“Adonai said to Moshe, “Tell the people of Israel, ‘On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the feast of Sukkot for seven days to Adonai. On the first day there is to be a holy convocation; do not do any kind of ordinary work. For seven days you are to bring an offering made by fire to Adonai; on the eighth day you are to have a holy convocation and bring an offering made by fire to Adonai ; it is a day of public assembly; do not do any kind of ordinary work.”-Leviticus 23:33-36
We are in the midst of studying the 7-day Feast of Tabernacles, otherwise known as SUKKOT.
Notice that God calls the “1st day” and the “8th Day” (the day after the festival), to be “holy convocations“.
The NIV will use the term “sacred assembly“.
Now it is common among both Jews and Christians to refer to these holy convocations as “Sabbaths“.
However, this can be misleading because they are NOT the regular 7th day weekly Sabbaths.
And in fact, the original Hebrew Torah uses a completely different word than SHABBAT to refer to these non-7th day sabbaths.
In Hebrew, these holy convocations are called KODESH MIKRA.
It is because these KODESH MIKRA require that normal work be abstained from that over the centuries the word “sabbath” has been adopted to refer to them.
This is unfortunately an error and poor scholarship that has led to much confusion.
There is a difference between A Sabbath (KODESH MIKRA) and THE 7th day Sabbath (SHABBAT) and we should be aware of this difference when reading the Scriptures lest we fall prey to ridiculous doctrines that say we can make God’s ordained 7th day sabbath any day we want.
Moving on, in terms of the sacrifices, SUKKOT is much different than the other feasts.
SUKKOT requires that sacrifices be brought to the Temple every single one of the 7 days of the Feast!
We’re told the following three kinds of sacrifices were called for:
OLAH (Burnt Offering)
MINCHAH (Grain Offering)
ZEVAH SHELAMIM (Peace Offering)
Having to bring these offerings was both expensive and physical laborious.
But in spite of this, SUKKOT was considered to be one of the most enjoyable feasts.
The takeaway here is obvious.
We should take great joy in observing God’s commands.
Not only because we will be blessed.
But also because there is great joy simply in the DOING, in the OBSERVING of God’s HOLY commands.
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