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Exodus 23:14-19 : The Three Annual Festivals

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14 Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.

15 Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)

16 And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.

17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

18 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning.

19 The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

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Three Feasts

Написано New Christian Bible Study Staff

A loaf of homemade bread.

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.

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Psalms 92

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1 It is a good thing to give thanks to Yahweh, to sing praises to your name, Most High;

2 to proclaim your loving kindness in the morning, and your faithfulness every night,

3 with the ten-stringed lute, with the harp, and with the melody of the lyre.

4 For you, Yahweh, have made me glad through your work. I will triumph in the works of your hands.

5 How great are your works, Yahweh! Your thoughts are very deep.

6 A senseless man doesn't know, neither does a fool understand this:

7 though the wicked spring up as the grass, and all the evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever.

8 But you, Yahweh, are on high forevermore.

9 For, behold, your enemies, Yahweh, for, behold, your enemies shall perish. All the evildoers will be scattered.

10 But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox. I am anointed with fresh oil.

11 My eye has also seen my enemies. My ears have heard of the wicked enemies who rise up against me.

12 The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

13 They are planted in Yahweh's house. They will flourish in our God's courts.

14 They will still bring forth fruit in old age. They will be full of sap and green,

15 to show that Yahweh is upright. He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.