And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the LORD.
Moses closed the chapter by proclaiming to Israel the appointed yearly feasts of the Lord. Those yearly sabbaths fall on fixed month dates and shift weekdays from year to year, standing apart from the weekly seventh-day Sabbath which returns in constant succession. The weekly Sabbath is moral and perpetual from creation for all people, while the yearly sabbaths are ceremonial, local and typical shadows pointing forward to Christ. The spring feasts met fulfillment in His death, resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit, and the autumn feasts point to His priestly cleansing, judgment and final gathering of the redeemed. As shadows whose body is Christ they were nailed to the cross at His death without abolishing the Ten Commandments, and the Spirit's descent at Pentecost did not honor the weekday or change the Sabbath to the first day, though some held that the weekly Sabbath was classed with the feasts and passed away with them.
Closing Declaration and Calendar
The verse is the closing notice of the chapter in which Moses declared the feasts of the LORD to the children of Israel. It closes the list of the yearly feasts, which are typical and distinguished from the Sabbath of Jehovah and find their fuller meaning in the sacrifice, life, and work of Jesus Christ. The chapter distinguishes the weekly Sabbath, identified separately as the Sabbath of the LORD, from the appointed feasts treated as a distinct set of holy convocations, so the closing declaration concerns those appointed feasts, not the weekly Sabbath. The yearly feast sabbaths were observed on specified dates and were called Israel's sabbaths, your sabbaths, or her sabbaths, while the weekly Sabbath was the Lord's Sabbath.
The chapter lists seven annual sabbaths at fixed points in the year, distinct from the weekly cycle. They were set on particular days of the month and could fall on a weekly Sabbath but did not do so regularly. They are days of holy convocation in which no servile work was to be done, shadowy sabbaths belonging to the feasts declared by Moses. They are yearly ceremonial sabbaths and feasts, shadows pointing forward to Christ, different from the seventh-day Sabbath which still remains as the Lord's day.
The seven are the first day of unleavened bread, the seventh day of that feast, the day of Pentecost, the first day of the seventh month, the tenth day of that month, the fifteenth day of that month, and the twenty-second day of the same. Two of the sabbaths belonged to the Passover on the first and seventh days of the feast of unleavened bread and were dependent on it for their existence, namely the fifteenth and twenty-first days of the first month, with the day after seven weeks counted from the barley firstfruits and four dates in the seventh month completing the seven. The first and seventh days of unleavened bread begin on fixed dates regardless of the weekday, and the firstfruits sabbath follows a weekly Sabbath.
The Feast of Tabernacles or Ingathering begins on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, lasts seven days with an eighth day, and Israel gathered at the sanctuary or traveled to Jerusalem and lived in booths made from tree branches, rejoicing as they remembered deliverance from Egypt. Its first and eighth days were special days of holy convocation, each called a sabbath in the sense of a day of restraint, occurring only once a year, not the Sabbath, which belongs only to the seventh day of the week made when God made the heavens and the earth and not derived from these ceremonials. Because Jewish months were counted from the new moon they fell on different days of the week from year to year, though the feast days sometimes fell on the seventh day without thereby becoming the Sabbath. The tenth day of that month is kept as a sabbath of rest with affliction of soul, a settlement day for the year when the godly Israelite examines past life with regret and sorrow and consecrates himself anew, and after accepted penitence and assurance of pardon through the high priest's mediation the new year begins with songs of joy for deliverance from bondage of sin. The feast followed the tenth-day atonement with rejoicing, typifies a latter-time work of the Holy Ghost before the harvest like the former rain at Pentecost, and foreshadowed the final deliverance of God's people from sin and death and their celebration with Christ at the New Jerusalem. It was a seven-day thanksgiving feast beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month after the ingathering from the threshing floor and winepress, calling servants, Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows to rejoice, recalling wilderness wanderings, giving thanks for produce, pointing to the final harvest and gathering, with the law read at this national feast every seventh year.
The appointed observances included first-fruit thank-offerings acknowledging God as giver of temporal blessings and giving Him the first and best: when Israel entered the promised land a sheaf was presented before the grain harvest began, and after the harvest the first loaf made from threshed and ground grain was given to the Lord. The wave sheaf of barley firstfruits is offered on the morrow after the Sabbath before the harvest begins, and Pentecost is the fiftieth day counted from that offering as determined by the ripening harvest. The offering of firstfruits follows a weekly Sabbath, but the law does not fix that Sabbath to the fifteenth day of the first month; the harvest's ripening determines when the count begins, while the chapter's ordering of the months is applied by those who hold it to make the fifteenth of Abib the first Sabbath in the series of weekly Sabbaths observed by the Hebrews, so the weekly Sabbath fills the months in turn and comes again on the fifteenth of Abib in the next sacred year, with the firstfruits offering falling on the sixteenth. Pentecost was counted from the annual Passover Sabbath, not from the weekly Sabbath, so it could fall on any day of the week; in the year of the Holy Spirit's descent, it probably fell on the fifth or seventh day. The descent of the Holy Spirit fulfilled the promise that the disciples would be baptized with the Holy Ghost and does not establish that God intended to give special honor to the first day of the week.
The sacred year was regulated by the moon and the barley harvest, with Passover always on the fourteenth day of the first month and sometimes in March and sometimes in April, making the beginning irregular. Passover was always held on the fourteenth day of the moon, the fourteenth day of the first month of the ecclesiastical or sacred year, because on the sixteenth day of that same first month a sheaf of ripe barley had to be obtained and waved before the Lord on that definite sixteenth day, on the morrow after the Sabbath, and on no other day or month, so since the barley harvest was early or late the beginning was irregular and indefinite. The feasts were movable as to the day of the week, shifting from year to year because governed by the moon and the irregularity of the Jewish year, while the Sabbath of the Lord was fixed, always occurring on the seventh day of the week and not affected by the ceremonial institutions. Those who held the lunar-Sabbath reckoning taught that the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, the fifteenth day of the same month, the day following the Passover, was the annual or first weekly Sabbath in each sacred year governing cycles of sevens for the following year, so if Passover fell on Friday two Sabbaths came together, if on Saturday the first weekly Sabbath fell on Sunday, if on Sunday then on Monday, and so through the week, and that the Jews therefore never kept continued cycles of seventh-day Sabbaths while governed by lunar months.
The three yearly gatherings at the sanctuary are Passover or unleavened bread, Pentecost or weeks, and tabernacles, with the Day of Atonement reckoned among the yearly occasions. Israel's males were commanded to appear before the Lord at the sanctuary at each festival, and each festival was fulfilled in Christ's antitypical priestly service. At these gatherings the people brought offerings from the land and their labor, along with sacrifices, offerings, vows, and freewill gifts, and the feast of unleavened bread, or Passover, as the first of them was observed as a memorial of deliverance from Egypt. The required offerings include burnt offerings, grain and drink offerings, sacrifices, firstfruit thank-offerings, and special offerings on firstfruits, Pentecost, and the Day of Atonement. These ceremonial feasts and offerings pointed to Christ's sacrifice and were among the ceremonies blotted out through His death, including Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month, the firstfruits offering, the Feast of Weeks, and the Day of Atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month.
