty, as the first human pair came through the gate Beautiful.
II. THE PROMULGATION OF THE LAW FROM SINAI.
The sounding of the trumpet from morning to evening would remind Israel of the time when the sound of the trumpet called attention to the promulgation of those statutes, in the observance of which they would please Jehovah, and show to the world that they were His people. The feast would call attention to the divine voice, the trumpets would proclaim His right to be heard, the imperative duty of the listeners to hearken and obey.
III. THE BLESSINGS OF THE DEPARTED YEAR.
Israel had been spared through another year. God had been faithful to His promises, all their wants had been supplied. It became them to let their voices be heard in loud and joyful notes; the music of their hearts echoed in vocal praise.
IV. THE BOUNTY OF THE DAWNING YEAR.
As their storehouses were filled with plenty, and their presses burst forth with new wine, anxieties about the future would be allayed, provision would be abundant for man and beast. Israel would have wherewith to satisfy their physical necessities, and to offer the various sacrifices in connection with the tabernacle services. The trumpets would call to thankfulness and cheerful acknowledgment of indebtedness. However rich and abundant the oblations might be, they ought to be presented in the willing and gladsome spirit such words as these inspire, “Of thine own have we given thee; thine is all the glory.”
V. THE NEED OF WAKEFUL ALACRITY IN THE SERVICE OF JEHOVAH.
Trumpet peals rousing and stimulating; and, when blown by the priests, loud calls to hearty service. Though no servile work was to be done, yet sacred services were to be performed, solemn sacrifices offered. Israel was to awake and put on strength, enter with special enthusiasm upon the work of the Lord. External material aid may be consistently used to awaken attention and quicken devotion. Illustrative also of—
VI. THE INAUGURATION OF THE GOSPEL AGE.
At the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost was given, and the first fruits of the Gospel harvest were gathered in, the apostles went forth lifting up their voices like trumpets, preaching Jesus and the resurrection. Isaiah in predicting the Gospel age said, “In that day the trumpet shall be blown”; and verily the sound of the Gospel trumpet went speedily through all the earth. John in apocalyptic vision heard the divine voice as the sound of a trumpet; and the voice of God as of a trumpet shall, in the last great day, awake the dead to judgment. Let us begin each year with a feast of trumpets, and each day with a loud call to privilege and duty, that our lives may be one continuous litany and psalm. Then when the morn of eternity dawns, and the shadows of earth flee away, we shall join in singing the song of Moses and the Lamb.—F.W.B.
Topic: THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES (Lev_23:33-44)
On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, five days after the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles began, and (according to additional information gathered from Numbers and Nehemiah) the sacrifices, which were many, gradually decreased in number to the eighth day. Israel was very remiss in observing the feast on entrance upon Canaan; for, from the time of Joshua to Nehemiah, it was unobserved. Obviously, the object of the feast was to keep alive the spiritual life of the nation, to perpetually renew its youth. The feast was calculated—
I. TO PERPETUATE AMONG THE PEOPLE THE MEMORY OF MIRACULOUS EVENTS CONNECTED WITH THEIR NATIONAL HISTORY.
“That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt”. Emancipation, protection, preservation, all the miraculous events connected with the exodus from Egypt and the pilgrimage through the wilderness, exhibited the faithfulness and goodness of the Lord. It would be well for Israel to be put in constant remembrance of these things. Such interpositions suggested their dignity and duty as a people, and their destiny among the nations of the earth. It is good for all peoples, in all time, to remember great national deliverers and deliverances. Surely, He should be lovingly remembered who has redeemed us from the bondage of sin and death!
II. TO AWAKEN IN THE PEOPLE GRATEFUL JOY FOR THE COMPLETED FRUITFUL SEASONS OF THE YEAR.
This the crowning, most joyous feast of the year. What a glad picture the people would present, as they sat under their booths rejoicing with the joy of harvest, the roads and fields vocal with the sound of happy voices, and the courts of the Lord resounding with sacred praise.
Permission to indulge in such innocent pleasures taught the people that Jehovah delighted in their happiness as well as in their holiness. “God (as Cowper puts it) made the country, man the town.” The verdure of the grass, the hues and fragrance of the flowers, the abundant foliage of the trees, the luscious fruits and golden corn, remind us that God would have us experience many joys in our earthly pilgrimage, while we look forward to the Canaan of ineffable beauty and undisturbed repose. In the gospel we have provision for all our spiritual wants, rich, full, free.
III. TO ENJOIN UPON THE PEOPLE CONSTANT OBEDIENCE TO THE REVEALED COMMANDMENTS OF THE LORD.
The large number of sacrifices connected with the feast, and the septennial public reading of the whole law, would train and exercise the people in obedience, revive their knowledge of the Lord and acknowledgment of His sovereignty. In later times there was the additional custom of a solemn libation of water fetched from the pool of Siloam every day at the time of morning sacrifice. The whole ceremony was characterised by great enjoyment and delight. The feast may be regarded as illustrative, if not typical, of (a) The pilgrim character of the believer’s life. Here we dwell in frail tenements, and have no continuing city. (b) The advent of the Messiah; when “God in very deed dwelt with man on the earth.” At one of the celebrations of this feast, Jesus said, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” (c) The latter day glory of the Church militant. (d) The glorious state of the Church triumphant; where the redeemed are represented as waving palm branches, indicative of peace, conquest, and joy. The Feast of Tabernacles followed closely on the Day of Atonement, thus joy sprang out of sorrow. Blessedness that flows from mediation and sacrifice is incomparable joy. Let sin be atoned for and removed, holiness and happiness inevitably ensue.—F.W.B.
Topic: FESTIVAL OF TABERNACLES AND INGATHERING (Lev_23:33-44)
It is a mistake to suppose that the Old Testament religion was only stem and repressive. It had its side of restraint and self-denial, and thence sprang much of all that was best in the character and happiness of the people. But it had also its side of cheer and hope, indeed of festivity. Its weekly Sabbaths were intended to be days of delight; so were its New Moons. Then each season had its great festival, save winter; the spring its Passover; the summer its Pentecost; the autumn its Feast of Tabernacles. Each was a joyful feast; but the last, falling on a time of the year when all hearts would naturally be glad, was the most joyful of all.
Note some of its more instructive features.
I. IT WAS A PROTRACTED RELIGIOUS MEETING.
As a “feast unto the Lord” it began and ended with a “holy convocation,” a coming together for religious ends.
1. These were held in the central sanctuary of the nation. All male Israelites were required to attend.
2. The highly religious character of this feast appears in the unusual number of its gifts and sacrifices.
3. All the Hebrew festivals were intended to inspire patriotism, and promote the separation of Israel from other nations; to remind the people of their covenant relations to God, and bind them in loyal piety to Him.
We should value occasions for holy convocation; and use them for such religiously joyous ends.
II. IT WAS A THANKSGIVING FOR GOD’S BOUNTY IN A COMPLETE HARVEST.
It came at the end of the year, when they had “gathered in the fruit of the land” (Lev_23:39), and was therefore—
1. A public recognition of divine faithfulness in giving rain in due season, causing the earth to yield her increase. Hence it was called the “Feast of Ingatherings” (Exo_23:16).
2. A feast of grateful gladness. The sixty-first Psalm, supposed to be sung at this feast, well expresses the thought supreme in devout minds. This expressed itself in—
3. A profusion of gifts and sacrifices. Multiplied and great mercies demanded the more abounding recognition. [See Addenda to chapter, HARVEST FIRST-FRUITS.]
III. IT WAS A COMMEMORATION FOR MERCIES ATTEMPERING HARDSHIPS AND DANGERS.
A part of the command ran thus: “All that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt” (43, 44).
In such a sight—a whole people deserting their homes, and lodging in temporary arbours, decorated with foliage and fruit-laden boughs—there was something picturesque and inspiriting But—
1. It was also an impressive memorial. Israel was again “abiding in tents according to their tribes,” as he did when Balaam looked from the heights of Moab, and said, “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel,” etc.
2. The celebration commemorated all the diverse experiences of the wilderness. Not its trials alone, but its triumphs and blessings. Doubtless the materials of the booths were reminders of the different stages of their wilderness journey; the “branches of palm trees,” of the valleys and the plains; the “boughs of thick trees” of the bushy mountain heights; the “willows,” of the refreshing water brooks.
3. For all times commemoration has its uses. To fire the patriotism of a nation, it is helpful to rehearse the memories of its founders and defenders. To rekindle enthusiasm in a noble cause, it is a good thing to recall its early struggles and victories. Stimulus is often found in keeping great days in personal history.
The manner of modern times is to foster pride by celebrating human exploits; that of ancient Israel was to kindle gratitude and stir obedience by recalling the goodness of God.
