I. A FEAST OF THE INGATHERING. (Ver. 13.) Held in the seventh month, when all the fruits of the earth had been gathered in. Thus:

1. Every stage of labor was sanctified by the recognition of God. At the Passover, when the sickle was thrust into the virgin grain; at Pentecost, when the cereal crops were harvested; and now, at the close of the agricultural year, when the season's labors had yielded to the husbandman their full results.

2. The fruits of labor were sanctified by dedication to God. The usual feasts were held, and shared with the needy (ver. 14), and free-will offerings (vers. 16, 17) were presented to God. Bountiful giving is the appropriate return for bountiful receiving.

II. A MEMORIAL OF PAST WANDERINGS. (Leviticus 23:43.) During the seven days of the festival, the Israelites were to live in booths. This symbolized, and served to remind them of, the wandering, unsettled life of the desert. Booths were erections of simpler construction, and more in keeping with an agricultural festival, especially after the settlement in Canaan, than tents would have been. But there may have been an allusion also to actual circumstances of the journeyings, e.g. the first halt at Succoth, i.e. booths (Exodus 12:3; see Stanley). This memorial was instituted:

1. That in the midst of their prosperity they might not forget the days of their adversity (Deuteronomy 8:12-18).

2. That they might be reminded of God's gracious care of them. Booths or huts may, as Keil thinks, have been used instead of tents with reference to this idea. The booth was a shelter, a protection. So God promises to be to his Church, as he had been in the past, "a booth for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from the storm and rain" (Isaiah 4:6).

3. That their enjoyment of the goodness of the land might be enhanced by feelings of warm gratitude, awakened by the sense of contrast.

III. AN IMAGE OF PRESENT PILGRIMAGE. Though settled in Canaan, the Israelites were not to regard themselves as in possession of the final rest (Hebrews 4:7, 8). The pilgrim state continued (Psalm 39:12). It does so still. We still inhabit tabernacles (2 Corinthians 5:1). Spiritual rest, the inward side of the Canaan type, is attained in Christ; but the full realization of the rest of God lies in eternity. Till heaven is reached, our state is that of pilgrims - wilderness wanderers. "The admission of this festival into Zechariah's prophecy of Messianic times (Zechariah 14:18) is undoubtedly founded on the thought that the keeping of the Feast of Tabernacles is an expression on the part of the nations of their thankfulness for the termination of their wanderings by their reception into the peaceful kingdom of Messiah" (Oehler). - J.O.

The Feast of Tabernacles was the harvest home of Israel. Where is the antitype of the festival of Tabernacles? The vision of the "great multitude which no man could number" is a vision throughout of a heavenly Feast of Tabernacles; the harvest home of the Church triumphant.

I. These festivals are OCCASIONS OF HOSPITALITY AND OF REUNION. A selfish life is an unchristian life. A man might possibly remember God in solitude, a monastery has ere now fostered devotion: but there is one virtue which cannot be practised in seclusion — charity; the Gospel virtue — without which we are nothing. The very exertion which it costs some men to come out is salutary. If some are made frivolous by the love of society, some are made selfish by isolation from their kind.

II. Two things were especially required of the Israelites when they assembled for their three annual feasts: first, that THEY SHOULD NOT APPEAR BEFORE THE LORD EMPTY; secondly, that CHILDREN AND SERVANTS, THE LEVITE AND THE STRANGER, THE FATHERLESS AND WIDOW, SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO REJOICE WITH THEM. The feast only becomes a blessing when it remembers God, and remembers man.

III. THE LAW OF GOD WAS READ OVER, once in seven years, to the assembled Israelites at their Feast of Tabernacles. If there be a time when we remember duty, surely it should be when our hands are full of gifts. A time of feasting, nay, a time of prosperity, nay, a time of unmarked, of average sufficiency, brings its own peculiar risk of practical ungodliness.

IV. Yet we recognise in this festival THE COMFORTING SIDE OF TRUE RELIGION. God's voice never comes to make us miserable. If it condemns, it is that we may rise out of condemnation into a state altogether joyous. A harvest home is a glimpse of the love and of the peace and of the joy of the Gospel.

V. It is also a MEMENTO OF THE PLACE OF THANKFULNESS IN THE GOSPEL. Is there any test so condemning as that which touches us on the point of gratitude? Who really gives God thanks for life, for health, for motion, for speech, for reason? Well may we have one day in the year set apart for the work of simple praise.

VI. Recognise in this celebration THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE GOD OF NATURE AND PROVIDENCE WITH THE GOD OF REVELATION AND OF THE GOSPEL. The things that are seen become a very sign and sacrament of the things that are not seen. The harvest of the natural world indicates to us, by its marvellous yet now familiar phenomena, the working of the same power which alone can melt the heart of stone, and impress upon a trifling soul the realities of a life and a home in heaven. VII. Finally, let the service which gives thanks for an earthly harvest carry your thoughts to that GREAT "REAPING AFTER SOWING," which is before every one of us, in the resurrection of the body and in the eternity which is yet beyond (Matthew 13:39; Galatians 6:7, 8). God grant us all a place in that ingathering, the close of a world's labour, the inauguration of a heavenly rest!

(Dean Vaughan.)