(Deuteronomy)
BIBLICAL FEASTS
This chapter begins talking about the feasts of the Lord. Some people
call these “Jewish feasts” given that throughout history it has been the Jews
who have kept them, but in reality, they are the Feasts of Jehovah, because He
was the one who appointed them.
(Leviticus 23:2) Speak to the
people of Israel and say to them, these are the appointed feasts of
the LORD that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are
my appointed feasts.
Not only has the Lord appointed these feasts, but
He also designated specific times for them…
(Lev. 23:4) These are the
appointed feasts of the LORD, the holy convocations, which you shall
proclaim at the time appointed for them.
Now let’s see what those feasts are, and which are
their designated times…
THREE
CONVOCATIONS
There are seven Feasts of Jehovah, but there are
really three times of convocation (the first three are joined by a single
convocation, as well as the last three)…
(Deut. 16:16-17) Three
times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God at
the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast
of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. They shall not appear before
the LORD empty-handed. (17) Every man shall give as he is able,
according to the blessing of the LORD your God that he has given you.
The three times of convocation and pilgrimage to
Jerusalem (“the place where God chose”) were:
- Unleavened Bread (14-21 of Nisan)
- Weeks (in the month of Sivan, the 50th day of the counting of the Omer)
- Tabernacles (15-21 of Tishrei)
1st CONVOCATION: Unleavened Bread (14-21 of Nisan)
That week, three feasts are celebrated: Passover
(Heb. Pesach, 14 of Nisan), Unleavened Bread (Heb. Chag
HaMatzot, 15-21 of Nisan), and Firstfruits (Heb. Bikkurim, the Sunday of
that week).The offering that is presented at that time is the first fruit of
the barley.
a. PASSOVER
(Deut. 16:1) Observe the
month of Abib and keep the Passover to the LORD your God, for in the
month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night.
The month of Abib is also known as Nisan, but here
it receives the name of “Abib” because of its connection with spring, since the
word means: ear sprout. This is the first month of the year of the Biblical
Calendar (which was established in Exodus 12:2), and this beginning of the
spring season is marked by the sprout of the crops, the first of which is the
barley.
In that first month (Abib / Nisan) the first feast
of the Lord is celebrated: Passover…
(Deut. 16:2) And you shall
offer the Passover sacrifice to the LORD your God, from the flock or
the herd, at the place that the LORD will choose, to make his name
dwell there.
As we’ve previously mentioned, Jerusalem is “the
place that Jehovah chose to place His Name there”. That was the only place
where the Passover sacrifice could be offered.
(Deut. 16:5-7) You may not
offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the LORD your
God is giving you, (6) but at the place that the LORD your God
will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover
sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. (7)
And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that the LORD your God
will choose. And in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents.
If they celebrated the Passover in any other
place, then they could not eat lamb, since it could only be sacrificed in the
Temple in Jerusalem.
b.
UNLEAVENED BREAD
The Passover is followed by the second Feast:
Unleavened Bread…
(Deut. 16:3-4) You shall eat
no leavened bread with it (Passover). Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened
bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in
haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out
of the land of Egypt. (4) No leaven shall be seen with you in all your
territory for seven days, nor shall any of the flesh that you sacrifice on the
evening of the first day remain all night until morning.
(Deut. 16:8) For six days
you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn
assembly to the LORD your God. You shall do no work on it.
c.
FIRSTFRUITS
The third feast is connected to the offering of
the first fruits of the barley harvest. The chosen day for this feast is the Sunday
of the week of Passover (Lev. 23:10-11). Starting on that moment, the “Counting
of the Omer” began…
(Deut. 16:9) You shall count
seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first
put to the standing grain.
The counting of these seven weeks is the
connection with the next feast (Lev. 23:15-16)…
2nd
CONVOCATION: Weeks
On the 50th day of the Counting of the
Omer, which is on the beginning of the month of Sivan, the fourth feast is
celebrated: Weeks (Heb. Shavuot), which is also known as “Pentecost”.
In this occasion, the first fruit of the wheat harvest is offered.
(Deut. 16:10-11) Then
you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God with the
tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the LORD your
God blesses you. (11) And you shall rejoice before the LORD your
God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female
servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless,
and the widow who are among you, at the place that the LORD your God
will choose, to make his name dwell there.
3rd
CONVOCATION: Tabernacles
In the month of Tishrei (the seventh month in the
Biblical Calendar), the last three feasts are celebrated: Trumpets (Heb. Rosh
Hashanah, 1 Tishrei), Day of Atonement (Heb. Yom Kippur, 10 Tishrei),
and Tabernacles (also known as “Booths”) (Heb. Sukkot, 15-21 Tishrei).