A sacred day, including a Sabbath, begins at evening, when the sun sets. The yearly feasts have a parallel account in Deuteronomy 16 of those same feasts. They are kept on fixed dates in the sacred year beginning with Nisan and reckoned in the modern calendar beginning with Tisri, including the Solemn Days, New Year on Tisri 1-2 and Day of Atonement on Tisri 10, with Tisri 1-10 forming ten days of penitence, and the Three Festivals, Feast of Tabernacles from Tisri 15 to Tisri 23 with Hoshana Rabba on Tisri 21 and Shemini Atseret and Simhath Tora on Tisri 22-23, Passover from Nisan 15 to Nisan 22 kept on the first full moon after the vernal equinox, and Feast of Weeks on Sivan 6-7 marking the completion of a week of weeks or forty-nine days counted as the counting of the omer from the second day of Passover, with the fiftieth day explaining the name Pentecost.
Annual Sabbaths and Weekly Sabbath
The chapter closes with Moses declaring the feasts to Israel, and it separately names the seventh-day Sabbath as the Sabbath of the LORD while calling the yearly days your sabbaths, her sabbaths, or the Jews' sabbaths kept besides the Sabbaths of Jehovah. The annual feast days, new moons, and associated ceremonial sabbaths declared to Israel are distinct from the weekly Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment, and the seven yearly festival days also called sabbath days in the plural are commanded with new moons beside the Sabbath of the Lord. These yearly holy days with their meats and drinks are a shadow of things to come pointing forward to Christ and are no longer binding, while the seventh-day Sabbath remains binding because it pointed back to creation and not forward to the cross.
The weekly Sabbath is moral, from creation before sin and the fall, pointing back to creation, spoken directly to the people in the Ten Commandments, weekly in constant succession, perpetual for all people. The yearly sabbaths are ceremonial, local, and typical, coming after sin as shadows pointing forward to Christ, yearly on fixed month dates, temporal for one nation. They belonged to the sacrificial system which arose because of sin and pointed forward to the Saviour, including the first and tenth days of the seventh month and the first and eighth days of the feasts. Unlike the weekly Sabbath which God spoke directly to the people, the feasts were declared through Moses, with Passover pointing to Christ, the Day of Atonement to the final judgment, and the Feast of Tabernacles to the gathering into the new earth. The annual sabbaths with the yearly feasts, new moons, meats and drinks stood for sin as shadows, and when Christ came those types expired by limitation as a shadow ceases when the substance is reached, having no reference to the eternal Sabbath of the Lord. The festival sabbaths derived their force from the law of ordinances and ceased when that law ended, while the Lord's Sabbath did not because it existed before that law.
The yearly sabbaths could fall on different weekdays from year to year as counted from the new moon and did not regularly coincide with the weekly Sabbath, while the weekly Sabbath remains always the seventh day unaffected by their shifting dates. The Feast of Tabernacles beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month had first and eighth days as special days of holy convocation, each called a sabbath in the sense of a day of restraint, occurring only once a year, not the Sabbath. The Sabbath belongs only to the seventh day of the week, made when God made heaven and earth and not derived from these ceremonials, and though feast days sometimes fell on the seventh day that did not make them the Sabbath. The seven annual sabbaths fell on specified dates of the month regardless of weekday and were distinct from the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments, and their changing dates did not change which day was the seventh day. The weekly Sabbath is the seventh day in uninterrupted succession and a memorial of creation, while the yearly sabbaths might fall on any day of the week.
The fifteenth of Abib comes once a year, not once a week like the Sabbath of the Lord, and ranks with the other annual sabbaths except the more sacred tenth of the seventh month. On Abib 15 no servile work is to be done and preparation of food is expressly allowed, while on the seventh day no work at all is to be done and preparation of food is expressly forbidden, proving Abib 15 was not made to recur regularly on the day of the weekly Sabbath.
The weekly Sabbath is the only weekly feast among the Jews, appointed before the apostasy as a special memorial of the goodness and power of God displayed in the finished work of creation. Its obligation rests on the original creation relation rather than on temporary institutions, unlike annual sabbaths whose obligation rested on temporary institutions and whose weekdays were not holy in themselves, not set apart by God's rest or by His claim of ownership. The annual festivals rest on injunctions specific to them, not on the Fourth Commandment, and confusing them with the weekly Sabbath obscures the Sabbath's identity in the Old Testament. The Sabbath rested on its own law and was distinct from the festivals.
Those who held otherwise taught that because the seventh-day Sabbath is classed first among the feasts and holy convocations in the chapter, these feasts were abolished together. Others who held otherwise taught that placing the weekly Sabbath in the same list with yearly sabbaths as feasts of the LORD means there is no difference in kind between them and the weekly Sabbath is a positive typical institution like them with no moral basis separating it. Others who held otherwise taught that both the festivals and the weekly Sabbath are positive institutions of the old economy that have passed away, that the Jewish festivals including the annual sabbaths are the times of Galatians 4:10, and that Gentile Christians are particularly forbidden to observe them. Others who held otherwise taught that appointing annual days as sabbaths shows God could make any day of the week a Sabbath if He chose. Others who held otherwise taught that the Sabbath of the law fell on fixed dates changing the weekday year by year, so that the true Sabbath Christ kept did not always fall on Saturday but in the Gospels fell at times on Thursday and Friday as well as Saturday, showing no one now keeps it as Christ kept it.
The several ceremonial Sabbaths occurring yearly are distinct from both the weekly seventh-day Sabbath and the Sabbath of the land that came every seventh year.
Feasts Foreshadowing Christ's Work
The feasts Moses declared are types and prophecies fulfilled in Christ's sacrifice, life, priestly work and second advent, with the spring types fulfilled at His first advent and the autumn types pointing to His second advent, and their fuller meaning is found in Jesus Christ as distinct from the Sabbath of Jehovah, belonging to the typical ceremonial law pointing forward to Him and fulfilled in Him and abolished without touching the weekly Sabbath. The Passover, firstfruits and Pentecost were fulfilled in His death, resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Day of Atonement will end in His work as High Priest to bless His waiting people, and Tabernacles will find final fulfillment in the homecoming to the New Jerusalem, so the feasts need not be kept year by year but are met in His ministry and in walking in newness of life.
The Passover lamb pointed to Christ's death as Christ our Passover sacrificed for us, and when He made His offering the Passover ceased and the sabbaths connected with it on the first and seventh days of unleavened bread, being dependent on it for existence, could no longer exist. That fulfillment honored the feast itself rather than the weekday on which it fell and gave no warrant for a change of the Sabbath or for honoring the first day of the week. The sheaf of firstfruits waved on the sixteenth day of the first month pointed to Christ's resurrection as firstfruits, fulfilled when He rose on that day. The Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, fifty days after the firstfruits offering, was fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples, which came on that fiftieth day.
