The land-law of the Mosaic system was a perfect contrivance to keep all the land in the possession of all the people, as the true source of sustenance. At the same time, it was designed to prevent the growth of chronic poverty, and to secure the powerful development of family life by striking its roots into the soil by inalienable family inheritance. But it required something more than this to keep life in its true shape.

Mere agriculture and family interest might have fostered health and domesticity at the expense of intelligence and high character. A land of peaceful homesteads and prosperous peasants, without appropriate stimulants thrown in, might have become a land of stolid dullards, like many a countryside at home and abroad.

This was prevented by other appointments of the law, which interwove the God of Israel with every phase of private life as well as public, and gave a quickening stimulus to all the higher faculties.

Law of Moses

2 Speak unto the [Bnei Yisroel], and say unto them, Concerning the feasts [Mo'adim] of Yahweh, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations [mikra'ei kodesh], even these are My feasts [Mo'adim].

'...it was not enough that God should be privately regarded, or that the people should be exercised as individuals in matters of wisdom and holiness. Israel was intended to be a holy nation. National life is a part of the true life of men. The insulated mummified life of individuals is one of the abortions of the present evil state. It was therefore needful that there should be institutions to give them a collective life of the right development.

It was good that privately they should be prosperous and godly, but this did not complete the circle of what was needful for their well-being. There were therefore public institutions which supplied the means of developing the beautiful symmetry of human life that should exist in a perfect nation, a nation of divinely regulated life, private and public. These institutions come into view in the feasts of the law, one of the most picturesque and charming features of the national life constituted by the Law of Moses. Three times in the year every male had to appear at an appointed time, to keep a certain feast, according to the law (Lev. 23).

There was first the feast of the passover; second, the feast of weeks or firstfruits; and third, the feast of tabernacles, which divided off the year into convenient sections that redeemed it from monotony, besides rousing the nation periodically into purifying and noble and healthful activity (Deut. 16:16). These feasts were something of which the world has no experience in Gentile life, and of which it is very difficult for us to form an adequate idea. The mere fact of coming together at a common centre was a circumstance involving much that was good; it took the people away from their own houses and neighbourhoods for about a fortnight at least each time, and we all know the good effects a holiday such as this would involve.

Then the people of one neighbourhood would journey together, which would be a pleasant stimulus of the social element, and appears to be partly what is referred to in the Psalm, "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go up to the house of Yahweh". "Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem." There is also a panegyric of Jerusalem, in which one of the features of excellence is thus extolled:

"Whither the tribes of Yahweh go up to give thanks unto the name of Yahweh".

And then it was not a coming together to hold a meeting in the formal sense of modern notions, but a coming together to enjoy a good time.

"Thou shalt rejoice before Yahweh thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which Yahweh thy God hath chosen to place his name there" (Deut. 16:11).

"Thou shalt eat before Yahweh thy God from year to year in the place which Yahweh shall choose, thou and thy household."

The picture presented to the mind by such directions is that of a whole nation breaking up at a given date, and leaving the homesteads of common life, and swarming joyously together at a common place of assembly to spend a fortnight's thorough enjoyment together. It would be a different form and class of enjoyment from that we are acquainted with in Gentile holidays. There would not be the rude and objectless hilarity of inebriated crowds jostling together in mere friskiness without any central idea or purpose. Israel came together not only to rejoice but to worship God and to hear the law expounded.

Law of Moses Ch 9

The word "feasts" is mowade in Hebrew, from yawad, "to fix upon", and denotes "to meet at an appointed time". The word signifies literally, the appointed limes. ..The title speaks of set times appointed of Yahweh for a meeting with the people...the name Yahweh is prophetic... The appointed time of He who shall be. As all these feasts foreshadow a work accomplished in Christ; the title implied that there were appointed set times in which

the fulfilment of all the types shall be accomplished.

The Christadelphian Expositor p209

4 These are the feasts of [Moa'dim] Yahweh, even holy convocations [mikra'ei kodesh], which ye shall proclaim in their seasons [mo'adim].

Annual feasts. See also Numbers 28

The year is a natural period, and the longest natural period in the life of man. His life is but a repetition of years. The year, therefore, would naturally stand as the symbol of his whole life.

That "once a year" certain things should be done was an intimation that the things signified stood related to his whole life, that is, that the will of God required these things in paramount recognition in the lives of those who would be acceptable to Him.

