Leviticus 23

If you want to enter a world of disorder and bewilderment, study the development of the modern calendar.

By the time of Julius Caesar, the calendar was so out of step with nature that Caesar ordered a Greek astronomer named Sosigenes to straighten things out. Unable to alter the movements of the heavens, Sosigenes solved the problem by temporarily adding nearly three extra months to the calendar, giving the year 46 BC 445 days! The people born that year must have had fun later on trying to figure out their birthdays.

Pope Gregory XIII (1502–85) commissioned the calendar we use today. In fact, it is a revision of the old Julian calendar. When Great Britain and its colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, September 3 became September 14, and eleven days disappeared from British history. Twenty-year-old George Washington found his birthdate moved from February 11 to February 22. Perhaps he celebrated his birthday twice a year.

Calendars are a normal part of our modern busy world, but they weren’t that important to the people of Israel in Moses’ day. The Jews worked from sunrise to sunset, counted the months by the phases of the moon, and watched the seasons come and go. God had promised them “seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night’’ (Gen. 8:22), and they were content. Each day was a sacred gift from God.

God gave Israel a calendar that was tied to the rhythm of the seasons and the history of the nation. It was an unusual calendar because it not only summarized what God had done for them in the past, but it also anticipated what God would do for them in the future. The salvation work of Jesus Christ, the founding of the church, and the future of the people of Israel are all illustrated in these seven feasts.

In this chapter, these special days are called “feasts’’ nine times and “holy convocations’’ ten times. “Feasts’’ have nothing to do with eating. In fact, on the day of Atonement, the people fasted. The word simply means “appointed times.’’ “Convocation’’ gives the idea that during each of these feasts, all the people met together as a congregation, but this also was not true. There were special gatherings on some of the special days, but the word basically means “proclamation’’ or “announcement.’’ The Lord “appointed and announced’’ these events, which the people faithfully had to celebrate.

The weekly Sabbath wasn’t one of the annual feasts (Ex. 20:8–11), but it was an important day for the Jewish people, and they were expected to honor it. To dishonor it meant death (Num. 15:32–36).

God gave the Sabbath to Israel for several reasons. For one thing, it provided needed rest and refreshment for the people, the farm animals, and the land. (“Sabbath’’ comes from a Hebrew word that means “to rest, to cease from labor.’’) Based on Genesis 2:1–3, the weekly Sabbath reminded the Jews that Jehovah God was the Creator and they were but stewards of His generous gifts. The Lord also ordained Sabbath years and the Year of Jubilee to keep the Jews from exploiting the land and impoverishing it (Lev. 25). God’s tender concern for His creation is seen in the Sabbath laws.

The Sabbath was also a special sign between God and His covenant people (Ex. 31:12–17). Other peoples might work on the seventh day and treat it like any other day, but the Israelites rested on the seventh day and thereby gave witness that they belonged to the Lord (Neh. 13:15–22; Isa. 58:13–14). Nehemiah made it clear that the Sabbath law wasn’t given to Israel until they arrived at Sinai (Neh. 9:13–14), while Psalm 147:19–20 indicates that the law was never given to the Gentile nations. Although believers today aren’t commanded to “remember the Sabbath Day’’ (Rom. 14:1ff.; Col. 2:16–17), the principle of resting one day in seven is a good one.

Passover is Israel’s feast of deliverance; the key passage is Exodus 12. The innocent lamb died for the firstborn; because the blood of the lamb was applied to the door by faith, the firstborn sons were safe. This was “the Lord’s passover’’ and the only means of deliverance that He provided that awesome night when the death angel visited Egypt. To reject the blood of the lamb was to accept judgment and death.

The lamb typified Jesus Christ, who shed His blood on the cross for a world of lost sinners (John 1:29; 1 Peter 1:19–20). “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us’’ (1 Cor. 5:7). Since the Passover lamb had to be perfect, it was chosen on the tenth day of the month and watched carefully until it was slain on the fourteenth day of the month. Jesus Christ “knew no sin’’ (2 Cor. 5:21), “did no sin’’ (1 Peter 2:22), and “in Him is no sin’’ (1 John 3:5).