The Day of Atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month points to Christ's work as High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary, the final cleansing and remission of sins for sanctuary and people, the investigative and final judgment, and the blessing of His waiting people. Through the year the high priest ministers 359 days in the holy place, bringing in the blood of slain beasts and sprinkling it before the veil behind which is the ark containing the law whose transgression is sin, thus bearing the sins of Israel in by figure and acknowledging them before God. The last day of the year is the great Day of Atonement, the judgment-day and settlement day of the year when all the cases of the days before are brought in final review before God, when the godly examine the past life with sorrow for errors, weakness and sloth and consecrate themselves anew. Then all sins brought into remembrance in the holy place are brought by the high priest into the most holy and confessed before the ark where the blood of the atonement-goat is sprinkled, and after accepted penitence and assurance of pardon through his mediation the new year begins with songs of joy for deliverance from bondage of sin.
The Feast of Ingathering or Tabernacles after the Day of Atonement points to the immortal state, the final deliverance from sin and death, the gathering of the redeemed at the great harvest of the earth, and rejoicing with Christ in the New Jerusalem and new earth. It is the last of the typical feasts, a seven-day feast beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month after ingathering from threshing floor and winepress, kept in booths of tree branches with rejoicing as Israel remembered deliverance from Egypt and gave thanks for produce, calling servants, Levites, strangers, orphans and widows to rejoice, with the law read every seventh year. Coming immediately after the atonement it is an occasion of great joy, and those who held it typifies a latter-time work of the Holy Ghost before the harvest, like the former rain at Pentecost.
Each type meets its antitype exactly as to time: the Passover killed on the fourteenth day of the first month, the sheaf waved on the sixteenth, the feast of weeks on the fiftieth day after, and the atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month fix when their antitypes begin, so Christ was sacrificed as Passover on that day, rose as firstfruits on that day, the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost on that day, and the grand work in the holiest must commence on the tenth day of the seventh month in its appointed year. The grand event commences on the day of the type though it may extend far forward, as believers still feed on Christ the Passover and the Spirit still abides, and mere burnt offerings and circumstantial offerings prescribed on firstfruits, Pentecost and Atonement do not prevent the central event from meeting its type at the pointed time. The slain beasts and sacrifices pointed forward to Christ the Lamb of God who takes away the world's sin, whose blood was figured by that sprinkled before the veil and the ark. On the Day of Atonement the priest in his own person brings out those sins and places them upon the goat chosen for Satan, sent away by a fit man into a land of oblivion and destroyed, ending the yearly priestly service as a type of the final judgment; all who afflict their souls, confess and put away their sins stand clear before God, while anyone not living in connection with God and not afflicting his soul is cut off from the people.
Ceremonial Shadows Ended
The feasts Moses declared to Israel belong to the ceremonial, secondary, theocratic law written in the book of the law, distinct from the Sabbath of the LORD. They are the yearly and ceremonial sabbaths of the Jews with their meats and drinks, the services of the sanctuary together with its feasts, new moons, and ceremonial sabbaths, forming a second class of commandments whose whole validity rested on the circumstances of the Jews as a nation and their connection with the earthly sanctuary. When those national circumstances and that sanctuary connection ceased, these commands became obsolete and are no longer obligatory, for being temporary types their regulating laws ceased when the type met its antitype. They could be taken away as a judicial punishment, just as a person may now be excluded from the Lord's Supper, and they were abolished through Christ's death on the cross. They are distinct from the Sabbath instituted in Eden before the fall and guarded by the fourth commandment, about which there is nothing shadowy, and from the seventh-day Sabbath commanded in the Ten Commandments.
As shadows of things to come whose body is Christ, the yearly feasts, new moons, annual sabbaths, meats and drinks came because of sin and stood for sin as shadows pointing forward to Christ. When Christ came all those types expired by limitation, as a shadow ceases when the substance is reached, and they were blotted out, nailed to the cross, and abolished by the gospel at Christ's death. This included the seven ceremonial sabbaths in the year, the festivals and fasts and holy days listed besides the Sabbaths of the LORD as Israel's sabbaths in contrast to the Lord's Sabbath. It did not affect the moral Ten Commandments and the creation Sabbath, which is eternal, a memorial pointing back and part of the law still in force, unlike the typical days that ceased at the cross.
The sabbath days in Colossians 2:16 with meat, drink, holy day, and new moon are these annual sabbaths, with their food and drink and holy-day ordinances, not the seventh-day Sabbath. The chapter proves there are sabbaths besides the seventh-day Sabbath, so the sabbath days there need not mean the seventh day and the word sabbaths in the New Testament does not always mean the seventh day. These plural sabbaths were temporary ceremonial observances foretold to cease. That text does not forbid eating, drinking, feast days or Sabbath days and does not remove duty to keep the Sabbath; it means the Christian finds headship in Jesus Christ alone and takes Christ and His word for leading and guidance, and is not to be judged or condemned by what men say about meat, drink, holy days, new moons or sabbath days.
The complete list of Jewish feast days and fast days connected with eating and the like, including new moon, Passover, Pentecost, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, and jubilee, are like New Year's, Christmas, and Thanksgiving Day. Disputes about whether such ceremonial days remained holy are the kind of dispute where one esteems one day above another, and they are the days dealt with in Romans 14 and the times in Galatians 4:10, distinct from the weekly seventh-day Sabbath still in force. That weekly Sabbath stands apart as a holy sacred day recognized from creation, ordained and sanctified before sin, guarded by one of the Ten Commandments, of lasting obligation, and not made void by the establishment or abolition of the ceremonial law. Those who held the festivals to be positive institutions of the old economy that have passed away taught that the weekly Sabbath likewise passed away and that Gentile Christians are particularly forbidden to observe the times.
The yearly sabbaths were enforced by the law of types, designed especially for dwellers in the land of Canaan, requiring going to Jerusalem three times a year with sacrifices, and they were not kept till the Jews reached Palestine. They are three yearly feasts with seven annual sabbaths falling on certain days of certain months like Christmas and New Year. They could not be kept when that land was overrun by Gentiles after the people's dispersion, while the weekly Sabbath remained unaffected as a higher-order institution. They were a middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles, against Gentiles and contrary to them, and a yoke Gentiles could not bear that would consume all time. They grew out of sin after man fell, showed forth the remedy for sin, and were shadowy and typical, pointing forward to Christ, and were abolished in Christ's flesh at the cross and nailed to the cross, while the Ten Commandments of which the seventh-day Sabbath is a part were not destroyed. They are distinct from and opposite to the seventh-day Sabbath, which was made at creation before the fall and before man needed types, was made for the race and for man, is a memorial pointing back to creation, is not a shadow, is not against man, and will exist in the new earth when all types and shadows have vanished away.
