Feast of Tabernacles

         Good morning and Shabbat shalom.  Today we will be celebrating Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles, Feast of Booths, Feast of Ingathering) with friends and family.  For my blog today,  I copied an article from First Fruits of Zion, which explains the traditions of celebration, the meaning of the holiday, and its prophetic meaning.   It is beautiful, and I hope you will take the time to read it.


Tribute to King Messiah

Parasha: Sukkot

Shabbat Chol HaMo'ed Sukkot

שבת חול המועד סכות

Thought for the Week

Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. (Revelation 19:7)

Commentary

You shall celebrate ... the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year. Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel. For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders, and no man shall covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the LORD your God. (Exodus 34:22-24)

The last appointment on God's calendar is the Feast of Booths. The Hebrew name of the festival is Sukkot, a word that means "shelters, stables or huts." These temporary, tent-like structures are often translated as "tabernacles" in our English Bibles. The festival is so named because Israel is commanded to annually build such dwelling places as a reminder of the post-exodus years when they lived in huts and booths, following God in the wilderness.

In Exodus 34, however, the same festival is called "The Feast of Ingathering." Coming at the end of the agricultural cycle in Israel, the festival of Sukkot is harvest festival during with the children of Israel celebrated the harvest and reveled in God's goodness.

Many beautiful traditions are attached to the annual Festival of Booths. For example, it is traditional to invite guests into one's booth for a festive meal each night of the festival. Among the list of invitees are some auspicious names: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron and David. Each one is specially invited to come into the booth and pull up a chair at the table. Obviously, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron and David are unlikely to actually attend the meal, since they are all dead. That, however, is the point of the ritual. The Feast of Booths anticipates the Messianic Age, when the dead will be raised to life again and we will all sit at the table with the aforementioned in the kingdom of heaven.

When Messiah comes, He will bring in the final harvest of God's kingdom and institute an age of peace and prosperity upon the earth. The prophets relate that day to the festival of Sukkot, a day when every man will sit beneath his own vine and fig tree. A tabernacle of glory will be spread over Jerusalem.1

According to the prophets, the Feast of Booths celebrates a time when all nations will ascend to Jerusalem bearing tribute to King Messiah and celebrating the festival.2

Sukkot is the great festival, the culmination of all the appointed times. Sukkot is to the other festivals what the Sabbath is to the other six days of the week. As such it is a fitting foreshadowing of that great celebration of creation when the entire world will live in peace and brotherhood under the reign and rule of the righteous Messiah King. Just as the weekly Sabbath foreshadows the millennium, Sukkot also looks forward to that great age. Therefore, the festival of Sukkot, like all the festivals, foreshadows Messiah.

First Fruits of Zion
PO Box 649
Marshfield, MO 65706-0649 USA
Phone: 417 468 2741      Toll-free: 800 775 4807


                                                                                         Shalom Y'all, Twyla