IV. In every aspect this festival was AN EXPRESSION OF THE JOYFUL SIDE OF RELIGION.
A feast. The people were to “rejoice before the Lord their God” (Lev_23:40). Comp. also Deu_16:14-15. There was a grand illumination of the court of the Temple; an evening procession in holiday attire, and with branches of myrtle and palm and willow; and a going in mass for water, which was poured out at the foot of the altar, while there arose the chant—accompanied with glad music—“Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.”
It was concerning this ceremony that there sprang up the proverb: “Whosoever hath not seen the rejoicing at the drawing of this water, hath never seen rejoicing at all.”
1. This joy had its root in the sense of inward peace which comes from the pardon of sin. This feast followed close upon the Day of Atonement.
2. The joy was neither selfish nor lawless. Gifts for the poor designated it; intimating that life has no true delight that can be separated from either love or duty.
3. How false the theory that religion, if earnest, is joyless! It has indeed its restraints and obligations, its laws and duties; but this is a beneficent arrangement, giving zeal to our gladness. Between religion that knows how to be steadfast, self-denying, and heroic, and that
Mirth that after no repenting draws there can be no quarrel. They go often and well together.
V. This feast was a type of A GREATER FEAST NOW PREPARING FOR GOD’S PEOPLE.
Archbishop Trench has reminded us that “on this rests the possibility of a real and not merely arbitrary teaching by parables, that the world of nature is throughout a witness for a world of spirit, proceeding from the same hand, growing out of the same root, and constituted for that very end. All lovers of truth readily admit these mysterious harmonies, to them the things of earth are copies of things of heaven.” In this feast there is—
1. A prophecy of the latter-day rest and joy of the earthly church (Zec_14:16; Zec_14:20; and also Isa_25:6; Isa_25:8). Under the abundant outpouring of God’s Spirit, closer fellowship with God and fuller bliss.
2. The heavenly feast following “the harvest which is the end of the world.” John beheld the scene: “I looked, and behold a great multitude, palms in their hand,” etc. (Rev_7:9-10).
Evermore they shall drink of God’s river of pleasure. They shall be satisfied with delight.
What assurance have you that, when that bright day dawns, you will witness its rising beam; that when that great feast is spread, you will share in its delights!—Rev. H. M. Grant, D.D.
OUTLINES ON VERSES OF CHAPTER 23
Lev_23:2.—Theme: “FEASTS OF THE LORD.”
I. SACRED LIFE IS ITSELF A FESTIVAL.
1 Divine in its origin. “Feasts of the Lord.”
2. Blissful in its quality. “Feasts”
3. Enriched with frequent delights.
“Feasts;” plural, for God breaks in upon he Christain career, itself a festival, with times of refreshing and incidents of gladness giving “days of heaven on the earth.”
II. THE CHRISTIAN YEAR HAS ITS FESTIVITIES.
1. Time is interrupted by sacred seasons.
A pause in the rush and absorption of earthly affairs, that God and His doings may have attention and commemoration.
2. Human life is refreshed by the blessings of religion.
Even the godless share in the relief and rest which our holy-days, “holidays,” bring them.
3. A witness to what is God’s will for man. That all should have a joyous life even here. That heaven should make earth glad; for happiness has its spring in the Lord.
III. GRACIOUS SEASONS ARE APPOINTED FOR THE CHURCH.
God would fill His people with blessedness; so there comes to them:
1. Days of rest and gladness. The Sabbath, the anniversaries of great gospel incidents.
2. Special times of revival. For quickened life; renewed power; aroused earnestness; rekindled love; awakened prayerfulness; enlarged prosperity.
3. Foretaste of heaven’s joy. He feasts His saints with felicities at gracious seasons, and the fulness of His favour satiates their souls. In such wondrous seasons, “whether in the body or out of the body, God knoweth,” they rise into “third heavens,” they find a “feast of fat things” provided, and enter the very “banquetting house” of heaven’s bliss.
Lev_23:10—Theme: FIRST FRUITS SHEAF.
“Then shall ye bring a sheaf of firstfruits.”
The celebration of this feast could not take place till Israel entered Canaan; for during the pilgrimage through the wilderness there was neither sowing nor reaping, the daily descent of manna from Heaven being adequate to supply daily bread. The first sheaf presented before the Lord hallowed and guaranteed the complete harvest. It exhibited—
I. THE DEPENDENCE OF ISRAEL UPON THE LORD. The Holy Land was the Lord’s. Israel could not claim it by right of inheritance, purchase, or conquest. Being a free gift, reaping a harvest they had not sown, it was fitting the first reaped sheaf should be presented in a solemn act of worship, acknowledging that the harvest was the outcome of divine goodness and power. Israel would be as much dependent upon divine supply in Canaan as in the wilderness. Israel was to think of themselves last, God was to be owned and honoured first. Though selfishness would reverse the order, the command is, to honour the Lord with our substance, and the firstfruits of all our increase.
II. THE DELIGHT OF ISRAEL IN THE LORD. A meat offering accompanying the waving of the barley sheaf constituted the service a feast, not a fast. The fine flour, wine, and oil indicated that the feast was eucharistic, a season of social and sacred joy. “The Lord loveth a cheerful giver.” Offerings should be presented ungrudgingly to Him who loads us with His benefits. The acceptability of offerings depend upon what and how, as well as upon what and when presented. The cheerful and loyal heart will devise liberal things.
III. THE DEDICATION OF ISRAEL, TO THE LORD. The waving sheaf would excite the people to gratitude, and symbolise their devotion to the glory of Jehovah. The thank-offering was accepted through the burnt-offering, denoting that all service must have its basis in complete self-surrender. The sheaf of first fruits, was an earnest that the whole harvest would be gathered in, and it consecrated the whole. Christ is the “First fruits of them that slept.” He rose on the day of the offering of first fruits of Jewish harvest, as an earnest that all who are one with Him, shall be safely gathered in at the harvest home of the world. All our gifts to the Lord must be preceded by complete self-consecration, through the mediation and merits of our Great High Priest.—F. W. B.
Lev_23:14.—Theme: SELF IN ABEYANCE. “Ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God.”
I. MAN’S SINFUL TENDENCY IS TO INTRUDE SELF BEFORE THE LORD.
1. Through impatient self-will.
2 Through a weak craving after visible enticements.
3. Through a habit of ignoring God in his life.
4. Through the infatuation which places material gains above spiritual interests.
II. SUBORDINATION OF SELF IS THE LAW OF RELIGION.
1. God is to be first in our affections.
2. Our gratitude should prompt us to quick recognition of what we owe Him.
3. Saved by Him, and enriched by His gifts, how natural that He be adored with alacrity and served with delight!
4. Christ Jesus sacrificed self for us: and has left us an example to make Him our first thought.
III. SELF-REPRESSION IS REWARDED WITH RICH BESTOWMENTS.
1. We deny ourselves but for a brief season. “Until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering.”
2. God gives us a present reward for every denial of self for His pleasure: in the approval of conscience, and the witness of His Spirit, and the happiness of a hallowed life.
3. Earthly denials and crosses for Christ’s sake and God’s service, quickly yield to the rich feasts of the heavenly world.
(a) If it become true of any in this self-indulgence, “Remember that thou in thy lifetime receiveth thy good things,” the loss will come in the future.
(b) Every subjection of self for God now is a pledge of coming bliss. For “he that abaseth himself shall be exalted.”
Lev_23:15.—Theme: THE FEAST OF PENTECOST; HARVEST HOME.
There were three divinely appointed harvest festivals among the Jews. The Pentecost feast followed the Passover feast, and the presentation of two loaves before the Lord was a token that the corn had been safely gathered in, and an expression of gratitude and acknowledgment of obligation to Jehovah. If Pentecost did not commemorate the giving of law from Sinai fifty days after exodus from Egypt, or typify the day when the Spirit would be given, symbolized by rushing wind and forks of flame; it certainly signified to the Hebrews:
I. THAT TEMPORAL BLESSINGS OUGHT TO BE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGED. Ingratitude is a besetting sin. Among the sins for which Israel was rebuked by the prophets, unthankfulness was the blackest. It led to forgetfulness of the Lord, to sensuousness and idolatry. Rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons come from God. He fills our hearts with good and gladness.
II. THAT SUCH ACKNOWLEDGMENTS OUGHT TO BE MADE WITH BECOMING SOLEMNITY.
The observance of the day as a holy convocation, the abstinence from all servile work, and the presentation of various sacrifices, would invest the feast with great solemnity. The burnt offering would remind the people of the sovereign claim of Jehovah to their complete consecration to His service; the sin offering, of their entire unworthiness of the blessings received. Their festivities were not to be marked by frivolity and levity like Bacchanalian orgies, but by sacred devotion and becoming reverence. All seasons of individual and national rejoicing should be free from sinful indulgences and in harmony with a sanctified conscience enlightened by the word of God.
