'I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that

are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and

having neither bars nor gates' (Ezek. 38:11).

Nehemiah 8:14 -18 records the observance of the feast of tabernacles by

the returned Israelites under Nehemiah and Ezra, and we read there that

'since the days of Joshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children

of Israel done so' (Neh. 8:17).  Joshua led the people into the land at the

beginning, and Nehemiah (Joshua being the high priest, Zech. 3:1) led the

people back to Jerusalem after the captivity, and it is on these occasions

setting forth the end of the age at the conclusion of their wanderings that

the people commemorated the future day of restoration.  The yearning conveyed

by the words of Acts 1:6, 'wilt thou ... restore', and the triumphant

anticipation of the days when God will restore that which the locust hath

eaten, that is implied in Peter's quotation from the prophet Joel, can only

be partially understood by the Gentile reader.

Commentators have offered various reasons why Peter, on the Mount of

Transfiguration, should suddenly want to make 'tabernacles' for Moses, Elijah

and the Lord, but a well taught Israelite would have sympathetically entered

into this request.  The feast of tabernacles will be observed by the 'nations

that are left' after the awful wars of the end of the age (Zech. 14:16), when

the nations will at length learn the way of peace (Mic. 4:2).

Another name for this feast of tabernacles is 'the feast of

ingathering' (Exod. 23:16).  The LXX here reads the sunteleia, and it is to

this 'harvest' at the end of the year that the disciples refer when they

asked, 'What shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end (or sunteleia)

of the world (age)?' (Matt. 24:3).  Pentecost was a 'first fruits' harvest, a

remnant only being gathered in, but that remnant was a pledge of the harvest

of the end of the age.  The Creation week, ending with a Sabbath, was a type

of the 'rest that remaineth' (Heb. 4:9), a sabbatismos, the Millennium, the

seventh -thousand year of this present world.  The feast of tabernacles looks

beyond this, by its separation for special observance of the eighth day.

(See article Millennial Studies No. 11 - New Heaven and New Earth9).  The

symbolism of the number eight is present in the Ark, where eight souls were

saved (1 Pet. 3:20), Noah being designated the eighth person (2 Pet. 2:5).

Eight is the octave, the new start, the first of a new week, and with this

feast the festal year of Israel ends.

There was a difference of opinion among the leaders of the people as to

the exact purpose for which the boughs and branches of trees (Lev. 23:40)

were intended.  Some said they were to be used in the building of the booths,

others said they were to be carried in the hand.  Those who carried them to

the temple cried 'Hosanna ... send now prosperity', and the reader will the

better understand Matthew 21:8,9 by the knowledge of this fact.

'These are the feasts of the Lord'.  Man has his own idea of

'festivals'.  They commemorate the victories of arms, or the achievements of

the arts.  The great exhibition of 1851 was above all else an expression of

the hope that at last, man having travelled so far, and achieved so much, was

approaching the Age of Peace.  Alas, the most bloody wars of history have

followed the Great Exhibition.  While the desires and hopes for universal

peace were most sincerely expressed in connection with the 1951 festival,

there are few who have any confidence in such expectations.  Peace is not so

attained.  The festal year of God stands squarely on the Sacrifice of Christ.

Redemption and Atonement, the deliverance that leads us 'out' and the