Helene Schjerfbeck, Fête Juive, 1883. Public domain.
Leviticus 23 and Numbers 29 · Doctrine · Featured Study
The Fall Feasts
Leviticus 23:23 to 43 sets the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles in the seventh month of Israel's year.
Israel burned seventy bulls on the altar across one autumn week, thirteen on its first day and seven on its last.
“Speak to the Israelites and say to them, ‘These are My appointed feasts, the feasts of the LORD that you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.
- First taught
- Leviticus 23:24 “Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘On the…”
- Fullest statement
- Numbers 29:1 to 40 “On the first day of the seventh month,…”
Israel burned seventy bulls on the altar across one autumn week, thirteen on its first day and seven on its last.
Summary
The month opens with a sacred assembly announced by trumpet blasts, keeps the Day of Atonement on its tenth day, and ends with seven days in booths and a solemn assembly on the eighth day.
- Leviticus 23:32 makes the tenth day a Sabbath of complete rest, kept from the evening of the ninth day until the following evening.
- Leviticus 23:43 gives the reason for the booths, so that Israel's descendants may know that the LORD made them dwell in booths when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.
- After the exile the whole assembly made booths and lived in them, and in John 7 Jesus stood up on the last and greatest day of the feast.
- Dispensational readers hold that the three autumn feasts await the second coming, and amillennial readers hold that Christ has already met them as a whole.
The Seventh Month
Leviticus 23:2 names the appointed times, and four more verses set out the holy days of the seventh month.
“Speak to the Israelites and say to them, ‘These are My appointed feasts, the feasts of the LORD that you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.The chapter's word for the feasts is mo'edim, appointed times, and the autumn feasts are three of them.
“Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly announced by trumpet blasts.The autumn days of the chapter begin here, and Numbers 29:1 names this day yom teruah, a day of the shout.
“The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. You shall hold a sacred assembly and humble yourselves, and present an offering made by fire to the LORD.The tenth day falls between the two feasts, and it is the one day of the month on which the people humble themselves.
“Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the Feast of Tabernacles to the LORD begins, and it continues for seven days.The Feast of Tabernacles begins on the fifteenth day, the day of the month on which the Feast of Unleavened Bread begins in the first month.
For seven days you are to present an offering made by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you are to hold a sacred assembly and present an offering made by fire to the LORD. It is a solemn assembly; you must not do any regular work.The eighth day stands outside the seven days of booths, and Leviticus 23:39 gives it complete rest, as it gives the first.
Exodus 23:16 and 34:22 call the autumn feast the Feast of Ingathering, and Leviticus 23:39 sets it after the produce of the land has been gathered.
Alfred Edersheim, in The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, calls this the seventh or sabbatical month, which closed the festive cycle of the year.
“Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly announced by trumpet blasts.The autumn days of the chapter begin here, and Numbers 29:1 names this day yom teruah, a day of the shout.
“The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. You shall hold a sacred assembly and humble yourselves, and present an offering made by fire to the LORD.The tenth day falls between the two feasts, and it is the one day of the month on which the people humble themselves.
“Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the Feast of Tabernacles to the LORD begins, and it continues for seven days.The Feast of Tabernacles begins on the fifteenth day, the day of the month on which the Feast of Unleavened Bread begins in the first month.
For seven days you are to present an offering made by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you are to hold a sacred assembly and present an offering made by fire to the LORD. It is a solemn assembly; you must not do any regular work.The eighth day stands outside the seven days of booths, and Leviticus 23:39 gives it complete rest, as it gives the first.
Exodus 23:16 and 34:22 call the autumn feast the Feast of Ingathering, and Leviticus 23:39 sets it after the produce of the land has been gathered.
Alfred Edersheim, in The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, calls this the seventh or sabbatical month, which closed the festive cycle of the year.
Leviticus 23:34, Leviticus 23:36, Leviticus 23:2
Three Feasts and a Closing Day in Twenty-Two Days
The first and the twenty-second days of the seventh month frame every feast Leviticus 23 sets in it.
Six cells name the first twenty-two days of the seventh month in order, with the three feasts, the closing day and two runs of days with no feast.
