The Feast of Tabernacles is a significant biblical festival with deep spiritual meaning.
Let's explore it based on the Bible, Spirit of Prophecy (SOP), and Shepherd’s Rod (SRod).
The Feast of Tabernacles (also called the Feast of Booths or Sukkot-Ingathering) was one of the three major pilgrimage festivals in ancient Israel.
Leviticus 23:33-44 – God commanded Israel to observe the feast for seven days, dwelling in booths to remember their wilderness journey.
Deuteronomy 16:13-15 – A joyous celebration of the harvest and God's blessings.
Nehemiah 8:14-18 – After the Babylonian exile, the Israelites revived this festival.
Zechariah 14:16-19 – A prophecy that even the nations will observe the Feast of Tabernacles in the future.
Reminder of Deliverance – Israel’s journey from Egypt and God’s protection.
Harvest Festival – Represents the final gathering of God’s people.
Messianic Fulfillment – Points to Christ dwelling with His people (John 1:14, Revelation 21:3).
Ellen White discusses the Feast of Tabernacles as a type of the final gathering of God’s people in the last days.
Symbol of the Great Ingathering
Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 541-542: The Feast of Tabernacles was not only commemorative but typical. It not only pointed back to the wilderness sojourn, but, as the feast of harvest, it celebrated the ingathering of the fruits of the earth, and pointed forward to the great day of final ingathering, when the Lord of the harvest shall send forth His reapers to gather the tares together in bundles for the fire, and to gather the wheat into His garner. At that time the wicked will all be destroyed. They will become "as though they had not been." Obadiah 16. And every voice in the whole universe will unite in joyful praise to God. Says the revelator, "Every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever." Revelation 5:13. {PP 541.2}
The people of Israel praised God at the Feast of Tabernacles, as they called to mind His mercy in their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt and His tender care for them during their pilgrim life in the wilderness. They rejoiced also in the consciousness of pardon and acceptance, through the service of the day of atonement, just ended. But when the ransomed of the Lord shall have been safely gathered into the heavenly Canaan, forever delivered from the bondage of the curse, under which "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Romans 8:22), they will rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Christ's great work of atonement for men will then have been completed, and their sins will have been forever blotted out.
"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them;
And the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.
It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and
singing:
The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it,
The excellency of Carmel and Sharon;
They shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our
God.
"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
Then shall the lame man leap as an hart,
And the tongue of the dumb sing:
"For in the wilderness shall waters break out,
And streams in the desert.
And the parched ground shall become a pool,
And the thirsty land springs of water: . . .
"And an highway shall be there, and a way,
And it shall be called The way of holiness;
The unclean shall not pass over it;
But it shall be for those:
The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.
"No lion shall be there,
Nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon,
It shall not be found there;
But the redeemed shall walk there:
"And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
And come to Zion with songs
And everlasting joy upon their heads:
They shall obtain joy and gladness,
And sorrow and sighing shall flee away."
Isaiah 35:1, 2, 5-10. {PP 542.1}
The Feast of Tabernacles foreshadows the final redemption of the saints.
The Desire of Ages, p. 448:
This feast was not only the harvest thanksgiving, but the memorial of God's protecting care over Israel in the wilderness. In commemoration of their tent life, the Israelites during the feast dwelt in booths or tabernacles of green boughs. These were erected in the streets, in the courts of the temple, or on the housetops. The hills and valleys surrounding Jerusalem were also dotted with these leafy dwellings, and seemed to be alive with people. {DA 448.2}
With sacred song and thanksgiving the worshipers celebrated this occasion. A little before the feast was the Day of Atonement, when, after confession of their sins, the people were declared to be at peace with Heaven. Thus the way was prepared for the rejoicing of the feast. "O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good: for His mercy endureth forever" (Psalm 106:1) rose triumphantly, while all kinds of music, mingled with shouts of hosanna, accompanied the united singing. The temple was the center of the universal joy. Here was the pomp of the sacrificial ceremonies. Here, ranged on either side of the white marble steps of the sacred building, the choir of Levites led the service of song. The multitude of worshipers, waving their branches of palm and myrtle, took up the strain, and echoed the chorus; and again the melody was caught up by voices near and afar off, till the encircling hills were vocal with praise. {DA 448.3}
Jesus attended the Feast of Tabernacles, declaring Himself as the source of living water (John 7:37-38).
