The
seven appointed Jewish feasts are as follows:
1. Passover (Pesach) – Nisan 14-15;
2. Unleavened Bread (Chag Hamotzi) – Nisan 15-22;
3. First Fruits (Yom Habikkurim) – Nisan 16-17;
4. Pentecost (Shavu’ot) – Sivan 6-7;
5. Trumpets (Yom Teru-ah) – Tishri 1;
6. Atonement (Yom Kippur) – Tishri 10; and
7.
Tabernacles (Sukkot) –
Tishri 15-22.
The
above is in addition to The Sabbath Day (Shabbat), a weekly feast.
From the table, we see
that first three Jewish festivals occur in the month of Nissan (March), the fourth
one in the month of Sivan (May) and the remaining ones in the month of Tishri
(September). The context passage
occurred on the Feast of Tabernacles, which is in the month of Tishri.
The Jewish New Year begins
on 1 Tishri, known as Rosh Hashana or “Head of the Year”. The New Year is celebrated in the first two
days of Tishri and marks the beginning of ten days of prayer, self-examination,
and repentance. The end of this ten-day
period is also the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur lasts for 25 hours beginning on
the evening before Yom Kippur and ends after nightfall on Yom
Kippur.
The Feast of
Tabernacles or Sukkot is from the 15th to the 22nd of
Tishri. Sukkot commonly translated
as Feast of Tabernacles is also known as the Festival of
Ingathering. The Hebrew word sukkōt is
the plural of sukkah, "booth" or "tabernacle". During this festival, Jewish families would
construct a Sukkah or small hastily built hut within which meals are taken
throughout the festival. The Sukkah
commemorates the huts in which the Israelites lived during the forty years of
wilderness wandering after the exodus from Egypt.
The sukkōt were
temporary tents of the Israelites pending their permanent dwelling in the
Promised Land. It points to the temporary earthy tent of our physical body
while we await the celestial dwelling of our immortal and eternal body as
stated in 2 Corinthians 5: 1-3.
Sukkot is a seven-day
festival, with the first day celebrated as a full festival with special prayer
services and holiday meals. Normal work
is not permitted on the first and the last day of the festival as written in Leviticus 23:39. The seventh day of Sukkot is called Hoshana
Rabbah ("Great Hoshana “or “The Great Salvation”). It is followed immediately by another holy
day referred to as the “eight day” in Numbers 29:35. The Jews call it
Shemini Atzeret.
Sukkot represents the
millennial reign of the Lord Jesus in His Kingdom and Shemini Atzeret represents
the day of the new heavens and the new earth (Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21:1). After Israel entered the Promised Land,
Sukkot was associated with the Fall harvest and came to be known as the
“Festival of the Ingathering” of the harvest.
The seven-day celebration points to the six
thousand lease of earth and the one thousand year period where Satan will be
bound during the millennium reign as stated in Revelation 20:1-6. Thereafter, the
final rebellion led by Satan will take place but he will be defeated and hurled
into the lake of fire and burning brimstone.
Then, the new heaven and the new earth will come into being as mentioned
in Revelation 20:7-10 and Revelation 21:1.
Where in the Bible was it mentioned that God
leased the earth to mankind for 6,000 years? It is not explicitly stated but
inferred. To begin with, God gave dominion over the earth to mankind as stated
in Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 1:28. Then, Genesis 2:1 says that God’s work
were brought to perfection at the end of six days. In 2 Peter 3:8, it is mentioned that
“a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years a day”. When this principle is applied to the six
days of the creation account in the Book of Genesis, it would imply that the
dominion over the earth by mankind will be for six blocks of one thousand
years. Another inference can be drawn
from Genesis 6:3 and Leviticus 25. In
Genesis 6:3, God said that the days of man shall be an hundred and twenty years.
In Leviticus 25, every fiftieth year
was established to be a year of Jubilee.
In other words, there will be 120 jubilees of 50 years making it a total
of 6,000 years before the millennium reign.
This is of course
highly controversial and open to much debate.
Nonetheless, it is an interesting observation.
Note:
The above information is adapted from the following sources:
https://cappsministries.com/pages/the-6000-year-earth-lease
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