HE following paragraphs are taken from “Light from the Land of the Sphinx” “The last three feasts were separated from the first four by a considerable lapse of time. The climax of both the three and the four was a harvest, and thus the three great seasons of the earth’s fruitfulness were commemorated. The first four feasts occurred at the beginning of the year, the last three took place at its close; and as the first four were intimately connected with each other, so were the last three.
“In the seventh month, ‘in the first day of the month,’ a Sabbath, a rest day, was held, and throughout the land trumpets were blown. The trumpet call is a familiar figure of the summons of God. Israel had heard it at Sinai, and had obeyed its irresistible note. The sleep of man in the dust of death will be awakened by the sound of the trumpet, and all will arise at its bidding. Israel slept, as it were, after the Feast at Pentecost, and the Feast of Trumpets bade them awake and prepare for the Great Day of Atonement.
“Ten days later the service of the Great Day of Atonement commenced. This was a fast issuing into a feast. Food could not be eaten, nor could work be performed on that day under penalty of death. The commandment was, ‘Ye shall afflict your souls, and shall rest your rest.’ The effect of that great day was the cleansing away of Israel’s sins and the impurities of Israel’s worship, and at its close there was produced absolute reconciliation between God, the priests, and the people.
“Close upon the purification and the reconciliation effected by the Great Day of Atonement came the crowning joy of Israel. With the fifteenth day of the seventh month―that is, the full of the moon―the time measurer being in her glory―the Feast of Tabernacles commenced. It was the season of supreme joy, and the eighth day attached to it formed a crown of gladness for the cycle of the seven months. Israel rejoiced because Jehovah had blessed them with their final harvest, and to express their joy they dwelt in booths, made of branches of ornamental trees― ‘palm branches, boughs of trees with thick foliage, and willows of the brook.’ The wheat harvest had given them bread in their habitations; but the harvest of oil and wine gave them joy in addition; so they sat in their arbors resting and rejoicing—literally under the shadow of the bounties of God.
“While thus rejoicing they recalled their past. Their fathers had dwelt in booths in the wilderness. At Elim, where they had first rested on their exodus, they had woven themselves arbors of palm branches: upon the scorching mountain sides of Horeb, they had made them shelters from the thick bushes, and of sweet-scented acacia boughs, its yellow balls of bloom nodding amid its thorns; while, when nearing their promised land, on Jordan’s banks, they had formed grateful retreats of luscious pink-blossoming oleander. These were hallowed memories of peaceful incidents on the pilgrimage to now realized gladness. ‘The waste and howling wilderness’ had had its seasons of rest and peace, and it had not been for the forty years a pathway of monotonous distress without Ebenezers! Far, far from it. And even in the ‘rest’ of God, in heaven itself, the memories of His mercies shall never be forgotten. The Christian may obtain his spiritual ‘arbours’ from the symbols of Israel’s feast. The palms of his well-watered Elims―as he rested his first rest on his morning way; his shelters—flower yielding even out of thorns―upon the rugged hillsides of his scorching noonday journey; and his hallowed evening bowers redolent with the very sweetness of his eternal home―shall never, never pass out of recollection.”
This volume, which is just published, will afford the Bible student various suggestions in his search into the wonderful story of the exodus of Israel from the land of bondage. The book is specially commended to the readers of FAITHFUL WORDS by its writer.