The firstborn Jews in Egypt weren’t saved from death by admiring the lamb, caring for the lamb, or loving the lamb. The lamb had to be slain, and the blood applied to the doorposts of each Jewish house. We aren’t saved by Christ the Example or Christ the Teacher. We’re saved by Christ the Substitute, who gave His life in our stead on the cross at the same hour the Passover lambs were being slain at the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.

The Jews also fed on the lamb, and this gave them strength for the journey ahead of them. No outsider was permitted to eat the Passover feast (Ex. 12:43–51). You had to be either born into the family (vv. 48–49) or purchased, and the men had to bear on their body the mark of the covenant. Those who have never trusted Jesus Christ can’t “feast’’ on Him through the Word and find the strength they need for the journey of life. Only somebody born into God’s family through faith in Christ, purchased by His blood and marked by the Holy Spirit as a child of the new covenant, can appropriate Jesus Christ through the Word and “feed’’ on Him.

Passover was the beginning of the Jewish religious year (vv. 1–2), and when sinners trust Christ, it marks for them a new beginning in a new life (2 Cor. 5:21). Israel was not only delivered from judgment; the nation was also delivered from Egypt and set free to go to their promised inheritance.

For seven days following Passover, the Jews ate only unleavened bread with their meals, and they carefully cleansed all the yeast out of their homes (Ex. 12:15–20). In many places in Scripture, leaven depicts sin. Thus the putting away of leaven illustrates the cleansing of one’s life after he or she has been saved through faith in the blood (2 Cor. 6:14—7:1).

We must get rid of the “old life’’ leaven (1 Cor. 5:7). Those things belong to our unconverted days and have no place in our new Christian walk (1 Peter 4:1–5). We must also put away “the leaven of malice and wickedness’’ (1 Cor. 5:8; Eph. 4:31–32), the leaven of hypocrisy (Luke 12:1), and the leaven of false doctrine (Gal. 5:7–9). The “leaven of Herod’’ (Mark 8:15) represents the attitude of pride and worldliness that was evident in that evil king’s life. And the “leaven … of the Sadducees’’ was unbelief (Matt. 16:6).

The people weren’t saved from death and bondage by getting rid of leaven but by applying the blood of the lamb by faith. People today think they’ll be saved because they reform or get rid of a bad habit, but good as doing these things are, they can never do what only the blood of Christ can do. Salvation is through the blood of Christ alone, the sinless Lamb of God, but “let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity’’ (2 Tim. 2: nkjv).

The Christian life is not a famine or a funeral; it’s a feast. “Therefore let us keep the feast … with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth’’ (1 Cor. 5:8). Sin can be secretly introduced into our lives and quietly grow so that it pollutes the inner person. One “toxic’’ Christian in a church body can defile the whole body if given enough time. One false doctrine, if allowed to grow, will destroy an entire ministry.

In many parts of the Western world, you will find churches and schools that once were true to the Christian faith but today deny that faith. How did this happen? At some point a board hired a professor or called a pastor who didn’t wholeheartedly agree with the evangelical statement of faith, and the yeast of false doctrine was quietly introduced. Before long, the whole lump of dough was leavened, and the ministry was no longer evangelical. Christian leaders must be on their guard and courageously seek to keep God’s work as free from leaven as possible.

The day after the Sabbath that followed Passover, which would be the first day of the week, the priest took the first sheaf of barley from the field and waved it as an offering before the Lord. It was a token that the first and the best belonged to God, and it was done before Israel reaped the harvest for themselves (Ex. 23:19; Neh. 10:34–37; Prov. 3:9). It was also an expression of gratitude to the Lord for giving the harvest and supplying their daily bread. The Jews weren’t allowed to eat of the harvest until the firstfruits had been given to the Lord (Lev. 23:14), an Old Testament picture of Matthew 6:33.

The male lamb sacrificed as a burnt offering spoke of the nation’s dedication to God. The meal offering and drink offering were reminders that their two dietary staples, bread and wine, came from God (see Ps. 104:14–15).

There is a deeper meaning to this ceremony, however, for Jesus Christ is “the firstfruits of them that slept’’ (1 Cor. 15:20). Jesus compared His death and burial to the planting of a seed (John 12:23), and Paul carried the image further by seeing His resurrection as the harvest of the grain (1 Cor. 15:35–49).

