Deuteronomy 16:1

This chapter gives a brief summary of the three great national feasts of the Jews, each of which required the general assembly of the people at the central sanctuary. Two other great occasions of the year, the Feast of Trumpets, and the Day of Atonement are not mentioned here because they did not require the assembly of the whole nation. We have the Feast of the Passover (Deuteronomy 16:1-7), The Feast of Weeks (Deuteronomy 16:9-12), and the Feast of Tabernacles (Deuteronomy 16:13-15). Anticipating the scattering of the people in the occupation of Canaan, and discerning the need for more judges, "Moses here enacts that judges and officers were to be appointed by the people in all their gates, that is, in all of their various cities."[1] (Deuteronomy 16:16-20). There is a special warning to judges in the last two verses (Deuteronomy 16:21-22) against being tainted in any manner with idolatry, that being one of the greatest dangers to the judges, for idolatry was treason against the supreme authority, God Himself.

Some commentators try to make a big thing out of what they call the resemblance of these three great national feasts of the Jews to the agricultural feasts of the pagan nations throughout antiquity, but the truth is that there is no connection whatever between the religious feasts of Israel and the pagan celebrations of the heathen, with one little exception. It is true that they coincided time-wise with the agricultural festivals of antiquity.

However, take the Passover. There is nothing in any pagan celebration of all history that even resembles the Jewish Passover. Martin Noth alleged that pagan feasts were taken over by the Jews and adopted into their worship,[2] but the Holy Scriptures deny this categorically. In all history, there is absolutely NO record of unleavened bread being considered anything special in pagan religions, but it is the foundation and cornerstone of the Passover. And where did the unleavened bread become associated with Passover? It was in that hasty departure of Israel from the land of Egypt, when they left so hurriedly that there was no time to wait for bread to be leavened and allowed to rise. Also, the elaborate ritual of the sprinkling of the blood of the Passover lamb is not merely historical in forty particulars, every one of which pertains to the deliverance of Israel, but it is prophetic of the central events of the atonement in the blood of Christ for all men. (See our introduction to Exodus (Vol. 2 in my series on the Pentateuch) for literally dozens of the most minute and significant details in which this is so abundantly true of the Passover.)

The same may be said for Pentecost, called also, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of the Firstfruits, and throughout the Christian ages, Whitsunday! There appears to be good reason for receiving the tradition that this feast originated in the giving of the Law at Sinai, such a view being confirmed by the fact that in the Great Antitype, Pentecost was the occasion of the giving of the law of the New Dispensation on the birthday of the Church!

Regarding the Feast of Tabernacles, there is no suggestion whatever of any pagan connections with this great Jewish festival, the feature of which was the requirement that the Jews live in rudely-constructed arbors, brush shelters, or boothes, as they were called. Why? Because some pagans did such things? Of course not. This was because, that is the type of shelters the children of Israel had at first when they came out of slavery in Egypt, a poverty and hardship that were commemorated historically in the ceremonies of the Feast of Tabernacles.

There is not any indication whatever that the Jews ever paid the slightest attention to pagan festivals. The Jews never accepted any kind of a national festival unless it tied squarely into some significant historical delivery of the JEWISH people. The Feast of Purim celebrated the salvation outlined in the Book of Esther. The Feast of Lights celebrated the reopening of the Temple following its closing and desecration under Antiochus Epiphanes. All of the allegations to the effect that "all of the great festivals were originally connected with agriculture and recognized God's bountifulness in the fruits of the earth,"[3] are backed up by nothing except the imaginative guesses of commentators.

It is in the great significance which those Three Great Feasts have for Christians that we find our principal interest today. "Each was a type of some far greater event to come."[4]

The Passover was a type of the Christian's deliverance from sin via the blood of our Passover, who is Jesus Christ. It is not merely in a few scattered particulars, but in literally scores of them, that this amazing Type bears such eloquent testimony to the Greater Antitype!

The Pentecost was a type of the giving of the Law of Moses. The Antitype, of course, is the Christian Pentecost. In the old Pentecost, three thousand souls sinned and were put to death. When the new Pentecost came, the gospel was preached and "three thousand souls gladly heard the Word of God, believed, repented, and were baptized into Christ".

The Feast of Tabernacles is a type of the Harvest Home, when the saints of all ages shall be welcomed into the home of the soul. As Ackland said, "This awaits fulfillment when the redeemed are gathered home."[5] Unger and other scholars find what they believe to be "millennial suggestions" in this Feast of Tabernacles, but we believe it refers to eternal blessings following the probation of the Christian life.

THE PASSOVER

"Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover unto Jehovah thy God; for in the month of Abib Jehovah thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night. And thou shalt sacrifice the Passover unto Jehovah thy God, of the flock and of the herd, in the place which Jehovah shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there. Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt with haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life. And there shall be no leaven seen with thee in all thy borders seven days; neither shall any of the flesh, which thou sacrificest the first day at even, remain all night until the morning. Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which Jehovah thy God giveth thee; but at the place which Jehovah thy God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell in, there shalt thou sacrifice the Passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt. And thou shalt roast and eat it in the place that Jehovah thy God shall choose: and thou shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents. Six days thou shalt eat unleavened bread; and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to Jehovah thy God; thou shalt do no work therein."

The omission of the particular "day" in Abib when the Passover was to be celebrated clearly distinguishes this as supplementary material to the instructions already given. A very great many of the particulars regarding the Passover are here omitted because they were not needed by Moses in the purpose of his speech at this point. In all of these great festivals, as Cook noted, "Nothing is added to the rules given in Leviticus and Numbers, except that oft-recurring clause restricting the sacrifices and celebrations to the central Sanctuary and that enjoined the inclusion of the Levites, widows, orphans, and the poor in the festivities."[6]

"Bread of affliction ..." (Deuteronomy 16:3). The unleavened bread was called "the bread of affliction," because, "It was made in circumstances of trial and pressure, when there was no time for the making of bread of a higher quality."[7]

"Six days thou shalt eat unleavened bread ..." (Deuteronomy 16:8) It is a mistake to read this "ONLY six days." The unleavened bread was to be eaten for seven complete days, and the language here only means that the seventh day of unleavened bread was to be a holy convocation to the Lord.

The Passover lamb, of course, came only from the flock (either of sheep or of goats), and thus the mention of "the flock and the herd" in Deuteronomy 16:2 might seem a little confusing. Kline pointed out that, "The word Passover in this passage refers not only to the Passover proper, but also to the seven days feast of unleavened bread that accompanied it."[8] That extended feast after the Passover would have been the occasion when sacrifices from the herd would have been made.

There is no problem deriving from the fact that the very first Passover was slain individually by each head of a family in his own residence, whereas the commandment here requires that it be slain "in the place which the Lord should choose in which his name was to dwell." At the FIRST Passover, there was no central sanctuary, not even the tabernacle, thus there was nowhere else to slay the Passover except in their residences. "During the wilderness wanderings only one Passover was kept, and that is recorded in Numbers 9."[9] Thus, it was very necessary for Moses here to impress upon the people the necessity of killing the Passover only at the central Sanctuary. If the Passover had been kept during the forty years in the wilderness, the tabernacle would have served as the central sanctuary, for, although moved frequently, it was still "one sanctuary." It was to meet the new situation that Moses delivered the instructions in Deuteronomy.