Feast of the Tabernacles: Christ, Latter Day Light and Living Water!

Feast of the Tabernacles Initiated by the Lord Leviticus 23:34

Many believe that passover is the most important of the Jewish feasts but most Jews would

Feast of the Tabernacles

consider the Feast of the Tabernacles, to be the greatest and most joyous. This Feast,ls also known as the Feast of Booths or the Sukkot.  A Sukkot is a plural form of the word Sukkah which means a little three sided hut made with tree bows. I believe that when Peter suggested to erect a tabernacles to Moses and Elias and the Savior on the mount of transfiguration he meant lets build Sukkah.(Mark 9:5).The Feast of Tabernacles was, and still is an annual Jewish feast held six months after the Feast of the Passover in the fall. It lasts eight days, beginning and ending on the Sabbath, and commemorates the Lord’s blessings to the children of Israel during their travels in the wilderness. It also celebrates the year’s harvest and marks the end of the harvest season. It includes good food and thanksgiving.

Family Sharing a Meal in a Sukkah

The Old testament student manual (for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) explains; “at the Feast of Tabernacles more sacrifices of bullocks, rams, lambs, and goats were offered by the priests for the nation as a whole than at all the other Israelite feasts combined. The fact that it celebrated the completion of the fall harvest symbolizes the gospel reality that it is the mission of the house of Israel to gather all nations to Jehovah.”

Today The Feast of Tabernacles is still celebrated by many Jews, food is prepared inside but is eaten in for eight days in Sukkot, sometimes people sleep in huts as well, especially little children look forward to this joyous event. The feast of the Tabernacles in Jesus’s Day was a very important celebration, Jesus Christ our Savior, more than likely, would have, as a child, traveled traveled to Jerusalem with his family for the celebration of the Sukkot each year.  

During the Feast of Tabernacles anciently the temple in Jerusalem was illuminated by the flames from four enormous candelabra! The lights from the huge Menorah would have been seen throughout the entire city, the temple would shine with light. In the Women’s Courts huge lamps were also erected to illuminate the Festival. Young priests-in-training were given the task of filling huge lamps by climbing up to them on great ladders while carrying jugs of oil each day of the celebration, Jewish Priests would read and discuss scriptures about living water and living water would be poured in a basin at the base of the temple altar daily. The words of Zechariah 14:8 would be read, words that we associate with the last days... And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem…"

The Pool of Siloam at the Foot of Mount Moriah  - not fully excavated

On the seventh and last day of the ceremony conducted (as celebrated in Jerusalem, on the American contenant it is celebrated for 8 days.)a procession lead by a priest who holds an empty flask or cistern walks down to a pool which lies on the foothills of Mount Moriah, below in the City of David, to a pool called Siloam. This is the place where them miracle of the Blind man took place Jesus asked the blind man to wash the mud from his eyes in the Pool of Siloam (John 9)

The Al -Aqsa Mosque (gray dome) and Dome of the Rock (Gold Dome)
(excavations of Solomons Temple In foreground) 

A priest would have taken this stairway down to the pool of Siloam, scooped up into a flask, living water, from the pool and carry it back to the temple. This entire ritual in Jesus’s Day was an elaborate and celebratory one with much music and song and dance and the waving of palm branches. (Jews wave the four species, palm, myrtle, citron and willow - see photo) I don't know if this was the case in Jesus's day.

Anciently, at the end of the song phrases of prayer call for God’s blessing, was added it was the word Hoshana! which ment (“Please save”, “save us” or “save now!”). For this reason, the last day came to be known to the Jews as the Hoshana Rabba, meaning the Day of the Great ‘O Save’. The Old Testament Student manual explains - This prayer and song is closely akin to what we do in giving the Hosanna Shout today. (See Old Testament Student Manual Feast of Tabernacles)Priests in the day of Jesus may have dance as David of old danced before the ark (2 Samuel 6:16). As Latter Day Saints, we celebrate with thanksgiving the plan of the Father carried out by His Son Jesus Christ which is going forth to the entire world! This saving work is still happening we claim that the works of vicarious ordinances, like baptism of the dead, that take place in holy temples, are the literal fulfillment of prophecy and are something happening that Jesus approved of .(1 Cor 15:29) Christ truly is the living water he proclaimed himself to be and that water has not stopped flowing.

We see the profound impact as we relate to the settings of the Feast of the Tabernacles which surrounded Christ’s declarations of power. The Jews, as a people, were calling on Him and He answered, which strongly aggravated many Jews of the Sanhedrin. Though many believed. The Feast of the Tabrinacles was the setting whereby the Lord made these declarations:

John 8:12 ... I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life... and .John 7:37:38 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. The scriptures explain to us that as he spake these words many believed on him. (John 8: 30) John 7:40 Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying, said, of a truth this is the Prophet. Meaning the Prophet who they were looking for in the celebration they were attending!

Then Jesus said if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:35 -36) Then he told everyone that he himself is the TRUTH  John 8: 36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

We too express thanksgiving for the plan of the Father carried out by His Son Jesus Christ which is going forth to the entire world! This saving work is happening we claim that the works of ordinances, like baptism of the dead, that take place in holy temples are the literal fulfillment of prophecy.(1 Cor 15:29) Christ truly is the living water he proclaimed himself to be and that water has not stopped flowing. (Revelations 17:20)