Two basic truths emerge here. First, God accepted the sheaf for the whole harvest, and because the Father accepted Jesus Christ, we are accepted in Him (Eph. 1:6). Second, the sheaf is like the harvest. The priest didn’t wave palm branches to represent the barley harvest; he waved a sheaf of barley. As the firstfruits of the resurrection harvest, Jesus Christ is now what one day His people shall be. At the “resurrection harvest,’’ we shall be like Him (1 Cor. 15:49; Phil. 3:20–21; 1 John 3:1–3).

The fact that this ritual took place on the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, is significant, for Jesus Christ arose from the dead on the first day of the week. Psalm 118:17–24 seems to describe the resurrection victory of Messiah over all His enemies (see Matt. 21:1–11, 42–46), and Psalm 118: says, “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.’’ This could be a reference to the first day of the week, resurrection day.

This special day was also called “the Feast of Weeks,’’ because it was celebrated seven weeks after firstfruits. The word “Pentecost’’ means “fiftieth,’’ and since the feast was held seven weeks after firstfruits, it too was on the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day. Each Lord’s Day commemorates the resurrection of Christ, the coming of the Spirit, and the birth of the church.

Instead of the priest waving sheaves before the Lord, he waved two loaves of bread baked with leaven. In order to have loaves, the grain had to be ground into flour and the flour baked into loaves. The fulfillment of this image is recorded in Acts 2 when fifty days after Christ’s resurrection, the Holy Spirit came and united the believers into the church, symbolized here by the two loaves (Jews and Gentiles). There’s leaven in the two loaves because there’s sin in the church (Lev. 2:11). The church will not be “holy and without blemish’’ (Eph. 5:27) until it sees the Lord in glory.

The feast lasted only one day, a day on which the people were not to work but were to rejoice before the Lord and bring Him an offering commensurate with the harvest He had given them (Deut. 16:9–12). This event would have marked the end of the wheat harvest, and the Jews were commanded to remember the poor as they harvested the grain God had generously given them (Lev. 23:22; see Deut. 24:19–22). Because of this commandment, Ruth was able to glean in the field of Boaz (Ruth 2). As a result, she married Boaz, and eventually David was born (Ruth 4).

Along with the wave loaves, thirteen different animal sacrifices were presented to the Lord: seven lambs, a young bull, and two rams for a burnt offering (dedication); a kid of the goats for a sin offering (atonement); and two lambs for a peace offering (reconciliation, fellowship). Unless Jesus Christ had died, been raised from the dead, and then returned to heaven, the Holy Spirit could not have come to earth to minister. All of these sacrifices were fulfilled in His one offering on the cross (Heb. 10:1–18).

God’s people can’t function properly in this world apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who baptizes believers into the body of Christ (Acts 1:5; 1 Cor. 12:13) and empowers them for service and witness (Acts 1:8; 4:8, 31), enabling them to endure persecution and suffering for the glory of God.

Following the Feast of Pentecost, there’s a fourmonth gap on God’s calendar before the next feast. This gap could represent the age we’re now in, the age of the church, during which we should be devotedly involved in the harvest (Matt. 9:36–38) and eagerly waiting for the sound of the trumpet (1 Cor. 15:51–58; 1 Thess. 4:13–18).

We covered this important event in our study of Leviticus 16 in chapter 6. Note here the emphasis on the people afflicting their souls (fasting, praying, confessing sin) and abstaining from all work. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us’’ (Titus 3:5).

As we noted in chapter 6, there’s also a prophetic message to the day of Atonement. After Israel is gathered to her land, the Jews will see their rejected Messiah, repent of their sins (Zech. 12:10—13:1), and be cleansed. The scattered nation will be gathered and the sinful nation will be cleansed. What a glorious day that will be!

The final three feasts were celebrated in the seventh month, our modern September–October. The number seven is important in this calendar and in God’s plan for Israel (Dan. 9:20–27). There are seven feasts, three of them in the seventh month. The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week. Pentecost is fifty days after firstfruits (seven times seven plus one). The Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Tabernacles each lasted seven days.

