The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 375

Tabemaolea, WBB the rearuig at the end of fleial blood, and by the C8lelll0ny or the the first day's journey at Suoooth, where scapegoat, it typically foreshadows how that the people now felt tho.t they were free, and reconciliation is to be effected. began to rejoice in their freedom. The monthly festivals had a purpose 3. The typical oharacter of the feasts, different from the annual. They occurred ae well ae their historical character, ie more on the new moon, or the first day of each apparent in the Pau01Jer than in the other mouth, and their intention was to dedicate two feasts. St. Paul's testimony on this each month to God. Only one of these point ill sufficient: "For even Christ our monthly festive.le is mentioned in this chap- Passover is sacrificed for us : therefore let ter-the Feast of Trumpets. It is the feast ue keep the feast, not with old leaven, of the new moon of the SBCred seventh neither with the leaven of malice and wicked- month, with which the civil year began. ness, but with the unleavened bread or Because it was New Year's Day, it had sincerity and truth" (1 Cor. v. 7). Here we more ceremonies attached to it than the have the typical character or the Paschal first days of the other months. Whereas lamb, and of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the feaats of the new moons in other months authoritatively declared to us. The blood only sanctified the special month which they of the lamb slain on the night before the began, the Feast of Trnmpets sanctified also Exodus, being the means whereby the the whole year, and was therefore an annual Israelites were delivered from the destruction as well BB a monthly feast. which fell on all the rest of the inhabitants The weekly festival was the sabbath (see of the land, typified the still more efficacious Exod. xx. 10; Dent. v. 15). This feast bloodshedding by which the redemption or sanctified eaoh week, as the monthly feasts Christ's people was wrought. The Feast of sanctified each month; and like the annual Pentecost, if it commemorated the gift of the festivals, it looked both backwards and Le.w at Mount Sinai, pointed thereby to the forwards : backwards, to the sanctification giving of the better Law on the day when bestowed upon it "Becnuse that in it he had the Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles rested from all his work which Gou created in J eruso.lem ; and in e.ny case, as e. Feast of o.nd made" (Gen. ii. 3); forwards, to the Firstfruits, it was emblematic of those first- greo.t so.bbo.th in which Christ rested in tho fruits of the Christian Church presented to grave, and yet further onwards to another God on that day (Acts ii. 41). The Feast of sabbath still to be enjoyed by the people Tabernacles,inwhich God's people commemo- of God. rated their rejoicing in their newly found The sabbutical year and the jubilee were liberty o.rter the slo.very of Egypt, a.waits its extensions of the sabbatical principle- full typioe.l fulfilment in the spiritual joy or certain civil and religions institutions and the redeemed arter they have been d-ilivercd regulations being attached to each of them. Crom the burden or the flesh and the suffer- Ver. 2.-Concorning the teuta otthe Lord, ings of the world ; but its typical meaning whioh ye shall proclaim to be holy oonvooa- is partially fulfilled in tho blessed Jl(lllCe and ti.ons, even these aro my teuta. The trans- joy spread abroad in the heo.rts or the lation should rather be, The appointed time& children of God by re&Son or lh~ir adoption which ye ahall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are my appointed time,. The nppointed in Christ, whereby we have obtained an times (mo'adim) include the great fast o.s inheritance with the e&ints (Eph. i. 11, 18). well as the festivals, and the weekly and Jn the annual fast held on the IOtla of monthly as well as the annual holy dnys. Tieri, the great Day of Atonement, the The primary purpose with which the follow• ing enumeration of holy days is introduced, typical element outweighs any other. The is to give a list of the holy convocatiu11a, present and the past sink away in compari- While the Ismi.lites were still dwelling in son with the future. The day suggests no the wilderness, a holy com,ocatio,. appears to thought of the seasons or of the products of ho.ve been a religious assembly or all the the earth, and it recalls no event of past males in the court of the tabernacle. After the settlement in Cane.an, a religious gather- history. It teaches a lesson-the need of re- ing for prayer or festive rejoicing in all their conciliation; and by the entrance or the dwelling,, that ie, wherever they lived, high priest into the holy of holies with saori- would have aatisfted the command to hold  THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. [err. XX.IIL 1-5.