Here in chapter 16, only the last one is mentioned
because in that week the Israelites would make a pilgrimage into Jerusalem…
(Deut. 16:13-15) You
shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the
produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. (14) You shall
rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant
and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the
widow who are within your towns. (15) For seven days you shall keep the
feast to the LORD your God at the place that the LORD will
choose, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce
and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.
MESSIANIC
FULLFILMENT
God summoned us to these feasts not just so that
we would celebrate some historical Israeli event, but also because they are
designed to give us revelation on God’s Redemption Plan through the Messiah. On
one hand, there is the “shadow” of the feast (the history), but on the other
hand there is also the “body or the substance” (the prophetic), which is the
revelation of the Messiah and the steps that He will take when he will redeem
all humanity (Col. 2:16-17).
The following graph makes a parallel comparison
between the historical aspect and the messianic revelation of each feast:
Feast
|
Shadow
Historical
|
Body or Substance
Messianic fulfillment
|
Passover
|
Sacrifice of the lamb in Egypt
|
Jesus, the Lamb of God, dies on the cross
|
Unleavened
Bread
|
Going out of Egypt
|
Jesus is buried
|
Firstfruits
|
Crossing the Red Sea
|
Jesus rose again
|
Weeks
(Pentecost)
|
Revelation of God in Mount Sinai and the giving of the Torah
|
The Holy Spirit descends over the disciples
|
Trumpets
|
Announcing the Second Coming of the Messiah
|
|
Day of
Atonement
|
Forgiveness for the sin of the Golden Calf
|
All iniquity and judgments are erased
|
Tabernacles
|
Presence of God in the Tabernacle
|
Millennial Kingdom of the
Messiah
|
RIGHTEOUS
JUDGE
The second main subject of Devarim 16 has to do
with the Israeli judges.
(Deut. 16:18) You shall
appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the LORD your God
is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with
righteous judgment.
Judges (Heb. Shoftim) are indispensible for a society,
since they know the law and help to settle conflicts among the citizens.
The position that is translated as “officer”, in
Hebrew is Shoter, which literally means: scribe. The scribes were the
ones in charge of writing the copies of the Torah, and therefore they knew the
law very well. Shoter can also be
translated as: superintendent or magistrate.
Both judges and scribes served the people by
judging cases and solving conflicts. The Bible instructs them to “judge with
righteous judgment”. What does this imply? The Torah explains it next…
(Deut. 16:19) You shall not
pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a
bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the
righteous.
In theory, the judge must follow the law to a tee,
and pass judgment according to what is right. Although this is ideal, in human
reality, justice can be corrupted either through bribe, trick, or prejudice. To
prevent this, the Torah determines that the judge must be impartial. This principle
had already been mentioned in the first chapter of Devarim…
(Deut. 1:16-17) And
I charged your judges at that time, ‘Hear the cases between your brothers, and
judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him. (17)
You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great
alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. And
the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’
Those who were the most vulnerable to the unjust
judgments were the neediest and those who had no power…
(Deut. 24:17) You shall not
pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a
widow’s garment in pledge
The judge has to pass judgment according to God’s
order, and not by following his heart or his emotions.
(Deut. 16:20) Justice, and
only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the LORD your
God is giving you.
In the desert, only Moses was serving as a judge,
but the demand was too much for him. Following his father-in-law’s suggestion,
they appointed more judges from among the leaders of the people, who helped to
settle conflicts among the people. And the hard cases were left for Moses to
deal with (Exodus 18:13-23).
THE
DIFFICULT CASES
Further ahead we will see that, after Moses died,
the most difficult cases were left to the priests (Deut. 17:9). In chapter 17,
certain aspects of the judgments are mentioned so we will go over them in this
lesson, since we are already on the topic…
The Priests of Jerusalem served as judges, helping
to settle the differences that had not been solved in the legal courts.
(Deut. 17:8-9) If any case
arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of
legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within
your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the
place that the LORD your God will choose. (9) And you shall come
to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and
you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision.
This court of priests in Jerusalem was considered
the Supreme Court. The resolution that came out of that court was final, and
the population had to submit to its decree.
(Deut. 17:10-11) Then
you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that the LORD will
choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you. (11)
According to the instructions that they give you, and according to the decision
which they pronounce to you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside from the
verdict that they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left.
If someone rebelled against the resolution of that
priestly court, it would be considered insubordination and he would have to
face the maximum sentence.
(Deut. 17:12-13) The
man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister
there before the LORD your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So
you shall purge the evil from Israel. (13) And all the people shall hear
and fear and not act presumptuously again.
[We will study the last verses of this chapter in
the next lesson, since they are more connected with the subjects of the next
chapter…]
More lessons
on Deuteronomy: DEVARIM (Deut.)
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