III. THAT BECOMING SOLEMNITY IN SACRED WORSHIP DOES NOT EXCLUDE THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE JOY.
Such a festival would sanctify and sweeten the blessing of the year, induce the people to feel, as they sat at their daily board, that they were in God’s banquetting house, and that His banner over them was love. In remembering the poor, Israel would have the exquisite joy that benevolence brings, and exemplify Him who is good to all. The fountain of joy springs up close by the altar of sacrifice and unselfishness. Let us not allow the gifts of Providence to stagnate in the Dead Sea of selfishness, but send them forth to gladden weary hearts and desolate homes. The joy of the Lord is the joy of giving; it is more blessed to give than to receive. Love to God and man sums up the whole law, is the new commandment of the Gospel.—F. W. B.
Lev_23:17.—Theme: BEGINNING THE REAPING.
“They are the firstfruits.”
No sickle moved in Israel’s land before the sheaf had been brought. God’s bounteous hand must be revered before man’s taking hand may work. Such was the ordinance. This was more than due worship, it was pure delight.
There is no joy like gratitude. They most enjoy who most perceive and bless the Giver. Earthly comforts should give wings to praise.
But this holy service discharged—
I. ALACRITY PERVADES THE FIELD OF SERVICE.
With cheerful heart, animated look, and rapid step, the crowding reapers hasten forth.
1. Rich abundance meets them on all hands.
2. All is busy joy No hand is idle. Life is brisk with work.
II. TOIL WHEN HALLOWED BY GOD’S SMILE IS SWEET.
1. Labour is delight when God calls toil
2. Every willing hand finds occasion. And every religious heart will see occasion to be from God.
III. LIFE IS OUR INGATHERING DAY.
1. All about us is the harvest.
2. Every morning calls us to reap.
3 God’s blessing is on the diligent life.
4. The day is gone too quickly for loitering.
IV. EACH WORKER MAY FIND HIS OWN FIELD OF INGATHERING.
1. Ask, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” and He will show where we should go work.
2. The fields are various:
1. The Scripture field is ever ready. What have you gathered this day from the Bible page?
2. Duties are individual and always close to hand. Not a day but some finished obligation should be gathered in. An empty hand proclaims a graceless heart.
3. The world is a wide-spread scene, thick with precious souls. These call for ingathering. Here every grain is priceless.
V. THE REAPING methods and appliances ARE MANIFOLD.
1. Personal effort in the hot day of opportunity.
2. Direction and inspiration of others in Christian work.
3. Prayer for gracious hours.
VI. HARVEST SEASONS QUICKLY GO.
1. Scenes of eager toil are soon cleared. Then no more work can be done. They die around us; and are gone! How should we hasten
3. The hours of work glide past. Evening comes on. Life is rapid. Opportunity is swift winged.
Woe to the man whose life is not a reaping day. No idler enters the heavenly rest. DEAN LAW.
Lev_23:22.—Theme: HARVEST CLEANINGS FOR THE POOR.
Compare on Lev_19:9.
Lev_23:27.—Theme: THE GREAT DAY OF ATONEMENT.
The day of Atonement is here introduced as a Hebrew fast. It was a solemn preparation for seasons of rejoicing before the Lord at ensuing feasts. As this great day of expiation has been considered in Homilies on chap. xvi., remarks here upon it may be limited. The day was a call to—
I. REPENTANCE. “Ye shall afflict your souls.” Not simply the observance of outward rites indicative of penitence, the mortification of the body; but thorough, sincere, public acknowledgment of guilt, heartfelt sorrow for sin. The call was peremptory, for the soul was to be cut off from the people that did not truly repent. Sin was to be felt, acknowledged, mourned for, and forsaken, in order that it might be forgiven through the atonement. The same call and conditions obtain in the new dispensation. The day was also a call to—
II. RECONCILIATION. Sin excluded man from God, and necessitated restraint and restriction being imposed on the worshippers. On the day of Atonement, as the contrite Hebrews saw their representative enter the most holy place to offer incense before Jehovah, they would see that the distance had been removed, that God was pleased with, and reconciled to them, as they were reconciled to Him. The day was a Sabbath of rest in all their dwellings, so that their piety and purity were to be known in their homes as well as at the holy altar. Blessed be God, through the one offering on Calvary, all who repent towards God and exercise faith in Jesus Christ, may enter into the most holy place and enjoy Divine fellowship and peace. Thus God reconciles the world unto Himself, and repentance culminates in life—F. W. B.
V 42.—Theme: SOJOURNING IN BOOTHS.
“Ye shall dwell in booths seven days: all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths.”
It was commemorative: see Lev_23:43.
It was significant: of
I. CHRIST TABERNACLING IN THE FLESH.
Three facts are suggestive here of Christ’s incarnation being foreshadowed in this feast:
1. John’s use of the idea, “The Word dwelt tabernacled) among us, fall of grace and truth” (Joh_1:14).
2. The people’s gathering of palm branches when persuaded of His Messiahship (Mat_21:8-9)
3. Christ chose “the great day of the feast,” of this very feast of tabernacles, to identify
Himself with one of its incidents. While the waters of Siloam were being, on that eighth day, poured on the altar steps, “Jesus stood and cried, If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink” (Jno Lev_7:37-38).
4. Yet His tabernacle life was not permanent. Booths are for pilgrims, not residents. And Jesus was here but for a season. “Yet a little while I am with you.”
II. MAN’S INSECURE TENURE ON THE EARTH.
1. A booth of boughs and palms would quickly wither: so does our frail tabernacle. What are these bodies but tents of drooping flesh?
2. It was, moreover, occupied but a few days; and we are resident in this body only a brief season. Think not to stay long here.
3. The materials of the booths were of the earth and returned to the earth: mere growths from the soil, soon to decay and go back to the soil. Even so, “dust thou art,” etc., “of the earth earthy.”
III. A CHRISTIAN’S PILGRIM CAREER.
Israel dwelt in booths through their journey from Egypt to Canaan (see Lev_23:43).
1. Christ’s redeemed are pressing through a wilderness. It is not their goal.
2. Rest and content are not to be sought here. A temporary accommodation is enough.
3. Earth’s discomfort gives zest to desire for the “city of habitation.” And as Israel, weary with their booth-life, craved the sure abodes of Canaan, so we “earnestly desire to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven; for in this we groan, being burdened.”
4. God’s ordinance of a booth life was a pledge of the certainty of Canaan. It assured them that He desired them to journey forward to the goodly land. And He would have us “set our face Zionward.”
[See Addenda to Chapter. FRAIL HABITATIONS.]
ILLUSTRATIVE ADDENDA TO CHAPTER 23
SABBATH:
“As if a segment of the eternal Sabbath had been inserted in the days of earth, and men wondered at their own happiness.”
—HAMILTON.
Called by the Jews the ‘Day of Light,’ by the Africans ‘Ossa-day,’ the day of silence; by the Cree Indians the ‘Praying day;’ by the early Christians the ‘Queen of days.’
—BOWES.
“How still the morning of the hallowed day! Mute is the voice of rural labour, hushed The ploughboy’s whistle and the milkmaid’s song.”—GRAYHAM.
Of a well-spent Sunday, Philip Henry used to say: “If this be not the way to heaven I know not what is.”
“O, day of rest! How beautiful and fair
How welcome to the weary and the old!
Day of the Lord! And truce to earthly care!
Day of the Lord, as all our days should be.”
—LONGFELLOW—Christus.
“Oh, what a blessing is Sunday, interposed between the waves of worldly business like the Divine path of the Israelites through Jordan. There is nothing in which I would advise you to be more strictly conscientious than in keeping the Sabbath holy. I can truly declare that to me the Sabbath has been invaluable”—WILBERFORCE.
“I feel as if God had, in giving the Sabbath, given fifty-two Springs in every year.”
—S. T. COLERIDGE.
“Sir,” said a man addressing a minister returning from church on Sabbath morning, “did you meet a lad on the road driving a cart with instruments for harvesting in it?” “I think I did,” replied the minister, “a boy with a short memory, wasn’t he?”
“What makes you think he had a short memory, sir?” was the surprised answer.
“I think he has,” answered the minister, “and belongs to a family who have short memories.”
“What in the world makes you think so?” asked the man, greatly puzzled.
“Because,” replied the minister in a serious tone, “the Great God has proclaimed from Mount Sinai, ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy;’ and that boy has forgotten all about it.”—Christian Treasury.
“Now let us repose from our care and our sorrow,
Let all that is anxious and sad pass away:
The rough cares of life lay aside till to-morrow,
And let us be tranquil and happy to-day
“Let us say to the world, should it tempt us to wander,
As Abraham said to his men on the plain:
“There’s the mountain of prayer, I am going up yonder,
And tarry you here till I seek you again.