Application to the Last Days
Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 540-542: Fifty days from the offering of first fruits, came the Pentecost, called also the feast of harvest and the feast of weeks. As an expression of gratitude for the grain prepared as food, two loaves baked with leaven were presented before God. The Pentecost occupied but one day, which was devoted to religious service. {PP 540.1}
In the seventh month came the Feast of Tabernacles, or of ingathering. This feast acknowledged God's bounty in the products of the orchard, the olive grove, and the vineyard. It was the crowning festal gathering of the year. The land had yielded its increase, the harvests had been gathered into the granaries, the fruits, the oil, and the wine had been stored, the first fruits had been reserved, and now the people came with their tributes of thanksgiving to God, who had thus richly blessed them. {PP 540.2}
This feast was to be pre-eminently an occasion of rejoicing. It occurred just after the great Day of Atonement, when the assurance had been given that their iniquity should be remembered no more. At peace with God, they now came before Him to acknowledge His goodness and to praise Him for His mercy. The labors of the harvest being ended, and the toils of the new year not yet begun, the people were free from care, and could give themselves up to the sacred, joyous influences of the hour. Though only the fathers and sons were commanded to appear at the feasts, yet, so far as possible, all the household were to attend them, and to their hospitality the servants, the Levites, the stranger, and the poor were made welcome. {PP 540.3}
Like the Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles was commemorative. In memory of their pilgrim life in the wilderness the people were now to leave their houses and dwell in booths, or arbors, formed from the green branches "of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook." Leviticus 23:40, 42, 43. {PP 540.4}
The first day was a holy convocation, and to the seven days of the feast an eighth day was added, which was observed in like manner. {PP 540.5}
At these yearly assemblies the hearts of old and young would be encouraged in the service of God, while the association of the people from the different quarters of the land would strengthen the ties that bound them to God and to one another. Well would it be for the people of God at the present time to have a Feast of Tabernacles--a joyous commemoration of the blessings of God to them. As the children of Israel celebrated the deliverance that God had wrought for their fathers, and His miraculous preservation of them during their journeyings from Egypt, so should we gratefully call to mind the various ways He has devised for bringing us out from the world, and from the darkness of error, into the precious light of His grace and truth. {PP 540.6}
With those who lived at a distance from the tabernacle, more than a month of every year must have been occupied in attendance upon the annual feasts. This example of devotion to God should emphasize the importance of religious worship and the necessity of subordinating our selfish, worldly interests to those that are spiritual and eternal. We sustain a loss when we neglect the privilege of associating together to strengthen and encourage one another in the service of God. The truths of His word lose their vividness and importance in our minds. Our hearts cease to be enlightened and aroused by the sanctifying influence, and we decline in spirituality. In our intercourse as Christians we lose much by lack of sympathy with one another. He who shuts himself up to himself is not filling the position that God designed he should. We are all children of one Father, dependent upon one another for happiness. The claims of God and of humanity are upon us. It is the proper cultivation of the social elements of our nature that brings us into sympathy with our brethren and affords us happiness in our efforts to bless others. {PP 541.1}
The feast represents the time when God will bring His people into His eternal kingdom.
The Great Controversy, p. 675: Human language is inadequate to describe the reward of the righteous. It will be known only to those who behold it. No finite mind can comprehend the glory of the Paradise of God. {GC 674.4}
In the Bible the inheritance of the saved is called "a country." Hebrews 11:14-16. There the heavenly Shepherd leads His flock to fountains of living waters. The tree of life yields its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the service of the nations. There are ever-flowing streams, clear as crystal, and beside them waving trees cast their shadows upon the paths prepared for the ransomed of the Lord. There the wide-spreading plains swell into hills of beauty, and the mountains of God rear their lofty summits. On those peaceful plains, beside those living streams, God's people, so long pilgrims and wanderers, shall find a home. {GC 675.1}
"My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places." "Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise." "They shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: . . . Mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands." Isaiah 32:18; 60:18; Isaiah 65:21, 22. {GC 675.2}
There, "the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree." "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; . . . and a little child shall lead them." "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain," saith the Lord. Isaiah 35:1; 55:13; Isaiah 11:6, 9. {GC 675.3}
Pain cannot exist in the atmosphere of heaven. There will be no more tears, no funeral trains, no badges of mourning. "There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying: . . . for the former things are passed away." "The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity." Revelation 21:4; Isaiah 33:24. {GC 676.1}
After the final harvest, the saints will celebrate in the heavenly Canaan, which is the antitypical fulfillment.
