The Feasts of the Lord

The "feasts of the Lord" is one the most beautiful and deep subjects Bible students have been given the privilege of looking into. The great details of the Divine plan of redemption were revealed to man through these feasts, and they are rich in lessons regarding our walk, prophecy, and even the return of Christ. It is simply too wonderful of a subject for us not to consider!

A two-part series of exhortations on the feasts of the Lord was given and recorded. The first talk is called “God’s Calendar and the Spring Feasts”, and the second talk is called “The Fall Feasts”. The exhortations were received well, so both talks have now been merged into one document with slight adjustments and multiple additions to make it one cohesive article.

I encourage watching the videos, but I more greatly encourage the reading of the document. Not only can one absorb information and investigate at their own pace, but I was able to add more information to the documents after the exhortations were given because there was not the restraint of time. The document therefore has far more information. For example, a short amount of time was given in the first lecture to show the fulfillment of the spring feasts as time did not permit for us to show from Scripture how they were fulfilled. In the document, however, this is explained thoroughly. You can either read the article by scrolling past the two videos or by downloading this PDF: The Feasts of the Lord

The Feasts of the Lord

God’s Calendar

The Spring Feasts

The Fall Feasts

The Feasts of the Lord

TGP Newsletter - July 15, 2024

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God’s Calendar

There are a number of reasons why this topic was picked for an exhortation. When we (or at least as I used to) think of the feasts, perhaps we tend to first think of the Law of Moses in the sense that the law was fulfilled, and we therefore don’t need to pay much attention to the feasts anymore. We may think of them as something interesting to learn about, but not very rich or relevant to our lives today as we aren’t required to keep them in the sense that Israel was. But this is missing the point of the feasts.

We look at many parts of the Law and understand the present, relevant figure which they were a shadow of, yet the feasts of the Lord are often not discussed in this way – or if they are, it’s not the subject of much conversation. Yet not only are they important, they’re incredibly beautiful and have a direct bearing on us and even the return of Christ. I believe they’re important enough that we should be mindful of where we are on God’s calendar throughout the year as it is His timetable.

There are a few different ways to view the feasts, and at this time we’re going to look at just one of them. We can think of it like a telescopic view as each level has its purpose and meaning, and it’s a wonderful testament to the Divine wisdom. What we’re going to focus on here is what we can call the “zoomed out” view – the feasts in relation to God’s plan of redemption.

What we’ll do is discuss the different feasts and briefly what they were created to represent and teach Israel, but before we do that, it’ll be necessary and helpful to examine the Hebrew calendar and how time was kept and organized as it’s very different from how we keep time today.

In looking at the feasts, we’ll see the grand outworking of God’s plan of redemption intricately relayed to Israel, resulting in Israel itself physically acting it out every single year.

The Hebrew Calendar

The Start and End of Days

There are many different ways of keeping time, and different cultures have often had their own calendars. God created things from the beginning specifically so we could keep time, and from the very get-go, we see how God has structured it. The main instruments of measurement were placed in the heavens when the earth was created:

Genesis 1:14 – And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.

The sun, moon, and stars were all important to distinguishing and setting time. We go off of the Gregorian calendar which was adapted from the Julian calendar. It is pagan in origin in every respect and built off of Roman and Greek calendars. Days of the week were named after the planets, the moon, and the sun, each of which were associated with different gods. We begin and end our day at 12:00am, also called midnight. Our days consist of the morning and evening.

This is not how days were reckoned in the beginning, and this is one great difference between the Hebrew calendar and the Gregorian:

Genesis 1:5 – And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

The evening and the morning were the first day, not the morning and the evening as we account a day today. As strange as this may seem to us who are used to something our system, it’s reasonable that this would be a better way of marking day start and ends. Before there were clocks, man had to go by what he could see. For us, midnight is considered a pivotal point because it starts our new day, but if we didn’t have clocks, midnight would be indistinguishable from 11pm or 3am because the sky looks exactly the same except for where the stars are.

However, we do know when we can begin to see stars in the sky (provided we have a clear night), when we can see the moon, when the sun rises, and so on.

The Hebrew day therefore starts in the evening, typically when the first three stars are visible. This is at sunset – around 6:00pm.

Watches and Hours

As the days themselves are different from what we’re used to, it follows that how the days were divided were different as well. They didn’t go by “7:00am” or “2:00pm” as those are simply reference points from midnight or noon. During the time of Christ, nights were divided into hours and watches, the night watches originating from the Roman army. We’ll look at how these were kept in Christ’s day as they are the best understood.

As we said, the Jewish day starts at sunset when the first stars are visible, correlating to about 6:00pm. What began then was the first watch of the night which ran from 6:00pm to 9:00pm, followed by the second, third, and fourth watches, each being made up of 3-hour intervals. The third watch started around midnight, and when this one ended around 3:00am, a cockcrow trumpet was blown which signaled the beginning of the fourth watch.

Once the sun came up around 6:00am, this was considered “zero hour”, and they would from then on simply count hours from sunrise. If the sun rose at 6:00am, 7:00am was considered the first hour, 8:00am was the second hour, 9:00am was the third hour, and so on.

Understanding this helps us better appreciate Christ’s sacrifice as we can now know how long he suffered. He shared the passover with his disciples at sunset on the 14th of Nisan just as the day began – so at 6:00pm. He then went to Gethsemane with his disciples where he was betrayed around midnight, from there was brought before Annas, Caiaphas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate, Herod, and then back to Pilate who sentenced him to death. From Gethsemane to the cross was from midnight to the third hour (9:00am) - 9 hours of suffering. He then hung on the cross for another six hours before giving his last breath at the ninth hour (3:00pm). From Gethsemane to his last breath was a horrible, non-stop span of about 15 hours, all of which occurred on the same Biblical day.

Months

While our months begin on seemingly random days, the Biblical calendar was based on moon cycles, each month beginning on a new moon when the first, smallest sliver of it was visible. This resulted in 29½ day months, and an extra month was added every few years to make up for the difference similar to how we have leap years.

While there was certainly some kind of calendar before the time of Moses, the Hebrew calendar itself was not given to Israel until they were brought out of Egypt. It was instituted right before the last plague on Egypt when all of the firstborn of the land were smitten and the angel passed over the homes of the Israelites.

Exodus 12:1-2 – And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, (2) This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.

This deliverance from Egypt was significant enough to mark the beginning of the new year from this time forward. The months can be seen in the chart to the right, Nisan being the first month.

Some of these months have different names today than what they were originally given in Scripture, but the month exists the same. Nisan was originally Abib, Iyar was originally Zif, Tishri was Ethanim, and Heshvan was Blil.

This is the origin of the Hebrew calendar, and as it has been kept by the Jews ever since, it’s an incredibly powerful fact which gives credence to all of the miracles wrought by God through Moses and proves the veracity of the exodus account which is so often considered a legend today. It was not created by man just because he wanted it, but was the result of the specific, miraculous event of the exodus. As the calendar validates Moses and the miracles wrought through him, it also validates Christ himself, the miracles that he wrought, and the very hope we have through him. In The Law of Moses, Brother Roberts explains,

“The modern attitude is that of unbelief concerning the divine nature of the plagues: the death of the firstborn; and the opening of the Red Sea for Israel’s escape; and lo, here, not only is the historic reality of these things linked with a feast which has been kept by Israel in all their generations ever since to the present day (speaking of passover), but involved in their celebration is the shadowing of the highest final achievements of God’s purpose in Christ. The world’s skepticism in the matter is an insult to reason. Moses and Christ are the two poles of God’s great work. The miracles of Moses and the miracles of Christ are the two ends of a great historic fabric; they make one piece. If Moses foreshadows Christ, Christ embodies, authenticates, and proves Moses. They are inseparable. The idea of a man believing in Christ without believing in Moses is the monstrous outcome of ignorance. Christ celebrated the passover with his disciples: in this he held up Moses and the firstborn to our view: for the passover had no meaning apart from the Lord passing over the blood-sprinkled houses of the Israelites in Egypt on the night that he went through the land and destroyed the firstborn in every house in Egypt. Christ said the passover would be ‘fulfilled in kingdom of God’ (Luke 22:16) which implies the typical nature of the passover feast, in harmony with Paul’s teaching that Christ is our passover, sacrificed for us (1 Cor. 5:7). Thus, Christ in the kingdom and Christ on the cross unite with Moses in Egypt on the night of the Exodus – which may enable use to understand why the final song of salvation is ‘the song of Moses and of the Lamb’ (Rev. 15:3).”