To-day, on the mount we would seek for thy blessing:
O, Spirit of holiness meet with us there;
our hearts then will feel thine influence possessing,
The sweetness of praise, and the fervour of prayer.”—EDMERTON.
HARVEST FIRST FRUITS:
The Hindoos, when gathering in their harvest, before it is removed for the threshing floor, always put aside a part for their gods.
“Lord of the harvest! all is Thine!
The rains that fall, the suns that shine,
The seed once hidden in the ground,
The skill that makes our fruits abound!
New every year,
Thy gifts appear,
New praises from our lips shall bound!”
—GURNEY.
“BLOWING OF TRUMPETS”:
“The trumpet! the trumpet! the dead all have heard,
Lo the depths of the stone-covered charnels are stirred;
From the sea, from the land, from the south, from the north,
The vast generations of men are come forth.”
—MILMAN.
FRAIL HABITATIONS
On a house near Tretsey, in Cheshire, built in 1636, of thick oak framework filled in with brick, was this inscription:—“Fleres si scires unum tua tempora mensem; ridis cum non scis si sit forsitan una dies.” [“You would weep if you knew that your life was limited to one month; yet you laugh while you know not but that it may be restricted to a day”].
“When I get settled, I’ll—”; so people are always planning; but how little they think of the uncertainty that lies in the first word “when!”—BOWES.
A father with his little son is journeying overland to California, and when at night he pitches his tent in some pleasant valley, the child is charmed with the spot, and begs his father to rear a house and remain there; and he begins to make a little fence about the tent, and digs up the wild flowers and plants them within the enclosure. But the father says, “No, my son, our home is far distant, let these things go, for to-morrow we must depart.” Now God is taking us, His children, as pilgrims and strangers homeward; but we desire to build here, and must be often overthrown before we can learn to seek “the city that hath foundation, whose Builder and Maker is God.”—H. W.BEECHER.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain God made the children of Israel to dwell in…
Lev 23:43
God made the children of Israel to dwell in booths,—made in the sense of causing to dwell safely. And God would have the children of the people who dwelt in booths keep this fact in remembrance generation after generation.
Read full note →
I. The text reminds us of conditions of life very like this dwelling in booths. (1) A feeble body, answering its purpose many years, is like dwelling in booths. (2) Providing by slender means all that is really needful for a large family is like dwelling in booths. (3) A morbidly sensitive spirit kept sound is like dwelling in booths. (4) A nature prone to gross evil and kept from the power of temptation is like dwelling in booths. (5) A Church preserved in peace and unity, with the elements of evil within it and evil influences around it, is another example of God making to dwell in booths. (6) To have lived in a day of small things, and gradually to have come into a day of great things, is to have been made to dwell in booths.
II. The text exhibits God as sufficient for us in the most necessitous and dangerous circumstances. (1) God hath in Himself all that is necessary for the working out of His will. (2) God uses agents and instruments, but is not dependent on any of the agents and instruments which He employs. (3) God is conscious of His sufficiency. (4) There is but one thing which prevents our fully experiencing the sufficiency of God, and that is sin, wilful and persistent sin.
III. The text points out a duty of remembrance which we are all liable to neglect. God’s mercy to a family in previous generations places the present members of that family under obligation: "That your generations may know." The knowledge which God requires is (1) knowledge in the sense of information, and (2) knowledge in the sense of recognition. The recognition is of mercies in the past. To this God attaches so much importance that He founds a festival as a means of securing it.
S. Martin, Rain upon the Mown Grass, p. 47.
References: Lev 23:42.—Bishop Woodford, Sermons on Subjects from the Old Testament, p. 1. Lev 23:44.—Parker, vol. iii., p. 119. Lev 23-27—J. Monro Gibson, The Mosaic Era, p. 223. Lev 24:5-6, and Lev 25:9, Lev 25:10.—J. Fleming, The Gospel in Leviticus, pp. 91, 123.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain Division 5. (Lev 23:1-44; Lev 24:1-23; Lev 25:1-55; Lev…
Division 5. (Lev 23:1-44; Lev 24:1-23; Lev 25:1-55; Lev 26:1-46; Lev 27:1-34.)
Man with God: the way and the end.
Read full note →
The last division is, according to its numerical place, the summary of God’s ways with men: in which also how His heart is with them is brought out fully. The way -devious as it may seem -leads to the end assured from the beginning: for it is the Almighty God with whom (often unknowing) man His creature is.
The contents of this division are of very various character, and the relation of the different parts to one another will be better seen as we take them up in detail, than from any outline that could be given here.
1. The first subdivision gives us Jehovah’s "set times" -not "feasts," for they are not all this: God’s ways conduct us through shadow as well as sunshine, and necessarily, not arbitrarily. They end in the perfect day, to which in His wisdom they have been ever leading on.
"Set times" are times of His appointment, to whom as the Eternal all times belong, and who is able to adjust them to His purpose. They speak of almighty power, and determinate counsel vindicating thus their place here. But they are "holy convocations" also, gathering times, when the voice of God arouses and assembles His people. His voice unites those who listen to it in obedience, and calls also to Himself.
They are as "set times" annual, together the sum of the sacred year, (the cycle of the divine dealings in this way,) the Sabbath, however, having an exceptional place, as occurring with much greater frequency, and on this account also, as well as for much deeper reasons, being put by itself at the beginning of the series, and in some sense apart.
Of these set times there are seven, the passover and the feast of unleavened bread being taken together, as in fact they were connected, as we know, in the most intimate way. This sevenfold division has, it will be seen also, the clearest numerical justification. The number seven tells of the completeness of these actings of grace, the sheaf of first-fruits as the type of the resurrection of Christ filling plainly the third place. The series divides also like other septenary ones, into four and three, the last three coming all near together in the seventh month, and applying to special dealings of God with Israel in the last days; while between the preceding ones and these there is a distinct pause, the former clearly speaking of Christ’s work and resurrection, and of Pentecostal blessing, when the Church began. Thus the 4 + 3 is distinctly marked.
While this is true, there is another division which is indicated by the recurrence of the words, "And Jehovah spake unto Moses," the significance of which we have often seen. This, however, in no wise conflicts with the former division, but only parts the first four feasts into two and two, and thus connects respectively the Sabbath with the passover and unleavened bread, and the first-fruit sheaf with Pentecost. All these connections have their importance, and we shall miss something of the significance of the type if we overlook any of them; yet the septenary character is after all that which predominates, and gives the fundamental structure of the chapter, and this we might expect in God’s set times. How beautifully does all this numerical division preach to us of the perfect command He has over all man’s history, and of the spiritual order which shines through that, which at first sight seems to be but thorough disorder! And how good a lesson, this! The ragged end of God’s creation lies always beyond the microscope; and where His creation is, though the creature may be revolted, still His kingdom is. Blessed be God!
(1) We begin with the Sabbath, which occupies, as has been said, a unique place among these times of Jehovah. We have seen at the beginning of Genesis what it prefigures: it is the rest of God into which we yet shall enter, as the apostle says: there remaineth a rest" -a "Sabbatism," or Sabbath-keeping" to the people of God." (Heb 4:9.) Though coming at the end of all, (for everything else shall end but this shall not,) it is that which, to speak humanly, is first with God; and put first here as that which governs as final cause all the rest. All else are way-stages, anticipations of the final goal, into which they introduce successively the features which are thenceforth to abide with us in hope, and at last greet us as familiar things. Heaven is filled up thus for us: the rest becomes such as befits God, as satisfies His nature, therefore reflects Himself.
The frequency of the observance of the Sabbath, when compared with other feasts of the law, is proof of how God would remind His people of the truth which it enshrines; while the prophets characteristically insist upon its importance. It connects the rest of God with His delight in His work, through the disturbance which sin has caused only lifted to a higher sphere, and deepened into an infinite meaning. It is a "rest in His love," but a holy love, which has moreover displayed itself in sacrifice, in deed as well as word, that grace might reign through righteousness: and this is why the passover and the unleavened feast are linked, as we have seen them to be, with the Sabbath. Here too the labor which sin has brought in, (not activity, which is but the vigor of healthful life, but the enforced necessity of toil,) is to be set aside, as when it was first given to Israel we have seen the manna, which provided bread for them without labor, to have preceded it.
The Sabbath is thus the end seen from the beginning: as enjoyed by faith that wherewith we begin. God Himself taking His place in it for the soul as the One who controls the whole course of human history to bring His people to the appointed end, in which He is glorified and they are blessed forever.
(2) Now follow in the closest connection, but in an order which is deeply instructive, the passover and the feast of unleavened bread. The separation between them is singular, and must be for a purpose; for the actual eating of unleavened bread began with the passover itself, and so it is stated in Exo 12:18, "in the fourteenth day of the month at even," -the passover-day. Here the passover comes prior to the feast: the lamb is assigned the first place, and even the feeding on the lamb; though in fact the leaven and the lamb cannot be permitted together on the same table.
