When the Lord instituted the seven feasts in Leviticus 23, He gave Israel a prophetic calendar that not only marked their national life but laid out, in exact order, the future timeline of the First and Second Advents of Jesus Christ. The seventh of these feasts, the Feast of Tabernacles, stands out as the great concluding celebration—a picture of joy, harvest, and God dwelling among His people.

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” John 1:14 (KJB)

On this episode of Rightly Dividing, because it is the seventh feast, it speaks of completion—and nothing is more complete than the finished work of Christ at His First Advent and the future restoration at His Second. To understand Tabernacles properly, we apply the Law of First Mention, which sets the foundation for how a subject develops throughout Scripture. The first time we encounter this feast is in Exodus 23:16, where it is called “the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year.” Immediately we see three themes: ingathering, ending, and completion. God is showing us that Tabernacles marks a final harvest and a time of rejoicing in His presence and provision. The first mention of the tabernacle itself also reinforces this. In Exodus 25:9, God commands Moses to build a sanctuary “that I may dwell among them.” This is the heartbeat of the Feast of Tabernacles—God dwelling with man. In the wilderness, God’s presence was visible in cloud and fire above the Tabernacle; but this was not the final fulfillment. It was a picture, a shadow, a type pointing forward to something far greater.