Leviticus 23:33-44

the Feast of Tabernacles

Leviticus 23:33

The annual Feast of Tabernacles was a beautiful custom, when the whole people removed from their dwellings to spend the days and nights in the booths, constructed out of the verdant boughs gathered from woodland and forest. How the children must have reveled in the experience, and what a healthy change it made for them all! The great lesson, of course, was to recall the Wilderness experience of their fathers, during which the Almighty was their fellow-pilgrim.

In figure they confessed that they were still pilgrims and strangers on the earth, and had no abiding city, but sought one to come. It was the custom of the feast in later years to pour water, drawn from Siloam, on the Temple pavement, in memory of the water supplies of the Wilderness-the rock that followed them. And it was on that occasion that Jesus uttered His memorable appeal. See John 7:37.