The Law of Moses (1987 Ed.), pgs. 199-200

Now that we know how the calendar works, let’s look at the feasts themselves and some of what Israel was commanded to do in their observance.

The Feasts or “Set Times”

There are a total of seven official feasts, a number which is no coincidence. If you include the sabbath as a feast, as some do, there are eight. This may be rightly included as it’s mentioned in Leviticus 23:2-3, but for today and time’s sake, we will focus on the main seven.

There are a number of things which need to clarification on the feasts. One of the most significant things is that they are not Israel’s feasts, they are God’s feasts:

Leviticus 23:2 – 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.

They are not the feasts of Israel, they are the feasts of the Lord. They therefore have importance not only to Israel, but to all who belong to God, us included.

The word “feasts” is not really the best translation given how we think of feasts today. We think of people getting together and eating lots of food. The Hebrew word is moed, and Strong’s defines it as “an appointment, a fixed time or season”. Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon defines it as an “appointed place, appointed time, meeting”.

The Tanakh, which is an excellent translation of the Old Testament, calls them most properly “fixed times” and “set times” instead of feasts. The bearing of this is that the days in particular were important to God. God did not say, “You must do these certain things any time of the year you’d like.” These were special days to God, and He therefore said in

Leviticus 23:37 – These are the feasts 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, a sacrifice, and drink offerings, every thing upon his day:

Shortly, we will see why the day was so important.

These “set times” were to be “holy convocations” for Israel (Leviticus 23:2). The word here is miqra, and Strong’s defines it as “something called out, that is, a public meeting, also a rehearsal.” This aspect of “a rehearsal” will be seen to be a most appropriate translation relating to the feasts and further relates to why they had to be accomplished on specific days.

While the main purpose of these “set times” was of a lofty, Divine nature, there were some very practical, natural benefits to them which we should quickly mention. They promoted an organized, unified, and cohesive society as the nation had to communicate with the other parts of its society in order to time things correctly. Some feasts began with the harvesting of certain crops, so farmers therefore had to communicate with the priesthood as to when the crops were ready for harvest. It helped prevent the divisions of society which naturally form. It also brought the nation together multiple times a year as they had to come to the place which God had designated. It offered Israel rest from their occupations and a time to renew both spiritually and naturally. They likely had the same effect that Bible schools have for us.

These seven feasts can be divided into two categories: the spring feasts and the fall feasts. The spring feasts consisted of the feast of passover, the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of firstfruits, and the feast of weeks (also called Pentecost). The fall feasts, which took place many months later, were called the feast of trumpets, the day of atonement, and the feast of tabernacles.

It’s interesting to note that the spring feasts were grouped closely together with the spring feasts and the fall feasts were close to the fall feasts. They were not spread evenly throughout out the year as we might imagine they’d be. Part of this was likely due to convenience as all of Israel was required to go up to Jerusalem, and it therefore made sense to group them together. Yet, as there always is with the Lord, there is a higher purpose to this.

Now remember, these are not Israel’s “set times”, they are the Lord’s “set times” or “appointments”. Every single aspect of these set times is important – the day it begins, the day it ends, what man was to do during it, the sacrifices involved – everything.

There are three main passages on the feasts:

- Leviticus 23 – deals with the feasts themselves

- Numbers 28-29 – greater detail on the sacrifices and offerings required

- Deuteronomy 16:1-17 – focuses on the feasts, place, and pilgrimage to

Other passages: Exodus 12:1-28, 23:14-19, and others still.

The Spring Feasts

The spring feasts begin in what is April for us, but this is actually the beginning of the new Biblical year. We tend to lose the potency of this fact as it’s not our first month, but imagine these things taking place in January and what that would communicate to us.

The new year begins on the day that God brought Israel out of Egypt, and this is called Nisan 1 (or originally Abib 1). The first appointment was to take place shortly after this, and it is the feast of passover.

Passover (Pesach) – Leviticus 23:5, Exodus 12:1-28

These first things we’ll mention relate to the first passover in Egypt, but later observances differed from this for a couple of reasons.

Passover was to take place on the 14th day of the first month. The passover lamb was slain in the evening which would be between 3:00-6:00pm on Nisan 14 just before Nisan 15 began, but there was preparation that was required. On the 10th day of the first month (four days before passover), they were to take a lamb of the first year and separate it from the rest of the flock. They were then to bring it into their homes for four days and then to kill it on the 14th. They were to dip hyssop in the blood and mark the lintel and two side posts of the door so the Lord would see the blood of the Lamb and “passover” their homes, sparing the firstborn. It’s a similar thing as we seen in Eden. A sentence of death was announced, and a lamb was slain which acted as a covering for sin (Revelation 13:8), thus saving them from the immediate sentence of death.

The lamb was then to be roasted in fire without breaking any bones and eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, all in one night. Israel was to eat all of it, and whatever remained in the morning was to be burnt. It was not to be eaten in a relaxed position, but with their loins girded and ready to go. The message concerning their deliverance was therefore duly pressed upon then.

Israel kept the feast the second year after coming out of Egypt (Numbers 9:1-3), but it seems that they didn’t keep it again until Joshua brought them to the land (Joshua 5:10).

As to how the later observances differed from the first, many things were necessarily added to the feast in later years once they inhabited the land. Just like we added structure to our remembrance of our Lord like hymns, an exhortation, class, and so on., the Jews added structure to the passover. One of these things is the seder, but there are many other things we’ll have to discuss at a different time.

In Christ’s day, preparations typically began about a month before passover. Housewives and families would begin thoroughly cleaning cups, pots, brazen vessels, and tables (Mark 7:4). Entire homes would be cleansed – walls, ceilings, floors, and furniture. This is supposedly where the idea of spring cleaning came from. Also, to prevent becoming unclean before passover, graves were whited so people could see them more easily and therefore prevent accidentally touching them, rendering them unclean. This is where Christ’s accusation of the Pharisees comes from: “ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27).

In contrast to the first passover, following ones were observed in the reclined position instead of girding their loins, showing that they had been delivered.

Israel was to eat of three unleavened cakes which head of the family broke, drink of 4 different cups of wine, and eat bitter herbs and sop. These represented Christ as the lamb slain not only in Eden, but in Egypt which allowed their deliverance. The bread represented his body and the wine, his blood. It’s from this that our emblems today originated.

Unleavened Bread (Hag HaMotzi) – Exodus 13:6-7, Leviticus 23:6-8, Deuteronomy 16:3-4

The feats of unleavened bread began on the 15th of the first month (Nisan 15) – the day after passover. In many ways, it was really a continuation of passover and ran from Nisan 15-21.

The first day of unleavened bread (15th) was always considered a sabbath, even if it wasn’t on a normal sabbath day. This often created two consecutive sabbaths – the first one being the first day of unleavened bread, the day after that before the normal sabbath of rest.

The first day was therefore to be a holy convocation where no work was allowed. They were not to eat of any leaven from the 15th-21st, neither could it even be found in homes. The penalty was to be cut off from commonwealth of Israel (meaning death – Exodus 31:14).

