Feasts

In short

Leviticus 23 describes seven feasts (festivals) for Jews to observe every year. They are Jewish holidays – as in “time off” but also the literal idea of “holy days.”

Why they are important

This is utterly fascinating. There is a lot of history wrapped up in these feasts, and a ton of symbolism in all of the “sevens” involved. I honestly had no idea about all of this.

The Sabbath Feast?

There seems to be debate on whether to include the Sabbath as one of the seven (as it is in Lev 23). The reason that doesn’t make it eight is that people will combine Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread as one “feast”. I prefer keeping them separate (I mean, they get their own names) and considering the Sabbath (Hebrew for seven) as the sort of master plan. Also, Sabbath is weekly, unlike the other annual feasts.

Notice that in Leviticus 23:

• Verse 2 says “These are the appointed feasts of the LORD”
• Verse 3 describes the Sabbath
• Verse 4 says again, “These are the appointed feasts of the LORD”

It’s like it’s saying, the Sabbath is representing all the other feasts.

The annual feasts in Leviticus 23

Verse 4 – these are the feasts

1. Passover (v. 5)
2. Unleavened Bread (vs. 6-8)
3. Firstfruits (vs. 9-14)
4. Feast of Weeks (vs. 15-21) [called Pentecost in Greek]
5. Trumpets (vs. 23-25)
6. Day of Atonement (vs. 26-32)
7. Booths or Tabernacles (vs. 33-43)

Verse 44 – those were the feasts

Other than that, I see now that this topic is much bigger than I anticipated, and I will study this more and I hope you will, too.

Theology and doctrine

But be warned: as I was doing research on this, I found that people really like to try to bring all of this into some premillennial doctrine, literally interpreting passages in Isaiah and Revelation, for example. Others try to wedge it into some plan of salvation.

Look, Biblical patterns are cool and all, and I don’t know if these people are right or wrong, but I think the vast majority of us probably know barely anything about the Jewish feasts by themselves.

Can we just try to learn what is actually in the Bible first?