15 to 21 Tishrei, with an eighth day · September or October
Sukkot
סֻכּוֹת
also called The Feast of Tabernacles, Booths, The Feast of Ingathering, Z'man Simchateinu
Seven days living in temporary shelters, at the end of the harvest. The third pilgrimage feast, and the one the law twice commands you to be glad at.
The text, before anyone interprets it
What was commanded
Live in booths for seven days so your descendants will know that God made Israel live in booths when he brought them out of Egypt. Take branches of palm, willow, and leafy trees, and rejoice before the LORD. The command to rejoice is given twice, which is unusual enough to notice.
Where it turns up
It comes five days after the most solemn day of the year, which is a deliberate sequence: the courtroom, then the banquet. Solomon dedicated the temple at Sukkot, and the glory filled the house so that the priests could not stand to minister. After the exile, Nehemiah records the returned community keeping it and notes that it had not been kept like that since the days of Joshua.
What is on the table
The sukkah
A booth with a roof loose enough to see stars through, built to be temporary on purpose. You are meant to feel how little is between you and the weather.
The four species
Palm, myrtle, willow, and citron, bound and waved together. A long tradition reads them as different kinds of people held in one hand.
The water pouring
A daily procession to the pool of Siloam and back, with water poured out at the altar, asking for the rains. Described in the Mishnah rather than commanded in Leviticus, and the ceremony Jesus interrupts in John 7.
The lamps
Enormous lamps lit in the Court of the Women, said to light the whole city. Also from the Mishnah, and the setting for the claim in John 8.
In the New Testament
John 7 and 8 are set at this feast, and both of Jesus's great claims there answer its ceremonies. On the last and greatest day, when the water drawn from Siloam was poured out, he stands and cries that anyone who is thirsty should come to him. Under the great lamps lit in the temple court, he says he is the light of the world. John also writes that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, using this feast's verb.
Not in the Bible, and worth knowing anyway
What tradition added
Much of what makes these days beautiful comes from outside Scripture, and some New Testament scenes are far harder to read without it. It is set out here with its source named, which is the only honest way to hold it: interesting, often very old, and not binding on anyone.
The water-drawing ceremony: a daily procession to the pool of Siloam, water poured out at the altar, with such rejoicing that the Mishnah says whoever has not seen it has never seen rejoicing.
Where it comes from · Mishnah, Sukkah 4-5. Not commanded in Leviticus. This is the ceremony Jesus interrupts in John 7:37, and the scene is far harder to read without it.
The great lamps lit in the Court of the Women, said to light every courtyard in Jerusalem.
Where it comes from · Mishnah, Sukkah 5:2-4. Again not commanded, and again the setting for a claim in John 8:12.
That the world was created at this season, and that Jesus was born at Sukkot rather than in December.
Where it comes from · Both are inferences rather than statements. The birth argument runs from the priestly courses in Luke 1 and is genuinely interesting; it is also a chain of assumptions, and other reconstructions put the birth elsewhere. Worth knowing, not worth dividing over.
Hoshana Rabbah, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah at the close.
Where it comes from · The eighth day is biblical, in Leviticus 23:36. The customs that now fill it, including finishing and restarting the annual Torah reading, are later.
Was, is, and is to come
The same appointment, three depths
An appointment on a calendar is not crossed off once. It comes round. Christians of every tradition read these events at more than one depth, whether they call it already and not yet, type and antitype, or near and far fulfilment.
It happened
Israel in booths in the wilderness, fed by something that arrived each morning, with nothing between them and the weather but branches.
It is happening
Kept every autumn in shelters built to be flimsy, and answered in a Word that became flesh and tabernacled among us, saying at this feast's own ceremonies that he is the water and the light.
It is still coming
The dwelling of God with man, which is where Revelation ends: not rescue and not verdict, but permanent company, and the nations still coming up to keep this particular feast.
How Christians have read it
A reading, not a statement of the text
The feast where God dwells with his people, read forward to the promise at the end of Revelation that the dwelling of God is with man. In the autumn framework it is the last appointed time and the picture of the end: not rescue, and not verdict, but permanent company.
In the wedding reading: In the wedding reading this is the marriage supper: the waiting over, the household gathered, and the canopy over everyone.
How it is kept now
Kept by Jews, kept by Messianic congregations, and increasingly kept by Christians who build a booth in the garden and find that their children remember it. Zechariah 14 says that in the end the nations will come up to Jerusalem to keep this particular feast, which is a text that people who otherwise disagree about the calendar tend to slow down for.
If you want to keep it
Build something flimsy and eat in it. Invite people who have nowhere else to be, because the command to rejoice in Deuteronomy explicitly includes the servant, the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow. Sleep out at least one night if you can. The discomfort is the lesson.
Should Christians keep the feasts? Every view at its strongest →