- Day 1, the Feast of Trumpetsone day, Yom teruah, a day of rest announced by trumpet blasts
- Days 2 to 9eight days, No feast named
- Day 10, the Day of Atonementone day, Yom hakippurim, a Sabbath of complete rest
- Days 11 to 14four days, No feast named
- Days 15 to 21, the Feast of Tabernaclesseven days, Chag hasukkot, seven days in booths
- Day 22, the eighth dayone day, Atzeret, a solemn assembly
Repentance, Then Rejoicing
The month moves from the trumpet blasts of the first day through the fast of the tenth to the feast of the fifteenth.
Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible, reads the order of the month as a lesson. He wrote that the afflicting of their souls on the day of atonement prepared them for the joy of the feast of tabernacles.
Albert Barnes, in his Notes on Numbers 29:35, observes that the closing day of the Feast of Tabernacles brought the same offerings as the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. The month ended with the sacrifices that opened it.
1. The first day, a day of trumpet blasts1 passage, 1 painting
“On the first day of the seventh month, you are to hold a sacred assembly, and you must not do any regular work. This will be a day for you to sound the trumpets. As a pleasing aroma to the LORD, you are to present a burnt offering of one young bull, one ram, and seven male lambs a year old, all unblemished,Leviticus 23:25 names only an offering made by fire, and Numbers sets out what that offering is.
Edersheim writes that every season of blowing the trumpets, at the new moons, at this feast and in time of war, was a public acknowledgment of Jehovah as King.
Matthew Henry reads the joyful sound of the day as typical of the preaching of the gospel. He joins it to the great trumpet of Isaiah 27 that calls the nations to the faith of Christ.
Aleksander Gierymski, Feast of Trumpets I, 1884, National Museum in Warsaw. Public domain by date (made before 1930), via Wikimedia Commons, File:Aleksander Gierymski - Feast of Trumpets I - MP 124 - National Museum in Warsaw.jpg.
Gierymski painted Polish Jews at prayer on a riverbank for the New Year, the day Leviticus 23:24 sets on the first of the seventh month, as Jews of his own century kept it.
2. The tenth day, the soul humbled1 passage, 1 quotation
This is to be a permanent statute for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month, you shall humble yourselves and not do any work—whether the native or the foreigner who resides among you— because on this day atonement will be made for you to cleanse you, and you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD.The fast that Leviticus 23:27 commands has its reason here, in the rite of Leviticus 16.
On this one day the high priest went behind the veil with blood, and he sent the live goat into the wilderness bearing the iniquities of Israel (Leviticus 16:2, 16:21 to 22). His atonement reached the Most Holy Place, the altar, the priests and all the people together (Leviticus 16:33). The page on the Day of Atonement teaches the rite in full.
Henry finds a lesson in the second sin offering that Numbers 29:11 adds to the offering of atonement.
“It likewise intimated the imperfection of the legal sacrifices, and their insufficiency to take away sin, that on the very day the sin-offering of atonement was offered, yet there must be another sin-offering. But what the law could not do, in that it was weak, that Christ has done.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Numbers 29:11Puritan
3. Days fifteen to twenty-one, Israel dwells in booths2 passages, 1 quotation, 1 figure
On the first day you are to gather the fruit of majestic trees, the branches of palm trees, and the boughs of leafy trees and of willows of the brook. And you are to rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days.No other verse of Leviticus 23 commands joy, and this one sets it for the whole of the feast.
You are to dwell in booths for seven days. All the native-born of Israel must dwell in booths, so that your descendants may know that I made the Israelites dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.’”The booths are commanded for every native-born Israelite, and the law gives the exodus as their reason.
Edersheim calls this feast the most joyous of all festive seasons in Israel. Deuteronomy 16:13 to 15 adds the household, the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow to the rejoicing.
Henry reports how the Jewish writers held that the joy of the feast was to be shown.
“The tradition of the Jews is that they were to express their joy by dancing, and singing hymns of praise to God, with musical instruments: and not the common people only, but the wise men of Israel, and their elders, were to do it in the court of the sanctuary: for (say they) the joy with which a man rejoices in doing a commandment is really a great service.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Leviticus 23:40Puritan
Seven cells for the seven days of the feast, each naming its count of bulls in the burnt offering of Numbers 29:13 to 32, falling by one each day from thirteen to seven.
4. The eighth day after the booths1 passage
On the eighth day you are to hold a solemn assembly; you must not do any regular work. As a pleasing aroma to the LORD, you are to present an offering made by fire, a burnt offering of one bull, one ram, and seven male lambs a year old, all unblemished,Numbers sets this day apart as its own assembly after the week, as Leviticus 23:36 does.