Victor Houteff, the author of the Shepherd’s Rod message, provides deeper insights into the prophetic and typological significance of this feast.
A Future Event for the 144,000 and the Great Multitude
SRod, Vol. 2, p. 255 – The Feast of Tabernacles points to the ingathering of the great multitude (Revelation 7:9-10) who will serve before the throne.
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2, No. 37, p. 14-15 – The antitypical fulfillment involves the final phase of God’s kingdom on earth, when His people will dwell in peace before the second coming.
Connection to the Purification of the Church
SRod, Vol. 1, p. 149 – When we do this kind of work on the Sabbath, we do it to save ourselves an hour or so of time for the next day, thus we rob God of His time and add it to our secular pleasure. If it is wrong for one to go and sell good religious books on the Sabbath, though he turns all the proceeds to the Church, it would be doubly wrong to sell that same book in the house of God on the Sabbath day, regardless of what is done with the income. If all of this is true, then it would be wrong to go out with Harvest Ingathering papers and receive contributions for missions on the Sabbath. It is time for God to call our attention to these things. {SR1: 149.1}
Quoting Patriarchs and Prophets, pages 313, 314: "'Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you....Whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.' Directions had just been given for the immediate erection of the tabernacle for the service of God; and now the people might conclude, because the object had in view was the glory of God, and also because of their great need of a place of worship, that they would be justified in working at the building upon the Sabbath. To guard them from this error, the warning was given. Even the sacredness and urgency of that special work for God must not lead them to infringe upon his holy rest day." {SR1: 149.2}
The balance of chapter 58, teaches that we must take care of our poor and sick, instead of sending them to the county farm, or hospital, if we are to delight in the Lord. There are many lessons that we can draw from the services of ancient Israel. God gave them the seventh-day Sabbath as a day of rest for praise and thanksgiving. Though the sacrificial was a sacred, religious service, requiring much labor, they were not permitted to do it on the seventh-day Sabbath.
For this reason God gave them the monthly Sabbaths in which they were to do that sacred work. If God did not allow every kind of religious service to be performed on the seventh-day Sabbath then, will He now? "I the Lord change not." Read Lev. 23. {SR1: 149.3}
The purification of the church (Ezekiel 9) is the first step before the ingathering.
Timely Greetings, Vol. 1, No. 3, p. 9 – Do you now see what the men whom they call great, "men of experience," are doing? These unscrupulous deeds condemn their boast that saintly men are running the Denomination; and their boastingly speaking of the millions of dollars the Denomination annually gathers from the poor is anything but saintly if it has to be spent for such kind of work. They need to repent and correct the errors which they are passing as Truth before they can conscientiously accuse others. {1TG3: 9.1}
If John could not see exactly what the horses looked like, then how could he see that all the fish in the sea died (Rev. 8:9)? And with such a self-exalting precedent for studying the Scriptures as the kind the General Conference has set up, how can anyone be sure that any of the prophets saw anything right? Do you not realize that such foolish and twisted interpretations of the Scriptures are Satanic attempts to undermine men's confidence in the prophets and of Christ's ability to correctly reveal and portray Truth to His servants? Consider how damaging the charge against Inspiration, how soul-destroying, and blasphemous against the Holy Ghost Who leads into all Truth! and how repulsive it must be to Christ, especially for coming from those who pretend to serve Him! This alone ought to be sufficient to show that the angel (ministry) of the Laodiceans is blind and naked and in need of everything. For the sake of your life and for the lives of others, do not support such doctrines of devils. They are anything but Truth, anything but signs of the Spirit of Prophecy at work. Ask yourselves when Turkey or any other nation ever had 200,000,000 cavalrymen! And if you still wonder why God permitted the errors to creep into the church, the answer is: So that by their fostering and propagating them He may at a time such as this expose the workers of iniquity and prove to the laity that His church is now as badly overrun by the Devil as was the Jewish church at Christ's time, thus to awaken the honest ones and to set them free from their Laodicean self-deception, and thus from the overflowing scourge (Isa. 28:13-15). {1TG3: 9.2}
The 144,000 will lead in celebrating the antitypical Feast of Tabernacles, marking the beginning of God's kingdom on earth.
