Continual Rejoicing: The Lesson of the Feast of Tabernacles

Every seventh month the Jews would celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. It was a time of great rejoicing. It’s that way for believer’s in Jesus. Rejoicing in the Lord gives the Christian believer a different perspective of life than what the world offers. Aspect is pivotal.

For example, a Coloradan moved to Texas and built a house with a large picture window from which he could view hundreds of miles of rangeland. “The only problem is,” he said, “there’s nothing to see.” About the same time, a Texan moved to Colorado and built a house with a large picture window overlooking the Rockies. “The only problem is I can’t see anything,” he said. “The mountains are in the way.” Rejoicing in the Lord will bring contentment—no matter where you are or what is happening to you.¹ And this rejoicing should be a continual process. We have the privilege of having our lives by continual rejoicing before our God.

Listen to the Audio

Click Play to Listen | Right Click to Download | Subscribe in Stitcher Radio

#S4-039: How to Use the Name of Jesus to Live A Miracle Life [Podcast]

[Tweet “Hearing, understanding, and obeying that leadership is your pathway to effectiveness.”]

Read the Notes

You can view a basic transcript of this podcast at the bottom of this section.

Accept the Challenge

Each week’s podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put into operation.
This week’s call is:

So, follow the scriptural challenge of rest and rejoicing set forth by the Feast of Tabernacles and by Jesus very words to come unto Him and drink.

Join the Conversation

Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony. Testimony is vital to a believer’s life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11).
This week’s question is:

Question: What lessons have you learned in your walk with God in the area of rest and rejoicing? Please consider leaving your story in the comments section below.

Episode Resources:

You can find additional information on the subject of John’s Gospel in the resources listed below.

About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 40 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 35 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

Subscribe to the Podcast

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe.

Stitcher Radio Google Play

iTunes PlayerFM

Share the Love

If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate it on Stitcher Radio and leave a review. If you have a suggestion for a Bible topic you would like to see taught, or if you have a question, please e-mail me at emery@emeryhorvath.com

Podcast Notes

The Feast of Tabernacles At Hand

John 7:1–2 (ESV) — 1 After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. 2 Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand.

This Feast was one of the three ‘traveling feasts’ of the Jews where every male Jew was to appear before the Lord.

Deuteronomy 16:16 (ESV) — 16 “Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. They shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed.

So, let’s drill down into this Feast of Booths and see what it was all about.

The Feast of Tabernacles: A Joyous Celebration

This Feast was an absolute party to attend in Jesus day.
You talk about rejoicing?
Talk about praising God?
The Feast of Booths, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles, was one of the most joyous celebrations in the Jewish festival cycle.
The Talmud has much to say about the Feast of Tabernacles.
Two books, recorded four hundred years apart, comprise the Talmud.
One of those books, the Mishna was a written book of rulings made by the Rabbis on the Law of God given to Moses.
The second book, the Gemara, was a written book of in-depth discussions on the Mishna or the Rabbi’s rulings.
The Gemara was, therefore, a commentary on a commentary.

The Bible in Your Everyday Life

These ‘Mishna’ rulings covered the whole of life in a Jews contemporary world. The Mishna, however spiritually flawed, had this ‘whole of life’ concept correct.
That’s how you interact with the Word of God in the world you live in.
Use the precepts of the Bible.
They are for your everyday life.
The Jews got that part right.
Spiritual ‘God-breathed life’ should seep into your experience like floodwater finding every crevice.
Real Spirit living isn’t separated by the government dictates of church and state.
Secular culture says that religion is for Sunday’s only and only 1 hour of that Sunday at that.
The Jews didn’t live on an ‘hours synagogue service’ in Bible days or even in this day.
Take a tour of any business staffed by orthodox Hasidic Jews.
You will see that they don’t throw their Yarmulkes aside after synagogue.
No, they take their ‘religion’ with them everywhere they go.
And with that thought, here’s the quote of the day.

