Deuteronomy 16:1-8 Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover to the LORD your God… Looking to these festivals separately, we find that a three-fold meaning attaches to each of them — 1. A present meaning in nature; 2. A retrospective meaning in history; and 3. A prospective meaning in grace.Moreover, in each of these three respects the three feasts stand in progressive order: the Passover, the first at once in nature, history, and grace; the Pentecost, in all three respects the second or intermediate; and the Tabernacles, in all three respects the consummation of what has gone before. I. THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER, occurring about the beginning of April. 1. Its natural meaning was necessarily an afterthought or addition of the wilderness legislation. Looking forward to the settlement in Canaan, and placed at early harvest, it marked the beginning of a people's enrichment in the fruits of the earth, and recognised in that the gift of a covenant God. Its place was "when thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn" (Deuteronomy 16:9). And hence the special provisions of Leviticus 23:10-14. 2. What was first in nature was also first in history. The Passover night marked the beginning of Israel's national life. The month in which it occurred was henceforth to be the first of the year (Exodus 12:2), and to be permanently observed (Exodus 12:14; Deuteronomy 16:1). Some modifications necessarily arose in the permanent observance of the Passover; the blood was now to be sprinkled on the altar; and the lamb was to be slain in the one place of sacrifice (Deuteronomy 16:5-7; 2 Chronicles 30:15, 16). The eating with unleavened bread and bitter herbs remained, as pointing to — 3. The prospective and spiritual reference of the Passover. The observance of the Passover touched closely the spiritual welfare of the Israelites. It distinguished the reigns of Josiah and Hezekiah and the return of the Jews from captivity. And here we have the third and greatest beginning, the beginning of the kingdom of God, in the world's deliverance from sin. And we must deal with Christ as the Jews with the Paschal Lamb, taking Him — "eating" Him, as He Himself puts it — in His entireness as a Saviour, with the bitter herbs of contrition and the unleavened bread of a sincere obedience. II. THE FEAST OF PENTECOST — called also the Feast of Weeks, inasmuch as seven weeks were to be reckoned between Passover and Pentecost. And this distance of a Sabbath of weeks rules in all three meanings of this feast. 1. Its natural reference was to the completion of the harvest. It was the "Feast of harvest." Now, two loaves baked of the first-fruits are to be waved before the Lord, with accompanying offerings (Leviticus 23:17-20). In addition to which, a free-will offering, in recognition of God's blessing, is to be brought, and the people are called on specially to rejoice (Deuteronomy 16:10, 11). 2. Its historical reference is a matter of inference. The seven weeks between Passover and Pentecost are paralleled by the seven weeks actually occurring between the deliverance from Egypt and the giving of the law from Sinai; and as the Passover commemorates the first, it is reasonable to infer that Pentecost commemorates the second. Moreover, the fulfilment which in nature Pentecost gives to the promise of the Passover is paralleled by the fulfilment which the Sinaitic law actually gave to the promise of the Exodus. For God's first object and promise was to meet His people and reveal Himself to them in the wilderness. And this connection becomes greatly more remarkable when we notice — 3. The prospective meaning of this feast in the realm of grace. Under the Christian dispensation Pentecost has become even more illustrious than the Passover. Again God numbered to Himself seven weeks, and signalised Pentecost by the gift of the Spirit. And what the Pentecost was to the Passover, that the gilt of the Spirit is to the atonement of Christ. Look at the natural meaning of the two feasts. In the sheaf of corn the Passover furnished the material for food; in the wave loaves Pentecost presented God's gift in the shape in which it could be used for food. So the Passover atonement furnishes a material for salvation which becomes available only through the gift of the Spirit. Or look at the historical meaning of the feasts: the Passover atonement came to effect spiritually and for the world what the Paschal Lamb effected for the Jewish nation. And the Holy Spirit came to do for the dead law what Christ in His atonement did for the Paschal Lamb. He came to write universally on men's hearts what of old had been written for the Israelites on stone (Hebrews 8:8, 10; 2 Corinthians 3:3). As the end of harvest was the fruition of its beginning, and the law the fruition of the exodus, so the pentecostal Spirit was the fruition of the atonement. Should not we who live under the dispensation of the Spirit maintain our pentecostal joy? III. THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES, in the seventh month, or our October — called also the Feast of Ingathering. 1. Its natural meaning. It came after the harvest of the vineyards and olive yards. It marked the close of the year's labours and their cumulative results, and was therefore the most joyous of the feasts (Leviticus 23:40; Deuteronomy 16:14); but — 2. The historical meaning of the feast gives us deeper insight into its joy. There is a special provision made in view of the coming settlement in Canaan, and made in order that the hardships of the wilderness may be kept fresh in the people's memory (Leviticus 23:40, 42, 43). That memorial was to emphasise God's goodness in the protection of the fathers and in the settlement of their posterity. The Feast of Tabernacles therefore marked the consummation of God's covenant, and called for highest gratitude and joy. Specially interesting is the celebration of this feast by the Jews on their return from Babylon, where God's goodness in bringing their forefathers through the wilderness had been a second time, and no less wondrously, manifested to them (Nehemiah 8:13-17; Psalm 126:1.) But — 3. The fullest meaning of the Feast of Tabernacles is in the kingdom of grace. The wonder of God's goodness finds last and highest manifestation in the final home-bringing of His universal Church. The anti-type is the ingathering of God's good grain into the heavenly garner. Canaan after the wilderness, Jerusalem after Babylon, are paralleled and fulfilled in the multitude that have come out of great tribulation. (Walter Roberts, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the LORD thy God: for in the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night. |
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