The seven annual sabbaths are expressly listed as additional to the Sabbaths of the LORD. They are among observances later named as displeasing to God when kept by a sinful people. These appointed holy days and ceremonial ordinances had been misused as a means of earning salvation, though God originally gave the ceremonies as an expression of faith.
Sunday Claims Refuted
The closing notice that Moses declared the feasts of the Lord belongs to a calendar of types fulfilled in Christ, with the Passover in his death, the offering of firstfruits in his resurrection, and Pentecost fifty days after firstfruits in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples. That descent fulfilled the promise that the disciples would be baptized with the Holy Ghost, and its meaning was the fulfillment of the feast, not honor given to the weekday on which it fell and not a change of the Sabbath. Pentecost was counted from the annual Passover Sabbath and not from the weekly Sabbath, so it could fall on any day of the week, and in the year of the Spirit's descent it probably fell on the fifth or seventh day. As the fiftieth day it stands as an annual feast, and that count does not establish a weekly observance of the first day.
The eighth day named in the declaration is the day of the feast, not a day of the week, and the chapter contains nothing about reckoning the days of the week. To make that eighth day mean Sunday, the first day of the week, assumes what is not in the narrative, and any argument for Sunday-keeping built on that central assumption falls to the ground. The eighth day connected with certain feasts is called a great day and even a Sabbath, yet it does not always mean the first day of the week. For feasts beginning on fixed days of fixed months it falls on a different weekday from year to year, like New Year's Day and the Fourth of July, so it gives no proof that the eighth day or first day would be exalted as the Sabbath under the gospel, especially with no plain New Testament declaration exalting the first day as a weekly Sabbath, since types relating to gospel events and ordinances must be interpreted in harmony with plain gospel facts.
For ages the people of God held holy convocations on other days besides the seventh day, so a custom of meeting for worship on a certain day does not prove that day was the rest-day or Sabbath. Israel held holy convocations on days other than the Lord's weekly Sabbaths and did no servile work at them, and these gatherings could take up a day without canceling the command to work six days and rest on the seventh or changing the Sabbath day.
The yearly Sabbaths and fast days were to be observed yearly and not weekly, for no day of the weekly cycle is ever mentioned in connection with these feasts, and they give no ground for a weekly Sunday. God's inspired term the Sabbath is applied to the seventh day alone in both the Old and New Testaments as the Sabbath of all times and all places, the only Sabbath known to the Bible, even as Christ is the only Saviour. The annual or ceremonial Sabbaths are distinct from the weekly Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment and the two must not be confounded or classed together. The feasts were movable as to the day of the week, shifting from year to year because governed by the moon and the irregularity of the Jewish year, while the Sabbath of the Lord was fixed, always occurring on the seventh day of the week and not affected by the ceremonial institutions. Those feasts were a shadow of things to come whose body is of Christ, and all such shadows pointing to Christ were abolished at his death, so to make the weekly institution one of them would mean it was swept away, not changed to another day, and the Fourth Commandment abolished with it.
Sanctuary Worship and Life
The chapter lays out the main features of the sanctuary service as a profitable pattern, shadow, and type of the heavenly sanctuary and Christ's priesthood, given for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction that the man of God may be perfect and for learning unto hope, whose study gives clearer views of the Saviour and His work as High Priest and Minister of the true sanctuary, revealing God's way, power, and glory. Within the priests' regular ministry in the holy place it prescribes special work for annual feasts alongside Sabbaths and new moons, including the special services of the Lord's annual Sabbaths and feasts beside the daily service. The yearly round brings the high priest to minister 359 days in the holy place, bearing the sins of Israel in figure by bringing in the blood of slain beasts and sprinkling it before the veil behind which is the ark containing the law whose transgression is sin, thus acknowledging them before God. The last day of the year is the great Day of Atonement, the yearly judgment-day when all cases of the days before come in final review, all sins brought to remembrance in the holy place being brought by the high priest into the most holy place and confessed before the ark where the blood of the atonement-goat is sprinkled, and the priest in his own person brings out those sins and places them upon the goat for Satan, sent away by a fit man into a land of oblivion and destroyed, so that all who afflict their souls, confess and put away their sins stand clear, while those who do not are cut off, all of which Moses declared to Israel.
The weekly Sabbath is set forth as a day of rest and a holy convocation, sanctified by resting from ordinary labor as commanded, with the people gathering to worship, hear the law, and pray for their needs, while Passover and Pentecost and the other festivals gain clearer meaning when compared with their New Testament accounts. Besides the weekly Sabbath the appointed feasts include rests lasting several days when no work was permitted, showing God did not intend men to labor until health is harmed, nor yet to be idle. The appointed feasts are commemorative institutions fittingly placed on memorable days, as in the deliverance from Egypt. Their time of instituting does not fix their time of observing, for their appointed days of observance were different from the days of institution, otherwise they would have fallen on different days than they did and nearly all on the same day. That definite stated time of observance belongs to those feasts as Moses declared them, whereas no such specific statement of time belongs to the Lord's supper.
The yearly religious services form an ordered system instituted by God in which departure even in a small detail brought blame. The ceremonial feasts and sabbaths recorded here are distinct from the Lord's Sabbath and could be taken away as judicial punishment, just as a person may now be excluded from the Lord's Supper. The instructions for the Feast of Tabernacles give a seven-day thanksgiving feast beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, following the ingathering from threshing floor and winepress and calling the whole community, including servants, Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows, to rejoice. It gave thanks to God for the earth's produce, recalled the wilderness wanderings and deliverance, pointed forward to God's final harvest and gathering of His people, and at this national feast the law was read every seventh year.
The appointed observances include firstfruit thank-offerings acknowledging God as giver of temporal blessings and giving Him the first and best, with a sheaf presented before the grain harvest began upon entering the promised land and, after the harvest, the first loaf made from threshed and ground grain given to the Lord. The feasts Moses declared include the three yearly gatherings of Passover, weeks, and tabernacles, at which the people brought offerings from the land and their labor, with vows and freewill gifts. The special Sabbath laws regulating the appointed assemblies and worship were binding on Israel as a nation, not on other nations as laws, while their underlying principles remain binding.
The feasts Israel celebrated each year when living as required, with their Levitical ceremonies, pointed to fulfillment in Christ, the Passover lamb fulfilled in His death and Pentecost in the outpouring of the Spirit, Christ fulfilling the ceremonies through His priestly work, the Day of Atonement to end and Tabernacles to find final fulfillment in the homecoming to the New Jerusalem, so the feasts need not be observed year by year while awaiting that fulfillment but are met in His ministry and celebrated by walking in newness of life. Tabernacles comes immediately after the Day of Atonement and is an occasion of great joy and rejoicing. The Day of Atonement is the year's settlement day when the godly examine past life, remember with regret and sorrow errors, weakness, and sloth in God's work, and consecrate themselves anew, and after that solemn service of penitential tears and contrition is accepted through the high priest's mediation with assurance of pardon, the beginning of the new year is celebrated with songs of joy and gladness in commemoration of deliverance from the bondage of sin.
