God’s Word for You
Ezra 3:4-6 The Feast of Tabernacles
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, July 4, 2025
4 They celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles in accordance with what is written. They offered the burnt offerings by number according to the rule, as each day required. 5 After this they offered the regular burnt offerings, the offerings at the new moon and at all the appointed assemblies of the LORD, and the offerings by everyone who made a freewill offering to the LORD. 6 From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD. But the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid.
The seventh month of the Hebrew year was a series of celebrations. They are not all outlined here. There were a large number of sacrifices which the returning exiles observed.
Trumpets. On the first day, the Feast of Trumpets was held. This was a day of sacrifice and preparation. It was a day of repentance, and the whole nation would hear the word of God preached. Besides the regular morning sacrifice, there would be the usual monthly new moon offering, and then the festival offering for this day in particular: a bull, a ram, seven lambs, and a goat for a sin offering along with many grain and drink offerings (Numbers 29:2-6). “I will sacrifice with shouts of joy” was one description (Psalm 27:6), and a day of prayer. “The prayer of the upright pleases God” (Proverbs 15:8).
The Day of Atonement. On the tenth day, there came the special observation, the holiest day of the year, on which the High Priest would offer a bull, a ram, seven lambs, and many grain and food offerings. Then there would be two goats. One of those would be offered for the sin of the nation, and the other would become the scapegoat, sent away from the community as a representation of sin being removed. Then the High Priest would enter into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain for the only time during the year, to pray for the people. At this time, before the temple was rebuilt, this part of the festival could not be observed.
The Feast of Tabernacles. On the fifteenth day of the month, and for the week that followed, there was a holiday for all Israel. The people constructed temporary shelters, called huts, booths, shelters, or tabernacles, to remember their time in the wilderness in the days of Moses. It was probably this that Peter was talking about when he said to Jesus at the Transfiguration, “If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (Matthew 17:4).
Seventy bulls were offering during this festival. It was a harvest festival. It was also a time of praising God. There were also 98 lambs offered. This was the total of lambs offered apart from the regular morning and evening sacrifices. The blood of the lambs displayed the grace of God covering over the sins of mankind. It was a foreshadowing of the blood of the Son of God, the true Lamb of God, who came to take away the sin of the world. “The blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). There were other sacrifices, too, from the Israelites: “Burnt offerings, grain offerings, and oil” (Ezekiel 45:24). But the one sacrifice of Jesus covers over all. What man does is simply a response of thanks to God for Christ. “Thank be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him” (2 Corinthians 2:14).
The Eighth Day Ceremony. This was not really a separate festival, but a worship service that ended the Feast of Tabernacles (Numbers 29:35-38). It had its own sacrifices, but as a closing ceremony there were also prayers, and there was music, and preaching to the people, so that, as God said, “my name might be proclaimed in all the earth” (Exodus 9:16). Among the nations, this proclamation was done by the prophets and apostles in many ways, sometimes with warnings (Jonah 3:4), sometimes with debates (Mark 12:27), and sometimes with long reasoning discussions (Acts 17:2). But with God’s people in worship, it was purely an act of worship, with music and prayer and the word of God, just as we still do to this day.
At the end of the celebration, there was still the matter of the temple itself. No foundation had as yet been laid.
This verse reminds me of the days when I was a home missionary in Washington State, beginning a new congregation in the city of Maple Valley. There was no church; no building. There were only people. As the group began to grow, and my wife Kathryn and I taught Sunday school and hymns to the neighborhood children in our home on Sundays, there was some interest in us. And after a while, some of the adults who joined our group and who came to membership classes wanted to start to have worship services. We talked about renting space somewhere, and the Masonic Lodge offered to let us use their building on Sunday mornings, but in the end we just set up some folding chairs in our home. The “where” wasn’t important. The “what” and the “who” were all that was important. That was a long time ago, and I know that the little group has moved to another location, a real church building, and that they’ve long forgotten about me and my humble efforts. But God’s people gather and receive the news of the forgiveness of sins. That’s what’s important. But there is one blessing from those days that affects you, today. That was when I began writing and sending these devotions, nearly 8,000 devotions ago (November 11, 1999). God is good. And his blessings are truly wonderful.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.