Feast of Tabernacles
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From year to year they will have to go up for the purpose of worshiping him. By and by some of them, perhaps, will get it into their hearts that there is no use in their going up. “What is the use of our taking this long journey to Jerusalem?” and they will begin to say within their hearts—“We can serve God here in our own land just as well as going up to Jerusalem.” Just as soon as they begin to apostatize in this way the Lord will send a plague, a famine, that is, withhold the rains of heaven, so that their lands will be parched up, and if the family of Egypt, that have no rain, refuse to go up, there will be a peculiar plague set apart for them, Zech. 14:17-19 namely, the same kind of a plague that will come upon the various nations that gather up against Jerusalem to battle Zech. 14:11-12 just before the Lord comes and stands his feet upon the Mount of Olives.
Elder Orson Pratt
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And it will come to pass, after that period, when Jesus shall have raised all the righteous from their graves, that he will descend with all the hosts of heaven accompanying him, and will stand upon the Mount of Olives, and he will go out of Jerusalem, and the Jews will go out to the mount to meet him and will acknowledge him as their Messiah and King; and then it shall come to pass, that the heathen nations will also more fully recognize him as the true and only God. Then will be fulfilled that which is written in the last chapter of Zechariah, that every nation round about Jerusalem, shall come up from year to year, to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, at Jerusalem, and also to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. There will be a great many of those solemn assemblies and feasts that were commanded in ancient times, that will be reestablished in the midst of Israel when they shall return. And the Lord Jesus will be there. His Twelve Apostles who wandered about with him, while he was in the flesh, will be there; and they sit upon twelve thrones, and assist our Lord and Savior in judging the twelve tribes of Israel. But Jesus will have a throne as well as these twelve disciples. Where will be his throne? A temple is to be reared in ancient Palestine where it formerly stood. Ezekiel saw it in vision, and he describes the building of that house when it shall be complete, and he saw the glory of God coming by the way of the East, and this glorious personage entered through the East Gate of that temple, and entered into the temple; and Ezekiel, being full of the Spirit of God, was picked up and carried into that court, where Jesus had entered, and he heard a voice speaking unto him, Behold, the place of my throne, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever, and they shall no more defile my name, but I will dwell with them forever. Orson Pratt, in Journal of Discourses, 20:153b-154a. Credit: Amanda Farnsworth
Elder Orson Pratt
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One of the three great feasts at which the attendance of all male Israelites was compulsory, the Feast of Tabernacles, was by all odds Israel’s greatest feast. Coming five days after the Day of Atonement, it was thus celebrated when the sins of the chosen people had been removed and when their special covenant relation to Jehovah had been renewed and restored. Above all other occasions it was one for rejoicing, bearing testimony, and praising the Lord. In the full sense, it is the Feast of Jehovah, the one Mosaic celebration which, as part of the restitution of all things, shall be restored when Jehovah comes to reign personally upon the earth for a thousand years. Even now we perform one of its chief rituals in our solemn assemblies, the giving of the Hosanna Shout, and the worshipers of Jehovah shall yet be privileged to exult in other of its sacred rituals. Also known as the Feast of Booths, because Israel dwelt in booths while in the wilderness, and as the Feast of Ingathering, because it came after the completion of the full harvest, it was a time of gladsome rejoicing and the extensive offering of sacrifices. More sacrifices were offered during the - Feast of the Passover than at any other time because a lamb was Slain for and eaten by each family or group, but at the Feast of Tabernacles more sacrifices of bullocks, rams, lambs, and goats were offered by the priests for the nation as a whole than at all the other Israelite feasts combined. The fact that it celebrated the completion of the full harvest symbolizes the gospel reality that it is the mission of the house of Israel to gather all nations to Jehovah, a process that is now going forward, but will not be completed until that millennial day when “the Lord shall be king over all the earth,” and shall reign personally thereon. Then shall be fulfilled that which is written: “And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations... shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.” (Zech. 14:9-21.) That will be the day when the law shall go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Manifestly when the Feast of Tabernacles is kept in that day, its ritualistic performances will conform to the new gospel order and not include the Mosaic order of the past. Included in the Feast of Tabernacles was a holy convocation, which in this instance was called also a solemn assembly. In our modern solemn assemblies we give the Hosanna Shout, which also was associated with the Feast of Tabernacles anciently, except that ancient Israel waved palm branches instead of white handkerchiefs as they exulted in such declarations as “Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna, to God and the Lamb.” By the time of Jesus some added rituals were part of the feast, including the fact that a priest went to the Pool of Siloam, drew water in a golden pitcher, brought it to the temple, and poured it into a basin at the base of the altar. As this was done the choir sang the Hallel, consisting of Psalms 113 to 118. “When the choir came to these words, ‘O give thanks to the Lord,’ and again when they sang, “‘O work then now salvation, Jehovah;’ and once more at the close, ‘O give thanks unto the Lord,’ all the worshippers shook their lulavs [palm branches] towards the altar,” which is closely akin to what we do in giving the Hosanna Shout today. “When, therefore, the multitudes from Jerusalem, on meeting Jesus, ‘cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way, and... cried, saying, O then, work now salvation to the Son of David!’ they applied, in reference to Christ, what was regarded as one of the chief ceremonies of the Feast of Tabernacles, praying that God would now from ‘the highest’ heavens manifest and send that salvation in connection with the Son of David, which — was symbolised by the pouring out of water.” (Alfred Edersheim, The Temple, p. 279.) Jesus and his disciples celebrated this and other Jewish feasts during the period of our Lord’s active ministry. It was on “the last day, that great day of the feast,” called in the Rabbinical writings the “Day of the Great Hosannah,” as the priest was pouring out the water from the Pool of Siloam and the multitudes were waving their palm branches toward the altar, that “Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:37-38.) It was as though he said: “This feast is designed to point your attention to me and the salvation which I bring. Now I have come; if ye will — believe in me, ye shall be saved; and then from you, by the power of the Spirit, shall also go forth living water.’
Elder Bruce R. McConkie
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