As the feast went for seven days, an offering made by fire was to be made for seven days as well. These were done on account of the public and were added to the regular morning sacrifices and offerings. The overall immediate lesson of this feast was to put away sin (or leaven), a concept many of us are very familiar with.

First Fruits (Reshit Katzir) – Leviticus 23:9-14, Exodus 23:16

The third feast was the feast of firstfruits, also called the feast of harvest (Exodus 23:16). This one began relating to the harvest of barley. A sheaf of the first barley harvest was to be brought unto the priest, and he would wave the firstfruits before the Lord “on the morrow after the sabbath” (Leviticus 23:11). This was the third day from passover, so these three spring feasts overlapped. Israel was to eat neither bread, parched corn, or green ears until this offering was brought to God.

The waving was done for a couple reasons. As the first-harvested sheaf of the crop, it represented the whole throughout the land. It was waved before the Lord that He might witness it – a very clear visual presentation before the Lord that the harvest was ready and the firstfruits of it had been gathered and dedicated to God. It essentially sanctified or blessed the rest of the crop. The waving from one side to the other is also understood to show that it represented all of the crop from one side of the land to the other as there was not simply one field of barley in Israel, but many.

When Israel brought this to the priest, a certain declaration was to be made which is recorded in Deuteronomy 26:1-10. It emphasized that all was given by God, and all belonged to God, and it was only thanks to Him that Israel was brought out of Egypt.

Pentecost or Feast of Weeks (Shavu’ot) – Leviticus 23:15-22, Deuteronomy 16:9-12

On the day after the sabbath when the sheaf was waved, Israel was then to count seven sabbaths (49 days). On the 50th day, they were to have the fourth spring feast. This was called the feast of weeks but is known in Greek as Pentecost as it was simply fifty days from the firstfruits. This took place in month of Sivan (around May for us).

The priests were then to offer a new meat offering. Instead of barley, this would be for the wheat. This meat offering would be two wave loaves of wheat baked with leaven, and they were to be the firstfruits of the Lord for the wheat harvest. We note a few important differences between this wave offering and that of the firstfruits. In the feast of firstfruits, the wave offering to be of wheat whereas Pentecost was barley. With the firstfruits, what was waved before the Lord was one sheaf (freshly harvested) whereas Pentecost utilized two loaves. The sheaf of barley was unleavened, the loaves of wheat were leavened.

A number of animal sacrifices were to be made with this feast on top of the normal offerings of the day, and these also were to be waved before the Lord. Many more things were waved at Pentecost than were waved at firstfruits.

Importantly, Israel was commanded to not completely clean their fields when they were harvesting. They had to leave some for the poor so they could reap as well.

Their Fulfillment in Christ

These are the first four feasts of the year, and they have a direct relation to Christ. In fact, they acted as a prophecy. In short, they foretold of the days on which Christ would fulfill important parts of his role as a redeemer at his first coming. Christ was crucified on passover, in the grave on unleavened bread, resurrected on first fruits, and the spirit was poured out on Pentecost. It’s here that we see why the “holy convocations” are best understood as “holy rehearsals”, for Israel was rehearsing the events of Christ’s sacrifice every single year for thousands of years, even though many of them likely didn’t know it.

Time will not permit for us to go into as much detail as we’d like, but here’s a brief summary of their fulfilment:

Passover – John 13:1-2, 19:14, 31, 42, Matthew 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54

Christ, as we know, was our passover (1 Corinthians 5:7), and he was therefore crucified on Nisan 14. This is sometimes called the day of “the preparation of the passover” as that was when the passover was prepared for the evening sacrifice (John 19:14, Matthew 26:17). Christ began the day of Nisan 14 with his disciples and the last supper which started around 6:00 in the evening. They therefore enjoyed their passover feast “before the feast of the passover” (John 13:1) when everyone observed it because Christ, as the true passover Lamb, had to be slain at the normal time of the feast. Once supper was ended, Christ then went to Gethsemane where he was betrayed by Judas and delivered into the hands of the Jews, suffered before the many councils and rulers, was lead to Golgotha, and expired on the cross in the evening at the same time that the other passover lambs were slain, uttering his last words which show his victory over sin: “it is finished” (John 19:30). The day of passover was about to end and the the feast of unleavened bread was shortly to begin. However, as the first day of that feast was a high sabbath day and was drawing near, the Jews besought the Romans to kill the men on the crosses as they did not want to pollute themselves thereby. We therefore read,

John 19:31 – The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

The Romans therefore went through and broke the legs of the sufferers, “But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs” (John 19:33). Joseph of Arimathaea then begged the Romans for the body of Jesus and buried him in his tomb, so Jesus was in the grave before Nisan 15 began, which was the feast of unleavened bread (Mark 15:42-46). The events from the last supper to his death on the cross all occurred on the same Biblical day. Without knowing it, the Jews had killed their passover on the day and time they were supposed, for it was commanded back when the first passover was kept,

Exodus 12:6 – And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

You will note that this feast is sometimes called “the day/feast of unleavened bread” in the New Testament which can be confusing (Matthew 26:17, Mark 14:12, Luke 22:7). This day/feast of unleavened bread is not to be confused with the actual feast of unleavened bread which began on the next day. This name was applied to passover because passover was the first day on which the Jews were to actually eat unleavened bread (Exodus 12:8). The timing of the two feasts is very close together as well, for the passover was to be killed in the evening on the 14 and the feast of unleavened bread was to begin that same evening. It’s herein that we see how the feast of unleavened bread appears to be a continuation of passover.

We know that this day of unleavened bread was not the feast of unleavened bread for a few reasons. The first is because the day that Christ and his disciples began with the last supper was “day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed” (Luke 22:7), and the passover could only be killed on Nisan 14 (Exodus 12:6). The second is that the actual day of unleavened bread was a high sabbath day in which no work could be done (Leviticus 23:6-7), and that wasn’t taking place until the next day as we recently read in John 19:31. The Jews could not have slain bodies out in the open on unleavened bread as that feast was all about putting away sin, and they therefore sought that Christ’s body be taken down quickly.

Unleavened Bread

Israel was commanded for this feast,

Exodus 12:15 – Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

Christ fulfilled this perfectly as he was completely without sin (leaven), and he put away sin from himself by the offering of himself:

Hebrews 9:26 – For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

The Fall Feasts

With the spring feasts, we saw the reasons for these being “set times”. Each feast referred to a specific point in God’s plan of redemption through Christ and showed the exact day (and sometimes even the time of day) on which that thing would be fulfilled. Seeing this perfect precision, we saw how God, who knows the end from the beginning, instituted these “set times” back in the days of Moses to teach Israel not only about HOW God’s redemptive work would be accomplished, but also on what days each component would be fulfilled. This fact is undeniable as seen in the spring feasts.

With these things in mind, we look to the fall feasts. These were the feast of trumpets, the day of atonement, and the feast of tabernacles. We noted how the spring feasts all related to the first coming of Christ and were fulfilled in quick succession. Looking at the Hebrew calendar, we see the large gap of time between the spring and fall feasts. As with all other aspects of the Law, this was designed that way for a purpose.

The fall feasts were given to Israel at Sinai when the rest of the law was given, yet what’s interesting about these is that much of how Israel kept the feasts is not recorded in the Bible. The Jews added different things to make it practical and helpful similar to how we have added exhortations and classes to our memorial service. We learn about a lot of these details in works like the Mishnah and Talmud. Even though these were added over the years, the New Testament shows that many of them were observed by Christ himself, so we must imagine that at least some of these additions are legitimate. Some things, however, were not in man’s power to add even though the Jews added them anyways.