All holiness is grounded on redemption, and the knowledge of it in the soul. Christ’s precious work is first and alone for salvation, and holiness is the fruit of it in the saved soul. Both are needed absolutely for that rest of God with which they are connected, but the importance of the order is what is insisted on in this character, -faith in Another that which, drawing the soul to God, draws it out of sin. There is no other way. And thus our rest already has God in it, righteous and holy, and for us absolutely, while we wait for the rest of God, not ours simply, but His own.
(3) The third section brings us to the land and to the first-fruits of the harvest. The corn of wheat has fallen into the ground and died, and here is the fruit of this, the easily read type of resurrection. "Christ is risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep," says the apostle. The first-fruits imply the harvest which is to follow. "The morrow after the Sabbath" is, of course, the first day of the week, and then it is waved before Jehovah, while a ram of the first year with its meal-offering and drink-offering is offered for a sweet savor. It is in all the value of what He is, and what His work is, that Christ was raised from the dead, and in this one sheaf is the acceptance of the whole harvest: He was "raised again for our justification."
(4) This is in the land, not in the wilderness: resurrection is necessarily connected with the land, our entrance, as typified in Joshua, into the heavenly places. It is as heavenly we enjoy this portion: accepted in Christ we belong to another sphere than that of earth; and that is what is brought out in the next feast, the fiftieth day after, -Pentecost. Seven Sabbaths are now complete, perfect rest as to all the past is found, and again the first day is come, the beginning of a new condition, the unvailing of a new creation, -a fiftieth day, (5 x 10,) in which man begins with Almighty God indeed, the "new meal-offering" speaking of a new measure of capacity in devotedness to the Lord. Two wave-loaves of first-fruits show us again what the "corn of wheat" dying has produced: it is the Church, although not in its unity as the body of Christ, but two loaves, implying, perhaps, the fellowship of Christ’s people, a "fellowship with the Father and the Son."
It is certain we are in the range of practical life, as the number of the section clearly intimates, no less than the number of the loaves. These do not speak of position, and almost the next words are decisive proof: "they shall be of fine flour," true, and so far like Christ Himself, (for we have had already this type,) but "they shall be baken with leaven," and here at once we know we have practical condition, and the condition, of fallen men. The consequence is their position must be indicated otherwise, and the sin thus found in them met by a sin-offering, a shaggy goat, with two yearling he-lambs for a peace-, and with seven he-lambs, and a bullock, and two rams for a burnt-offering. Perfect acceptance is here very strongly emphasized, but the presence of sin in the accepted ones also, which does not touch their acceptance, God’s grace, according to perfect righteousness, putting it away.
Here, then, are Christians, and according to God’s ideal of them (for they are a wave-offering to Him,) but as redeemed, yet upon the earth. We find in them the nature of Christ, the fine flour, but sin in them also in the old nature; not indeed working (for it is God’s ideal) but yet there. That the leaven may work, alas, and does, more or less, in all, we have from many scriptures ample assurances. Reckoning ourselves dead to it, it is subdued, not cast out, but yet not marring communion, as the two loaves seem beautifully to assure us. How perfect are these combinations of contrasted features; and how great a fullness is there in the type here!
The third and fourth sections are, as already said, united together as one communication from Jehovah, and it is easily seen how really united they are.
At the close of the fourth section we have a word dropped as to the harvest, which seems designed to intimate on the one hand that God’s mercy to the Gentiles, which has been shown so fully in the Church, is not exhausted with this, but will shine out in blessing to them at a future day; while on the other hand it will not be the wondrous blessing which is manifested in those who are associated as first-fruits with the risen Christ. Here, when Israel’s harvest is being reaped, the corners of the fields are left to the poor and to the stranger. It is in this way in the millennial day the Gentiles will participate in Israel’s blessings. And this is plainly how the Old Testament prophets everywhere speak. Yet the least of these blessings are wondrous blessings, and the Lord’s mercies to all are tender mercies. Tenderness is manifested in this special mention of the poor and stranger.
But Israel’s own blessing has yet to be brought before us, and this notice brings us anticipatively to the end: another indication that with the fourth section one division of these "times" closes. As already said, an interval occurs here which still further separates between the two divisions, Pentecost being in the third, and the rest of the feasts together in the seventh month, the significance of which is easily recognized. It is the time of the consummation of blessing for Israel, according to the unchanging purposes of love regarding them.
(5) The fifth section therefore is a memorial of blowing of trumpets on the first of the seventh month, the day of the new moon, that is, when in the due course, according to the divine order, the sun begins to shine on them once more, and they therefore to reflect its light. The number of the section may point to this due time in divine government, and also to its character, as when man in his weakness begins once more to walk before Almighty God -always the due time for blessing. In fact the little thread of silver light, suggestive in its sheen of that atonement through which alone the divine glory shines on man, suggests also the little remnant in Israel, in whom grace manifests itself, before the full national repentance and turning to God of Zec 12:1-14. With a remnant only is this blowing of trumpets for remembrance, to make Israel think upon their ways and turn to Him they have forsaken. Indeed, here begins a note which is yet to waken a dead world: for the world’s blessing waits on Israel’s restoration. Here, then, restoration and an offering and a holy convocation come fittingly together. As soon as God begins working, faith may rest in assurance that He who has undertaken will go through with it. An unfinished work can be but man’s reproach, and never God’s.
(6) Atonement brings the glory back, but man must be made to know also his need, and to receive it humbly. This will be for the nation when "He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him;" and, when "they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son:" and "in that day shall there be a fountain opened" to them "for sin and for uncleanness." (Comp. Zec 12:1-14; Zec 13:1; Rev 1:7. ) Beautifully all fits here with this day of atonement already entered into, when they have a Sabbath of rest and afflict their souls, and present their offering by fire unto Jehovah. Here indeed is our Joseph’s victory over His brethren, the victory of divine grace.
(7) All closes, then, with the feast of tabernacles, which begins with the fifteenth day of the month (3 x 5) the due time in government, but of divine manifestation and glory. And the week of joy now passes over to the eighth day, that is, the new age; which is not a week but a "day," yet a day eternal. Here rest is complete, while offerings multiply, and the wilderness is only a memory, not marring, but helping, the constant praise.
With the eighth day the eternal Sabbath with which we began is reached, and the cycle of God’s dealings is now complete.
2. The second subdivision comprises two sections which are in striking contrast with one another. We have learned that under this number we may look for contrasts; and here the lesson before us is the contrast itself, which is yet in the ways of God necessarily a harmony, the twofold witness to Himself, as able to maintain the light and communion of His Spirit through the darkest night that man has known, while surely judging the impenitent transgressor. We are in the fifth division of the book, let us remember, in which God’s ways are ever the subject.
(1) In the first section, evidently, it is the perpetuity, as maintained by the priest, of the light and of the show-bread, that is insisted on, and this according to the command of God. His will, supreme, and which cannot lack ability to express itself; is that upon which all depends. Christ, ministering in the heavenly sanctuary, is the One to whom all is committed. In His hands there can be no failure; and blessed it is to know this. We must consider the two parts of this section, however, separately.
And first, the perpetuity of the light. The children of Israel are to furnish the oil by which it is maintained: blessed necessity! the people of God it is through whom the light of the Spirit is to be sustained, for it is through and in man the Spirit works. So the lamp burns from evening to morning before Jehovah continually: nothing is said but of the night, for in the world it is ever night; but there are other features in this picture that will lead us further. The light is in the house of God, and Israel were not that house; the lamp-stand that bears this light is Christ, the first-born from the dead; and Aaron’s ministry in the sanctuary points to His present priesthood over the house of God. We are, therefore, typically in Christian times, and we see well that it is not only night in the world, but night in Israel. God, then, has indeed maintained the light while Israel has departed from Him; but He has not only maintained it, He has lifted it up to a higher and a heavenly sphere. Christianity has taken the place of Judaism; and this corresponds with the view given us in the chapter previous, in which the passover, the first-fruits sheaf and Pentecost tell us unmistakably the same thing. The line of truth is different here, but parallel to the former.
The second part speaks of the show-bread. As the light abides so does communion go on; and here the twelve loaves have led many to believe that Israel herself is represented. Undoubtedly these twelve loaves speak of the twelve tribes, but fellowship in the sanctuary does not pertain to the nation here but to the priests. To the priests the show-bread belongs, and the priests, as we have again and again seen, represent the people of God, who are all priests. Christians are the "holy priesthood" (1Pe 2:5); and the twelve tribes represented in the show-bread may typify Christians also. Actually, the bread as the food of the priests must be Christ, and as the presence-bread (or show-bread) Christ gone up to God. We have seen that the table, equally with the ark of the covenant, speaks of Christ also, and glorified, maintaining communion, the loaves resting upon it; and here as we feed upon Him we are called to realize at the same time our identification with Him. It is presence-bread, with the incense of His acceptability upon it, and the twelve loaves making us to know His representation of His people, their identification with Him before God. Perhaps the "twelve" here, like the twelves of the heavenly city, may intimate that perfect rule of God which in our subjection to it shows the practical outcome of communion, as the joy of eternity -"God all in all."
