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.
Leviticus 3
1
"'If his offering is a sacrifice of peace offerings; if he offers it from the herd, whether male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before Yahweh.
2
He shall lay his hand on the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the Tent of Meeting: and Aaron's sons, the priests shall sprinkle the blood around on the altar.
3
He shall offer of the sacrifice of peace offerings an offering made by fire to Yahweh; the fat that covers the innards, and all the fat that is on the innards,
4
and the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the loins, and the cover on the liver, with the kidneys, he shall take away.
5
Aaron's sons shall burn it on the altar on the burnt offering, which is on the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a pleasant aroma to Yahweh.
6
"'If his offering for a sacrifice of peace offerings to Yahweh is from the flock; male or female, he shall offer it without blemish.
7
If he offers a lamb for his offering, then he shall offer it before Yahweh;
8
and he shall lay his hand on the head of his offering, and kill it before the Tent of Meeting: and Aaron's sons shall sprinkle its blood around on the altar.
9
He shall offer from the sacrifice of peace offerings an offering made by fire to Yahweh; its fat, the entire tail fat, he shall take away close to the backbone; and the fat that covers the inwards, and all the fat that is on the inwards,
10
and the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the loins, and the cover on the liver, with the kidneys, he shall take away.
11
The priest shall burn it on the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire to Yahweh.
12
"'If his offering is a goat, then he shall offer it before Yahweh:
13
and he shall lay his hand on its head, and kill it before the Tent of Meeting; and the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle its blood around on the altar.
14
He shall offer from it as his offering, an offering made by fire to Yahweh; the fat that covers the innards, and all the fat that is on the innards,
15
and the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the loins, and the cover on the liver, with the kidneys, he shall take away.
16
The priest shall burn them on the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire, for a pleasant aroma; all the fat is Yahweh's.
17
"'It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings, that you shall eat neither fat nor blood.'"
