Leviticus 23:34-42 Speak to the children of Israel, saying… 1. This feast was to be kept in remembrance of their dwelling in tents in the wilderness. Thus it is expounded here (ver. 43). "That your gone. rations may know," not only by the written history, but by this ocular tradition, that "I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths." Thus it kept in perpetual remembrance(1) the meanness of their beginning, and the low and desolate state out of which God advanced that people. Note — those that are comfortably fixed ought often to call to mind their former unsettled state, when they were but little in their own eyes. (2) The mercy of God to them that when they dwelt in tabernacles, God not only set up a tabernacle for Himself among them, but with the utmost care and tenderness imaginable hung a canopy over them, even the cloud that sheltered them from the heat of the sun. God's former mercies to us and our fathers ought to be kept in everlasting remembrance. The eighth day was the great day of this feast, because then they were returned to their own houses again; and remembered how, after they had long dwelt in tents in the wilderness, at length they came to a happy settlement in the land of promise, where they dwelt in "goodly houses." And they would the more sensibly value and be thankful for the comforts and conveniences of their houses, when they had been seven days dwelling in booths. It is good for those that have ease and plenty sometimes to learn what it is to endure hardness. 2. It was a feast of "ingathering," so it is called (Exodus 23. 16). When they had gathered in the "fruit of their land" (ver. 39), the vintage as well as the harvest, then they were to keep this feast in thankfulness to God for all the increase of the year; and some think that the eighth day of the feast had special reference to this ground of the institution. Note — the joy of harvest ought to be improved for the furtherance of our joy in God. "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof"; and therefore whatever we have the comfort of lie must have the glory of, especially when any mercy is perfected. 3. It was a typical feast. It is supposed by many that our blessed Saviour was born much about the time of this feast; then He left His mansions of light above to "tabernacle among us" (John 1:14), and He dwelt in booths. And the worship of God under the New Testament is prophesied of under the notion of keeping the "Feast of Tabernacles" (Zechariah 14:16). For — (1) The gospel of Christ teacheth us to "dwell in tabernacles," to "sit loose" to this world as those that bare "here no continuing city," but by faith and hope, and a holy contempt of present things, to go out to Christ "without the camp" (Hebrews 13:13, 14). (2) It teaches us to "rejoice before the Lord our God." Those are the circumcision, Israelites indeed, that always "rejoice in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:3). And the more we are taken off from this world the less liable we are to the interruption of our joys. ( Matthew Henry, D. D..) Parallel Verses KJV: Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD. |
    |