Sukkot / Tabernacles and Transfiguration, 3

Here's the next installment trying to understand a possible Tabernacles undercurrent or influence on the Transfiguration of Jesus.

We read in Nehemiah 8 of a time after the people of Israel had returned from exile, had restored the temple and rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem, when the Torah was read to all the people gathered. They wept and grieved upon hearing it. This is when we hear that well known verse: Ezra encourages the people not to grieve, but that "the joy of the Lord is your strength." (v. 10)

The text continues to say that the leaders got together to study God's Word and found in it that God ordered them to dwell in booths during "the feast of the seventh month" (v. 14) and

"that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem, “Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written.” (v. 15)

And so they did, apparently there were booths everywhere... and the passage concludes

And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in the booths, for from the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing. 18 And day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read from the Book of the Law of God. They kept the feast seven days... (vs. 17-18)

So, again, associated with the Feast of Tabernacles is great rejoicing and the reading of whole Torah, all that God revealed to his people.

The great rejoicing has to do with God's provision and protection, even in the midst of a profound sense of vulnerability and how transitory and exposed our lives are. The book that is now associated with Sukkot is Ecclesiastes, which speaks of the vanity or "breathiness" of life, of enjoying the good things God provides, while remembering to fear God and obey his commandments. And yet it also points to another Tabernacle in their midst as they traveled through the wilderness; one that showed them that God was indeed in their midst, going before them and guarding them from behind. And pointing to a day when God would again, fully and finally in the consummation and renewal of all things, will tabernacle among his people and indeed be their tabernacle.