FEAST DAYS under the Law of Moses, Sylvester Hassell Including the Day of Atonement, the Jews, before the Babylonian captivity, had nine sacred seasons, five connected with the Sabbath—the weekly Sabbath itself, the Feast of the New Moon, the Sabbatical Month and Feast of Trumpets, the Sabbatical Year, and the Year of Jubilee; and three great annual festivals—the Passover, the Feast of Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles or Ingathering. After the captivity they had also the Feast of Purim and the Feast of Dedication.
The weekly Sabbath was a day of rest and recreation and mercy after six days of labor, in celebration of God’s completion of creation, and also of his deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. It was a day of holy convocation; the morning and evening sacrifices were doubled; the shew bread was renewed; in later times the worship in the sanctuary was enlivened by sacred music; the people consulted the prophets; and instructed their children in sacred things. After the Babylonian captivity, and in the New Testament times, the Jews had public worship in their synagogues on the Sabbath day. Christ and his apostles occasionally attended such worship.
The monthly feast of the New Moon was announced at the first sight of her new crescent by the sounding of two sacred silver trumpets; the day, though not kept as a Sabbath, had special sacrifices. The Sabbatical Month was the month of Tisri, being the seventh of the ecclesiastical and the first of the civil year; its first day fell on a Sabbath, and this, the new year’s day, was ushered in by the blowing of trumpets, and was called the Feast of Trumpets. It was a holy convocation, and had special sacrifices. The tenth of this month was the great Day of Atonement; and from the fifteenth to the twenty-second of the month was the Feast of the Tabernacles.
The Sabbatical Year was each seventh year; and God, the proprietor of the land, required his people not to sow the land that year, nor even to gather the spontaneous fruits. But to leave such for the poor, the slave, the stranger and the cattle, and to release all Hebrew slaves and debtors.
Treble fertility in the sixth year was promised for the support of the people in the seventh, eighth and ninth years. They could in this year make their clothing, fish, hunt, take care of their bees and flocks, and repair their buildings and furniture; and especially in the Sabbatical year, were men, women, children and strangers to be gathered and taught the law.
The non-observance of the Sabbatical year was one of the chief national sins punished by the Babylonian captivity, during which the land was left desolate for seventy years, that it might enjoy its Sabbaths.
The Year of Jubilee came after a Sabbatic series of Sabbatic years, and was every fiftieth or Pentecostal year. It began with the great Day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month (Tisri). After the sacrifices of that solemn day the trumpet of jubilee pealed forth its joyful notes, proclaiming liberty to the captive prisoner and slave, and the restoration of land to its original proprietors—a great protection to the poor, and an effectual safeguard against the accumulation of vast estates. This year completed the great Sabbatic cycle, and made all things new. It was a year of rest from labor, and of religious worship.
The very existence of these Sabbatical laws, so uncommon in the world, and so irksome to the covetous nature of man, proves the reality of the miracles wrought by God through Moses; for nothing else could have made an unspiritual people willing to submit to such restraining laws.
All the Sabbatical seasons typified Christ, the true rest of spiritual Israel; for he it is who, by virtue of his great atonement, has been anointed with the Spirit of the Lord, above measure, to preach the gospel to the poor, healing to the broken-hearted, deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, liberty to the bruised, and comfort to all that mourn in Zion, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified (Isa. 61:1-3); Luke 4:16-21; Matt. 11:28-30; Heb. 4:3).
Thus, by these constantly recurring seventh periods of rest, would God perpetually remind his spiritual people of their only true source of perfect rest, Christ Jesus.
This glorious rest will not be fully realized by the people of God until the heavenly jubilee of the resurrection trumpet is sounded, when every redeemed man, with reunited and incorruptible soul and body, shall enter upon his eternal possession in the antitypical Canaan (Lev. 25:13; Isa. 35:10; I Cor. 15:53-57; I Thess. 4:16-18- Heb. 4:9; I Pet. 1:1-5).
Three times every year, at the three great annual festivals, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, all the Hebrew males were required to appear together before the Lord, at the tabernacle or temple, and make an offering with a joyful heart. God’s object was to promote, in this way, the religious zeal and knowledge and union of his covenant people, to bring them frequently together in loving brotherly relationship for the worship of God—the very same object that is now beautifully and pleasantly subserved by the frequent assemblies of the people of God in their quarterly, yearly, union, corresponding, and associational meetings.
Devout women often attended these sacred festivals. Not only from all parts of Palestine, but, after the captivity, from all parts of the civilized world, the people of God assembled at these meetings Acts 2:5-11. The three great annual feasts had a three-fold bearing— natural, historical and spiritual (or typical or prophetical); “the thing that hath been is that which shall be,” says Solomon Eccl. 1:9; or, as Bacon expresses it, “All history is prophecy.” (Hassell’s History ppg 93-95)
Passover: Sylvester Hassell: The Passover was about the first of April, and marked the beginning of the grain harvest the first green ears of barley were cut, a handful presented to the Lord, and others were parched and eaten by the people. It was a memorial of the nation’s birth, when the destroying angel passed over the houses of the Israelites, whose door-posts were sprinkled with the blood of the paschal lamb, while he destroyed the firstborn in every Egyptian family, thus delivering the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. For each family a lamb was slain and roasted entire, and eaten, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, by the members of the family, standing, with loins girt, feet shod, and staff in hand; and if any of the lamb remained till the morning it was to be consumed with fire.
The firstborn thus specially delivered by the Lord were specially devoted to him, and specially redeemed (Exo. 11:5,7; 13: 2,14; Heb. 12:23).