All the fall feasts took place in the seventh month called Tishri (September and October for us). Tishri is the beginning of the Jewish agricultural (agrarian) year, and the month they believe the earth was created. As we’ll see, it was by far the greatest and most important month of the year.

Trumpets (Yom Teru’ah) – Leviticus 23:23-25, Num 29:1-6

As we learned earlier, the Hebrew calendar is based off of moon cycles, each month beginning with a new moon. As to the teaching of the new moons marking the beginning of the month, W. F. Barling writes in Law and Grace,

“Each new month was in effect a fresh beginning since the infant moon opened a new time-cycle. It was therefore an appropriate time for Israel to remember its own beginning as a nation before God, and to rededicate itself to His service.”

Law and Grace, pg. 141

Just like the firstborn stood for the rest of the people and the first fruits stood for the rest of the crop, the sanctification of the first day of every month sanctified the rest of the month (Romans 11:16).

The first day of each month was also to be accompanied with the blowing of two silver trumpets (Numbers 10:10), but the first day of the seventh month was particularly important. As this was the seventh month of the religious year, it was therefore a sabbatical month, and it was on this day that Israel was to keep the feast of trumpets. Tishri also marks the beginning of Israel’s civil year, which, as we will see, carries some wonderful significance.

While the two silver trumpets were blown on every first day of every month, the feast of trumpets witnessed blowing non-stop from morning to evening. These were series of short fast blasts along with longer blasts. The last blast was called “the last trump” and was an incredibly loud, prolonged blast which endured as long as the blower had air to blow. This day was also to be a sabbath and had more offerings required on that day than other new-moon days (Numbers 29:1-6).

On top of their use on new moons and the celebration of feasts days, there were many other purposes of the trumpets and different kinds of blasts as described in the law (Number 10:1-10). The most obvious purpose of a trumpet is to announce or warn, but the trumpets were also to be used to call an assembly and to organize the movements of the camp of Israel. Depending on how many trumpets were blown and in what way, they could gather either just the princes or the entire congregation. The trumpets were also to be used to proclaim the year of jubilee and to prepare Israel for war (Leviticus 25:9, Numbers 10:9).

While it was originally commanded that two silver trumpets be made for Israel’s use (Number 10:2), it appears that seven trumpets were used in David’s day (1 Chronicles 15:24). In Solomon’s day, we’re told that 124 were utilized (2 Chronicles 5:12, 7:6). Once the silver trumpets were lost (most likely to the Babylonians when they spoiled Jerusalem), Israel began using shofars and rams horns. These have been in use ever since.

We did not have time to cover this, but all of the feasts of the Lord were first observed when Israel came out of Egypt. It’s no strange thing, then, to learn that the first mention of a trumpet in the entire Bible is when Israel was gathered before Sinai (Exodus 19:13).

What’s really interesting about this feast is how and when it began. As new months started on new moons, it can be difficult to know exactly when a new moon is reached if there were unclear skies. Remember, this is not a full moon which would shine through the clouds. This is when only a small portion is visible and most of what we see is the shaded side. It’s much more difficult to see.

Nevertheless, as the new moon marked the beginning of the seventh month, it was not only important to make sure it started on the right day so the feast of trumpets was held correctly, but if they got the first day wrong, it would also result in them observing the last two feasts of the year on the wrong day as they would be counting from the wrong day. The timing of the feast of trumpets was therefore critical to get right. How they got around the difficulties of unclear skies was this:

As the sixth month neared an end, the Sanhedrin sat in a hall to receive witnesses from throughout the land of the new moon. Once they had received enough faithful witnesses and fully determined that it was indeed a new moon, messengers were sent to a signal station on the Mount of Olives where fire beacons were lit to spread the word throughout the land and beyond to those in dispersion. This gave them the most sure way of starting the month on the correct day, but it was not without difficulties either.

It was certain that the new moon had to take place on the 29th or 30th of the month because that’s how the moon cycles work, but the Jews were never certain of which one until the Sanhedrin had reached a conclusion and spread the word. But even once the decision was reached, which could have taken place early on the 29th or late on the 30th, it took time to receive and hear witnesses, reach a conclusion, and spread the word throughout the lands, so to ensure that they would begin the feast on the correct day, the Jews began keeping the feast “on two successive days…” (The Temple – Its Ministry and Services, pg. 157). This began with the feast of trumpets and later was applied to other feasts. The result of this practice that was the feast could have officially started at any time on one of those two days, but they didn't know the day or the hour until the fire signals were lit and the trumpet blast sounded throughout the land.

Atonement (Yom Kippur) – Leviticus 23:26-32, Leviticus 16, 25:9, Numbers 29:7-11

On the tenth day of the seventh month (Tishri), Israel was to keep the day of atonement – Yom Kippur. This was a holy convocation and a sabbath, and no work was to be done on this day. This was emphasized multiple times. Israel was to afflict themselves, and they were to fast and take a full, sober look at their sins and acknowledge them. It was a national atonement for Israel, but only for those who afflicted themselves. Those who did not comply with requirements were to be cut off from people, meaning killed. As this feast was characterized by abasing oneself and fasting, it was sometimes simply referred to as “the fast” (Acts 27:9).

This feast was not just for those who were Israelites by birth, but for all who sojourned among them:

Leviticus 16:29-30 – And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you: (30) For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the LORD.

It therefore included the entire nation.

The way atonement was made was very specific, and the work centered upon a single man – the High Priest. As outlined in Leviticus 16:6-16, the High Priest had to first offer for himself, and then he could offer for tabernacle and for the people. It was on this day and this day only that he could go into the Most Holy place. This room of the tabernacle represented the presence of God, for we’re told of Christ in

Hebrews 9:24 – For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:

The enormity of this event could not be understated, and in order for man to enter the Most Holy and not perish, he had to follow God’s strict process of cleansing and atonement. “I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me”, saith the Lord (Leviticus 10:3). Any who came into the Holy Place the wrong way or at the wrong time was struck dead instantly, and therefore, the High Priest’s coming forth out of the tabernacle after entering the Most Holy Place was proof that the offering had been accepted and sins atoned for for another year. Only he could perform the work, so if he failed or was unable to carry out the task, the whole nation would not be atoned for.

In atoning for the people, a very visual representation of this “putting away of sin” was involved. Two goats were to brought into the camp: one was to be for Lord and the other was called the scapegoat. These two goats had to be identical in as many ways as possible. They had to be of the same look, size, and value as they were supposed to represent one and the same animal. Lots were cast for the animals, and the animal that fell to the Lord was to be offered as a sin offering.

Once this was done, the Priest would then place his hand on the head of the living goat and confess over it the sins of Israel, and the animal was then sent “by a fit man into the wilderness” where it would live (Leviticus 16:21). This was a very different thing than would normally happen. Typically, once sins were confessed over an animal, that animal was to be killed as it bore the sin. Animal sacrifice was instituted in Eden to provisionally satiate the requirement of the Edenic law. Placing the hand on the animals head and confessing sins over it “transferred”, in a sense, the sins to the animal, and the animal was then slain. Its death acted as a temporary covering of the sin and hard lesson that sin was worthy of death. Yet here with the scapegoat, however, the goat lived and was led without the camp. There was therefore a visual representation and foreshadowing of Israel’s sins being removed from the nation.

The Jews have perverted many of the feasts throughout the years, but probably none so much as that of Yom Kippur. One instance of this is seen with the scapegoat. Sometimes, particularly if the goat was not led far enough away, the goat would wander back to the camp, and the Jews saw this as the reappearance of their sins. Therefore, in Christ’s day, they would give the goat into the hands of a non-Israelite, and they would set up 10 stations each with its own transporter. One would lead the goat to the next station where the next person would lead it to the following station. This allowed them to take the goat far away without any one person travelling too far and breaking the sabbath. But the last person would not simply let the goat go into the wilderness. To prevent it from coming back, they would throw it backwards over a cliff so it died. This was not commanded in the law and should not have been done (Leviticus 16:26).