(2) Thus the light and the show-bread, both in the house of God, both ordered by our risen Priest, tell the same tale of Christianity having replaced Judaism upon the earth -for this is upon the earth. Now on the other side what does the judgment of the blasphemer tell? "Israel themselves as a whole have fallen under this dreadful curse. . . . That is, we have the solemn fact that the people, who ought to have been the means of blessing to all others have themselves passed under this curse, and been guilty, in the most painful form, of ’blaspheming the Name.’ We know how this has been; we know how they treated Him who is the Word of God and declared the Father, who was and is Jehovah Himself. We know how Israel, yielding to thoughts of the world (as it is said here, the son of an Israelitish woman whose father was an Egyptian) having fallen thoroughly a prey to carnal wisdom as to the Messiah, were guilty of rejecting God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and of blaspheming the Name. Accordingly they have fallen under the curse, which would be final but for the grace of God, who knows how to meet the most desperate case. But indeed, as far as regards the mass of the nation, that judgment is definitive. It is the remnant that will become a strong nation in the day that is at hand. On the apostates wrath will come to the uttermost."*
{*"Lectures Introductory to the Pentateuch," by W. Kelly.}
The addition to this of the punishment of him who should slay a man gives another feature of similarity to the case of those who slew the Lord of glory; and the name of Dan points forward to the apostasy of the last days. Thus the rejection of the nation of Israel during the present day of grace to the Gentiles seems plainly indicated, and the two sections of this twenty-fourth chapter are in perfect harmony.
Yet the rejection of Israel is neither complete nor final. There is still as the apostle says, an election of grace; while in the future, their unbelief being repented of, they will again be accepted of the Lord. Of this the next subdivision fully assures us.
3. The Sabbatical year and the jubilee are plainly in connection with one another, and with that septenary series which, whether in days or months or years, continually preached of a rest as to come which should be blessing to the people, holiness to Jehovah. But this for sinners must be found in grace and through redemption, and that is what the jubilee above all witnesses of, in which the land, lost through poverty (and poverty in Israel could only be through sin), was restored to him who had lost it according to the sovereign will of God alone. How this applies to Israel as a nation is quite evident. Just as every individual in all the tribes (save Levi) had birthright title in the land, in this very way, Israel as a whole had title to her land, and if she had not possession of it, it was for sin that she was dispossessed. Her present dispersion, without any room for doubt, means that for the present she is thus disowned of God. On the other hand, as the jubilee unfailingly restored his land to the individual Israelite, so does it speak typically of God’s purpose that the land as a whole -and we may add, according to the full extent of the original promise never yet realized by them -will be restored to the nation, and they therefore be restored to the favor of God. Upon a passover, the antitype of the passover was fulfilled, as we well know; upon a pentecost came what we still call Pentecost: so assuredly will come a jubilee yet that shall be in the full meaning "jubilee," and Israel shall return to the undisturbed possession of her heritage from the Lord: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel. And it shall come to pass in that day that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem." (Isa 27:12-13.)
(1) The relation of the Sabbatical year to the year of jubilee is in this way. The land was the Lord’s, as all land is, but here the Lord asserts His claim to it. In the yielding up the right of property every seventh year, the Israelite owned from whom he held it. For that year he was not proprietor: the harvest belonged to any one as much as to him, and it was expressly as a Sabbath to Jehovah that this was appointed. That year Jehovah entertained all freely with that which sprang up under His hand apart from human cultivation. It was upon this recognition of the divine lordship Israel’s tenure of it all depended. For the violation of this command the land was to enjoy its Sabbaths that had been wrested from it, lying vacant while the people were cast forth (Lev 26:35). And this clearly gives meaning to the jubilee-restoration. Moreover in His parable of the husbandmen, the Lord expressly connects their rejection of Himself with the rejection of Jehovah’s rights over the vineyard which He had let out to them. Here the idea conveyed in the Sabbatical year is extended and developed (Mat 21:33-41). The prophets had been His servants sent to receive His fruits: "Afterward He sent unto them His Son, saying, They will reverence My Son. But when the husbandmen saw the Son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill Him, and let us seize on His inheritance." Hence comes the righteous sentence upon them.
But how blessed a foretaste of paradise restored, this whole year of enjoyment without toil, and community of blessing which banished poverty from the land! Though it be but a moment’s glimpse of what is in His heart, how good to realize, such is our God! But we know Him how much better! and in this Son of His love, whom man’s unbelieving greed rejected.
(2) The jubilee is the fiftieth year, following the seventh Sabbatical one, as Pentecost, the fiftieth day, followed the seventh Sabbatical day from the sheaf of resurrection. It is the Jewish Pentecost, as ours is the Christian. The effort that has been made to show it to be the forty-ninth year, or the seventh Sabbatical year itself, would, if successful, rob the type of much of its significance. Pentecost is the day after the Sabbath, -an eighth day, first of a new week, a type of new creation blessing. This Pentecost of years is similarly an eighth year, and the type of new covenant mercies. It is in the grace of the new covenant, the sweet expression of the "I will’s" of God, that the nation can and will be restored; and thus it is, as the eighth day of the feast of tabernacles has assured us, that the blessing runs on without break from time into eternity.
And then this fiftieth year, how beautiful an overflow of the Sabbatic is it in its meaning (5 x 10), man with Almighty God, and capacity in grace to walk before Him!
On the day of atonement that trumpet of jubilee sounds, after the scapegoat has carried away the people’s sins where they are never more found; and again, how beautifully its birthday shows its gracious character! Now the whole year is sanctified, and as such liberty is proclaimed to all; and still Jehovah entertains, without stint for any one, or restriction to the abundance, all the inhabitants of the land: spontaneously the fruits grow; there is no curse any where. "In the year of this jubilee shall ye return every man unto his possession."
Meanwhile, before it came, the jubilee regulated the value of all possessions of this sort that were not secured by birthright to the possessor. For so long only the purchaser possessed these, and much was he wronged who bought such things at a high price when the jubilee was near! Jubilee was after the high-priest appeared again out of the sanctuary, and is there nothing parallel for us? no buying too high things that (however secure our birthright possessions) are certain to pass when Christ our Lord appears?
Thus we see that God’s principle as to the land is, that "the land cannot be alienated:" and why? for it is His, and He is gracious. True of Israel’s land, so that they shall certainly return to it; true of our heavenly inheritance. We are "begotten again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." (1Pe 1:3-5.) Israel for the land, and the land for Israel! is it not even now a fact evident? And just so the saint now for heaven, and heaven for the saint. Lord, keep us mindful of our jubilee, -Thy coming for us!
4. We have in the fourth subdivision Israel in plain words put under test. Blessing and curse are set before them, with a promise of restoration conditional upon repentance, even after their dispersion in their enemies’ land. These three things plainly give us the three sections of the chapter. The perpetuity of the covenant with their fathers is affirmed at the end.
(1) First, the blessing promised to obedience: abundance, peace, victory in conflict, God’s tabernacle among them, His who has broken the bond of their yoke, and delivered them from other service.
(2) Then the effect of the broken covenant detailed at length: graduated judgments, ever increasing as they continue unrepentant, ending in total dispersion, and consumption in their enemies’ land.
(3) Then on their confession and humbling themselves before God, He will remember His covenant with their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and will remember the land. Utterly destroyed they never shall be, for their God is that Jehovah who brought them out of the land of Egypt, to be their God.
With the closing verse of this chapter the statutes and judgments at Mount Sinai end; so that the following chapter must be looked at as an appendix to the book.
5. The closing chapter speaks of special vows. These were voluntary in their undertaking, but not as to their fulfillment when undertaken. They were then necessarily a part of simple righteousness to fulfill, and their fulfillment was a matter subject to the judgment of Him to whom they were made. Man might repent of his promise and let himself off easily as to the performance. The estimation of his vow was not therefore left to the maker of it. God Himself, or the priest as His mouthpiece, settled all.*
{*Thine estimation" of the A.V., though supported by the Revised, and what would seem the pronominal suffix, is at least questionable: see Gardner’s Leviticus in Lange’s Commentary. He quotes Horsley, and Delgado, in evidence that the cha is not in fact the pronoun, and cites the Septuagint, Onkelos, the Vulgate and Syriac versions as omitting it. There are difficulties with the common reading, for the estimation is after all fixed, where apparently referred to Moses, as in vers. 3-7, and then where there could be a need for personal judgment, it is referred not to Moses, but to the priest (v. 8). And so with the beast, the house, and the field.}
With this estimation of the vow the chapter is largely occupied. If it were a personal dedication, it was fulfilled by paying the amount, and where there was poverty this was tenderly considered. So the vow of house or land could be settled by a money payment; only here, as a redemption, which the payment for the person is not said to be, a fifth part of the value has to be added. A clean beast for sacrifice on the other hand could not be redeemed or exchanged for another, even for a better: to attempt such an exchange was only to forfeit the substitute.
