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.

222. 'Hiding themselves from the face of Jehovah' is being afraid of this dictate, as people conscious of evil normally are. This is clear from their reply in verse 10, 'I heard Your Voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked'. 'The face of Jehovah', that is, of the Lord, is mercy, peace, and all good, as is quite clear from the blessing,

Jehovah make His face ¹ shine upon you and be merciful to you. Jehovah lift up His face ¹ upon you and give you peace. Numbers 6:15, 26.

And in David,

God be merciful to us and bless us, and make His face ¹ shine upon us. Psalms 67:1.

And elsewhere in David,

Many are saying, Who will cause us to see good? Lift up the light of Your face ¹ upon us, O Jehovah. Psalms 4:6-7.

The Lord's mercy is for this reason called 'the angel of His face' ¹ in Isaiah,

I will cause the mercies of Jehovah to be remembered. He has rewarded them according to His mercies, and according to the abundance of His mercies; and He became their Saviour. In all their affliction there was no affliction, and the angel of His face ¹ saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them. Isaiah 63:7-9.

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