5 In the 14th day of the 1st month [Abib] at even [ twilight] is Yahweh's passover [Pesach].

The passover was for the whole congregation to keep. But there was a special observance in the tabernacle. During the seven days of the feast, while the people were living on unleavened bread (" sincerity and truth"--1 Cor. 5:8), the priests were to offer every day, in addition to the daily morning and evening sacrifice, "two young bullocks, one ram, and seven lambs of the first year" without blemish as a burnt offering, and "one goat for a sin offering" (Num. 28:19)-along with their appointed meat offerings.

If the burnt offering means, as we seemed to see a chapter or two back, the absorption of the mortal by the flaming-power of the Spirit, then two bullocks (double strength, or all our strength): one ram (natural fatherhood): seven lambs (the very perfection of child-like innocence, sweetness, and simplicity) would be an intimation that man could only attain the immortal in a complete dedication to God of natural powers and relationships, in a perfect submission to His will as the law of life.

Christ in all this conformed to the foreshadowing of the law, and we conform to him when we obey him as called upon to do (Heb. 5:9). "The goat for a sin offering" shows us the antitypical sacrifice of sin's flesh--a pushful, masterful thing--which was put to death on Calvary, "that the body of sin might be destroyed" (Rom. 6:6-10); though in Christ, its pushful masterful tendencies were all overcome beforehand--as Jesus said, "I have overcome"--that the sacrifice (without blemish) might be accepted for us. Thus was blended with the Passover celebration, the typification of a perfect submission to the will of God as a basis of reconciliation.

There is something significant in this association of the highest spiritual attainments with the annual celebration of Israel's deliverance from Egypt, for we must not forget that the primary object of the feast was to keep this event in national memory (Exod. 12:14-27). The modern attitude is that of unbelief concerning the divine nature of the plagues: the death of the firstborn; and the opening of the Red Sea for Israel's escape; and lo, here, not only is the historic reality of these things Linked with a feast which has been kept by Israel in all their generations ever since to the present day, but involved in their celebration is the shadowing of the highest final achievements of God's purpose in Christ...

...Christ celebrated the passover with his disciples: in this he held up Moses and the firstborn to our view: for the passover had no meaning apart from Yahweh passing over the blood-sprinkled houses of the Israelites in Egypt on the night that he went through the land and destroyed the firstborn in every house in Egypt.

Christ said the passover would be "fulfilled in the kingdom of God" (Luke 22:16) which implies the typical nature of the passover feast, in harmony with Paul's teaching that Christ is our passover, sacrificed for us (1 Cor. 5:7). Thus, Christ in the kingdom and Christ on the cross unite with Moses in Egypt on the night of the exodus--which may enable us to understand why the final song of salvation is "the song of Moses and of the Lamb" (Rev. 15:3).

The sacrificial endorsement of the passover in the permanent annual services of the tabernacle is an intimation that a continual recognition of God's work in Egypt is part of our acceptable qualification before Him.

Law of Moses ch 21.

11 And he shall wave the sheaf before Yahweh, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.

The Sheaf of Firstfruits

... we understand ... to refer to ... the morning of his resurrection on the "morrow after the sabbath," when presumably presenting himself before the Father as the "sheaf of the first fruits," he was accepted and changed in the twinkling of an eye into the image of the deathless and incorruptible, or in other words (as Dr. Thomas explains it) ascended to the Father - John 20:17.

Bro. F. R. Shuttleworth

The Christadelphian, June 1888

This differed from the first anniversary celebration, in being founded upon an institute of nature, and not upon a divine interposition in the nation's affairs. Yet we shall find it no less spiritual in its uses, whether in its proximate and literal bearings; or its typical and remote significances.

As regards the first, it was a recognition of the divine beneficence in providing so bountifully for human need in the products of the soil--which even the Gentiles are reasonably expected to discern as the testimony of nature. As Paul told the inhabitants of Lystra, though God had left all nations to walk in their own ways, God, who made heaven and earth and the sea and all things therein, "left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness" (Acts 14:15-17). But the "witness" is only faintly discerned--and mostly not discerned at all.

Men use the divine goodness as the creatures crunch their oats and turnips, with a gastric satisfaction merely, without taking thought of the exquisite wisdom and superb goodness that have contrived and provided such suitable substances for the sustenance of man and beast.