(1) Now, in the adoption of the legal covenant, Israel had in fact made such a vow of self-devotion to the Lord; and God had fixed in those commandments as to sanctification which had been now laid down the estimate of what that vow implied. Nay, He had been gracious also to the poverty of the people, as all the provision as to priesthood specially assures us. The priest is, indeed, the special witness of such merciful consideration of spiritual poverty. Yet it was still a "law" that "made nothing perfect," and could not avail. Israel did not perform their vow, whatever might be the merciful release. On the legal ground they (and we) are but bankrupt and ruined sinners.
It is thus that in the sermon on the mount the Lord now distinctly forbids vowing: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths; but I say unto you, Swear not at all." And this is grounded upon that feebleness of man which the law demonstrated to be his moral condition. It is plain, then, that real sanctification by law was an impossibility; and what a light this sheds upon this chapter, and its relation to the whole book of Leviticus, whose theme is sanctification throughout! Grace is thus shown to be the only power for it: the weak must be with the Strong, the beautiful lesson of all these Deuteronomic summaries. May we learn it well!
(2) But now comes in the provision of grace in sacrifice. Man had after all his value, and though for himself he could not pay it, it might be paid. For man there might be escape; for the devoted Victim there was no escape. No substitute could be provided for Him, and who could estimate aright His value? To seek to stand where He alone could stand would be simple and hopeless forfeiture and ruin. The unclean might be redeemed -redeemed with more than the full value; not so the pure offering. How plainly and convincingly all here speaks to us of Christ!
(3) Next comes the dedicated house, and Israel had such a house, a holy and beautiful house, made, as we have seen, of the devoted things. It was the sign of their great distinctive blessing, the dwelling of God among them, that house sanctified to the Lord, and yet theirs, but only made so by redemption. Slight as the sketch is, its features can be recognized. And it is only after and through the sacrifice that their house can be, as it yet shall be, their own.
Thus all is in harmony; while for us also as Christians there is a house, a redeemed house, in which God dwells; but not a house made with hands, -a heavenly one, yet redeemed from earth: "whose house are we." Israel and Christ’s people now thus answer to one another, so that we can scarcely say to which most fully the type belongs.
(4) Then we have the land; and Israel’s land, though sanctified to the Lord, they had indeed sold to another; hence at the jubilee it shall be entirely Jehovah’s and the priest’s. Thus divine grace will take the inheritance they have so lost out of their keeping. It shall be Immanuel’s land; and His arm shall henceforth preserve it. Nevermore shall it know desolation; never shall the finger of scorn be pointed at its waste places, nor at those who shall at last fly there to their rest as doves to their windows; when the unknown, well-known Voice shall say at last, "The land shall not be sold forever; for the land is MINE: for ye are strangers and sojourners with ME."
(5) We now have a different set of commandments. As in all septenary series, -and this is one, -the last three sections have another character from the preceding ones. They give us things which cannot be the subject of vows, on account of their already belonging to the Lord. The first-born of beasts are the first class of these, His by birth and as the fruit of redemption, claimed by Him, and therefore His: free from the uncertainty attaching to man’s will in the matter. He claims, who can make good His claim.
Is not this too our certainty as to ourselves, in the sense of our responsibility, and in the consciousness of the weakness of our human wills to yield ourselves to Him? just that we are His by birth, His by redemption, formed for His service as the beast for man’s, and claimed by Him who will not be defrauded of His claim? Thank God, we can look our responsibilities in the face with this assurance, that we are His, not in the weakness of our poor human wills, but in the might of His will for us! "Created in Christ Jesus unto good works;" "chosen to sanctification;" "God working in us to will and to do of His good pleasure;" "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation!"
(6) But the same strong hand is also upon the evil; and this is the significance of the cherem, or ban, according to which that which was evil or defiled with evil was sanctified to God in its destruction. "For there can be no doubt that that which lay at the foundation of the ban was that of the compulsory dedication of something which resists or impedes sanctification; so that in all cases in which it was carried into execution by the community, or the magistracy, it was an act of the judicial holiness of God, manifesting itself in righteousness and judgment." (Keil.) Here ransom could not be. Things that are evil, and persons most unholy, shall thus in a coming day be holy to the Lord. All this also depends not on weak human will to accomplish it: it is the judgment of the Lord, and love will acquiesce in it as a necessity of holiness.
(7) We close here with the tithe. The tithe was the owning of the sovereign rights of God as to all their possessions. Ten we have seen to be the measure of capacity, and so of responsibility; of which one part given up owns divine sovereignty. This is the tithe; and here too God will have His claim. When this is accomplished the full blessing will have come. For God to have His own means all holiness, all joy, all stability. God shall be God, all and in all: and that is, as it were, the definition of the eternal state in the last book of Scripture. Let us remember that even now there is an application of this, which is not confined to Israel: "Bring Me all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in My house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room to receive it." (Mal 3:10.)
What, then, shall be the final blessing, when this is every where in fact accomplished? What tongue can speak aright the overflowing, eternal blessedness? And this too is not left to the weakness of man’s "vow" to bring to pass. The arm of Him who bringeth salvation is that which shall accomplish it, and the day predicted hastens fast.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain The Sacred Seasons
The Sacred Seasons
These are the Sabbath (Lev_23:3), Passover and Unleavened Bread (Lev_23:5-14), Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost (Lev_23:15-22), Feast of Trumpets (Lev_23:23-25), Day of Atonement (Lev_23:26-32), and Feast of Booths or Tabernacles (Lev_23:33-43).
Read full note →
3. The sabbath] see on Exo_20:8-11.
5-8. Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread. Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles were the three great annual festivals which followed the seasons of the year and the operations of agriculture. For the institution of the Passover see Exo_12:1-14, and for the sacrifices proper to the Feast of Unleavened Bread see Num_28:16-25. These two parts of the double festival were quite distinct. The Passover was celebrated on the fourteenth day of Nisan beginning at sunset, and was followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which lasted for seven days. Hence the name of the feast of unleavened bread is sometimes used to include both festivals, as in Luk_22:1.
9-14. The beginning of the grain harvest was celebrated during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when a sheaf of new corn was waved before the Lord, as an acknowledgment of His bounty, and a consecration of the harvest to Him.
11. Wave the sheaf] see on Exo_29:24
13. Tenth deals.. him] see on Lev_14:10; Lev_19:36.
15-21. Feast of Weeks. Fifty days or seven weeks after the last festival, the Feast of Weeks, called in Gk. 'Pentecost' from the word for 'fifty,' began with the presentation of two loaves made of the new wheat and leavened in the ordinary way, signifying that harvest was completed. Hence this feast, which lasted only a single day, is called also the Feast of Harvest in Exo_23:16. For the sacrifices offered see Lev_23:18-19 Num_28:26-31.
22. See on Lev_19:9.
23-25. Feast of Trumpets. This was celebrated on the first day of the seventh month (Tishri), which was New Year's Day according to the civil reckoning: see on Exo_12:2. For the special ritual of this Feast see Num_29:1-6.
26-32. Day of Atonement: see Leviticus 16.
33-43. Feast of Booths or Tabernacles. This feast, called also the Feast of Ingathering (Exo_23:16), was observed from the 15th to the 22nd Tishri (in October), and marked the end of the agricultural year, when the combined produce of the whole year, the vintage as well as the grain harvest, had been secured: cp. Deu_16:13. It was celebrated with great rejoicing (Lev_23:40) as the national 'harvest home,' the people camping out in booths constructed of branches upon the roofs of their houses and in the streets during the seven days, in commemoration of the sojourn in the wilderness, Lev_23:43 : see on Exo_23:15, and cp. Hos_12:9.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain 1. The Holy Feasts and Set Times
VI. THE HOLY FEASTS AND SET TIMES
1. The Holy Feasts and Set Times
Read full note →
CHAPTER 23
1. The Sabbath (Lev 23:1-3)
2. The feast of Passover and feast of unleavened bread (Lev 23:4-8)
3. The firstfruits (Lev 23:9-14)
4. The feast of weeks (Lev 23:15-22)
5. The blowing of trumpets (Lev 23:23-25)
6. The day of atonement (Lev 23:26-32)
7. The feast of tabernacles (Lev 23:33-44)
This is one of the grandest chapters in Leviticus, filled with the choicest truths and prophetic from beginning to end. The holy feasts and set times, appointed by Jehovah, to be kept yearly by Israel, cover indeed the entire realm of redemption facts. The dispensational dealings of God with Jews and Gentiles are clearly revealed in these feasts. We have to look at each of these divisions separately to point out the way to a deeper study, which no child of God should neglect.