There are various thoughts on why the scapegoat was to be kept alive but led into another land. Its removal from the camp certainly showed that their sins had been removed from them, but the fact that the animal was still alive seems to me to show two things: one relates to the insufficiency of the Law of Moses, and the other to represent the fact of being alive after sin.

As to the first, it seems to teach Israel that while their sins had been atoned for, their sins still existed out there somewhere as “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4, 9:26, 10:1). The most it could do is cover them, so the fact that the goat was alive, but not among Israel, seems to teach that their sins would not be accounted to them, but they were not fully blotted out. For that to be the case, it would seem that the animal that was slain should have had the sins confessed over it and the living goat let go.

Yet the higher purpose appears to relate directly to Christ’s death and resurrection. The goats were to show the death and resurrection of Christ, and it was necessary that two identical goats be used as it wasn’t possible to resurrect the slain goat. We then have a figure of the death of an individual and the resurrection of that individual who bore the sins of the nation, but continued to live. This unquestionably points to Christ.

In conjunction with this idea of the putting away of sins, it makes sense that the year of jubilee was only to be proclaimed on the day of atonement, and this was brought in by the blowing of the trumpet (Leviticus 25:4-13).

Tabernacles (Sukkot) – Leviticus 23:33-44, Exodus 23:16

The final and most joyous feast of the year was that of tabernacles, and this took place on the 15th day of the seventh month. It’s interesting that passover (the first feast) and that of tabernacles (the last feast) both started on the 15th day of the month – one in the first month of the year and one in the seventh which was called “the end of the year” as it related to the end of the agricultural year (Exodus 23:16).

The very timing of this feast is suggestive of great things. The 15th marks the halfway point in the month, and it’s on this day that the moon is at its fullest. This was also when they had gathered in the fruit of the land (like grapes) and is therefore called “the feast of ingathering” (Exodus 23:16, 34:22, Deuteronomy 16:13). It’s also sometimes simply called “the feast” (1 Kings 8:2, 2 Chronicles 5:3-14, 7:8-9). All crops had now been stored, and the land only awaited the latter rains to soften the earth for a new crop.

This feast was to take place for seven days, the first of which was to be a holy convocation where no work was to be done. Offerings were to be made by fire for the first seven days, and the eighth day was to be another holy convocation and sabbath.

The day of atonement was to be a day of affliction, but the feast of tabernacles was all about rejoicing before the Lord. They were commanded,

Leviticus 23:40 – 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.

Those born Israelites were to build booths out of these trees. These temporary dwellings were to remind them of how God made them to dwell in booths when they came out of Egypt (Leviticus 23:43). Some of the boughs and branches were also to be waved in unison before the temple with adults and children alike shaking them in every direction at a set time.

All of Israel, along with the strangers in their borders, were to come up to Jerusalem to learn:

Deuteronomy 31:10-13 – And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, (11) When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. (12) Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law: (13) And that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.

This feast was not only about rejoicing in God, but in His law.

The number 7 is all over this last feast. It was in the 7th month, lasted for 7 days, and most sacrifices were divisible by 7 (something that was not true of other feasts). From the very beginning of creation, this number has signified completion.

The offerings made during this feast are telling. On each day, a specific number of bulls, goats, and sheep were to be offered. Numbers 28:12-39 records them as follows:

1st day – 13 bullocks, 2 rams, 14 lambs. Meat offerings were to be made as well along with 1 goat kid for a sin offering.

2nd day – 12 bullocks while all other offerings remained the same.

3rd day - 11 bullocks while all other offerings remained the same.

It continued in this manner, each day decreasing the number of bulls by one until the 7th day when 7 bulls were offered. On the 8th day, they were to hold a solemn assembly and offer 1 bull, 1 ram, 7 lambs with their meat offerings and 1 goat kid for a sin offering.

In total for the first 7 days, 70 bulls, 14 rams, 98 lambs, and 7 goat kids had been offered. What’s interesting is that it appears that these offerings were not for Israel as they were already atoned for five days prior on Yom Kippur. These offerings had to do with the nations, and we’ll talk about that more in a little bit.

Lastly, we find that it’s specifically recorded that this feast was held during the time of Solomon (2 Chronicles 5:2-7:22).

2 Chronicles 5:3, 7:8-10 – …all the men of Israel assembled themselves unto the king in the feast which was in the seventh month… (7:8) Also at the same time Solomon kept the feast seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt. (9) And in the eighth day they made a solemn assembly: for they kept the dedication of the altar seven days, and the feast seven days. (10) And on the three and twentieth day of the seventh month he sent the people away into their tents, glad and merry in heart for the goodness that the LORD had shewed unto David, and to Solomon, and to Israel his people.

The reason they did this was because the temple had been finished and they were bringing up the Ark of the Covenant so the Lord could dwell in the new temple (2 Chronicles 5:1).

The Fulfilment of the Fall Feasts

Let us now see what these wondrous “set times” were created to teach and foreshadow. As already mentioned, we see a big hint in the fact that the spring feasts were all fulfilled at Christ’s first coming which was followed by a long span of no feasts. Then, once the fall beast began, they took place in close order to one another. All of these things quickly help us to see that the fall feasts have to do with Christ’s second coming. The fact that these three “set times” all occur in the seventh month is no coincidence, for again, this was a sabbatical month – a month of rest. These feasts correlate to the seven-thousandth year when Christ returns, establishes the Kingdom, and begins his reign on earth.

Trumpets

As we mentioned earlier, the timing of the feasts was specifically ordained by God, and each was to be kept “on his day” as it was particularly important. The feast of trumpets started on the first day of the seventh month, and it therefore marked the beginning of a new, and specifically sabbatical month. Does this not speak to the beginning of the new, sabbath age of Christ on the earth? It’s interesting too that while the seventh month was the end of Israel’s agricultural and religious year, it was also the beginning of Israel’s civil year. This seems to suggest the blending of civil and religious.

Government today is very much so about the separation of church and state, but as we know, the Kingdom which Christ will establish will be a theocratic monarchy – a Kingship based on religion. God’s law will not simply be the religious law, but will be the law of the land just how the Law of Moses was to be the law for Israel in all matters. As the feast of trumpets represents both the religious and civil year, it teaches that this will mark the beginning of when the two will be blended forever. It therefore clearly refers to the return of Jesus Christ to the earth.

We find this taught in many places. In Numbers 10:1-10, we learn about all of the different uses of the trumpet. One of the most important functions was that of gathering Israel, and we find that the purpose of this feast was to teach Israel about the return of Christ and his call to gather his saints together for judgment, for these actions will be announced by the sound of a trumpet, specifically the long, final blast of the feast: the last trump.

Matthew 24:30-31 – And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (31) And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 – For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: (17) Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

1 Corinthians 15:52 – In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

Have you ever wondered why these passages always mention a trumpet, and why specifically the last trump? We now see why: it’s because it relates to the fulfillment of the feast of trumpets. The “last trump” of the feast was the longest, loudest trumpet blast. What’s amazing is that we find that the very first feast of trumpets at the time of the Exodus taught of the gathering of the saints and the descent of the Lord. Exodus 19, the place where the word “trumpet” first appears in the Bible, records when Israel was gathered before Mount Sinai to prepare for the Lord to descend upon it. Note the events and what kind of trumpet blast we find there:

Exodus 19:13, 17 – There shall not an hand touch it (the Mount), but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount… (16) And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. (17) And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount.

