Three Feasts
By New Christian Bible Study Staff
The Children of Israel were told to keep three feasts each year - the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of first fruits, and the feast of ingathering. Should we still do that?
In Exodus 23:14-16, Moses receives the instructions about these feasts. Those three verses in Exodus comprise our brief story. Their inner meaning is explained in Arcana Coelestia 9286-9296.
There are three feasts. In the Word, the number three represents a completeness, a sense of things being covered from beginning to end. Our thankfulness to the Lord is supposed to keep going - to endure.
The first feast, of unleavened bread, stands for worship, for our thankfulness for the Lord's action in our minds to get rid of false ideas. That enables us to start to receive good loves.
The second feast, of first fruits, relates to the planting of true ideas in that "soil" of initial loves for doing good.
The third feast, of harvest, or ingathering, stands for the time when, by applying our true ideas, we receive real good - loves of the neighbor and of the Lord - that become the middle of our lives. This is the state of rebirth, where we have - by working through the year (our lives), and enduring in thankfulness, allowed the Lord to get rid of our false ideas, and push our evil loves to the periphery, so that good can work, and be fruitful.
These feasts, then, represent the progress of our spiritual lives. In some manner, we need to keep them.
Exodus 20
1
God spoke all these words, saying,
2
"I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3
"You shall have no other gods before me.
4
"You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5
you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me,
6
and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7
"You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
8
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9
You shall labor six days, and do all your work,
10
but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God. You shall not do any work in it, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your livestock, nor your stranger who is within your gates;
11
for in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day, and made it holy.
12
"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.
13
"You shall not murder.
14
"You shall not commit adultery.
16
"You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
17
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."
18
All the people perceived the thunderings, the lightnings, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled, and stayed at a distance.
19
They said to Moses, "Speak with us yourself, and we will listen; but don't let God Speak with us, lest we die."
20
Moses said to the people, "Don't be afraid, for God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you, that you won't sin."
21
The people stayed at a distance, and Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.
22
Yahweh said to Moses, "This is what you shall tell the children of Israel: 'You yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.
23
You shall most certainly not make alongside of me gods of silver, or gods of gold for yourselves.
24
You shall make an altar of earth for me, and shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your cattle. In every place where I record my name I will come to you and I will bless you.
25
If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of cut stones; for if you lift up your tool on it, you have polluted it.
26
Neither shall you go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness may not be exposed to it.'
