CHAPTER X.

THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES.

THE day on which the leading men of Israel were gathered around Ezra was the second day of the seventh month. They had come asking lessons which would enable them to instruct the people; and the ready scribe put before them passages relating to this very time. The Day of Atonement was ordained to be observed on the tenth, and the same passages which we know they did read would bring that institution under notice. It is not mentioned however, probably for the sufficient reason that Ezra had already seen to its observance during the years of his residence in Jerusalem. But it was otherwise with the Feast of Tabernacles; that, in the long years of captivity and feebleness, had either been quite forgotten, or the people had no heart to

keep it. Now, reading in Leviticus xxiii. 34-44, and in Deut. xvi. 13-17, 'they found written in the law which Jehovah had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month; and that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem saying, Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches and pine branches and myrtle branches and palm branches and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as it is written.' There were twelve days in which to make preparation. The new teachers found work quickly laid to their hands, in going from street to street, from town to village, publishing and proclaiming the long-forgotten ordinance. They were met with enthusiasm by the people, who had found that their God was ready to make the bones which He had broken to rejoice, that 'the joy of the Lord was their strength.' 'So the people went forth and brought' the branches; and on the fifteenth day Jerusalem wore a dress of unwonted gladness. The people 'made themselves booths, every one upon the roof of his

house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the street of the water gate, and in the street of the gate of Ephraim. And all the congregation of them that were come out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths.' We may be sure they wore their best, and many a song of Zion, disused while their oppressors scorned them, would now gladden the morning air. Solomon had kept this feast when bringing up the ark into the temple (2 Chron. v. 1-3); and Joshua and Zerubbabel had kept it when setting up again the altar of Jehovah (Ezra iii. 4); but since the days of Joshua the son of Nun unto that day, had not the children of Israel done so' as they did now. They had enjoyed another Exodus from bondage, they had crossed another desert and forded another Jordan, and in the repulsing of Sanballat and Geshem they had cast down another Jericho. And there was very great gladness.'

What did it mean? These booths of fastwithering leaves were the reminder to them of the wilderness way through which God had brought them to His prepared city. Now that

they dwelt in ceiled houses and within strong walls, they were thankfully to recall the shelter and protection vouchsafed when their only homes were shifting tents, and to rejoice in the covenant faithfulness of Jehovah. But that was not all: the feast had prospective as well as retrospective significance. Was this all they had to hope for from their God, the spacious dwellings and the secure defences of Shechem, or Hebron, or Bethlehem, or Jerusalem? Those who were Jews but by lineage might stop short there; but such as were spiritually worthy children of Abraham and the patriarchs would, like them, drink in this feast the new wine of a better hope, confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, desiring a better country, even an heavenly; so that God should not be ashamed to be called their God, having prepared for them a city (Heb. xi. 13-16). We keep the Feast of Tabernacles whensoever we thankfully remember all the way by which the Lord has led us into our present peace and safety in Christ Jesus; and when, 'going forth unto Him without the camp bearing His reproach,' we confess

that 'here we have no continuing city, but are seeking one to come' (Heb. xiii. 13, 14).

For ever with the Lord!

Amen so let it be !

Life from the dead is in that word,

'Tis immortality.

Here in the body pent,

Absent from Him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day's march nearer home.

With more or less continuity from this restoration was the feast observed through four and a half centuries until our Lord came and taught us its highest significance, inviting us to drink from Him the living water which is in all who drink it a well springing up into everlasting life (John vii. 37 with iv. 14). Thus already, in thousands of the citizens of the spiritual Jerusalem, have the words of Zechariah been fulfilled: their perfect accomplishment is reserved for the gathering of all the redeemed in the New Jerusalem, where our lives on this dim spot shall be 'a well-remembered history,' prompting to new songs of thankfulness such as no heart can now conceive.

'Also day by day, from the first day unto