A Brief Note on the Jewish Feasts

Post last updated on March 28, 2023

 Image credit:  The Cleveland Museum of Art

This is in no way a complete consideration of the Jewish feasts. It is, instead, small in its scope and intended to serve the limited interests of a future post.

The major pilgrimage feasts of the Old Testament found their origin in commands associated with Israel’s deliverance and departure from Egypt, as well as in Israel’s subsequent journey to the land that God had promised to Israel in Canaan. The first of the three feasts, sometimes referred to as the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12:17, 23:15), recalled Israel’s initial deliverance and departure from Egypt. The Feast of Weeks is observed 50 days later. It is named in connection to an offering that was made at the beginning of wheat harvest in Israel. Exodus 34:22 names and describes this feast, but also refers to a third feast that falls later in the Jewish calendar, “the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.” The third feast, then, followed every year’s harvest.¹These are read together in Exodus 34. The feast of unleavened bread (Exodus 34:18) is named in conjunction with the feast of weeks and the Feast of Ingathering (Ex 34:22).

More frequently, these same three feasts are referred to as Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles.²Elsewhere, reader may sometimes see these feasts referenced by a transliteration of their Hebrew names as Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot. These names, of course, differ from those read above. The difference is understood in technical distinctions. For instance, Pentecost actually refers to a single day (the 14^th of the Jewish month Nissan), and the Feast of Unleavened bread would begin as Passover concluded (cf. Exodus 12:1-20). In time, they were sometimes spoken of together, as if they were one and the same celebration. Their association is so close that they were often referred to as one and the same, though everyone would have understood the technical distinction between them. We know of something analogous to this in the modern conception of Christmas, which we all know refers to a single day, but is often spoken of as an entire season that encapsulates other associated days (the day of Jesus’ birth as different from the later arrival of the shepherds, for instance). This, then, is the situation as we read of it in scripture, how that different Jewish feast days are sometimes mentioned and regarded by another feast that stands in close relationship. (Luke 22:1 demonstrates this to us.)

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But we may also observe that the different names that belong to the feasts are not insignificant differences. The different names highlight different aspects of Israel’s deliverance and their life before their redeemer. For example, in Exodus 34 the names given to the three feasts are associated with food and harvest, but these should be recognized as possessing more than commemorative or agricultural significance. In the scripture, food is related to life itself—but something much more than its physical and temporal manifestation. This fact is understood in Jesus’ words, “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” (Matthew 6:25). More striking are the Lord’s words in John 6:53. There, we see that life is more than that which belongs to the body and depends upon another source of nourishment.³This is an idea that is evident in John 6:26-59 and confirmed in the church’s celebration of the Lord’s supper as a communion (1 Corinthians 10:15-17). In the John 6 reference, the Lord Jesus does even more than confirm that God’s words are spirit and life (John 6:63)—defeating a Roman Catholic, Eucharistic notion of the Lord’s Supper, where the bread and wine are said to change forms and essences; Jesus also and significantly points to the fact that the manner in which he lives by the Father becomes the analogy for the way in which his disciples live by him (cf. John 6:54-55). Here, we see hints of what Jesus will explain more thoroughly in John 14:15-26—the life of God is granted to the believer as the source of his own eternal life through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Harvest, then, belongs to the idea that a life is assessed, acknowledged, and openly demonstrated in the resurrection body. Jesus’ parable of the wheat and tares, for instance, associates the wheat harvest with God’s judgment at the end of the world, where some men are shown to be believers and others as unbelievers (Matthew 13:30). Likewise, Paul employs the idea of sowing and harvesting to speak of the resurrection of the believer (1 Corinthians 15:35-44).

The feasts’ more common designations as Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles highlight the manner in which God is present among his people. The Passover meal—a sacrificial meal⁴In fact, all three feasts have sacrifice associated with them, confirming and predicting life by the death of a substitute that, consequently, mediates the presence of God.—remembered God’s saving presence as Israel’s deliverer, distinguishing them from those who refused Moses’ warnings in Egypt. Pentecost, on the other hand, recalled Israel’s arrival at Mount Sinai, where God’s covenant with Israel was formerly established. God’s visitation on Mount Sinai is demonstrated in the wind, fire, and earthquake that accompany his manifestation there. The third feast, the Feast of Tabernacles (but also called the Feast of Booths), occurred much later in the year, recalling how Israel journeyed through the wilderness to Canaan, living in makeshift dwellings (booths) during its pilgrimage to the promised land (Leviticus 23:41-44). The most significant quality of this journey is that God made the journey with the people that he had delivered from Egypt. In a qualified way, their experience became his, and he demonstrated his evident presence among them in the pillars of cloud and fire that led Israel through the wilderness (Exodus 13:21). Numbers 9:15-23 recounts the manner of Israel’s journey and, insofar as God’s presence is associated with the tabernacle, it is also manifested in the same conditions and temptations that affect Israel as they lived in their tabernacles during the wilderness journey. This significance is eventually confirmed in the incarnation: The “Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

Accordingly, each of the feasts were to be annually observed as a reminder of God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt to the land of promise. One feast was never to be celebrated without the others, for, together, they recited a single narrative and history. As well, their association together confirmed the character of Israel as a nation of pilgrims. They left Egypt to journey to Canaan. They were not delivered from Egypt to forever live in the space between these places. They were intended to live well—to live faithfully—while they journeyed toward their ultimate destination.