Numbers 29:12-40

THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES SACRIFICES, Numbers 29:12-40.

The cycle of Jewish feasts culminated in this, the grandest and most joyful of all. While the number of lambs and rams was double the number offered at the passover and feast of Pentecost, the number of oxen was fivefold; for, instead of fourteen, there were seventy offered during the week, so distributed that there were thirteen offered on the first day, twelve on the second, and so on, till there were only seven, the sacred number, on the seventh day. This multiplication of sacrifices was adapted to the rich harvest of splendid and costly fruits which they had just gathered: it constituted a suitable expression of the nation’s gratitude to Jehovah, the bountiful Giver. The burnt offerings, symbols of the people’s blessedness, all rested on the basis of the sin offering, prefiguring that all acceptable praise must rest upon the great sin offering, Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:20; Hebrews 13:5.