All Nations Will Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles

Did you know that one day ALL the nations will celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles?  The first time I read this and it actually sunk it, I was taken aback.  Then the survivors of all the
nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.  If any of the peoples of the earth do no go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, they will have no rain.  If the Egyptian people do not go up and take part,they will have no rain.  The LORD will bring on them the plague he inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.  This will be the punishment of Egypt and the  punishment of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles (Zechariah 14: 16-19 NIV).  To put these verses in context, read Zechariah 14: 1-21 and Zechariah 12: 10.  (See Matthew 16: 27, 24: 30
and 25: 31; Daniel 7: 13-14; and Revelation 21: 23-25 also.)

The Feast of Tabernacles (a.k.a. Feast of Booths, Succoth, Sukkot, Feast of Ingathering) follows Yom Kippur, the most holy day on the Hebrew calendar. Whereas Yom Kippur is a fast, the Feast of Tabernacles is a feast that may have inspired Thanksgiving. The Feast of Tabernacles reflects the fact the Hebrews lived in temporary booths during their forty years in the Wilderness. Like all of the feasts outlined in Leviticus 23, the Feast of Tabernacles is also prophetic, a dress rehearsal foreshadowing a future event.  Many believe that the Feast of Tabernacles foreshadows the Millennial reign of Christ and the Wedding Banquet of Christ and His “Bride” (His followers).  In fact, the sukkah (booth) resembles the chuppah (cuppa) in a Jewish wedding.  The following verses in the Old and New Testaments refer to the Feast of Tabernacles.

The LORD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the LORD’s Feast of Tabernacles begins, and it lasts for seven days. The first day is a sacred assembly; do no regular work. For seven days present offerings made to the LORD by fire, and on the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and present an offering made to the LORD by fire. It is a closing assembly; do not regular work” (Leviticus 23: 33-36 NIV).

“So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the LORD for seven days; the first day is a day of rest, and the eighth day also is a day of rest. On the first day you are to take choice fruit from the trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and poplars, and rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. Celebrate this as a festival to the LORD for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. Live in booths for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in booths so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 23: 39-43, NIV).

“Celebrate the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field” (Exodus 23: 16b NIV).

Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress.  Be joyful at your Feast–you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites, the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns.  For seven days celebrate the Feast to the LORD your God at the place the LORD will choose. For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.  Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles.  No man should appear before the LORD empty-handed.  Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the LORD your God has blessed you (Deuteronomy 16: 13-17 NIV).

On the second day of the month, the heads of all the families, along with the priests and the Levites, gathered around Ezra the scribe to give attention to the words of the Law, which the LORD had commanded through Moses, that the Israelites were to live in booths during the feast of the seventh month and that they should  proclaim this word and spread it throughout their towns and in Jerusalem: “Go out into the hill country and bring back branches from olive and wild olive trees, and from myrtles, palms and shade trees, to make booths”–as it is written.  So the people went out and brought back branches and built themselves booths on their own roofs, in their courtyards, in the courts of the house of God and in the square by the Water Gate and the one by the Gate of Ephraim.  The whole company that had returned from exile built booths and lived in them.   From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this.  And their joy was very great.  Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God.  They celebrated the feast for seven days, and on the eighth day, in accordance with the regulation, there was an assembly (Nehemiah 8: 13-18 NIV).

After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to take his life.  But when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus’ brothers said to him, “You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do.  No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret.  Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.”  For even his own brothers did not believe in him.  Therefore, Jesus told them, “The right time for me has not yet come; for you any time is right.  The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.  You go to the Feast.  I am not yet going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come.”  Having said this, he stayed in Galilee.  However, after his brothers had left for the Feast, he went also, not publicly, but in secret (John 7: 1-10 NIV).

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