Religion in Paul’s Day

…The word “religion” has itself changed meaning. In Paul’s day, “religion” consisted of God-related activities that, along with politics and community life, held a culture together and bound the members of that culture to its divinities and to one another. In the modern Western world, “religion” tends to mean God-related individual beliefs and practices that are supposedly separable from culture, politics, and community life. For Paul, “religion” was woven in with all of life; for the modern Western world, it is separated from it.²

Now the Jews attempt to make the scriptures govern the whole of their life led to error.
They tried to regulate every single little part of life until they took the very life out of God’s Word.
Jewish life became nothing but a legalistic quagmire.
That’s what legalism is; it’s a muddy mess.
Once you step over into this kind of cultic living, all you do is sink further down from the Most High God.
The Bible is a tool for your everyday life.
Some people say it’s a road map to help you get to heaven, but it’s “mega way” more than that.
Behold the wisdom of God in these matters.

Working Out Your Salvation with the Spirits Help

Philippians 2:12 (ESV) — 12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,

Each solitary believer is to work out their salvation.
They are to do that within the boundary of a godly reverence and with a trembling in holy awe of all who God is.
Now, no one can do that for you.
No one can legislate that for you.
The group you belong to can’t do it for you.
Your parents can’t work this all-encompassing salvation lifestyle out for you.
The Spirit of God works in your life, helping you in concert to apply the Lord’s thinking to your situation.
Hearing, understanding, and obeying that leadership is your pathway to effectiveness.
So, here is the Word on this Feast in John chapter seven.

Feast of Tabernacles Happenings

Three of Israel’s feasts occurred in October.
These three ‘Fall feasts’ took place over two weeks.
They are in order, on the 1st day of the month, the feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, on the 10th of the month, and the Feast of Tabernacles, on the 15th of the month.
The Feast of Tabernacles or Booths took place five days after the Day of Atonement.
The Day of Atonement was a solemn feast of fasting and self-denial unto the Lord where Israel’s sins from the previous year were brought to the forefront.
It was a day where the scapegoat took all their transgressions from out into the wilderness.
Five days later, this judgment for yearly sins turns into a vast eight-day festival of rejoicing called the Feast of Tabernacles.

The Feast of Tabernacles and Dwelling in Booths

The signature feature of this Feast was Israel’s erecting of dwellings made of branches.
The Jews would put these dwellings, or booths, or tabernacles, on their rooftops.
Israelites would have them in the streets, and even by the side of the roads outside Jerusalem.³
God’s purpose for having His people live in these booths during this feast was to remind them of His saving power during the Exodus.
He never wanted His people to presume His power.
Don’t ever take God’s workings and miracles in your life for granted.
These booths made out of branches is what Israel lived in after God delivered them from the land of Egypt.
So, year after year, the festival commemorated God’s Holy miracle-working power.

Dancing and Music

And so, the people would show their appreciation to God and they would do it with dancing.
And not only dancing but with music.
The Jews showered the Lord with the sounds of flute players who lit up the airways with notes of deliverance.
Here’s a reference quote out of the Mishnah.

Flute playing is for five or six days… They said: Anyone who has not seen the rejoicing of bet hashshoebah in his life has never seen rejoicing.

But, that’s not all Israel engaged in, dancing and music.

The Feast of Tabernacles and Candles

They poured out oil, like 20 to 40 liters of it, into bowls for candles.
And then they would light these candles until light poured forth in a flood of brilliant candle power.
The Mishnah again gives us some background.

And there was not a courtyard in Jerusalem which was not lit up from the light of bet hashshoebah.

Then, individual devout Israelites would do a special ‘flaming torches’ dance.
So, you have singing; you have praising, you have dancing, you have a light show.
But that’s not all; we’re talking about rejoicing here.