Christ is the true paschal lamb sacrificed for spiritual Israel (I Cor.5:7). By his death, and his blood being applied by the Holy Spirit to our hearts, we are delivered from ruin.
In celebrating the Christian Passover, or the Lord’s Supper, we are to put away the leaven of hypocrisy and wickedness and eat the bitter herb of godly sorrow for our sins, and remember that we are pilgrims, just ready, at any time, to depart to a better, even a heavenly country Heb. 11:13-16. We should be devoutly thankful and consecrated to God for being specially redeemed by the precious blood of the Lamb (I Pet. 1:15-21; Rev. 5:9).
The body of the paschal lamb was cooked entire, no bone being broken, to denote the completeness of the redemption of Christ, and the indissoluble oneness of his mystical body; and it was roasted, and not boiled in water and wasted, to indicate the preciousness of Christ’s salvation and of his people; and, if any remained till morning, it was consumed by purifying fire, to prevent it from seeing corruption or from being put to a common use—indicating that God’s people are never to become reprobates.
In later times, the Israelites, at the Passover, sang the Hallel, or Psalms 113-118. It is believed that this was the hymn sung by Christ and his apostles after the Supper. (Hassell’s History pg 95)
Pentecost: Sylvester Hassell: The Pentecost, or Harvest Feast, or Feast of Weeks or First-Fruits, was about the last of May, fifty days or a week of weeks after the Passover, of which it was the supplement, and therefore was called by the Jews Atzereth, or the concluding assembly. As the Passover began, the Pentecost ended, the grain harvest, the wheat now being ripe, and two loaves of fine flour, were offered to the Lord, as a joyful dedication of the whole harvest to him as the Giver—both the land and the people belonging to him.
Pentecost was a social thanksgiving feast, and the Levite, stranger, fatherless, and widow, were invited. Historically, it is believed to have been a memorial of the giving of the law from Sinai, the second great era in the history of the elect nation—the fiftieth day after the deliverance from Egypt (Exo. 12 and 19).
The second chapter of Acts explains the typical significance of the Feast of Pentecost. As God descended in consuming fire on Mount Sinai to give the moral law to national Israel, so he descended in the purifying fire of the Holy Ghost upon his disciples in Jerusalem, and wrote the new law of love upon the fleshly tablets of the hearts of his covenant people (Acts 2; John 16:7-11; II Cor. 3; Heb. 8; Matt. 22:36-40).
And, just as certainly as the Pentecost was the supplement or conclusion of the Passover, just so certainly will the Holy Ghost descend upon the purchase of Christ’s, and consecrate them to the service of God.” (Hassell’s History ppg 95, 96)
The Feast of Tabernacles: Sylvester Hassell: The Feast of Tabernacles, or Ingathering, was about the first of October, after the oil and wine had been gathered in; and it was a great and joyful thanksgiving for all the harvests of the year. It was also a commemoration of the time when the Israelites dwelt in tents during their passage through the wilderness and called forth the gratitude of the people to God for their settled homes in a land of plenty.
The people took boughs of palm and willows of the brook, and made temporary huts of the branches, and sat under the booths, during this festival. The weeping willow (Salix Babylonica, Psa. 137) was an emblem of sorrow; but the willow of the brook Salix Alba), because of its vigor, was a symbol of joyful prosperity Isa. 44:4. The palm was also an emblem of joy, because of its erect growth, its usefulness, and its rich foliage (Psa. 92:12-14; John 12:13; Rev. 7:9).
In later times, at the hour of morning sacrifice, during the Feast of Tabernacles, water was drawn from the Pool of Siloam in a golden goblet, and poured into one of the silver basins on the west side of the altar of burnt-offering, and wine into the other, while the words of Isaiah 12:3 were repeated, in commemoration of the water drawn from the rock in the desert; the choir sang the great Hallel, and waved branches of palm. It was in allusion to this ceremony, that Christ stood and cried in the last day of the feast, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink” John 7:2,37.
Coming next day at day-break to the temple court, as they were extinguishing the artificial lights, two colossal golden candlesticks in the center of the temple court, recalling the pillar of fire in the wilderness, Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world’ John 8:1,2,12. As the sun by its natural light was eclipsing the artificial lights, so Jesus implies, I, the Sun of Righteousness, am superseding your typical light.
The believer having received redemption and the Holy Ghost, waits still for his inheritance and abiding home. The feast of Tabernacles points him to the heavenly Canaan, the everlasting inheritance, of which the Holy Spirit is the earnest (Eph. 1:13,14; Heb. 4:9). There shall the true church ever hold with her Divine Head, a Feast of Tabernacles, rejoicing in his presence, satisfied with his fullness, and her rest and pleasure will be heightened and enhanced by the remembrance of her toils and tribulation in this wilderness world forever past.” (Hassell’s History ppg 96, 97)
The Three Feasts: Sylvester Hassell There was in the Three Feasts a clear prefigurement of the Three Persons in the Godhead; the Father, in the work of creation, specially adored in the Feast of Tabernacles; the Son, in the Passover sacrifice; and the Spirit, in the Pentecostal Feast.” (Hassell’s History pg 97)
The Feast of Purim: Sylvester Hassell: The Feast of Purim, or Lots, was an annual commemoration of the deliverance of the Jews in Persia from the massacre plotted for them by Haman (see the book of Esther); it took place the last of February. (Hassell’s History pg 97)
The Feast of Dedication: Sylvester Hassell The Feast of Dedication (mentioned in John 10:22) was instituted by Judas Maccabeus to commemorate the purification of the temple from the profanations to which it had been subjected by Antiochus Epiphanes (B.C. 165); it occurred about the twentieth of December.” (Hassell’s History pg 97)