The trumpet Israel heard was the last trump, the long-sounding, exceeding loud trumpet blast. The entire account of Israel before the mount is a figure of the gathering of the saints before Christ for judgment, and the feast of trumpets was instituted to teach and remind Israel of this. The beauty of the figure it is difficult to express. The Lord even came down in fire which is the symbol for judgment. We find all of these same elements in another passage which is specifically about the return of Christ and the gathering of the saints:

Psalms 50:3-5 – Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. (4) He shall call (by use of the trumpet) to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. (5) Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.

Here, the Lord comes down with accompanied by fire, precisely how God descended on Sinai. He calls throughout the earth to GATHER his saints, the gathering being announced by the trumpet as we learned from multiple New Testament passages. It was also the loud trumpet which summoned Moses and the people “to meet with God”. And who was gathered? Those who were delivered by the blood of the passover lamb in Egypt – those that had made a covenant with God by sacrifice. The mixed multitude of Israel before Sinai was a figure of the saints standing before the mount for judgment.

This feast therefore marks the dawn of the new age under Christ, the new moon showing rebirth and renewal, and from that point forward, the moon begins to increasingly reflect more and more light of the sun, showing that Christ’s rule will begin on that day and grow from thence on.

There are some other uses of the trumpets in the Kingdom Age (Revelation 11:15) just as they were used in the other feasts as well, but the feast of trumpets specifically relates to Christ’s coming and the judgment.

Atonement

If the feast of trumpets relates to the coming of Christ and the gathering and judgment of the saints, then what might the day of atonement represent? As it takes place after the feast of trumpets (gathering of the saints), we know it must shortly follow after that event and relate to the Kingdom Age as well. We note that this takes place on the 10th day of the month, so there are 9 days between trumpets and atonement.

It was with this feast that the priest offered first for himself, then for the tabernacle, and then for the nation of Israel. As we sit this day, Christ has already offered for himself and cleansed us in the primary sense (his Brethren, the tabernacle) although we currently await the redemption of the body, but Israel must still be cleansed. While Yom Kippur certainly has relation to our full atonement after the judgment seat in some form, I believe it more specifically relates to Israel’s national atonement. Here’s why:

This was the most somber, yet important, feast of the year as Israel had to afflict themselves and fully face their sins if they were to have them atoned for. It’s reiterated multiple times that they were to “afflict” themselves, the word meaning “to depress, abase self, afflict” (Strong’s H6031). It was a painful process, but once they did this and the offerings were made, they were cleansed in the sight of the Lord. This was national atonement.

With the events following Christ’s return, we understand that once he has his multitudinous bride, the next thing they will do is march to Jerusalem to save Israel from their Arab enemies (Habakkuk 3:13). Zechariah 12-13:6 records these events in wonderful chronological order. What we find is that the Arab armies attack Israel (12:2), Christ and the saints appear to Israel’s salvation (12:5-8, 14:5), and once the Psalm 83 nations are destroyed, we find the moment when Israel is brought face to face with their greatest sin:

Zechariah 12:10-13 – And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: 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 his firstborn. (11) In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. (12) And the land shall mourn, every family apart…

Israel will finally acknowledge that they crucified their Messiah and have been ignorance ever since, but with their affliction and repentance comes the forgiveness and cleansing. Chapter 13 begins,

Zechariah 13:1 – 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.

This marks the time when Israel, God’s chosen nation, is reconciled to Him through Christ forever. Never again will Israel slide backwards. Never again will they follow other gods. This will be the time the Lord will make a new covenant with Israel which will be written in theirs heart. In this next passage, you’ll see all of these elements we’ve mentioned about them recognizing Christ and their sins being completely forgiven:

Jeremiah 31:31-34 – Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: (32) Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: (33) But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. (34) And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

This is the day of atonement – when Israel’s sins are forgiven and forever put away from them.

As Christ’s return to Israel involves him destroying Israel’s enemies, this also just so happens to mark the moment when the land promised to Abraham is finally inherited, for the Psalm 83 nations comprise this very plot! God’s land will return to its rightful owner. We therefore see that the concepts of cleansing Israel and inheriting the promised land are tied together and are accomplished by the same event.

Many of us are familiar with the jubilee. This was every 50th year in Israel, and it was the time in which everything was to return to its rightful owner and all debts were to be wiped clean and forgiven (Leviticus 25:8-17). It’s no coincidence that the Law of Moses dictated that this year of jubilee could only to be proclaimed on the day of atonement!

Leviticus 25:9-10, 23 – Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. (10) And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family… (23) The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine.

The jubilee, the day of atonement – both of these things were instituted and intertwined to teach Israel about this future event when Christ would save Israel, cleanse them of their sins, and obtain his inheritance as the promised seed of Abraham!

On another point with this feast, we see it reiterated that Israel must repent and be humbled before Christ appears to them. Anyone who did not afflict themselves on Yom Kippur was to be killed (Leviticus 23:29), and the same must therefore be true of Israel in the future. We find this kind of action taking place after Israel is cleansed:

Zechariah 13:2 – And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.

In order for Christ to cleanse them, they must acknowledge all of their sins and turn to him. This, we understand, will be accomplished with the Psalm 83 war when they are forced to turn to Christ.

Tabernacles

In seeing what the feast of trumpets and the day of atonement point to, it’s quite clear what the feast of tabernacles was designed to teach and why it was the last feast of the year. We are simply too short on time to even do a remote amount of justice to it, but we’ll cover a few major points.

Yom Kippur was on the 10th day of the seventh month, and the feast of tabernacles was on the 15th day. This was when the moon is at its fullest and the reflects the maximum amount of light from the sun. It speaks to the time when the light of God’s word will fully illuminate the darkness of the earth. This feast ran for seven days, and this was to show that it represented the entire reign of Christ. It is the feast of tabernacles, also called the feast of dwellings, and it is the time when the Lord will personally dwell and tabernacle among men.

Of all of the fall feasts, this one is specifically named as being observed in the Kingdom Age:

Zechariah 14:16-19 – 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. (17) And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. (18) And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. (19) This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.

We see that this is in perfect keeping with timing and consistency, for just two verses back in Zechariah 14:14, the time is recorded when Israel will gather the spoil of the Psalm 83 nations, and we saw that this occurs on or shortly after the day of atonement. The prophesies are therefore consistent: tabernacles is after atonement.

Another place we read of this feast in the Kingdom is in

Isaiah 25:6-8 – And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. (7) And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. (8) He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.

It is this prophecy which John cites in

Revelation 21:3-4 – And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. (4) And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

We see that this includes all nations conquered by Christ, and that will eventually include every nation on earth. This will be the feast of the Kingdom Age, and it will take place from then on not on the 15th of Tishri, but on a monthly and weekly basis:

Isaiah 66:23 – And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD.

It won’t be possible for every nation to come up at once to keep this feast simply because they would not all fit in the land, so it makes sense that they will take turns throughout the course of the year to come up.

We’re given even further glimpses of this feast’s fulfilment in prophecy. Recall that Israel was commanded in Deuteronomy 31:12-13 to “Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law: (13) And that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God.” This is precisely what we find of the future age when all nations flow to Jerusalem:

Psalms 48:10-13 – According to thy name, O God, so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth: thy right hand is full of righteousness. (11) Let mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments. (12) Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. (13) Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following.

The nations are brought to Jerusalem, are lead around the Holy City to behold its grandeur and the fact that the Lamb of God reigns there, and they will bring this incredible report back to their homelands once they return to speak of the beauty, glory, and righteousness of the Kingdom, telling it “to the generation following”. The fulfillment will be grand beyond comprehension!

If this were not enough to point to the Kingdom Age, we also have the fact that the feast of tabernacles was specifically observed by King Solomon when they brought the Ark of the Covenant into the Temple (2 Chronicles 5:2-7:22). What better day to bring the Ark of the Covenant into the Temple so God could dwell amongst Israel? Not only that, but they removed the staves of the Ark once placed inside Solomon’s temple to show that the Lord would permanently dwell there (2 Chronicles 5:9). The glory then filled the house so much so that “the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God” (2 Chronicles 5:14).