The Levites and the Shofar

The Levities then came to the forefront.
They got into the act.
They jumped in with harps, lyres, cymbals, trumpets, and musical instruments.
And one unique instrument, the great shofar.
The shofar was a ram’s horn used in military application.
It was the most majestic sounding instrument.
With a triumphant sound, it would echo into the morning air.
So here is this procession, they get to the Temple steps.
And as they climb those steps and get to step number ten, they sound the shofar.
When they reach the courtyard, they sound another bellowing blast on the shofar.
They go on sounding the shofar this way until they reach the east gate of the Temple.
All in all, the shofar blasts out into the desert Jerusalem air a total of twenty-one times.
So, we have had music, dancing with fire, a light show and the musical band of Levites and the shofar.
But there’s more.

The Feast of Tabernacles and the Quoting of Psalms

Every morning a procession would start singing some of the Hallel psalms.
So among the 150 Psalms in the Book of Psalms, there are several that include the phrase ‘Praise the Lord.’
That’s a Hallel psalm; you know short for Hallelujah.
Now, every Hallel psalm doesn’t have that phrase ‘Praise the Lord,’ but they have that concept of praise.
For example, look at Psalm 113.

Psalm 113 1–9 (ESV) — 1 Praise the LORD! Praise, O servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD! 2 Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and forevermore! 3 From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the LORD is to be praised! 4 The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens! 5 Who is like the LORD our God, who is seated on high, 6 who looks far down on the heavens and the earth? 7 He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, 8 to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. 9 He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the LORD!

That’s one of the Hallel Psalms.
Here’s a list of the rest of them: Psalm 104–106, 111–118, 120–136, and 146–150.
So reading from a group of these Psalms took place during this Feast.
The ones they read during the Feast of Tabernacles was Psalm 113–118.
But again, that’s not all.

The Feast of Tabernacles and the Carrying of Fruit and Tree Branches

Add to what we have already covered the procession carried tree branches and fruit.

Leviticus 23:40 (ESV) — 40 And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.

And, that’s still not all.

The Liquid Offering

The procession also made a pit stop at the Pool of Siloam.
There they drew out a golden flask of water: a flask is about one and a half pints.
They took that water and poured it out at the altar as a liquid offering unto God.
The technical term for this liquid offering is a libation, unto God.
So, I keep saying so, because there’s more.
Israel has engaged in beautiful music, dancing with fire, a light show, the mighty shofar, the holy Hallel psalms and now this liquid offering from the Pool of Siloam; all of it unto the Lord.
They’re not finished yet.

The Feast of Tabernacles and Sacrifices

Now, comes the animal sacrifices.
Look at the number of these sacrifices for this Feast of Tabernacles.

Numbers 29:13 (ESV) — 13 And you shall offer a burnt offering, a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the LORD, thirteen bulls from the herd, two rams, fourteen male lambs a year old; they shall be without blemish;

Thirteen bullocks, two rams, one goat, and fourteen lambs take their turn on the altar as a sacrifice to God.
So, you have to add the sacrificial shedding of blood to the list of Feast happenings.
Man, can you see that there’s a mega volume of happenings going on at the Feast of Tabernacles?
The Jews are quoting scripture.
They are lighting candles and pouring out oil and water.
The Festival adherents are sacrificing animals, playing musical instruments, and dancing.
These people are having a great time in God, remembering His power to the nation.
Now, here’s the thing you should remember.
This power-packed praise ceremony described above, all of it, took place on day one of the Feast.
The Feast of Tabernacles is an eight-day feast.
This continual rejoicing goes on all week long.

The Middle of the Feast of Tabernacles

Something happens right in the middle of this particular version of this feast.

John 7:14 (ESV) — 14 About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching.

While the Jews are quoting the Word, the living Word goes into the Temple to teach the Word.
Get this; this is one of the biggest festivals on the Jewish calendar.
The crowds are massive, and what does the Spirit of God do on this platform?
He comes forth with teaching from the immaculate lips of the Son of God.
What’s the lesson?
No matter what, even amid Spirit-led celebration, put the Word first.
Now, this was the middle of the Feast.
Fast forward now a couple of days to the end of the feast.
Remember that water from the Pool of Siloam poured out at the base of the altar as a liquid offering unto God?
Keep that in mind.

