Booths and Living Water: A Meditation on Sukkot
This article is part of a series on the holidays and calendar of the Hebrew Scriptures. You can read our other articles about biblical Jewish feasts here.
The fifteenth of Tishri on the Jewish calendar begins the seven-day festival of Sukkot, the feast of Tabernacles, also known as the feast of Booths or Ingathering. Sukkot comes right after the end of the high holy days of the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement, when the sin of Israel was repented of and atoned for, and her relationship with the LORD was joyfully restored. It was in this festive spirit of reconciliation and salvation that the people of Israel entered the season of Sukkot.
Along with Passover and Shavuot, Sukkot is a pilgrimage feast where all of Israel (and indeed, the dispersed of Israel among the nations) would go up to the city of Jerusalem, to the Temple, and build colorful sukkot (סֻכָּוֹת booths) in order to observe the feast as they were commanded. Bundles of fruit and tree branches were waved,[1] water libations poured out, guests (אושפיזין ushpizin) were hosted, beautiful light festivals would dazzle each of the seven evenings, and a festive atmosphere permeated all the proceedings.
This fall festival coincided with harvest time, and so came also to be known as the Feast of Ingathering. In fact, each of the great pilgrimage feasts had an agricultural aspect to it: Passover is a time for planting, Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost) corresponds to the grain harvest, and the culmination of a year’s work in the fields would be realized in the final harvest of fruit at Sukkot.
Beyond being the crowning moment of the growing year, Sukkot was a commemoration of a very specific event in Israel’s history. Moses passes along the LORD’s specific instruction as to the origin and observations of the feast in Leviticus 23:39–43, “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the LORD seven days….And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.…It is a statute forever throughout your generations… You shall dwell in booths for seven days….that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”
While the law tells us that the Lord, “made the people to dwell in booths when He brought them out of the land of Egypt,” the original story in Exodus never mentions the fact that the Israelites slept in booths during their wilderness wanderings.
Or does it?
In Exodus 13:20–22, just after the final plague of the death of the firstborn and Pharaoh finally releasing his Hebrew slaves, Moses gathered up the people and they embarked from Rameses,[2] marching triumphantly past the Egyptians burying their sons.[3]
Rameses, as it turns out, was mentioned earlier in Exodus as a storage city built by his Hebrew slaves,[4] but perhaps even more interestingly, it was the very place that Joseph had settled his father Jacob and his brothers 430 years earlier,[5] when he brought them into Egypt from their wilderness wanderings to rescue them from a famine. Rameses was a land of plenty, fertile and developed, and it bookended the Hebrew people’s time in Egypt.
God did not have the people stay in Rameses, but instead had them encamp in a city called “Succoth” or, transcribed differently, “Sukkot” (סֻכָּוֹת). Why was this city called, “Sukkot”? Probably for the same reason that Jacob (after just wrestling with the Angel of the LORD and newly named Israel) called the place he stayed “Sukkot” in Genesis 33:17, where he made booths (סֻכָּוֹת) for his livestock.[6]
So the people of Israel, while they went out triumphantly with a newfound sense of freedom and set out from a place of abundance, spent their first night of freedom sleeping in the booths of Succoth, more fit to house animals than human beings. The Hebrews must have felt a heady mixture of joy in the relief of their sufferings in slavery, but trepidation that all of their most basic needs—food, water, and shelter—would no longer be met by their Egyptian masters.[7] Their father Jacob had escaped the hunger of the wilderness when he moved his tribe to Egypt, and now the people of Israel had placed everything in the hands of YHWH—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—who had just rescued them from the hands of the Egyptians, to provide for them in the very wilderness their father’s had fled.[8]
This trust in their God to provide, though perhaps short-lived and frail, was enough to bring the people to Succoth/Sukkot, and it was this trust that deeply moved the heart of God. He recalled this while talking to the prophet Jeremiah, “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.”[9] It was that first night spent in Succoth/Sukkot where Israel forsook all others and placed all her trust in YHWH. After they left Succoth, the LORD Himself went before them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their journey by day, and in a pillar of fire by night, so as to light their night-travel. This manifestation of God’s presence did not depart from before the people until it maneuvered to shield them from the Egyptian armies.[10]
As the Israelites crossed the split Red Sea on dry ground and witnessed the utter destruction of their Egyptian pursuers and as they were provided living water and bread from heaven in the wilderness, none of their initial trust was misplaced. Though Israel lost faith many times on the journey to the promised land, Sukkot was a time to remember that first night of freedom sleeping in booths under the stars where the Israelites had freely put all their trust in the God of their fathers.
About thirteen centuries later, a young teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, would be in an argument with his brothers about going up to Jerusalem to attend Sukkot. His brothers challenged Him to go do teachings and perform where the big crowds were gathering in Jerusalem and make a name for Himself. “For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.”[11] Rather than brotherly advice, this exposed Jesus’ brothers’ unbelief: “Your teachings and tricks might work in backwater Galilee, but if You are the really who You hint You are, You would operate in Jerusalem during the major feast of Sukkot and gain a large following.”