Israel were not to be like the nations in this respect. They were to make the harvest an occasion of joyful recognition of the goodness of God. It was to be a long-drawn-out festivity beginning "from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to thy corn" (Deut. 16:9) and lasting till "thou hast (fully) gathered in thy corn and thy wine"--a festivity tempered with the sobrieties of worship, and therefore lacking the tendency to surfeit and weariness which belong to the mere revel of Gentile celebrations. They were to come and bring in their hand

"a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto Yahweh thy God, according as Yahweh thy God hath blessed thee: and thou shalt rejoice before Yahweh thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which Yahweh thy God hath chosen to place his name there."

But the feast of the firstfruits was not to be confined to an acknowledgment of the goodness of God in nature: it was to be associated also with the history of their divine origin as a nation in the wonders of the exodus from Egypt. They were formally to bring that history into view in their observance of the feast. A speech was specially provided for them with which they were to address the priest on bringing the firstfruits for presentation. They were to say:

"A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous: and the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: and when we cried unto Yahweh God of our fathers, Yahweh heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression: and Yahweh brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders: and he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land, which thou, O Lord, hast given me. And thou shalt set it before Yahweh thy God, and worship before Yahweh thy God" (Deut. 26:5-10)....

12 And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto Yahweh.

The waving of the sheaf.

... what can be plainer than the teaching of the waved sheaf that it is God's pleasure that we should actively serve Him in the use of the goodness He confers upon us? the sheaf representing the God-given bread of the field, and the waving signifying action, and the place - in the tabernacle before Yahweh - denoting His service.

The Burnt offering.

'...Why should the expression of gratitude to God for creature mercies and willingness to consecrate their use to His service, be mixed up with the offering up of slain animals?--seven lambs, a bullock, two rams, and a goat?

Herein, as we have before seen, is the allegorical enunciation of a truth concerning the relations of God and man that is very distasteful to natural religionists of every kind: viz., that God will not be approached by sinners, even for the presentation of thanksgiving, apart from the acknowledgment of their position as proclaimed in blood-shedding, and of His righteousness and holiness in requiring this of them. But it is more.

The animals offered were to be without blemish. It was a prophecy that God would provide an acceptable sacrificial approach in a man without sin, though bearing (in the nature to be sacrificed) the sin of all his people--Adam included. This prophecy centres in Christ, who proclaimed himself "the way", and plainly declared, "No man cometh unto the Father but by me".

21 And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.

v12-21 - The Israelites were neither to eat bread made from the new flour, nor eat parched corn or green ears of the ripening harvest "until the selfsame day" that an offering of firstfruits was presented in the tabernacle (Lev. 23:14). This was to consist of a sheaf to be waved by the priest before Yahweh, to be followed by the offering "of a he lamb without blemish of the first year", both to be offered "on the morrow after" the first Sabbath of the harvest season.

From this they were to count an interval of 50 days, or seven weeks and a day, by which time the whole harvest would be gathered in, and then they were to bring--not a sheaf, but two loaves of the new flour baked with leaven: and these were to be waved by the priest before Yahweh, and accompanied by the sacrifice of "seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams" for a burnt offering of sweet sayour. They were all first to be waved before Yahweh: and then offered as a burnt offering with their accompanying meat and drink offerings (before considered): and followed by the sacrifice of "a kid of the goats for a sin offering" (Lev. 23:12-21).

The ritual of the feast of firstfruits is, therefore, the enforcement of that most unpalatable truth, - that sinners are in no position to approach God even in harvest thanksgiving until invested with the name of him in whom sin was condemned, and by whom it was taken away. How they are to be invested with that name has been revealed in the teaching of the apostles. The belief and obedience of the gospel in baptism brings the obedient sinner into relation with him who was the antitype of all these animals. Without this relation, they are strangers and aliens--sharing the goodness of God in nature, "whereof all are partakers", but without hope concerning the life to Come; and without a standing in His presence for the loving communion of worship.

When men quarrel with this negative bearing of the divine institutions upon them, they act either in ignorance or forgetfulness of the holiness, majesty, and prerogative of God. They are like savages who would resent the enforcement of etiquette if they happened to stray into the courts or passages of a palace. Enlightenment recognizes that man is unfit for fellowship with God, and gladly welcomes and conforms to the conditions which the goodness of God has prescribed for the acquisition and enjoyment of so great an honour as to be "called the sons of God"---invited to come boldly to His throne for favour through Christ--and Christ alone.