Moses closed the chapter by proclaiming to Israel the appointed yearly feasts of the Lord. Those yearly sabbaths fall on fixed month dates and shift weekdays from year to year, standing apart from the weekly seventh-day Sabbath which returns in constant succession. The weekly Sabbath is moral and perpetual from creation for all people, while the yearly sabbaths are ceremonial, local and typical shadows pointing forward to Christ. The spring feasts met fulfillment in His death, resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit, and the autumn feasts point to His priestly cleansing, judgment and final gathering of the redeemed. As shadows whose body is Christ they were nailed to the cross at His death without abolishing the Ten Commandments, and the Spirit's descent at Pentecost did not honor the weekday or change the Sabbath to the first day, though some held that the weekly Sabbath was classed with the feasts and passed away with them.
Closing Declaration and Calendar
The verse is the closing notice of the chapter in which Moses declared the feasts of the LORD to the children of Israel. It closes the list of the yearly feasts, which are typical and distinguished from the Sabbath of Jehovah and find their fuller meaning in the sacrifice, life, and work of Jesus Christ. The chapter distinguishes the weekly Sabbath, identified separately as the Sabbath of the LORD, from the appointed feasts treated as a distinct set of holy convocations, so the closing declaration concerns those appointed feasts, not the weekly Sabbath. The yearly feast sabbaths were observed on specified dates and were called Israel's sabbaths, your sabbaths, or her sabbaths, while the weekly Sabbath was the Lord's Sabbath.
The chapter lists seven annual sabbaths at fixed points in the year, distinct from the weekly cycle. They were set on particular days of the month and could fall on a weekly Sabbath but did not do so regularly. They are days of holy convocation in which no servile work was to be done, shadowy sabbaths belonging to the feasts declared by Moses. They are yearly ceremonial sabbaths and feasts, shadows pointing forward to Christ, different from the seventh-day Sabbath which still remains as the Lord's day.
The seven are the first day of unleavened bread, the seventh day of that feast, the day of Pentecost, the first day of the seventh month, the tenth day of that month, the fifteenth day of that month, and the twenty-second day of the same. Two of the sabbaths belonged to the Passover on the first and seventh days of the feast of unleavened bread and were dependent on it for their existence, namely the fifteenth and twenty-first days of the first month, with the day after seven weeks counted from the barley firstfruits and four dates in the seventh month completing the seven. The first and seventh days of unleavened bread begin on fixed dates regardless of the weekday, and the firstfruits sabbath follows a weekly Sabbath.
The Feast of Tabernacles or Ingathering begins on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, lasts seven days with an eighth day, and Israel gathered at the sanctuary or traveled to Jerusalem and lived in booths made from tree branches, rejoicing as they remembered deliverance from Egypt. Its first and eighth days were special days of holy convocation, each called a sabbath in the sense of a day of restraint, occurring only once a year, not the Sabbath, which belongs only to the seventh day of the week made when God made the heavens and the earth and not derived from these ceremonials. Because Jewish months were counted from the new moon they fell on different days of the week from year to year, though the feast days sometimes fell on the seventh day without thereby becoming the Sabbath. The tenth day of that month is kept as a sabbath of rest with affliction of soul, a settlement day for the year when the godly Israelite examines past life with regret and sorrow and consecrates himself anew, and after accepted penitence and assurance of pardon through the high priest's mediation the new year begins with songs of joy for deliverance from bondage of sin. The feast followed the tenth-day atonement with rejoicing, typifies a latter-time work of the Holy Ghost before the harvest like the former rain at Pentecost, and foreshadowed the final deliverance of God's people from sin and death and their celebration with Christ at the New Jerusalem. It was a seven-day thanksgiving feast beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month after the ingathering from the threshing floor and winepress, calling servants, Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows to rejoice, recalling wilderness wanderings, giving thanks for produce, pointing to the final harvest and gathering, with the law read at this national feast every seventh year.
The appointed observances included first-fruit thank-offerings acknowledging God as giver of temporal blessings and giving Him the first and best: when Israel entered the promised land a sheaf was presented before the grain harvest began, and after the harvest the first loaf made from threshed and ground grain was given to the Lord. The wave sheaf of barley firstfruits is offered on the morrow after the Sabbath before the harvest begins, and Pentecost is the fiftieth day counted from that offering as determined by the ripening harvest. The offering of firstfruits follows a weekly Sabbath, but the law does not fix that Sabbath to the fifteenth day of the first month; the harvest's ripening determines when the count begins, while the chapter's ordering of the months is applied by those who hold it to make the fifteenth of Abib the first Sabbath in the series of weekly Sabbaths observed by the Hebrews, so the weekly Sabbath fills the months in turn and comes again on the fifteenth of Abib in the next sacred year, with the firstfruits offering falling on the sixteenth. Pentecost was counted from the annual Passover Sabbath, not from the weekly Sabbath, so it could fall on any day of the week; in the year of the Holy Spirit's descent, it probably fell on the fifth or seventh day. The descent of the Holy Spirit fulfilled the promise that the disciples would be baptized with the Holy Ghost and does not establish that God intended to give special honor to the first day of the week.
The sacred year was regulated by the moon and the barley harvest, with Passover always on the fourteenth day of the first month and sometimes in March and sometimes in April, making the beginning irregular. Passover was always held on the fourteenth day of the moon, the fourteenth day of the first month of the ecclesiastical or sacred year, because on the sixteenth day of that same first month a sheaf of ripe barley had to be obtained and waved before the Lord on that definite sixteenth day, on the morrow after the Sabbath, and on no other day or month, so since the barley harvest was early or late the beginning was irregular and indefinite. The feasts were movable as to the day of the week, shifting from year to year because governed by the moon and the irregularity of the Jewish year, while the Sabbath of the Lord was fixed, always occurring on the seventh day of the week and not affected by the ceremonial institutions. Those who held the lunar-Sabbath reckoning taught that the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, the fifteenth day of the same month, the day following the Passover, was the annual or first weekly Sabbath in each sacred year governing cycles of sevens for the following year, so if Passover fell on Friday two Sabbaths came together, if on Saturday the first weekly Sabbath fell on Sunday, if on Sunday then on Monday, and so through the week, and that the Jews therefore never kept continued cycles of seventh-day Sabbaths while governed by lunar months.
The three yearly gatherings at the sanctuary are Passover or unleavened bread, Pentecost or weeks, and tabernacles, with the Day of Atonement reckoned among the yearly occasions. Israel's males were commanded to appear before the Lord at the sanctuary at each festival, and each festival was fulfilled in Christ's antitypical priestly service. At these gatherings the people brought offerings from the land and their labor, along with sacrifices, offerings, vows, and freewill gifts, and the feast of unleavened bread, or Passover, as the first of them was observed as a memorial of deliverance from Egypt. The required offerings include burnt offerings, grain and drink offerings, sacrifices, firstfruit thank-offerings, and special offerings on firstfruits, Pentecost, and the Day of Atonement. These ceremonial feasts and offerings pointed to Christ's sacrifice and were among the ceremonies blotted out through His death, including Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month, the firstfruits offering, the Feast of Weeks, and the Day of Atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month.