Zechariah 14 and the Kingdom of God
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2, No. 42 – Zechariah 14:16-19 confirms that the Feast of Tabernacles will be observed in the established kingdom of God on earth before the second coming.
Nations who refuse to keep it will face judgment (no rain—symbolizing the withholding of blessings).
The Bible establishes the Feast of Tabernacles as a memorial of deliverance and a prophecy of the final ingathering.
The Spirit of Prophecy affirms its future significance in the gathering of God’s saints into His eternal kingdom.
The Shepherd’s Rod reveals its antitypical fulfillment in the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth before Christ’s second coming.
This feast is not just historical but prophetic, pointing to a coming time when God's people will be gathered and will rejoice in His kingdom.
(Based on the Bible, Spirit of Prophecy (SOP), and Shepherd’s Rod (SRod) teachings)
The Feast of Tabernacles (Feast of Booths or Ingathering) was one of Israel’s three major feasts (Leviticus 23:33-44). It was a seven-day celebration, followed by a special eighth day, the Solemn Assembly.
Leviticus 23:36 – "On the eighth day shall be a holy convocation… it is a solemn assembly."
Deuteronomy 16:13-15 – A feast of joy after the harvest, signifying God’s blessings and protection.
Nehemiah 8:14-18 – The Israelites revived this feast after the exile.
Zechariah 14:16-19 – A prophecy that nations will observe the Feast of Tabernacles in the future kingdom.
A Memorial of Deliverance – Reminds Israel of their wilderness journey and God’s guidance.
A Harvest Celebration – Symbolizes the final ingathering of God’s people.
Messianic Fulfillment – Points to Christ’s kingdom (John 1:14, Revelation 21:3).
Ellen White highlights its antitypical fulfillment in the final redemption of God’s people.
Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 541-542 – The feast foreshadows the joy of the redeemed in God's kingdom.
The Desire of Ages, p. 448 – Jesus connected the feast with the outpouring of the Spirit (John 7:37-39).
Prophets and Kings, p. 540-542 – The feast symbolizes the final deliverance and gathering of the saints.
The Great Controversy, p. 675 – After the great harvest, the saints will celebrate in the heavenly Canaan, the ultimate fulfillment of the feast.
The Shepherd’s Rod expands on the prophetic meaning of the Solemn Assembly and its connection to the Feast of Tabernacles in the antitypical purification and ingathering.
Leviticus 23:36 describes the eighth-day Solemn Assembly, which SRod identifies as a final call for repentance and preparation before the establishment of God's kingdom.
Joel 2:15-17 – “Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly…”
This prophecy refers to a special call for purification and gathering before God’s final work.
SRod, Vol. 1, p. 149 – The purification of the church (Ezekiel 9) is the first step before the ingathering.
Timely Greetings, Vol. 1, No. 3, p. 9 – The 144,000 will lead in celebrating the antitypical Feast of Tabernacles, marking the beginning of God's kingdom on earth.
Timely Greetings, Vol. 2, No. 42 – Nations who refuse to keep the Feast of Tabernacles in the established kingdom will receive no rain (Zechariah 14:16-19).
The eighth-day Solemn Assembly represents the final gathering and purification before the full establishment of the kingdom.
The Feast of Tabernacles symbolizes God’s deliverance, protection, and the final ingathering of His people.
The Spirit of Prophecy confirms its ultimate fulfillment in the final redemption of the saints.
The Shepherd’s Rod reveals that the antitypical Feast of Tabernacles includes:
The purification of the church (Ezekiel 9).
The final gathering of the 144,000 and the great multitude.
A future observance in the kingdom, fulfilling Zechariah 14.
The Solemn Assembly is a special call for repentance before the final establishment of God's kingdom.
This study shows that the Feast of Tabernacles is not just a historical event but a prophetic blueprint for the final work of God on earth.