In addition to these general significances, there is an interesting personal shadowing of Christ in the ordinances of the feast of firstfruits, and of the relation of his work to his people. Christ is expressly called "the firstfruits" in Paul's letter to the Corinthians: "Christ the firstfruits" (1 Cor. 15:23): "the firstfruits of them that slept" (verse 20) which connects the subject with the resurrection. "The first that should rise from the dead" (Acts 26:23): "the first begotten of the dead" (Rev. 1:5); "the first born of every creature" (Col. 1:18).

Now, in the type, there are two phases of the firstfruits which we shall probably not err in identifying with these two phases of the completed work of God upon earth. There is first, the single sheaf, at the beginning of the feast, to be waved before Yahweh "on the morrow after the Sabbath", and offered with a single he lamb with meat and drink offering; and then seven weeks afterwards, two loaves, made out of the flour yielded by the sheaves, and baked with leaven, and accompanied by the sacrifice of seven lambs, one bullock, two rams, and one kid of the goats.

The single sheaf we may take to be Christ personal and the offering of a he lamb, his own sacrifice for himself as a fellow-sufferer with his people; the meat and drink offering, the strength and gladness growing out of his painful submission to death. The "morrow after the Sabbath "' the very period of the week--namely, on the morning of the first day of the week, Sabbath being past, that he rose and ascended to the Father (John 20:17). Exactly seven weeks afterwards, "when the day of Pentecost had fully come" (Acts 2:1), that is, when the feast of the firstfruits had arrived--the second phase of the firstfruits was exhibited in the public divine endorsement of the friends of Christ by the outpouring of the Spirit fitly represented by two leavened loaves--two to represent their plurality as distinguished from the individual Christ loaves, as a product of the sheaves, to signify the friends of Christ who are a product of him; and leavened, to denote that they are not "without blemish", as Christ was, but stand before God as forgiven sinners.

Not only is Christ called the firstfruits, but the term is applied also to his people (James 1:18; Rev. 14:4). In this there might be confusion if we did not remember that in an important sense, he and they are one--one Christ in head and body.

But this is not the whole explanation. They are both the firstfruits, at two separate stages, recognized in the type. How they are literally so, we may discern as we look forward to the accomplishment of the purpose of God upon the earth. This accomplished purpose shows us the earth occupied by an immortal population as the result of the work of the Kingdom of God; and this immortal population, considered as a life-harvest, we perceive to have been preceded by two preliminary firstfruits of that harvest: Christ, as the individual victor over the grave, exalted to God's right hand to die no more; and the saints who are glorified at his coming and united to him, as a bride is to her husband, and associated with him in the work of rearing the rest of the family of God during the thousand years; they (Christ and the saints) are both firstfruits in relation to the harvest to be gathered in at the close of that period.

When seen on Mount Zion their redemption had been perfected. "These had been redeemed from among men". If the redemption had not been complete, they could not have sung the song of redemption. The price paid for their redemption was the blood of the Lamb, by which they are constituted "an offering of firstfruits" for Deity and for the Lamb.

Under the Law of Moses, the firstfruits were the New Fruits of the harvest of the land, offered in the form of Two Loaves, called "the Bread of the Firstfruits," fifty days after the waving of a single sheaf of the firstfruits on the third day after the Pass-over.

In the antitype, Jesus risen from among the dead, is "the wave-sheaf of the firstfruits; and the New Converts to the faith preached by the apostles, "The Bread of the Firstfruits". Of this there is evidence in 1 Cor. 15:20, where Paul says, "Christ is risen from among the dead, and become the firstfruits of them who have been sleeping;" and in James 1:18, addressing the true believers of his day, he says, "Of his own will the Father of Lights begat us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of Firstfruits of his creatures."

By this we are informed, that all who are truly begotten by the Word of Truth are designed to be what Jesus became in being waved before the Father after leaving the house of the dead.

The Word of Truth, or the Gospel, illuminates the understanding; so that when the enlightened are immersed into "Christ the Firstfruits," they are planted in the likeness of his death, in hope that they shall also be planted in the likeness of his resurrection; or become "firstfruits for the Deity and the Lamb" "the Bread of the Firstfruits," which can only be offered in the land promised to the Fathers, as indicated in the type (Lev. 23:9-21); and symbolically represented in this chapter of the Apocalypse.

In the type, the Pentecostian Firstfruits were waved in the form of Two Loaves, made from the fine flour of the new grain, and baked with leaven. This represented that the firstfruits would be taken from two classes leavened with the Truth - a loaf of the circumcision and a loaf of the uncircumcision; two loaves, but only one bread.