A sacred day, including a Sabbath, begins at evening, when the sun sets. The yearly feasts have a parallel account in Deuteronomy 16 of those same feasts. They are kept on fixed dates in the sacred year beginning with Nisan and reckoned in the modern calendar beginning with Tisri, including the Solemn Days, New Year on Tisri 1-2 and Day of Atonement on Tisri 10, with Tisri 1-10 forming ten days of penitence, and the Three Festivals, Feast of Tabernacles from Tisri 15 to Tisri 23 with Hoshana Rabba on Tisri 21 and Shemini Atseret and Simhath Tora on Tisri 22-23, Passover from Nisan 15 to Nisan 22 kept on the first full moon after the vernal equinox, and Feast of Weeks on Sivan 6-7 marking the completion of a week of weeks or forty-nine days counted as the counting of the omer from the second day of Passover, with the fiftieth day explaining the name Pentecost.
Annual Sabbaths and Weekly Sabbath
The chapter closes with Moses declaring the feasts to Israel, and it separately names the seventh-day Sabbath as the Sabbath of the LORD while calling the yearly days your sabbaths, her sabbaths, or the Jews' sabbaths kept besides the Sabbaths of Jehovah. The annual feast days, new moons, and associated ceremonial sabbaths declared to Israel are distinct from the weekly Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment, and the seven yearly festival days also called sabbath days in the plural are commanded with new moons beside the Sabbath of the Lord. These yearly holy days with their meats and drinks are a shadow of things to come pointing forward to Christ and are no longer binding, while the seventh-day Sabbath remains binding because it pointed back to creation and not forward to the cross.
The weekly Sabbath is moral, from creation before sin and the fall, pointing back to creation, spoken directly to the people in the Ten Commandments, weekly in constant succession, perpetual for all people. The yearly sabbaths are ceremonial, local, and typical, coming after sin as shadows pointing forward to Christ, yearly on fixed month dates, temporal for one nation. They belonged to the sacrificial system which arose because of sin and pointed forward to the Saviour, including the first and tenth days of the seventh month and the first and eighth days of the feasts. Unlike the weekly Sabbath which God spoke directly to the people, the feasts were declared through Moses, with Passover pointing to Christ, the Day of Atonement to the final judgment, and the Feast of Tabernacles to the gathering into the new earth. The annual sabbaths with the yearly feasts, new moons, meats and drinks stood for sin as shadows, and when Christ came those types expired by limitation as a shadow ceases when the substance is reached, having no reference to the eternal Sabbath of the Lord. The festival sabbaths derived their force from the law of ordinances and ceased when that law ended, while the Lord's Sabbath did not because it existed before that law.
The yearly sabbaths could fall on different weekdays from year to year as counted from the new moon and did not regularly coincide with the weekly Sabbath, while the weekly Sabbath remains always the seventh day unaffected by their shifting dates. The Feast of Tabernacles beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month had first and eighth days as special days of holy convocation, each called a sabbath in the sense of a day of restraint, occurring only once a year, not the Sabbath. The Sabbath belongs only to the seventh day of the week, made when God made heaven and earth and not derived from these ceremonials, and though feast days sometimes fell on the seventh day that did not make them the Sabbath. The seven annual sabbaths fell on specified dates of the month regardless of weekday and were distinct from the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments, and their changing dates did not change which day was the seventh day. The weekly Sabbath is the seventh day in uninterrupted succession and a memorial of creation, while the yearly sabbaths might fall on any day of the week.
The fifteenth of Abib comes once a year, not once a week like the Sabbath of the Lord, and ranks with the other annual sabbaths except the more sacred tenth of the seventh month. On Abib 15 no servile work is to be done and preparation of food is expressly allowed, while on the seventh day no work at all is to be done and preparation of food is expressly forbidden, proving Abib 15 was not made to recur regularly on the day of the weekly Sabbath.
The weekly Sabbath is the only weekly feast among the Jews, appointed before the apostasy as a special memorial of the goodness and power of God displayed in the finished work of creation. Its obligation rests on the original creation relation rather than on temporary institutions, unlike annual sabbaths whose obligation rested on temporary institutions and whose weekdays were not holy in themselves, not set apart by God's rest or by His claim of ownership. The annual festivals rest on injunctions specific to them, not on the Fourth Commandment, and confusing them with the weekly Sabbath obscures the Sabbath's identity in the Old Testament. The Sabbath rested on its own law and was distinct from the festivals.
Those who held otherwise taught that because the seventh-day Sabbath is classed first among the feasts and holy convocations in the chapter, these feasts were abolished together. Others who held otherwise taught that placing the weekly Sabbath in the same list with yearly sabbaths as feasts of the LORD means there is no difference in kind between them and the weekly Sabbath is a positive typical institution like them with no moral basis separating it. Others who held otherwise taught that both the festivals and the weekly Sabbath are positive institutions of the old economy that have passed away, that the Jewish festivals including the annual sabbaths are the times of Galatians 4:10, and that Gentile Christians are particularly forbidden to observe them. Others who held otherwise taught that appointing annual days as sabbaths shows God could make any day of the week a Sabbath if He chose. Others who held otherwise taught that the Sabbath of the law fell on fixed dates changing the weekday year by year, so that the true Sabbath Christ kept did not always fall on Saturday but in the Gospels fell at times on Thursday and Friday as well as Saturday, showing no one now keeps it as Christ kept it.
The several ceremonial Sabbaths occurring yearly are distinct from both the weekly seventh-day Sabbath and the Sabbath of the land that came every seventh year.
Feasts Foreshadowing Christ's Work
The feasts Moses declared are types and prophecies fulfilled in Christ's sacrifice, life, priestly work and second advent, with the spring types fulfilled at His first advent and the autumn types pointing to His second advent, and their fuller meaning is found in Jesus Christ as distinct from the Sabbath of Jehovah, belonging to the typical ceremonial law pointing forward to Him and fulfilled in Him and abolished without touching the weekly Sabbath. The Passover, firstfruits and Pentecost were fulfilled in His death, resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Day of Atonement will end in His work as High Priest to bless His waiting people, and Tabernacles will find final fulfillment in the homecoming to the New Jerusalem, so the feasts need not be kept year by year but are met in His ministry and in walking in newness of life.
The Passover lamb pointed to Christ's death as Christ our Passover sacrificed for us, and when He made His offering the Passover ceased and the sabbaths connected with it on the first and seventh days of unleavened bread, being dependent on it for existence, could no longer exist. That fulfillment honored the feast itself rather than the weekday on which it fell and gave no warrant for a change of the Sabbath or for honoring the first day of the week. The sheaf of firstfruits waved on the sixteenth day of the first month pointed to Christ's resurrection as firstfruits, fulfilled when He rose on that day. The Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, fifty days after the firstfruits offering, was fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples, which came on that fiftieth day.
