Bible Study Seattle

“Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Tabernacles.  No one should appear before the Lord empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you.”  Deuteronomy 16:16-17

“Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread; for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in that month you came out of Egypt. “No one is to appear before me empty-handed.”  Exodus 23:15  This is immediately after Passover and corresponds with the first crop to ripen: barley in springtime.

“From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord.”  Leviticus 23:15-16  These fifty days correspond to Pentecost.  “Celebrate the Festival of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest.”  Exodus 34:22

“Celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Be joyful at your festival—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns.”  Deuteronomy 16:13-14  This corresponds to the grape harvest in the fall.

Three Festivals – the festival of unleavened bread, the festival of weeks, and the festival of tabernacles correspond to the harvest of barley, wheat, and grapes.  Symbolically they represent three great resurrections: barley is the firstborn, the bride of Christ, wheat is the later firstborn, the ‘great company’ or the bride’s attendants, and grapes are the secondborn, the ‘children’ of Jesus and his bride.  These also conform to the priests, Levites, and Israelites in figure.  Each in his own order.