This work began on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus, on "the morrow of the Sabbath," which he spent in the tomb. Three thousand were then leavened with the Gospel of the Kingdom, to which they became obedient. These were of the circumcision.

After this many more thousand Jews became obedient to the faith. The invitation to God's Kingdom and Glory was then extended to people of other nations, beginning at the household of Cornelius. Since then, a people for the Father's Name has been collecting, as they sing, "out of every kindred, and tongue, and people and nation."

The work is still progressing, but after such a manner as to show that there is little more can be done. The Jewish and Gentile Loaves are almost complete; and little remains, but for the High Priest after the order of Melchizedec to come, and make a Pentecostian wave-offering of them before the Father on the mountain of his holiness.

When this is accomplished, a company of undefiled ones will have been developed, all of them like himself - Firstfruits, in whose mouth exists no guile, being faultless before the throne of God.

Eureka 14.5.

24 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.

The first day of the month as the day of the new moon was already under the law a monthly observance, but in this seventh month, the first day appears to have been emphasized above the first days of the other months. Israel were commanded to observe it as "a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation", or gathering of the people, who were to do no secular work on that day, but to assemble in endorsement of the special offerings to be made in the tabernacle that day--at which we have already looked.

The sounding of trumpets was a divinely appointed Mosaic institution. It was a holy convocation, styled "a memorial of blowing of trumpets," and was celebrated on the first day of the seventh month (Lev. xxiii. 24). It introduced one of the most important months of the Hebrew calendar -- the month on the tenth of which was the Day of Covering of Sins; on the fifteenth, the Feast of Tabernacles; and on every fiftieth tenth, the Jubilee, when sins, were not only covered, but every man returned to his possession and family (Lev. xxv. 8-17).

Eureka

The Sons of Aaron, the priests, were appointed to blow the trumpets in the day of their gladness, in their solemn days, over their burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of their peace offerings (Lev. 23:24; Num. 10:8,10).

The antitype of this arrangement is found in this fourteenth chapter (Apocalypse) the Pentecost is celebrated in the inauguration of the Deity's kings and priests on Mount Zion - the Bread of the Firstfruits.

Eureka

The trumpet to which this "loud," "first voice" belongs (Apoc 1v10), is that represented in "the memorial of the blowing of trumpets," on the first day of the seventh month (Lev. xxiii. 24). It is that sounding by which the princes, heads of the thousands of Israel, are summoned to gather themselves together unto Christ, the King of Israel (Num. x. 4).

It precedes the sounding on the tenth of the seventh month, which proclaims liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof (Lev. xxv. 9). The saints are first raised and exalted to the heaven; in other words, "meet Yahweh in the air,"... and then afterward "the Great Trumpet" of the Jubilee is blown by YAHWEH Elohim, who in the "lightnings and thunders which proceed out of the throne" (Apoc 4. 5), goes forth with the whirlwind of the south (Zech. ix. 14).

The silver trumpet that sounds upon the first day of the seventh month, gathers together that "great multitude which no man can number of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues"; of which John says he beheld that "they stood before the Throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands" (vii. 9).

"These had been dead, but when the trumpet sounded at the time of the dead that they should be judged, and that Yahweh Elohim should give reward to his servants the prophets and to the saints, and to them that venerate his name, small and great" (xi. 18), when the loud trumpet-voice was heard at this time in the lower parts of the earth, all these, with John among the number, "turned" and "looked" -- awake from their dusty bed, come forth from their graves, and gather together unto him (2 Thess. ii. 1) who, by the energy of the Eternal Spirit, will have raised them from among the dead.

Eureka 4.1.2.

27 Also on the 10th day of this 7th month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto Yahweh.

On the tenth day of the month, they were to have a day of special consecration to God, a day of atonement, a day of solemn gathering, a day on which they were to refrain from ordinary employment, and concentrate their minds upon God in penitence, a day in which they were to" afflict their souls"--a fast day, in fact, from evening to evening. The law of the day was very stringent. "Whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from his people. And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work on that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people."

Then comes the memorial proclamation through midheaven by these priests of the Deity, reminding the world that the hour of judicial retribution so long threatened has arrived; and inviting men to afflict their souls, in turning from their iniquities, to the reverential fear and worship of Him who made all things.