The Day of Atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month points to Christ's work as High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary, the final cleansing and remission of sins for sanctuary and people, the investigative and final judgment, and the blessing of His waiting people. Through the year the high priest ministers 359 days in the holy place, bringing in the blood of slain beasts and sprinkling it before the veil behind which is the ark containing the law whose transgression is sin, thus bearing the sins of Israel in by figure and acknowledging them before God. The last day of the year is the great Day of Atonement, the judgment-day and settlement day of the year when all the cases of the days before are brought in final review before God, when the godly examine the past life with sorrow for errors, weakness and sloth and consecrate themselves anew. Then all sins brought into remembrance in the holy place are brought by the high priest into the most holy and confessed before the ark where the blood of the atonement-goat is sprinkled, and after accepted penitence and assurance of pardon through his mediation the new year begins with songs of joy for deliverance from bondage of sin.
The Feast of Ingathering or Tabernacles after the Day of Atonement points to the immortal state, the final deliverance from sin and death, the gathering of the redeemed at the great harvest of the earth, and rejoicing with Christ in the New Jerusalem and new earth. It is the last of the typical feasts, a seven-day feast beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month after ingathering from threshing floor and winepress, kept in booths of tree branches with rejoicing as Israel remembered deliverance from Egypt and gave thanks for produce, calling servants, Levites, strangers, orphans and widows to rejoice, with the law read every seventh year. Coming immediately after the atonement it is an occasion of great joy, and those who held it typifies a latter-time work of the Holy Ghost before the harvest, like the former rain at Pentecost.
Each type meets its antitype exactly as to time: the Passover killed on the fourteenth day of the first month, the sheaf waved on the sixteenth, the feast of weeks on the fiftieth day after, and the atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month fix when their antitypes begin, so Christ was sacrificed as Passover on that day, rose as firstfruits on that day, the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost on that day, and the grand work in the holiest must commence on the tenth day of the seventh month in its appointed year. The grand event commences on the day of the type though it may extend far forward, as believers still feed on Christ the Passover and the Spirit still abides, and mere burnt offerings and circumstantial offerings prescribed on firstfruits, Pentecost and Atonement do not prevent the central event from meeting its type at the pointed time. The slain beasts and sacrifices pointed forward to Christ the Lamb of God who takes away the world's sin, whose blood was figured by that sprinkled before the veil and the ark. On the Day of Atonement the priest in his own person brings out those sins and places them upon the goat chosen for Satan, sent away by a fit man into a land of oblivion and destroyed, ending the yearly priestly service as a type of the final judgment; all who afflict their souls, confess and put away their sins stand clear before God, while anyone not living in connection with God and not afflicting his soul is cut off from the people.
Ceremonial Shadows Ended
The feasts Moses declared to Israel belong to the ceremonial, secondary, theocratic law written in the book of the law, distinct from the Sabbath of the LORD. They are the yearly and ceremonial sabbaths of the Jews with their meats and drinks, the services of the sanctuary together with its feasts, new moons, and ceremonial sabbaths, forming a second class of commandments whose whole validity rested on the circumstances of the Jews as a nation and their connection with the earthly sanctuary. When those national circumstances and that sanctuary connection ceased, these commands became obsolete and are no longer obligatory, for being temporary types their regulating laws ceased when the type met its antitype. They could be taken away as a judicial punishment, just as a person may now be excluded from the Lord's Supper, and they were abolished through Christ's death on the cross. They are distinct from the Sabbath instituted in Eden before the fall and guarded by the fourth commandment, about which there is nothing shadowy, and from the seventh-day Sabbath commanded in the Ten Commandments.
As shadows of things to come whose body is Christ, the yearly feasts, new moons, annual sabbaths, meats and drinks came because of sin and stood for sin as shadows pointing forward to Christ. When Christ came all those types expired by limitation, as a shadow ceases when the substance is reached, and they were blotted out, nailed to the cross, and abolished by the gospel at Christ's death. This included the seven ceremonial sabbaths in the year, the festivals and fasts and holy days listed besides the Sabbaths of the LORD as Israel's sabbaths in contrast to the Lord's Sabbath. It did not affect the moral Ten Commandments and the creation Sabbath, which is eternal, a memorial pointing back and part of the law still in force, unlike the typical days that ceased at the cross.
The sabbath days in Colossians 2:16 with meat, drink, holy day, and new moon are these annual sabbaths, with their food and drink and holy-day ordinances, not the seventh-day Sabbath. The chapter proves there are sabbaths besides the seventh-day Sabbath, so the sabbath days there need not mean the seventh day and the word sabbaths in the New Testament does not always mean the seventh day. These plural sabbaths were temporary ceremonial observances foretold to cease. That text does not forbid eating, drinking, feast days or Sabbath days and does not remove duty to keep the Sabbath; it means the Christian finds headship in Jesus Christ alone and takes Christ and His word for leading and guidance, and is not to be judged or condemned by what men say about meat, drink, holy days, new moons or sabbath days.
The complete list of Jewish feast days and fast days connected with eating and the like, including new moon, Passover, Pentecost, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, and jubilee, are like New Year's, Christmas, and Thanksgiving Day. Disputes about whether such ceremonial days remained holy are the kind of dispute where one esteems one day above another, and they are the days dealt with in Romans 14 and the times in Galatians 4:10, distinct from the weekly seventh-day Sabbath still in force. That weekly Sabbath stands apart as a holy sacred day recognized from creation, ordained and sanctified before sin, guarded by one of the Ten Commandments, of lasting obligation, and not made void by the establishment or abolition of the ceremonial law. Those who held the festivals to be positive institutions of the old economy that have passed away taught that the weekly Sabbath likewise passed away and that Gentile Christians are particularly forbidden to observe the times.
The yearly sabbaths were enforced by the law of types, designed especially for dwellers in the land of Canaan, requiring going to Jerusalem three times a year with sacrifices, and they were not kept till the Jews reached Palestine. They are three yearly feasts with seven annual sabbaths falling on certain days of certain months like Christmas and New Year. They could not be kept when that land was overrun by Gentiles after the people's dispersion, while the weekly Sabbath remained unaffected as a higher-order institution. They were a middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles, against Gentiles and contrary to them, and a yoke Gentiles could not bear that would consume all time. They grew out of sin after man fell, showed forth the remedy for sin, and were shadowy and typical, pointing forward to Christ, and were abolished in Christ's flesh at the cross and nailed to the cross, while the Ten Commandments of which the seventh-day Sabbath is a part were not destroyed. They are distinct from and opposite to the seventh-day Sabbath, which was made at creation before the fall and before man needed types, was made for the race and for man, is a memorial pointing back to creation, is not a shadow, is not against man, and will exist in the new earth when all types and shadows have vanished away.