Edersheim writes that the octave on the 22nd Tishri followed the seven days, and that on it the people no longer lived in booths or carried the lulav, the bundle of branches.
Barnes, in his Notes on John 7:37, takes the last and greatest day of the feast in John's Gospel to be this eighth day, the solemn assembly of Leviticus 23:36.
5. The feast kept after the exile2 passages, 1 quotation
And they found written in the Law, which the LORD had commanded through Moses, that the Israelites were to dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month. So they proclaimed this message and spread it throughout their towns and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the hill country and bring back branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees, to make booths, as it is written.” And the people went out, brought back branches, and made booths on their own rooftops, in their courtyards, in the court of the house of God, and in the squares by the Water Gate and by the Gate of Ephraim. The whole assembly who had returned from exile made booths and lived in them. From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated like this. And there was great rejoicing.Here the command of Leviticus 23:42 is carried out by the people who came back from Babylon, in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Barnes explains what verse 17 does and does not claim about the years since Joshua.
“It is not the intention of the writer to state that the Feast of tabernacles had not been kept from the time of Joshua until this occasion (see 1Ki 8:2, 1Ki 8:65; Ezr 3:4); but that there had been no such celebration as this since Joshua’s time. Compare 2Ki 23:22; 2Ch 35:18.”
Albert Barnes · Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869) · on Nehemiah 8:17Evangelical
Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God. The Israelites kept the feast for seven days, and on the eighth day they held an assembly, according to the ordinance.Ezra read the Law on every day of the feast, which Deuteronomy 31:10 to 11 required only at the feast of every seventh year.
Two Later Feasts
Hanukkah and Purim fall in Israel's winter, and neither stands among the appointed times of Leviticus 23.
Two rows for the two winter feasts, each with its date, what it remembers and where Scripture names it.
| Feast | Date | What it remembers | In Scripture |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hanukkah (חֲנֻכָּה, dedication), the Feast of Dedication | From the 25th of Kislev, for eight days, in winter | The cleansing and rededication of the temple, recorded in 1 Maccabees 4 | John 10:22 to 23 |
| Purim (פּוּרִים, lots, from pur), the Feast of Lots | The 14th and 15th of Adar, in late winter | The deliverance of the Jews in the days of Esther | Esther 9:20 to 32 |
At that time the Feast of Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple courts in Solomon’s Colonnade.John records Jesus in the temple courts at the Feast of Dedication, and Scripture names the feast without commanding it.
to establish among them an annual celebration on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of AdarPurim was set by Mordecai's letters, and Esther 3:7 and 9:24 to 26 name it for the lot Haman cast to fix the day of destruction.
Florentine Bechtel, in the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on the Machabees, dates the leadership of Judas Maccabeus from 166 to 161 BC. Edersheim, in his chapter on the festivals after Moses, gives the Dedication eight days.
What the Text Leaves Unsaid
Leviticus 23 and Numbers 29 leave three things about the month unnamed.
Leviticus 23:24 commands a day announced by trumpet blasts, and it gives no reason for the blasts and calls the day no new year.
The Berean text calls the month the seventh month, and 1 Kings 8:2 names it Ethanim; the name Tishri, which Edersheim and later Jewish writers use, stands nowhere in it.
The words Feast of Trumpets stand nowhere in the Berean text, and no verse of the New Testament names the first day of the seventh month.
Shadow and Body
Paul and the writer to the Hebrews read the feasts of the law after the cross.
Therefore let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a feast, a New Moon, or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the body that casts it belongs to Christ.Paul names a feast, a New Moon and a Sabbath together, and the first day of the seventh month was a new moon kept as a feast and a day of rest.
For the law is only a shadow of the good things to come, not the realities themselves. It can never, by the same sacrifices offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.The sacrifices offered year after year include the atonement of the tenth day, which Leviticus 16:34 makes once a year, and this verse counts them among the shadows.
Barnes, in his Notes on Hebrews 10:1, takes the shadow to be the whole Mosaic economy, a rough outline drawn before the picture is complete.
Two Readings of the Autumn Feasts
Clarence Larkin and Augustine of Hippo stand for the two readings, each with the commentators who join him.