...When this proclamation has been made to the end of the world, the Jubilee Blast of the Day of Coverings, on the tenth day of the seventh month, is then blown - a Jubilee to Israel, proclaiming their return to their country, and consequent avengement upon all their enemies, who worship the Beast and his Image, and receive his sign in their foreheads, or in their hands. This is "the Day of Vengeance in the heart" of the Lamb, contemporary with "the Year of his redeemed" (Isa. 63:4); the works of which are detailed in Apoc. 14:8-11,14-20; 16:16-21; 17:14; 18; 19:1-3, 11-21; 20:1-4,14.

The Angel who makes the memorial proclamation is symbolical of the royal priests of the Meichizedec Household. The Mosaic type required that the silver trumpets be blown by priests of the High Priest's family. But the priesthood being changed the Aaronic priests are ineligible for the sounding of this proclamation in midheaven.

Hence, the priestly trumpeters have to be provided from another source; and there is no other source of supply but the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus, whom he has made kings and priests for the Deity. The proclamation is there-fore made by as many of the 144,000 as the work to be performed may demand.

Among these will be the apostle John, as the representative of a class. In the tenth chapter he tells us that after he had digested the little scroll of judgment, the Spirit told him that he "must prophesy again before many peoples and nations and tongues, and kings".

To do this he must rise from the dead, be judged, and quickened, when he will be fitted for the work. But it is too much for one man to accomplish in the short space allotted for the proclamation. Others of like qualifications wll therefore be associated with him in the work; so that it may be carried on in different countries at the same time. The apostles had their colaborating attendants and subordinates when they sounded the gospel trumpet in old time. In the new proclamation the same condition may obtain.

Be this as it may, it is "those that escape," or the saved remnant, that are sent, as sounders of the Truth, to the nations that have not heard the fame nor seen the glory of Yahweh; and they shall declare His glory to the Gentiles (Isa. 66:19). This is the plurality represented by the Angel - one messenger emblematic of a multitude; as it is written in Psa. 68:11, "Adonai will give the word; those who bear the tidings are a great host."

The proclamation is to be made through "midheaven." This is "the Air" into which the judgments of the Seventh Vial are to be poured after the proclamation of the message, or word given, is finished. It is the political aerial of Babylon the Great, which, instead of being as now the highest heaven of the political world, will occupy a middle station between the worshippers of the Beast, and the new throne established on Mount Zion. The Midheaven is the political firmament occupied by all the ranks, orders, and degrees, of the world rulers - the supreme and subordinate governors of those "many people, nations, and tongues" before whom John is to prophesy again.

This will be an exceedingly interesting time when the clergy of all orders, "the spirituals of wickedness in the heavenlies," shall be confronted by the apostles and saints, and proved to be liars and impostors before the world. And richly do they deserve to be exposed to this "shame and contempt". They will no longer be permitted to deceive the hearts of the simple with good words and fair speeches with impunity. The sheep's clothing will be stripped off them, and the wolf undisguised will be revealed.

High and pompous ecclesiastical titles will then be at a discount; and regarded only by those who come to obey the proclamation, as the tinsel bespanglement of vain and foolish men. The occupation of the clerical False Prophet of the world will be gone; for the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low; and Yahweh alone will come to be exalted in that day (Isaiah 2:17).

Eureka

THE FEAST OF INGATHERING.--"Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine" (Deut. 16:13). This was the most elaborate and intricate of all the feasts of the year, combining equally with the others, the two elements of national gratitude for bountiful goodness, and the national recognition of Egyptian deliverance, but exercising Israel much more deeply and setting forth in much more detail the conditions of human acceptability with God, and the foreshadowing of His purpose finally to abolish all curse.

Noticeably, the seventh month was the month of its celebration --which of itself points to completeness and finish, and therefore, to the end of God's work.

The "dispensation of the fulness of times" (Ephes. 1:10), popularly styled the Millennium, will be the antitype, or substance, of the Mosaic feast of tabernacles which was "a shadow of things to come." In this type, or pattern, Israel were to rejoice before Yahweh for seven days, beginning "on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when they had gathered the fruit of the land."

In relation to the first day of the seven, the law says, "it shall be a holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein." This was what we call Sunday. The statute then continues, "on the eighth day," also Sunday, "shall be a holy convocation unto you, and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto Yahweh: it is a solemn assembly; and ye shall do no servile work therein. "

Three times in four verses does Zechariah style the yearly going up of the Gentiles to Jerusalem to worship the king, Yahweh of Hosts, there, the "keeping of the feast of tabernacles" (Zech. 14:16-19); an event which is consequent upon the destruction of the dominion represented by Nebuchadnezzar's image, and the re-establishment of the kingdom and throne of David.