The seven annual sabbaths are expressly listed as additional to the Sabbaths of the LORD. They are among observances later named as displeasing to God when kept by a sinful people. These appointed holy days and ceremonial ordinances had been misused as a means of earning salvation, though God originally gave the ceremonies as an expression of faith.
Sunday Claims Refuted
The closing notice that Moses declared the feasts of the Lord belongs to a calendar of types fulfilled in Christ, with the Passover in his death, the offering of firstfruits in his resurrection, and Pentecost fifty days after firstfruits in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples. That descent fulfilled the promise that the disciples would be baptized with the Holy Ghost, and its meaning was the fulfillment of the feast, not honor given to the weekday on which it fell and not a change of the Sabbath. Pentecost was counted from the annual Passover Sabbath and not from the weekly Sabbath, so it could fall on any day of the week, and in the year of the Spirit's descent it probably fell on the fifth or seventh day. As the fiftieth day it stands as an annual feast, and that count does not establish a weekly observance of the first day.
The eighth day named in the declaration is the day of the feast, not a day of the week, and the chapter contains nothing about reckoning the days of the week. To make that eighth day mean Sunday, the first day of the week, assumes what is not in the narrative, and any argument for Sunday-keeping built on that central assumption falls to the ground. The eighth day connected with certain feasts is called a great day and even a Sabbath, yet it does not always mean the first day of the week. For feasts beginning on fixed days of fixed months it falls on a different weekday from year to year, like New Year's Day and the Fourth of July, so it gives no proof that the eighth day or first day would be exalted as the Sabbath under the gospel, especially with no plain New Testament declaration exalting the first day as a weekly Sabbath, since types relating to gospel events and ordinances must be interpreted in harmony with plain gospel facts.
For ages the people of God held holy convocations on other days besides the seventh day, so a custom of meeting for worship on a certain day does not prove that day was the rest-day or Sabbath. Israel held holy convocations on days other than the Lord's weekly Sabbaths and did no servile work at them, and these gatherings could take up a day without canceling the command to work six days and rest on the seventh or changing the Sabbath day.
The yearly Sabbaths and fast days were to be observed yearly and not weekly, for no day of the weekly cycle is ever mentioned in connection with these feasts, and they give no ground for a weekly Sunday. God's inspired term the Sabbath is applied to the seventh day alone in both the Old and New Testaments as the Sabbath of all times and all places, the only Sabbath known to the Bible, even as Christ is the only Saviour. The annual or ceremonial Sabbaths are distinct from the weekly Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment and the two must not be confounded or classed together. The feasts were movable as to the day of the week, shifting from year to year because governed by the moon and the irregularity of the Jewish year, while the Sabbath of the Lord was fixed, always occurring on the seventh day of the week and not affected by the ceremonial institutions. Those feasts were a shadow of things to come whose body is of Christ, and all such shadows pointing to Christ were abolished at his death, so to make the weekly institution one of them would mean it was swept away, not changed to another day, and the Fourth Commandment abolished with it.
Sanctuary Worship and Life
The chapter lays out the main features of the sanctuary service as a profitable pattern, shadow, and type of the heavenly sanctuary and Christ's priesthood, given for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction that the man of God may be perfect and for learning unto hope, whose study gives clearer views of the Saviour and His work as High Priest and Minister of the true sanctuary, revealing God's way, power, and glory. Within the priests' regular ministry in the holy place it prescribes special work for annual feasts alongside Sabbaths and new moons, including the special services of the Lord's annual Sabbaths and feasts beside the daily service. The yearly round brings the high priest to minister 359 days in the holy place, bearing the sins of Israel in figure by bringing in the blood of slain beasts and sprinkling it before the veil behind which is the ark containing the law whose transgression is sin, thus acknowledging them before God. The last day of the year is the great Day of Atonement, the yearly judgment-day when all cases of the days before come in final review, all sins brought to remembrance in the holy place being brought by the high priest into the most holy place and confessed before the ark where the blood of the atonement-goat is sprinkled, and the priest in his own person brings out those sins and places them upon the goat for Satan, sent away by a fit man into a land of oblivion and destroyed, so that all who afflict their souls, confess and put away their sins stand clear, while those who do not are cut off, all of which Moses declared to Israel.
The weekly Sabbath is set forth as a day of rest and a holy convocation, sanctified by resting from ordinary labor as commanded, with the people gathering to worship, hear the law, and pray for their needs, while Passover and Pentecost and the other festivals gain clearer meaning when compared with their New Testament accounts. Besides the weekly Sabbath the appointed feasts include rests lasting several days when no work was permitted, showing God did not intend men to labor until health is harmed, nor yet to be idle. The appointed feasts are commemorative institutions fittingly placed on memorable days, as in the deliverance from Egypt. Their time of instituting does not fix their time of observing, for their appointed days of observance were different from the days of institution, otherwise they would have fallen on different days than they did and nearly all on the same day. That definite stated time of observance belongs to those feasts as Moses declared them, whereas no such specific statement of time belongs to the Lord's supper.
The yearly religious services form an ordered system instituted by God in which departure even in a small detail brought blame. The ceremonial feasts and sabbaths recorded here are distinct from the Lord's Sabbath and could be taken away as judicial punishment, just as a person may now be excluded from the Lord's Supper. The instructions for the Feast of Tabernacles give a seven-day thanksgiving feast beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, following the ingathering from threshing floor and winepress and calling the whole community, including servants, Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows, to rejoice. It gave thanks to God for the earth's produce, recalled the wilderness wanderings and deliverance, pointed forward to God's final harvest and gathering of His people, and at this national feast the law was read every seventh year.
The appointed observances include firstfruit thank-offerings acknowledging God as giver of temporal blessings and giving Him the first and best, with a sheaf presented before the grain harvest began upon entering the promised land and, after the harvest, the first loaf made from threshed and ground grain given to the Lord. The feasts Moses declared include the three yearly gatherings of Passover, weeks, and tabernacles, at which the people brought offerings from the land and their labor, with vows and freewill gifts. The special Sabbath laws regulating the appointed assemblies and worship were binding on Israel as a nation, not on other nations as laws, while their underlying principles remain binding.
The feasts Israel celebrated each year when living as required, with their Levitical ceremonies, pointed to fulfillment in Christ, the Passover lamb fulfilled in His death and Pentecost in the outpouring of the Spirit, Christ fulfilling the ceremonies through His priestly work, the Day of Atonement to end and Tabernacles to find final fulfillment in the homecoming to the New Jerusalem, so the feasts need not be observed year by year while awaiting that fulfillment but are met in His ministry and celebrated by walking in newness of life. Tabernacles comes immediately after the Day of Atonement and is an occasion of great joy and rejoicing. The Day of Atonement is the year's settlement day when the godly examine past life, remember with regret and sorrow errors, weakness, and sloth in God's work, and consecrate themselves anew, and after that solemn service of penitential tears and contrition is accepted through the high priest's mediation with assurance of pardon, the beginning of the new year is celebrated with songs of joy and gladness in commemoration of deliverance from the bondage of sin.