Seven rows of the dispensational reading as Clarence Larkin sets it out, each feast with the event it stands for and its verse.
| Feast | Season | The reading | Its verse |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passover | Spring, met | The cross | 1 Corinthians 5:7 |
| Unleavened Bread | Spring, met | The believer's walk without the old leaven | 1 Corinthians 5:8 |
| Firstfruits | Spring, met | The resurrection | 1 Corinthians 15:20 |
| Pentecost | Spring, met | The Spirit poured out | Acts 2:1 |
| Trumpets | Autumn, awaited on this reading | The gathering of the church | 1 Thessalonians 4:16 |
| Atonement | Autumn, awaited on this reading | Israel's mourning for the One they pierced | Zechariah 12:10 |
| Tabernacles | Autumn, awaited on this reading | God dwelling with man in the kingdom | Zechariah 14:16 |
The autumn feasts await the second comingClarence Larkin and Chuck Missler; dispensational and premillennial readers
“While each of these feasts has a historical commemorative role, each also has a prophetic role.”
Chuck Missler · The Fall Feasts of Israel (article) · on Leviticus 23:2Evangelical
Clarence Larkin, in Dispensational Truth (1918), divides the seven feasts of Leviticus 23 into four and three, with an interval of four months between them. He writes that the feasts were a prophecy and foreshadowing of future events, part of which have been fulfilled and part of which are yet to be.
Larkin ties the trumpet of the first day to the trumpet of God in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and the last trumpet of 1 Corinthians 15:52. He reads the Day of Atonement as a national day of atonement for Israel after its return to the land (Zechariah 12:9 to 14). He reads the booths as Israel's millennial rest, and the eighth day as the new heaven and earth that follow it.
He calls the placing of the rapture at a future Feast of Trumpets mere speculation.
Then all the survivors from the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of Hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.The nations keep this one feast of Leviticus 23 year after year, and this reading takes the verse as a kingdom still to come.
The objection rests on Augustine's reading of the kingdom as present in the church, which leaves no kingdom feast to wait for a later age.
Christ has met the feasts as a wholeAugustine of Hippo, Matthew Henry and Albert Barnes
Amillennial readers hold that the whole substance of the feasts is already given in Christ, with no distinct fulfilment of the autumn feasts still outstanding. Augustine of Hippo, in The City of God 20.9, wrote that the Church even now is the kingdom of Christ, and the kingdom of heaven. The amillennial reading of the kingdom rests on that ground.
Matthew Henry, born in 1662, already read Zechariah 14 this way. In his Commentary on Leviticus 23:39 he wrote that the worship of God under the New Testament is prophesied of under the notion of keeping the feast of tabernacles. Albert Barnes, in his Notes on Colossians 2:17, writes that all that the shadows signified is of or in Christ.
For here we do not have a permanent city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.Henry ties the booths to this verse, since in his reading the gospel teaches believers to live as people with no permanent city here.
The objection rests on Zechariah 14:9 and 14:16, which this reading must take as already fulfilled in the church.
Both readings take the calendar of Leviticus 23 as written, and they part over where its shadows finally fall. MannaFest's own tradition, dispensational and premillennial, holds the first reading.
The Last and Greatest Day
John 7 sets Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles, calling the thirsty to Himself.
The feast that closed Israel's year is the setting of Jesus' call, and His call asks the reader to come to Him and drink.
On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and called out in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said: ‘Streams of living water will flow from within him.’”Jesus speaks on the closing day of the feast, and verse 39 says that He was speaking about the Spirit.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.Israel spent seven days a year in booths, and here the voice from the throne says that God Himself will be with His people.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Miqra according to the Masorah, Hebrew text, via the Sefaria texts API.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, volume 1, on Leviticus 23, via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
- Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Matthew Henry, author page.
- Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, chapter 14, The Feast of Tabernacles.
- Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, chapter 15, The New Moons: The Feast of the Seventh New Moon.
- Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, chapter 16, The Day of Atonement.
- Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, chapter 17, Post-Mosaic Festivals.
- Florentine Bechtel, The Machabees, The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9, 1910.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments.
- Chuck Missler, The Fall Feasts of Israel (article)
- Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, book 20, chapter 9, translated by Marcus Dods, via New Advent.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on Colossians 2:17.
- Clarence Larkin, Dispensational Truth, or God's Plan and Purpose in the Ages (1918), The Feasts of the Lord, public domain.
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