Let us go back to Leviticus 23. We were here a few times today already. I was not kidding when I said I would take David's notes and basically give the same thing.
I am just going to preface this whole paragraph or so with, as David said this morning, actually, James said it too, Martin, you may have said it too - except for the offerings to be given on this holy day in Numbers 29:35-38, this is the totality of scriptural instruction about the Eighth Day. It is very rare in the Bible for any kind of instruction to be given about this day in particular. There is also a passing reference to it in Nehemiah 8:18. We will not go there. It just basically says that they kept this day. And in the New Testament, before you understand the symbolism and everything of this, using the time markers in John 7, chapters 8 through 10, about halfway through chapter 10 may have occurred on the Eighth Day in the last Feast of Tabernacles of Jesus' life. So that gives us some things to talk about, what happens in John 8, 9, and the first half of chapter 10 before the Feast of Dedication is spoken about there.
But that is it. That is basically all we have to go on about the Eighth Day unless you begin to start putting things together, and I think God has revealed some of these things to us in the last few years so that we can understand more about this particular holy day. It is not readily apparent what the Eighth Day is all about just from a straight through reading of the text. Because the way it is in the texts, most people just say that it is just a continuation of the Feast of Tabernacles. That is how it is presented in Leviticus 23. There is the first day you have a holy convocation. You keep the feast on the Eighth Day, you have a holy convocation, a sacred assembly, a Sabbath rest.
That is what it seems, but what we have been finding is that that particular understanding is, to me, a severe oversimplification of what this day is all about.
Now, last year on this same day, David Grabbe gave a sermonette. He called it The Sacred Assemblies, and we published it this past August as a two-part CGG Weekly, and he used some of it in his offertory sermonette today. He found something in Scripture and did a bit of corresponding word study that was to me at the time completely new. I had never heard it explained before. And it revolves around what is said in verse 36 about the Eighth Day. Let us just jump in the middle.
It is the phrase sacred assembly that was the big aha! phrase for us. Because the sacred assembly, we thought, was just the same thing as a holy convocation, but when you dig into it, you find out that it is other. There is more there. So only the Eighth Day of the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Day of Unleavened Bread are sacred assemblies. And like I said, it is different from a holy convocation. It is a holy convocation. It is a Sabbath rest. It is a holy day, but it is also designated specifically as a sacred assembly.
Now the word study deals with the Hebrew word underlying sacred assembly and as he mentioned this morning, it is atzeret. It is Strong's number 6116. I found that actually to be interesting because that is a numerical palindrome, makes it easy to remember: 61-16. A palindrome is something like a word or a phrase or even numbers that are the same backwards and forwards. So atzeret is 6116.
And as David said today, a sacred assembly, an atzeret, is a holy convocation with a special purpose. It makes the Last Day of Unleavened Bread and the Eighth Day of the Feast different, special. Both of these obviously end week-long feasts. A sacred assembly occurs at the end of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a week-long festival, and also on the Eighth Day after the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles.
Now atzeret's root is atsar. It is Strong's number 6113. And as he mentioned this morning, it contains the ideas of closing, stopping, restraining, and retaining. And understanding … . . .
So, we saw that the first two feasts were a one-day feast followed by a seven-day feast, and here we see that same pattern, but in reverse, like a mirror. The last feasts of the year are a seven-day feast, followed by a one-day feast. That is not an accident. As we will see, what we observe later in the year relates to what we observe at the beginning.
Knowing what we do of God, both as the Creator and as the One who inspired these things, we should know that this is not happenstance. In everything God does, there is a purpose and precision, and His written word is no exception. His feasts and holy days are no exception. And this arrangement of one day plus seven days, and then seven days plus one, is also no exception. This pattern invites us to explore these feasts together, which will help us to get just a little more into the mind of their Author.
But first, we need to understand another pattern within God's word. This seems to be one of God's favorites, because He uses it in many places. It is called the chiasm. A chiasm is a where related ideas are repeated, but in reverse order. That's what we've seen already, with the 1+7 and then 7+1. It repeats, but in reverse order.
The word chiasm comes from the Greek word chi, which is the letter X. In a chiasm, the first idea or element relates to the last idea or element. It does not mean they are identical, only that there is some relationship between them. When we understand the relationship through comparing and contrasting, we understand both better. Next in the chiasm, the second element in the chiasm relates to the second-to-last element. So, the top and bottom of the chiasm march toward each other, and they meet in the middle of the X.
And for our topic today, the eight feast days are also arranged in a chiasm. Passover relates to the 8th Day. The First Day of Unleavened Bread - and, really, most of Unleavened Bread - relates to Tabernacles. The Last Day of Unleavened Bread relates to Atonement. And Pentecost and Trumpets are linked as well. We have tended to look at them just as a sequence, but when we identify the commonalities between the pairs, it helps us to better understand what God is teaching us with these times that He has set apart.
As we read, the reason that we stay in temporary dwellings is because God made the Israelites stay in booths when He delivered them from slavery in Egypt. Now, maybe it seems unusual that the instructions for this feast mention the exodus, which we associate with the Unleavened Bread. We have tended to think of Tabernacles in terms of looking ahead. But by God's command, Israel had to look back to and remember the exodus journey, and this applies to us as well.
So, this is a commonality with Tabernacles, because the place the Israelites camped for the First Day of Unleavened Bread is what this feast is named after. The Jews call this Feast Sukkot, which is the Hebrew word for tabernacle, tent, or booth. And the name of the place the Israelites camped is Succoth, which is the same word, except that it is plural. So, the Israelites stayed in booths in Succoth. This is curious because they stayed in booths in the place that had already been named booths. It was already named Succoth when they got there and made their camp. The backstory to this is found in Genesis 33:17:
So, the place the Israelites camped for the First Day of Unleavened Bread was named after the dwellings Jacob made for his livestock. Therefore the name of the place is called Succoth.
Another commonality with these feasts is that they are both kept for seven days. That may sound obvious, and it is, but it is worth reviewing God's commands so we don't forget. Back in verse 6, it says, …seven days you must eat unleavened bread. You don't have to turn to these, but I will read to you the same command in other places:
There is similar slippage that can happen with the Feast of Tabernacles, where sometimes plans are made to arrive at the Feast late or … . . .