The Last Day of the Feast of Tabernacles

The last day of the Feast of Tabernacles was the eight-day.
It was a day of rest like the first day.

Leviticus 23:35 (ESV) — 35 On the first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work.

“Ordinary work” is work not associated with a holy day.
So, this entire first day of dancing and music, and candles and sacrifices, none of that registers as work.
But, it is the water that you need to clue into.
Every day during the prior week, the base of the altar got wet with the liquid offering from the Pool of Siloam.
But on last day they did not pour this water offering out.
Instead, what took place for this particular Feast on this single day in Jewish history, Jesus steps forward and says these words.

Jesus Declaration on the Last Day of the Feast of Tabernacles

John 7:37–39 (ESV) — 37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

On the last day, Jesus says to the crowd who saw the water poured out if you want some “real water come to me.”
Wow, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.”
That is, “Come and get a drink from me that you cannot receive anywhere else.”
Everyone who went to the altar of the Law came away from that altar thirsty.
Every Jew came away with that hollow ‘dry’ feeling described in Hebrews ten.

Hebrews 10:1–2 (ESV) — 1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?

So, five days they offered sacrifices on the Day of Atonement, one blood-soaked sacrifice after another, and the consciousness of sin is still there.

The Sin Consciousness

A sense that gnaws away like a rat chewing on wood.
Apart from Christ, you can’t shake the sense; you can only bury it.
And, that’s what people do shroud the sin consciousness through work, pleasure, or pure busyness.
What is all of this but activities that create noise?
A distracting something so intense that it drowns out the heart.
But, it doesn’t work, you can’t get away from it.
For as soon as you get quite, there it is that negative inside perception that you did something wrong.
You can’t shake it with animal sacrifices; the Jews found that out.
Even the High priest who had his yearly face to face with the Presence, experienced this inner conflict.
So, the Jews are rejoicing, yes, but it’s all exterior.
The happenings of the Feast don’t go to the heart.
There is no heart elevation.
The sacrifices of animal flesh yield to only dance in the flesh.
Operating in the flesh is never the Jesus way.
The Jesus way of continual rejoicing is to rejoice in the Spirit.
He said so in John four twenty-four.
The dance should be a dance in the Spirit from an overflowing heart.
Meaning what exactly?
That worship should be in partnership with the Holy Spirit of God.
The command in the Bible is an uncomplicated two words.

1 Thessalonians 5:16 (KJV) — 16 Rejoice evermore.

The synonym for ‘evermore’ in the King James is always.
Rejoice always.
The Greek has it as always, at all times; and on every occasion.

What Are the Benefits of Continual Rejoicing?

So, what are the benefits of obeying God’s Word in the area of continual rejoicing?
Proverbs seventeen gives us a clue.

Proverbs 17:22 (ESV) — 22 A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Joy within will cure what ails you.
We can say it this way, happy on the inside means healthy on the outside.
It always works that way with healing, health, and wholeness.
It all starts within.
Get your insides right, and your outsides will follow suit.
But, don’t forget the rest part of health and wholeness.
A day of rest was book-ended on either side of the Feast of Tabernacles.
It started with a day of rest, and it concluded with a day of rest.
Calm is critical.
Stillness is spiritual.
The warning of scripture is simple.

Psalm 46:10 (KJV) — 10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

#S5-004: How to Escape the Battle of Armageddon [Podcast]

References:

Leadership Ministries Worldwide, Practical Illustrations: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians (Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide, 2001), 118. ↩
Wright, N.T. Paul A Biography, San Fransisco:HarperOne, 2018, pp 3 ↩
Frédéric Godet, Commentary on the Gospel of John: With a Critical Introduction, trans. M. D. Cusin and S. Taylor, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1892), 266. ↩

emeryhorvath.com

Equipping people to pursue God's glory

Continual Rejoicing: The Lesson of the Feast of Tabernacles

Podcast: Light on Life Season 6 Episode 34

by Emery Horvath

Listen to the Audio