FEAST OF TABERNACLES.
“Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation,”—Isaiah 12: 3.
Before entering upon the interpretation of this verse, I will make the following extract from Bishop Lowth’s note upon this chapter: “On the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles they fetched water in a golden pitcher from the fountain Siloah, springing at the foot of Mount Zion, without the city; they brought it through the water-gate into the temple, and poured it, mixed with wine, on the sacrifice, as it lay upon the altar, with great rejoicing. They seem to have taken up this custom, for it is not ordained in the law of Moses, as an emblem of future blessings; in allusion to this passage of Isaiah: ‘Ye shall draw waters with joy from the fountains of salvation:’ an expression that can hardly be understood of any benefits afforded by the Mosaic dispensation. Our Saviour applied the ceremony, and the intention of it to himself, and to the effusion of the Holy Spirit, promised, and to be given by him. The sense of the Jews in this matter is plainly shown by the following passage of the Jerusalem Talmud: ‘Why is it called ‘The Place,’ or house, of drawing?’ (for that was the term for this ceremony, or for the place where the water was taken up.) ‘Because from thence they draw the Holy Spirit; as it is written: And ye shall draw water with joy from the fountains of salvation.’ We have already used this custom as the interpretation of these words in chapter 8.
‘Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Siloah, that go softly * * * * now, therefore, behold—the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river strong and many,’ &c.
And to this passage of the prophecy I believe that the words before us carry a reference. Of the judgments in the 7th chapter their fear and want of trust is assigned as the cause; of which repenting, they sing: ‘We will trust and not be afraid;’ of the judgments in the 8th chapter, their refusing the waters of Siloah is assigned as the cause; and now repenting thereof, they sing:
‘With joy shall we draw water out of the wells of salvation.’
That the Feast of Tabernacles, upon the last and great day of which this ceremony was wont to be observed, is to occupy a very prominent place in the eyes of the Jewish nation, and of the whole world, in that day, is declared in the very last chapter of Zechariah:
‘And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year to worship the King the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King the Lord of Hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not that have no rain, there shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations, that come not up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles’—
(Zechariah 14: 16-19).”
This I consider as the best commentary upon the verse under consideration, and proves that the words are not to be understood in a merely spiritual sense, but in a literal sense; for no one, after reading this passage, can doubt that it is a real Feast of Tabernacles to which the nations shall be required to come up. It remains, therefore, that we examine a little into the subject of the Feast of Tabernacles, in order to understand wherefore it should be set so prominently out, and be so peremptorily enforced, in the day of the millennial glory and blessedness. This feast, which, for the superior joyfulness and more abundant offerings, was called by distinction “The Feast,” and “The greatest of the feasts,” was held in the first month of the civil year, as the feast of the Passover was held in the first month of the year ecclesiastical. There preceded it two other feasts, held in the same month: the first, the Feast of Trumpets, on the first day, which proclaimed the entering upon the new period: the second, the Day of Atonement, on the tenth day of the month, whereby all sin was cleansed away and separated from the people. The third, the Feast of Tabernacles, commenced on the fifteenth day, in which the water was drawn from the pool of Siloam with exceeding great joy. These three feasts, following so fast upon one another in the beginning of the civil year (for until the deliverance out of Egypt the year began with this month,) point out to us three distinguishable events, in that great revolution of the Lord’s government, which shall begin at the restoration of his people. The first, the Feast of Trumpets, is thought to be commemorative of the creation, and anticipative of the restitution of all things, which shall begin to run after the harvest and the vintage of the ecclesiastical year have been accomplished (Revelation 14): and perhaps it answereth to the “great voices” of Revelation 19, or to the “new heavens and the new earth” of chapter 21. The second, the Day of Atonement, wherein every soul afflicted itself upon pain of instant cutting off by the Lord, represents that season of great trial and deep penitence with which his people shall be visited after they are restored to their land, and in which every evil and offensive thing shall be cut off and put away from the midst of them. This is described in these words of the prophet Zechariah 12: 10-14:
“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one that mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first born. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon: and the land shall mourn every family apart: the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; all the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.”