This national confluence of the Gentiles to Jerusalem is characteristic of Messiah's times; and of the true or real festival of tabernacles, when He will "confess to God among the Gentiles, and sing unto His name," and "they shall rejoice with His people," Israel (Rom. 15:9-10).

Elpis Israel 1.2.

The Mosaic Feast of Tabernacles

It was celebrated during seven days, beginning on the 15th of the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year, which is the first of the civil year, which in its antitype is

"the acceptable year of the Lord."

This year of civil or national acceptance under the new covenant, begins with the first day of the month, when the temple, altar, inner court, and nation, are reconciled by Messiah the Prince.

Like the rest of the Mosaic Feasts, the Feast of Tabernacles represents "the knowledge and the truth," first in relation to Christ's Household, and secondly, in relation to his nation, the Twelve Tribes.

The members of his household are "strangers before the Lord. and sojourners; their days on earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding." Like Israel, as it were, during the interregnum, they "sojourn in Meshech, and dwell in the tents of Kedar;" passing the time of their sojourning there, rejoicing in fear and trembling.

But when their elder brother, the High Priest of the covenant, shall come out from the Royal Presence to bless them, they will be pilgrims no longer; but permanent dwellers in their Father's house, partaking of "the joy." They will have passed through the primary signification of the Feast, and have attained perfection.

The Feast of Tabernacles was the celebration of the ingathering of the harvest. As a type, this had a two fold signification, namely, the ingathering of the Royal Household of the kingdom, when Christ shall "gather his wheat into his garner" at their resurrection; and the ingathering of the Twelve Tribes, when at that crisis they shall be gathered "from the outmost part of heaven," and replanted in their own land.

They now sojourn literally in Meshech, and dwell in the tents of Kedar; but when the kingdom is restored to them under the New Covenant they will dwell in their own habitations, and the nations will come up to Jerusalem to worship their king, and occupy the booths.

But the antitype of the feast, which is, "a feast of fat things for all nations," is not fully completed till the wheat harvest of the Age to Come shall be entirely ingathered at its expiration, when "death shall be swallowed up in victory," and the earth shall lie under the curse no longer. The feast of tabernacles, therefore, continues to be celebrated in the temple service, for this temple is

"the holy of the tabernacles of the Most High;"

wherefore its posts and walls will be adorned with palm trees, the branches of which, with those of other goodly trees, the Israelites carried on the first day of the feast, as the emblems of the joy that awaits the nation, when it shall have obtained the victory over all its enemies on the establishment of the kingdom of God. Therefore

"in the seventh month, in the fifteenth day of the month, shall the Prince do the like in the feast of the seven days, according to the sin offering, &c."—Ezek. 45:25; Lev. 23; Zech. 14. &c.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Sept 1851

The trees of righteousness will rejoice. Weeping willows - 'Blessed are they that mourn, for ye shall be comforted'

This in the mellow days of autumn, in a warm climate like Syria, would be a pleasant sequel to the severe exercises of the first part of the feast. The annual encampment of the volunteers in August, which all who take part in it find to be such a season of zestful and healthful change, may give some idea of the delight that this feast of tabernacles or booths was calculated to afford only that instead of being limited to male adults, it embraced the whole population, and gave the families and even the servants a taste of the pleasure of a week's camping-out, with special food supplies, under aromatic tree branches: and instead of being associated with horseplay and ribaldry, it was connected with the most ennobling exercises of the mind of which man is capable.

While Israel were to be seven days thus pleasantly encamped, a special series of sacrifices was to be offered in the tabernacle with a singular variation from day to day. On the FIRST DAY of the encampment in booths (15th of the month) the burnt offering was to consist of 13 young bullocks, two rams, and 14 lambs, without blemish, with their appropriate meat and drink offerings, and a kid of the goats for a sin offering--besides the daily burnt offering: on the SECOND DAY, the same, except that the number of young bullocks was to be 12 instead of 13; on the THIRD DAY, the same, except that the number of young bullocks was to be I l, instead of 12; and so on, the number of young bullocks diminishing by one each day, till the seventh day, when the number of the day and the number of the bullocks had come level--seven bullocks on the seventh day; finishing on the eighth day with a grand assembly of the people, and only one bullock, one ram, seven lambs, and one goat.