The Hebrew word for “seven’’ comes from a root word that means “to be full, to be satisfied.’’ It’s also related to the word meaning “to swear, to make an oath.’’ Whenever the Lord “sevens’’ something, He’s reminding His people that what He says and does is complete and dependable. Nothing can be added to it.

According to Numbers 10:1–10, the priests blew the silver trumpets for three occasions: to call the people together, to announce war, and to announce special times, such as the new moon. The Feast of Trumpets was held on the first day of the seventh month and ushered in the new civil year (Rosh Hashanah, “the head of the year’’). The sacrifices for the Feast of Trumpets are listed in Numbers 29:1–6.

The Scottish preacher Alexander Whyte once said that “the victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings.’’ God gives His people opportunities for new beginnings, and we’re foolish if we waste them. Unlike our modern New Year’s Day celebrations, the Jews used the first day of their new year for prayer, meditation, and confession. They sought to make a new beginning with the Lord.

There’s also a prophetic message to this feast. Because of their unbelief and rejection of Christ, Israel became a scattered people (Lev. 26:27–33; Deut. 28:58–67), but God will gather them again to their land in the last days (Isa. 11:1–12; 27:12–13; Matt. 24:29–31). When Israel was born into the community of nations on May 14, 1948, it reminded the world of God’s ancient promises, and among the orthodox, “Next year Jerusalem!’’ became more than a Passover motto.

The basic interpretation of this feast relates to Israel, but we can make an application to the church. Some of the saints are in heaven and some are on earth, and those on earth are scattered in many tribes and nations. But all of us should be waiting expectantly for the sound of the trumpet and our “gathering together unto him’’ (2 Thess. 2:1).

The nation of Israel is not only a scattered people and a sinful people, but they’re also a suffering people. No nation in history has suffered as the Jews have suffered, but one day their suffering will be turned into glory and joy.

The Feast of Tabernacles (Booths) reminded Israel of God’s blessings in the past (vv. 42–43). He had led them out of Egyptian bondage, cared for them in the wilderness, and brought them into their promised inheritance. Once they had lived in booths and tents, but in Canaan they would live in houses!

This feast was also called “the Feast of Ingathering’’ because it corresponded to the completion of the harvest (v. 39). Like Thanksgiving Day in the United States, it was a time of feasting, rejoicing, and giving thanks to God for His bountiful gifts (Deut. 16:13–15). But we must remember that joy always follows cleansing and that the day of Atonement preceded this feast (see Ps. 51:12). People who want happiness without holiness are destined to be disappointed.

During the week of celebration, the priests followed an elaborate schedule of offering sacrifices (Num. 29), and by the eighth day, they had offered 199 animals! This was certainly a reminder that there can be no blessing apart from the grace of God and the sacrifice of His Son for us on the cross.

The Feast of Tabernacles pictures the future kingdom God has prepared for Israel when their Messiah returns and they receive Him (Zech. 12:10—13:1; see Isa. 35; Luke 1:67–80). The prophet Zechariah described the changes that will take place in the topography of the holy land and how the Gentile nations will celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles along with the Jews (Zech. 14:16–19).

For Israel, the best is yet to come! The scattered people will be gathered; the sinful people will be cleansed; the sorrowing people will rejoice. And for Christian believers, the best is yet to come; for we shall be together with the Lord and His people, every stain washed away, rejoicing in His presence.

It’s worth noting that the Jews added two extra rituals to their celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles to remind them of God’s wilderness blessings. The first was the pouring out of the water from the pool of Siloam, recalling God’s provision of water in the desert; the second was the placing of four large lighted candlesticks to recall the pillar of fire that led the people by night.

Jesus related both of these traditions to Himself. It was during the Feast of Tabernacles, when the water was being poured out, that He cried out, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink’’ (John 7:37). He also said to the temple crowd, “I am the light of the world’’ (John 8:12). What a tragedy the Jews were careful to maintain their traditions and yet completely missed their Messiah who was in their midst!

Each year, the grown males of the nation had to appear before God to celebrate three specific feasts: Passover and Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, and Tabernacles (Ex. 23:14–19). These three feasts remind us of the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and the return of Christ to establish His kingdom. Christ died for our sins; Christ lives; Christ is coming again! Hallelujah, what a Savior!