1. The Sabbath--This is in itself no feast, but set time, a holy convocation after the six work days. What it signifies we have already seen in the study of Genesis and Exodus. The reason why the Sabbath is put here first is on account of its prophetic meaning. “There remaineth a rest for the people of God.” The Sabbath is the type of that rest yet to come, when redemption is consummated. When all the work is accomplished, foreshadowed in the feasts and set times of Israel, the great rest-keeping will begin. Faith can enjoy it even now. In the Sabbath the blessed outcome of all is revealed.
2. The Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread--The Passover, with the lamb slain and its body eaten, occupies the first place. It typifies the blessed work of the Lamb of God, His redemption work on the cross. And this is the foundation of every thing, as we have seen in the levitical offerings and ceremonial. In this finished work, and the shed blood, God rests, and here the believing sinner has found his rest. The feast of unleavened bread is closely connected with the Passover, so that it cannot be separated from it. Leaven stands for sin and unleavened bread for holiness. The feast of unleavened bread therefore typifies the result of the work of Christ on the cross, which is holiness. Again we meet the great truth that Jehovah has redeemed His people to be separated unto Himself. They were not to do a servile work, but to bring an offering by fire unto Jehovah. On the first and on the seventh day no servile work was to be done. It typifies the fact that in redemption there is no servile work, but a joyous manifestation of Christ, the sweet savour in the power of the Holy Spirit.
3. The Firstfruits--While the Passover-feast foreshadows the death of Christ, the waving of the sheaf of the firstfruits is the blessed type of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was just one sheaf waved before Jehovah, the earnest of the harvest which was to follow. “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1Co 15:20). “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming” (1Co 15:23). The grain of wheat had fallen into the ground and died. But He liveth; the full ear of the sheaf waved before Jehovah typifies the abundant fruit which He brings unto God. And it was waved before Jehovah “on the morrow after the Sabbath.” The morrow after the Sabbath is the first day of the week, the glorious resurrection morning. In connection with the waving of the sheaf of firstfruits there were offerings. But of what kind? “A he lamb without blemish for a burnt offering unto the LORD,” a meal offering and a drink offering. No sin offering was demanded, for that was accomplished when He died. The offerings were a sweet savour, telling forth once more the blessedness and value of His own person and work. And in Him we are accepted; with Him the firstfruits we shall be forever.
4. The Feast of Weeks--After seven Sabbaths had passed by, fifty days counted, a new meal offering was brought and two wave loaves baken with leaven. This is the feast of Pentecost (named on account of the fifty days). It is also called the feast of weeks, as seven weeks had passed by. Exactly fifty days after the waving of the firstfruits, on the morrow of the Sabbath, when Christ arose, the Holy Spirit came down out of heaven to form the church on earth. The meal offering as we saw in the first part of the book is the type of Christ in His perfect humanity. Pure flour, oil mingled with it, and oil poured upon it. Here is a new meal offering. It does not typify Christ, but those who are one with Him, His believing people. The oil, the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost upon them, as the oil was poured upon the meal offering.
The two loaves, baken with leaven, typify also the church. Sin is still there. Pure flour was in the loaves (the new nature), but baken with leaven (the old nature). The two loaves, no doubt, refer us to the Jews and Gentiles, which compose the new meal offering. And here is the sin offering, which was absent at the waving of the sheaf of firstfruits on the morrow after the Sabbath. The leaven and the sin offering indicate the presence of sin, as it is the case. Yet the loaves are waved in the presence of Jehovah and fully accepted.
The two loaves were a wave offering before Jehovah. Thus the church is presented unto Him “a kind of firstfruits” (Jas 1:18); the two loaves, the product of the wheat, the firstfruits of Christ’s death and resurrection.
We must not overlook verse 22. The harvest here, we doubt not, is the same as in Mat 13:39. When that end of the age comes, the church will be taken into the garner, the firstfruits will be with Christ. The poor and strangers, Gentiles, will even then be remembered in mercy.
5. The Blowing of Trumpets--With this holy convocation we are led upon new ground. The feasts we have followed typify that which is past; the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and the formation of the church by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The three set times which follow, the memorial of blowing of trumpets, the day of atonement and the feast of tabernacles await their great fulfillment in the near future. The first thing after the two wave loaves are completely presented unto Jehovah, when this age is about to close, will be the blowing of the trumpets. It is the call of God to the remnant of His people, their regathering. A long period of time is between Pentecost and the blowing of the trumpets. This interval is the present age. The Lord does not regather His earthly remnant till His heavenly people, the church, is complete. Read and carefully consider Isaiah 27:13; 58; Joe 2:1. Mat 24:31 is the regathering of His elect earthly people after He has come. But the blowing of the trumpets on the first day of the seventh month precedes the great day of atonement and is the heralding of that approaching day. All this, studied with the light God has given to us in the entire word of prophecy, is intensely interesting.
6. The Day of Atonement--We have already pointed out the dispensational meaning for the people of Israel in our annotations on the sixteenth chapter. When the great high priest, our Saviour and Israel’s King, comes forth out of the Holiest, when He comes the second time in power and glory, Israel will look upon Him whom they have pierced and mourn for Him. And He will take away their sins, typified by the scapegoat. “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness” (Zec 13:1). Their great day of atonement will be a Sabbath of rest unto them and glory will cover their long desolate land once more.
7. The Feast of Tabernacles--The final feast began on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. It is the feast, which comes after the sin of Israel has been removed. It was the feast of ingathering of the products of the year and a memorial of Israel’s dwelling in booths in the wilderness. The feast of tabernacles foreshadows the coming glory of the millennium, Israel’s glorious inheritance and the Gentiles gathered with redeemed Israel in the kingdom. It will be the time of the complete harvest, the time of rejoicing, when sorrow and sighing will flee away. It comes after the harvest (the end of the age) and the vintage (the winepress of the wrath of God). How beautiful is the order in these three last holy convocations! The blowing of the trumpets; the remnant of Israel called and gathered; the day of atonement; Israel in national repentance looking upon Him, whom they pierced, when He comes the second time; the feast of tabernacles; the millennium. “And it shall come to pass that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles” (Zec 14:16). It is the great memorial feast of millennial times. Perhaps it will be during that feast that the King of Israel, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, will appear in visible glory in Jerusalem to receive the homage of the representatives of the nations of the earth. What a day that will be! The eighth day which we meet here again points us to that which is beyond the millennium. The story of the twenty-third chapter is marvellous! Only God in His infinite wisdom could give us such an unfolding and foreshadowing of His eternal counsels and purposes. We rehearse it briefly. The Sabbath is the type of the end, which will come after the accomplishment of all His purposes; the eternal rest. Passover, the type of the death of Christ; the waving of the firstfruits, the type of the resurrection of Christ; Pentecost, the type of the coming of the Holy Spirit for the formation of the Church. Then Israel’s restoration and fullest blessing comes in. How blind men must be who can call all these beautiful things fable and legends! In these poor critics there is once more fulfilled the Word of God, professing themselves to be wise, they become fools” (Rom 1:22).
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Sabbath
The Sabbath
v. 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Read full note →
v. 2. Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the Lord which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are My feasts. The word originally means fixed or appointed times, which the Lord had marked out, separated, distinguished from the ordinary course of daily life, and therefore found its chief application in the case of the festivals. While the Chapter contains a calendar of the festivals, its purpose is chiefly, as the restricting relative clause indicates, to mark those festivals upon which there should be solemn meetings for the purpose of worship.
v. 3. Six days shall work be done, the ordinary business of life should be done on the six days of the week, and the words are not merely a permission, but a command; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein. The Sabbath was to be distinguished not only by the fact that the Jews desisted from work, but chiefly because they assembled for the purposes of worship; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. By the last expression the convocation of the Sabbath is distinguished from that of all the annual festivals, for the Sabbath was usually celebrated at home, in the country, in town, in village, in hamlet, throughout the land, and wherever the Jews lived, while the great festivals were celebrated chiefly, if not entirely, at the places where the Lord’s Sanctuary was erected.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 the appointed festivals for Yahweh
the appointed festivals for Yahweh
These were festivals that the Lord had appointed times for. The people were to worship him at these festivals. AT: "the festivals for Yahweh" or "Yahweh's festivals"
Read full note →
translationWords
Yahweh
Moses
people group
Israel
appoint
festival
preach
holy
assembly
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.