Christ is the promised seed of David who would sit on his throne, and this makes Solomon the perfect figure of him (2 Samuel 7:12-16). It’s also fitting as there are two phases to Christ’s reign: the Davidic phase when he conquers the land and establishes peace, and the Solomonic phase where perfect peace is maintained and no war occurs AT ALL, but peace and righteousness ensue (1 Kings 4:25 5:4).

We have seen from Scripture that this feast will include all nations, and this might cause us to wonder how such a monumental aspect was shown back when the feast was ordained at Sinai. How are the nations of the world represented in the feast? We find the answer in two things: first in the sin offerings as they are obviously not for Israel as they were just cleansed five days prior on Yom Kippur, and second in the number of animals sacrificed.

Remember that a certain number of animals were slain on each of the seven days of the feast. We could look at all of the different animals, but let’s look just at the bulls for now. Over the course of the week, there were a total of 70 bulls slain. Why 70 of all numbers? It just so happens that 70 is the number of the nations. Genesis 10 records what is called “the table of nations” because it lists all of the nations of the earth at that time. It is the only such list in the Bible, and if you count them, they number 70. The bulls therefore represented offerings for the nations of the world.

Yet there’s more to it when we look at how the bulls were distributed. There are seven days and 70 bulls, and if the number of bulls was the only thing that was important, it’d make sense to simply sacrifice 10 bulls on each day. But this isn’t what was commanded. They started with 13 bulls on the first day, then 12 on the second, then 11 on the third day, and so on, the number of bulls declining by one as each new day progressed. Why is this?

We saw that the seven days of the feast represented the entirety of Christ’s reign. It will be an age of peace in which men will “war no more”, meaning never again (Isaiah 2:4). Once completely subdued, we’re told that those remaining of the nations will not rebel, but will realize their folly:

Jeremiah 16:19 – …the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.

The nations are shown as coming up to Jerusalem from year to year worship and learn. As the Kingdom Age progresses, more and more righteousness ensues as “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). We therefore read of Christ’s rule and government,

Isaiah 9:7 – Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Once Christ sits on the throne of David, his government will only continue increase, and once the nations have been subdued, there will be no end to peace. Instead of the nations being described as “the sea and the waves roaring” (Luke 21:25) as we see them now, we find the nations finally tranquil under Christ’s rule:

Revelation 15:2-4 – And I saw as it were (not “the sea and waves roaring”, but) a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. (3) And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. (4) Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.

Once the nations are conquered and the Lord’s judgments are made manifest in the earth, the nations will be so peaceful that the ocean of nations looks as smooth as glass. Therefore, as the Kingdom Age progresses and the nations continue to learn and worship, they will require less sin offerings as they will sin less and less. That is the purpose behind them coming up from one new moon to the next to worship and learn.

It is these wonderful things which we find taught in the declining number of bulls sacrificed on each day. This is why it starts with 13 bulls and ends with 7 on the seventh day and only 1 on the eighth day. It teaches of the endlessness of peace and the gradual cleansing of sin and evil throughout the planet.

Some believe that there will be a great rebellion at the end of the 1,000 years, but the passages we’ve read about there being war no more and there being no end to the increase and peace of Christ’s reign speak against this. Also, when considering the offerings of this feast, we find that it does not fit the pattern here either, for if there was a great rebellion at the end, we’d imagine that the last day of the feast (representing the end of the 1,000 years) would have a larger number of offerings than the days preceding it. What we find is the opposite.

The eighth and last day of the feast does indeed show the end of the millennial reign and the beginning of the eighth-thousandth year which will commence after the ultimate victory of Christ over all enemies, sin and death included. The eighth day of the feast was a sabbath of rest (Leviticus 23:36). As the eighth day is also the first day of the next week since there are only seven days in a week, it marks a new beginning as well. This correlates to the unspeakable time when God himself will come down and dwell with man (Revelation 21:1-4). This whole process we’ve been discussing is explained in

1 Corinthians 15:24-26, 28 – Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. (25) For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. (26) The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death… (28) And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

Once sin and death itself are a fact of the past and have no reality in the present, ALL forms and roots of evil will be vanquished. God will then come down and personally tabernacle with man. Is there any greater sabbath of rest than this?

Before we close with final thoughts, there’s one topic I’d like to mention relating to a question I’ve had for a long time which was answered by a study of this final feast. If we go back to the transfiguration (Matthew 17), we find Christ giving Peter, James, and John a vision of “the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:28). In the vision, they see Moses and Elijah who “appeared in glory”, showing that the vision was of post-judgment times (Luke 9:30-31). In such awe of what they were witnessing, Peter said, “Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias” (Matthew 17:4). I’ve always wondered why Peter requested this and believed he simply wanted Moses, Elijah, and Christ to stay in that wondrous moment, but I believe the feast of tabernacles answers this. Peter was thinking of the feast of tabernacles and thought it would be fulfilled right then and there (or he at least wanted it to be).

There are so many other things I wish we had time to consider on these subjects, but we’re short on time. To close, there are a few points I’d like to point out from the feasts as a whole:

Lessons & Meaning of the Feasts

1. The consistency of the Bible and prophecy.

With the feasts, we see the same concepts and progression as we see with the prophecies concerning the latter-day wars. There is perfect harmony. Christ first comes for his saints, then saves and cleanses Israel, and then turns his attention to the judgment of the rest of the nations. It all starts with the Kingdom’s establishment in Israel and expands outwardly from that point.

2. The omniscience of God.

What greater evidence is there of the omniscience of God? These “set times” were revealed back in Moses’s day, and we can clearly see that God knew precisely which day Christ would accomplish each of these things. We can see how the Law of Moses and its various parts truly constituted “a shadow of good things to come” (Hebrews 10:1). It gives clear meaning to what we’re told in Acts 17:31, that “he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness”. Our Father truly knows the end from the beginning.

3. The Timing of Christ’s Return

and perhaps one of the most surprising things I learned, is in relation to the importance of the day of the year all of the feasts were to take place on. The spring feasts were fulfilled by Christ at his first coming on their day without question. As both the spring and falls feasts are the Lord’s “set times” and the springs feast have been demonstrated to be fulfilled on their day, we feel forced to apply this principle to the fall feasts as well and conclude that they will likewise be fulfilled on their day.

One question that arises in my mind from this is that this would seem to teach that we now know when Christ will return and gather the saints, which would be Tishri 1 and the feast of trumpets. Yet, aren’t we told that we can’t know the day or hour of his coming? The passages we learn this from are Matthew 24:36, 25:13, and Mark 13:32 (a parallel passage). We wonder, why would the Lord tell us what day He would gather the saints but also tell us that we can’t know the day?

It’s true that we certainly don’t know the year, but what is specifically called out is that we won’t know the day or hour. If you remember, this is a phrase which is specifically related to the feast of trumpets and the beginning of that feast. It had to take place on the new moon, and as it could be hard to tell when this occurred, the Jews put many checks in place to ensure that their conclusion was correct. The result of this was that the feast could start at any point on one of two days, and it was therefore literally true of this feast that they never knew the day or the hour it would begin until the trumpet was sounded to announce its inauguration. As the feast of trumpets was the feast that nobody knew what day or hour it would begin on, this phrase appears to be an idiom for the feast of trumpets. The verses would still teach that we do not know the specific day or hour, but if we interpret the passages to mean, “Nobody has any clue when Christ will return,” this seems to make the passage say too much. Christ could have used any words he chose, and there is a reason he chose the two time measurements of days and hours which just so happens to be the only two unknown time frames of the feast of trumpets.