This being accomplished, commenceth the third epoch or crisis of this great revolution, which is the Feast of Tabernacles: and accordingly it is said, in the very next verse of Zechariah (13: 1),
“In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.”
This is the continuance of their estate, and the world’s estate, during that blessed period; and in their faithful observation of this Feast of Tabernacles standeth the well-being of the whole world; in their neglect of it standeth their condemnation and destruction. Zechariah, by supposing the case of nations refusing to keep the annual festival, and by prescribing the judgments which will in that case be inflicted, doth as good as prophesy of such an actual falling away: for in the prophets there are no hypotheses without a cause, there are no mere auguries of evil: the spirit of God is too gracious and goodly to forecast the fashion of uncertain evils. And being this is supposable, but a real case, against which God would warn the nations in the millennium, as he heretofore warned Adam against the eating of the forbidden tree; being that this keeping of the Feast of Tabernacles is the condition of obedience absolutely needful for the well-being of the nations, as not to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree was needful for the well-being of Adam in innocency: it is well worthy of consideration wherefore it should be so ordained.
Be it observed, then, first, with respect to the children of Israel, who are the proper subjects of our text, that the Feast of Tabernacles was for holy joy; and that therein were offered sacrifices in number far beyond those of other feasts; and that the people dwelt in booths constructed in the open field; all to keep up the remembrance of their having dwelt in tents in the wilderness, (Leviticus 23). The Feast of Tabernacles is in commemoration of a former houseless, homeless, wandering condition, and an acknowledgment to the Lord of all the joy and blessedness which they now possess: it is a continual saying,
“We were strangers and pilgrims, but now we have gotten from our God a city of habitation and rest.”
This our text declares the children of Israel shall with joy render unto the Lord,
“With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.”
There is no hint of their ever refusing to yield the obedience of that ordinance, on the tenure of which the millennial blessedness is held: they shall do it with joy and gladness: they shall acknowledge all unto the Lord. They shall year by year strip themselves of houses and of possessions, and be as their father Abraham was. They shall take the natural shelter of the woods, and thereby acknowledge that their glorious and strong city is all derived from God. They shall put themselves into the condition of our first parents, when driven forth of paradise, and acknowledge that all the magnificence of their estate is derived from Jah-Jehovah. They shall adopt the symbols of the condition of their fathers in the wilderness, when they had neither meat, nor drink, nor habitation; and acknowledge that all the abundance of the harvest with which their barns are full, and of the vintage with which the wine presses are ready to burst, is derived from Him who purchased the barren earth from the doom of sin, the curse of death, and made it to bud and bring forth abundantly. And this same thing shall the nations be required to do; but not in their own country, but at Jerusalem, in token of its being the city of the Lord and the metropolis of the whole earth; the centre of the blessing, from which it flows over all the earth; the reservoir for collecting all the praise and thanksgiving coming from the blessed earth into Jah-Jehovah, who hath made them glad. And when they shall cease thus to acknowledge the seed of Abraham as the blessing of all nations, when they shall draw off their allegiance to the nation of kings and priests; when they shall begin to conceive weariness of this yearly ordinance; when they shall conceive malice and enmity to the people who are thus honoured above all nations; then God, letting Satan loose among them, shall teach them how much they owe to Satan’s restrainer, the Redeemer of Israel; for by him those malevolent humours shall be kneaded up into strong delusion, and they shall rebel against the Jews and their Divine King, and come up against the camp of the saints and the holy city in open rebellion, and fire, descending from heaven shall devour them all, (Revelation 20). This I understand to be the meaning of the ordinance of the Feast of Tabernacles, during the blessed period unto which allusion is made in the verse before us, and with this concludes the first part of the song. —Prophet. Exp.
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