Feast of Tabernacles

Sundown on September 30 to sundown on October 7 marked the biblical feast of Sukkot (pronounced "sue-coat"), also known as the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths.  An autumn harvest festival, God designed the Feast of Tabernacles to serve as a humbling reminder to the Israelites of how they dwelt in their booths/tents in the desert for forty years before entering the Promised Land (Leviticus 23:39-43).  It's a reminder of how God was their provision, protection, and covering, dwelling among them in His own Tabernacle.  This was prophetic of Jesus, who likely was born at the time of this feast and who dwelt among us (John 1:14), eventually becoming the covering for sin for all who would believe in Him.  The word "dwelt" used in John 1:14 also means "to fix one's tabernacle" or "to abide in a tabernacle or tent".  Israel's life depended on God while they were vulnerable out in the desert in their fragile, temporary dwellings.  When they entered the Promised Land they were able to build permanent dwellings, sow and harvest and prosper.  But God did not want them to forget how they lived during those forty years and Who was their provider.


Matthew Henry's Commentary has this to say about the Feast of Tabernacles:

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 holiday, because then they 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.

We love the biblical feasts but aren't always able to celebrate them.  Something we've often wanted to do is to build our own sukkah but it never seemed to work out.  This year Tom surprised us at the last minute by suggesting we bring out an old tent we'd bought for shade/rain cover during a garage sale many years ago.  He thought it might make a nice sukkah.  It did!  The children--even Lil' Chunkers--helped him set it up in our backyard.  

Everyone had fun making decorations for the Sukkah

Our first meal in the Sukkah--beautiful weather!

We had chili for our first meal and read a portion of Psalm 119.

The next day I thought perhaps we could add walls to our Sukkah.  I went to a discount home decor store where they had large Bamboo mats that worked out well.  After putting up the walls, we hung all the decorations the children made and had a second meal in our sukkah.

That night we had an evening snack in the sukkah.  We brought out our flameless candles and had an enjoyable time eating cherry chocolate popcorn and sipping hot chocolate.  We talked about what it might be like to live in a tent as the Israelites did for forty years in the desert and how we depend on God as we dwell in our fragile, fallen human "tabernacles" here on earth.  

Silly faces and flashlights

While we dined on our treats, Tom read the remainder of Psalm 119 to us from his iPhone Pocket Sword app.  This psalm is great to read anytime because it tells us how God's word guides, instructs, comforts, and protects our hearts.  Each chapter of this psalm begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet and in Hebrew the first letter of each verse in that chapter begins with that particular Hebrew letter.  

At the end of the evening, Tom regaled us with a few of his funny childhood stories!

At the end of the week we all watched The Nativity Story, an excellent movie released in 2006 dramatizing the events of Jesus' conception and birth, starring Keisha Castle-Hughes.  We highly recommend this movie as a great family movie that sticks close to the events that are recorded in the books of Luke and Matthew.  It's beautifully shot and the acting is superb.  You can watch the entire movie on YouTube here.

Resources:

• The Birth of Christ and The Feast of Tabernacles
• A Family Guide to the Biblical Holidays
• Walk with Y'shua Through the Jewish Year