Jesus answers His brothers, “You go up to the feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.”
After his brothers left, Jesus followed them to Jerusalem a bit later, not arriving in a way as to draw attention to Himself, but privately and with no fanfare. As the religious leaders sought Him among the Sukkot pilgrims in order to arrest and kill Him, the people speculated as to whether He could possibly be the Messiah. Meanwhile, Jesus taught in the Temple with such authority that the soldiers tasked with arresting Him could not bring themselves to take Him into custody.
The seven days of Sukkot pass with their joyful customs, one of which is the water libation, where water was poured out from a golden pitcher by the High Priest in the Temple courtyard while the people waved their requisite bundle of fruit and branches, reciting from Psalm 118:25-26, “Save us (hosanna), we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD! We bless You from the house of the LORD.”
It is on this last day, most likely when this ceremony had just been carried out and the echos of “Hosanna!” was ringing in His ears, when Jesus suddenly stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”[12] John helpfully gives us a bit of commentary on this impassioned plea by adding, “Now this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” As the people were crying out for salvation, Jesus is saying, “Here is the key: leave the slavery of sin and trust God as your sole provider, for I am a fountain of water that will never leave you thirsty. Just as I have ’tabernacled’ as Emmanuel and dwelt among you, so you will be indwelt by My Spirit, marking you as children of God and of His Resurrection.”
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Paul perhaps summarized this hope best in Romans 8:22–25, “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we await for it with patience.”
What is this hope that we are waiting to be realized with patience, taught about by both Jesus and Paul? The adoption, the redemption of our bodies, the resurrection from the righteous dead. This first resurrection will take place after Jesus the Messiah has secured Jerusalem and defeated the Antichrist, and these resurrected will serve as priests of God and reign with Him for a thousand years.[13]
The prophet Isaiah describes what this era will be like: “In that day the branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel. And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning. Then the LORD will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy. There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.”[14]
Just as the LORD provided booths for the people of Israel to rest in as they began their Exodus, so the LORD will provide a booth for shade during the Messianic age. As He leads as a cloud by day and a fire by night, so will He again make His presence known in a redeemed Jerusalem. And there will be a canopy (חפה chuppah or wedding covering) over all the glory, for just as the LORD remembers fondly the bridal devotion of young Israel as she left behind all she knew in Egypt and trusted her God with her life, so He will delight in the Spirit-marked and blood-washed daughters of Zion, by dwelling—tabernacling—with them.
During this time, the nations who survived the judgements and wars of the tribulation will be required to come up to Jerusalem to celebrate and worship the LORD for the Feast of Booths. Even Egypt, the original villain of the story, will be part of the celebrations. Any nation that does not come up to celebrate the feast will experience drought.[15] The LORD first used this feast to disciple Israel, and in this glorious prophesied future, He is using the holiday to disciple the nations to depend on Him and Him alone for their needs.
After final judgment where the books are opened and the deeds of men are laid bare, Jesus, who so long ago in Jerusalem had cried out, calling the thirsty to Him will say, “Behold, I am making all things new….It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be My son.”[16]
On this feast of Booths, let’s remember that intoxicating moment of trust when Israel left Egypt behind, and slept in booths in a night lit by the fiery glory of God. While we eagerly await our adoptions as sons, having been redeemed out of the slavery of sin but not yet in the promised land, let us hold fast to hope, trusting that our God who deeply satisfies will bring us to the end, and knowing that this trust brings delight to our King.
Amen. Maranatha.
Devon Phillips is just a pilgrim longing for the Day of the revealing of the sons of God and the redemption of our bodies. Meanwhile, she is privileged to serve in the Middle East with Frontier Alliance International and contributes regularly to THE WIRE. She can be reached at devon@faimission.org.
[1] Leviticus 23:40
[2] Numbers 33:3–5
[3] I am convinced this is the scene Paul had in mind when he wrote 2 Corinthians 2:14-16, “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.”
[4] Exodus 1:11
[5] Genesis 47:11
[6] Jacob/Israel had just escaped his own sort of forced servitude under his father-in-law when he arrived in Sukkot, foreshadowing the Exodus of his descendants.
[7] Indeed, I’m particularly sympathetic to the later complaint of Numbers 11:5, “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.” The lack of free onions and garlic is a sad loss indeed. Freedom ain’t free.
[8] Interestingly, the Feast of Booths is celebrated during harvest and plenty, but recalls a time when the Israelites barely had unleavened bread to eat. It is a time to remember, that even in plenty, the only safe thing to trust in is the Lord.
[9] Jeremiah 2:2
[10] Exodus 13:21-22; Exodus 14:19-20
[11] John 7:4
[12] John 7:37–38
[13] Revelation 20:6
[14] Isaiah 4:2-6
[15] Zechariah 14:16–19
[16] Revelation 21:5-7