Having examined the Scriptural evidence, I personally find it difficult to evade the conclusion that each fall feast will be fulfilled on their days simply due to the fact that the spring feasts were fulfilled on their days. To not follow this pattern we have been shown to be true with the spring feasts breaks the mold and presents significant difficulties in my mind. Questions arise like, Why would God fulfill the spring feasts on their specific days but not make it so for the fall feasts, particularly when there’s no principle given for us to base that conclusion on? It is not as if the Bible makes distinctions between the spring feasts and fall feasts and asks us to treat them differently. They are all the Lord’s “set times” and are treated the same. The only difference is that some have been fulfilled and others have not. If we go strictly by what the Scriptures say and show concerning the feasts, we face a rock-solid conclusion. But, as with all Bible study, we have an imperative responsibility to take our findings and look to the rest of the Bible to either confirm or negate this conclusion. Aside from the three New Testament verses we just mentioned, I find no Scriptural principle which would cause me to conclude that no one truly has any idea when Christ will return. Let us briefly consider these passages and see if the context allows them to refer to the feast of trumpets. The first is

Matthew 24:35-39 – Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. (36) But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. (37) But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. (38) For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, (39) And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Mark 13:32 is a parallel passage of this one, so these two will be considered at the same time. The return of Christ is likened to the flood on Noah’s day. We note that it says that they “knew not until the flood came”, but if we read carefully, we notice that this is not referring to Noah and his family, but the people of the world. It was the people of the world who were eating, drinking, giving in marriage until Noah entered the ark, and it was them who didn’t know when the flood was coming until it was too late.

Did Noah and his family have no idea when the flood would come? I believe they had a very good idea. Right before we are introduced to Noah at the beginning of the flood account, Genesis 6:3 records God saying, “My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” I used to believe that this referred to the lifespan reduction of man, but study has shown this to be untenable (a subject for another time, but let it suffice to say that man lived long beyond this span for centuries afterwards, and Psalm 90:10 contradicts this span of 120 by saying “The days of our years are threescore years and ten (70 years); and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years (80 years)”). I find this span of 120 years to refer to the amount time until the flood would be sent on the earth. God appeared to Noah 120 years before the flood and gave him instruction to build the ark, and he had about 120 years to build it and preach to his condemned neighbors. We find these elements revealed to us in

1 Peter 3:20 – Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

Noah is also called “a preacher of righteousness” in 2 Peter 2:5, indicating that he also used the time to warn the people in the event that they would repent. It is similar to God’s declaration over Nineveh in Jonah’s time as God issued the threat and gave a timeframe, only that instance had a better outcome. The prophet Jonah told the people of Nineveh,

Jonah 3:4-5, 10 – And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. (5) So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them… (10) And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

Therefore, I conclude that Noah and his family knew that the flood would occur in 120 years, and he used this time to build the ark and warn the other people in the hopes they’d repent. Noah therefore had a general idea of when the flood would come, but certainly did not know the day or hour. A similar thing was true of the feast of trumpets. The general timing was known, but not the specific day or hour.

But what of the fact that “not even the angels” know the day or hour, but God only? I do not find this to interfere with our interpretation at all. Regardless of how we interpret it, we’re told that only God knows the precise moment of Christ’s return. I see nothing which rules out “not knowing the day or hour” being a reference to the feast of trumpets through an idiom.

The second passage relates to the parable of the 10 virgins about the coming of Christ and the preparedness or lack thereof of his saints. It concludes,

Matthew 25:13 – Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.

The reason the foolish virgins were unprepared is because they became lazy and did not keep their supply of oil up for their lamps. The wise virgins had oil for their lamps. These were needed because the groom would typically come for his bride in the middle of the night to surprise her and take her to their wedding. Once a man and woman were engaged, the man would begin building their home. Once this once done to his father’s satisfaction, he could then go and retrieve his fiancé. Is it possible to apply our concept of the feast of trumpets to this?

It seems more difficult, but I believe yes. We might wonder why the wise virgins had oil at that time. It is ideal that they should always have oil as that is truly the wise thing to do, and that is the answer I believe we ought to reach. However, there are some things to consider. Since the customs of marriage were well known, the woman knew the day on which her partner asked for her hand in marriage. She also knew that he had the task of building their home. This could certainly have been done slowly or quickly depending on the competence of the man, but it seems likely that the woman would get a sense of when they were getting closer. It’s therefore plausible that the wise women would always have oil for their lamps, but they were even more sure to have it as construction time ran long and she began expecting her husband.

With this subject of a marriage, we find another instance of a Hebrew idiom. In the earlier passage of Matthew 24:36, it was said that “of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” If someone were to ask the groom who was in the process of building the home for him and his wife, the groom’s answer would have been, “Ask my father. Only he knows.” As the groom had to have his father’s approval that their new home was finished to his satisfaction before he retrieved his wife, it was true that only his father knew the day and hour. This was supposedly a common idiom in early days.

There are other things which must be considered, but let it suffice for now to say that I certainly do not find anything which outright negates the principle we have been discussing. More study is required. For a little more reading on this particular subject, check out this short article from FaithWriters: NO ONE KNOWS THE DAY OR HOUR, A HEBREW IDIOM.

It must be acknowledged that since the fall feasts have not been fulfilled yet, it is possible that they will not be fulfilled on those precise days, yet it must be personally admitted this is not the conclusion the Scriptures lead us to, but one we reach from personal doubts (in my findings). It appears to me to be far easier to accept the conclusion we’ve found than to answer the many questions which arise from its rejection, but, each student must take it for what they will and consider it in their own study. Either way, we should always be ready for Christ’s return.

Anyways, to the final lesson we’ll mention from the feast:

4. An exhortation for the memorial table

Knowing what lofty and beautiful things these feasts represent, we can see why the Lord was so angry with Israel for their lack of understanding and sincerity. We can understand His condemnation of Israel as recorded in

Isaiah 1:13-14 – Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. (14) Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

What was intended to exhort, educate, and encourage was misused and abused to the extent that the Lord detested their observance of it. They were simply going through the motions and missing the entire point.

We can’t help but apply this same principle to the memorial table today. All of the spring feasts were fulfilled at Christ’s coming except for the passover, the feast from which our memorial service originates. These emblems of the bread and wine point both to the past when our Lord offered himself and the future when he will be in our midst. Yet just like Israel and the feasts, this is something which we partake of regularly. Do we ever simply go through the motions and miss the point of what we’re doing? Are we ever like Israel and subconsciously think that the mere performing of the actions constitutes righteousness? Would the Lord ever say to us of our breaking of the bread each week, “Bring no more offerings. Drink no more bread or wine. Your memorial service my soul hateth, they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them”? It is something to consider, and a thing I know I am guilty of.

Yet, that is why we come to the memorial table each first day of the week. We’re commanded to partake and examine ourselves and discern his body. And just as Israel’s keeping of the feasts showed the wondrous things the Lord will accomplish in the earth, so our partaking of this bread and wine shows Christ’s death until he come.

What wondrous things we have been offered a part in, and the reason this is available to us is because God was gracious enough to institute a program of redemption, and our Lord Jesus offered himself as a representative of the race so that any who seek this redemption might be able to obtain. May our Lord come quickly to fulfil the remaining feasts, and may we each be so blessed to have a part in them, Lord willing! “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).

In the One Hope of Israel,

Tanner Hawkins

To learn more about the feasts, I recommend some of the following materials. Much of the information in this article about the fulfillment of these feasts will not be found in these works, but there is a great deal of valuable information in them:

The Law of Moses – Robert Roberts

The Temple – Its Ministry and Services – Aldred Edersheim (non-Christadelphian but excellent)

Law and Grace – W. F. Barling

Offerings and Feasts – F. E. Mitchell

The Feasts of the LORD – Bud Roth – Truth Gleaner Publications