Day 34: Temporary Home

^{John 7:2
2} But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles was near,


Welp, that's it. That's the whole passage for today. One of the reasons I wanted to do this study was to catch some things that I have always passed right over. This is one of them. What exactly was this Festival of Tabernacles? The next few passages occur in the festival and deal with it heavily. It stands to reason that we will need to know a little bit about it so that we'll understand what Jesus is doing there.


The description of the festival is found in Leviticus 23. It follows:

 The Festival of Tabernacles

 ³³ The LORD said to Moses, ³⁴ “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the LORD’s Festival of Tabernacles begins, and it lasts for seven days. ³⁵ The first day is a sacred assembly; do no regular work. ³⁶ For seven days present food offerings to the LORD, and on the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and present a food offering to the LORD. It is the closing special assembly; do no regular work.

 ³⁷ (“‘These are the LORD’s appointed festivals, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies for bringing food offerings to the LORD—the burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings required for each day. ³⁸ These offerings are in addition to those for the LORD’s Sabbaths and^[e] in addition to your gifts and whatever you have vowed and all the freewill offerings you give to the LORD.)

 ³⁹ “‘So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the LORD for seven days; the first day is a day of sabbath rest, and the eighth day also is a day of sabbath rest. ⁴⁰On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees—from palms, willows and other leafy trees—and rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. ⁴¹ Celebrate this as a festival to the LORD for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. ⁴² Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters ⁴³ so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.’”

 ⁴⁴ So Moses announced to the Israelites the appointed festivals of the LORD.

I hummed along on this pretty easily until I noticed v. 42. They lived in temporary shelters for seven days to commemorate the Lord bringing them out of Egypt! We just spent a week on the stories of Moses and the escape from Egypt at our VBS, and I wish I would have spotted this little nugget a week earlier. It's interesting to think: what if, instead of hanging out and grilling hamburgers for Veterans Day, we spent the day in a bunker to remember what our grandfathers and great grandfathers went through? I guarantee that the true purpose of the holiday would be a little more clear to us. That's essentially what God commands here. Pretty incredible.