We shall probably find the meaning of this in the contemplation of this feast of ingathering as the type of the final harvest of life eternal, of which Christ is the individual, and his people the collective firstfruits. To this harvest all the work of God had been working forward from the beginning. That it should be foreshadowed by the last of all the feasts of the year is fitting; and that this feast should be held on the seventh month is in the same line of harmony, also that it should commence on the first day and last nearly the whole month, is striking.

That it should begin with a joyful trumpet blast is suggestive of the great joy with which the arrival of the day of God will be hailed. That this should be succeeded by a day of affliction, in which everyone should be bound on pain of death to take part, is in agreement with the revealed fact that after the joy caused to the people of God by Yahweh's reappearance in the earth and "the marriage supper of the Lamb", there will immediately ensue a time of trouble in which the nations of mankind will learn the righteousness of submission by the things they will suffer.

And then the encampment in arboreal booths for seven days, during which they were to "rejoice before Yahweh in the abundance of all good things which God had given them" is nothing but a splendid adumbration of the rest and gladness of the Kingdom of God following on the terrible events connected with its setting up.

But what are we to make of the greater number of sacrifices offered in the tabernacle and the gradual dwindling in the number of young bullocks--more action, more elaborateness in this the last of all the feasts of the year, and yet a feature pointing to curtailment?

We may see the meaning of this if we consider that the kingdom will be a time of much more activity in purely divine service than at any previous period of the world's history, and yet that as it draws to a close, the world is getting nearer the time when all sacrificial work of reconciliation--whether in type or antitype (for there will be both in the kingdom) will have served its purpose, and the seven bullocks (perfected work) will coincide with the seventh day (perfected time) and the work of God will be finished.

The grand assembly on the eighth and finishing day of the feast--when the sacrifices were reduced to one bullock, one ram, seven lambs, and one goat, may be taken to denote the crowning feast of worship and praise that will mark the close of the kingdom when the unwritten in the book of life having been given over to the second death, there will remain none upon earth but the innumerable multitude of those who, during the whole history of man from Adam's expulsion from Eden downward, have been "foreknown, predestinated, called, justified, and glorified", according to the definition of the process by Paul in Rom. 8:29-30. They are, thenceforth, the happy occupants of this noble planet for ever.

The sacrifices shrink to one in the final ceremony, because they are about to disappear, the lambs, however, remaining seven, because the lamb character (harmlessness, innocence, simplicity) is the perpetual basis of all: "charity never faileth", The bullock (human strength): and ram (the dignity of mankind): the goat (the self-assertion of the flesh)--all vanish in the change which consumes and transmutes flesh and blood into spirit-nature: but the Lamb remains for ever the distinguishing symbol of the perfected community of the guileless and loving and rejoicing sons of Yahweh God Almighty.

Law of Moses Ch 21.

Ye shall dwell in booths seven days

The third feast, called the feast of tabernacles or booths, because of the peculiar feature that the Israelites were to live in booths during its progress, would be two or three months after the feast of weeks.

It was fixed by the completion of the harvest, namely, "After that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine". It was to commence on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when they had gathered in the fruit of the land (Lev. 23:39). This would be six months after the Passover. All the feasts were joyous occasions, but it would seem as if the feast of tabernacles would exceed the others in some respects. It was a direction to every family that on the first day of the feast they were to take "the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook ", and construct temporary dwellings for their habitations during the feast.

We all know the delightful aroma of fresh-plucked branches of resinous trees: we can therefore imagine the charming stimulus that this odour would impart to the whole performance, and how delightful to the children to get into a light, new, airy house of that sort. It would not be cold, because it would be at the top of the summer season, when it would be a luxury to camp out in the open air. And then the well-filled hampers of all sorts to be stored in the sweet-smelling booths would give a zest of peculiar delightsomeness to the most joyous of all the feasts. They were to dwell in these booths seven days.

There was an historic meaning connected with this. "All that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths: that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt" (Lev. 23 :'42). They were to" keep a solemn feast to Yahweh... because Yahweh thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine hands". They were also enjoined to appear full-handed, that is, with plenty of provisions. "They shall not appear before Yahweh empty: every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of Yahweh thy God which he hath given thee" (Deut. 16: 16).

Law of Moses Ch 9.

44 And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of Yahweh.

The whole tendency of the Mosaic institution is well expressed in the 144th Psalm, "That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as comer stones, polished after the similitude of a palace: that our garners may be full, affording all manner of store: that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets: that our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets .... He showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation." "Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is Yahweh."

Law of Moses Ch 9