I

THE SACRED CALENDAR OF THE HISTORY OF

REDEMPTION

LEVITICUS Xxiii.

"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, The set feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are My set feasts. Six days shall work be done; but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no manner of work: it is a sabbath unto the Lord in all your dwellings.

These are the set feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their appointed season. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, is the Lord's passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord: seven days ye shall eat unleavened bread. In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation ye shall do no servile work. But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work.

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring the sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest; and ye shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. And in the day when ye wave the sheaf, ye shall offer a he-lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offer. ing unto the Lord. And the meal offering thereof shall be twotenth parts of an ephah of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savour and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin. And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor fresh ears, until this selfsame day, until ye have brought the oblation of your God: it is a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall there be complete: even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meal offering unto the Lord, ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth parts of an ephah: they shall be of fine flour, they shall be baken with leaven, for first-fruits unto the Lord. And ye shall present with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be a burnt offering unto the Lord, with their meal offering, and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord. And ye shall offer one he-goat for a sin offering, and two helambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings. And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the first-fruits for a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. And ye shall make proclamation on the selfsame day; there shall be an holy convocation unto you ye shall do no servile work: it is a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.

And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of your field, neither shalt thou gather the gleaning of thy harvest thou shalt leave them for the poor, and for the stranger; I am the Lord your God.

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation. Ye shall do no servile work: and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Howbeit on the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. And ye shall do no manner of work in that same day; for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from his people.

And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any manner of work in that same day, that soul will I destroy from among his people. Ye shall do no manner of work: it is a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

It shall be unto you a sabbath of solemn rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye keep your sabbath.

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord. On the first day shall be an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work. Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord it is a solemn assembly; ye shall do no servile work."

I

THE SACRED CALENDAR OF THE HISTORY OF

TH

REDEMPTION

HIS chapter may well be styled "The Sacred Calendar of the History of Redemption," for not only are each of the "feasts," or special " assemblies," or "appointed seasons" of meeting between the Lord and His people, as the Hebrew words "moadai Jehovah" may be rendered, considered separately, full of emblematic and spiritual teaching, but taken together they form a series of striking symbolic prophecies, some fulfilled, some yet to be fulfilled, and thus foretell as well as set forth the great plan of Redemption. "It is beautifully supposed by some," observes Dr. Andrew Bonar, "that Israel's Feasts represent the course of time -this earth's days, from creation to the final end. The Lamb slain (Passover) commences it, and the eighth day of the happy Feast of Tabernacles is its close; while the Sabbath, the rest-God's rest in Himself, and His creatures rest around Him-both precedes and follows this course of time."

"And that this meaning was intended from the first, not only in reference to the Passover, but to all the feasts, appears from the whole design of the Old Testament, and from the exact correspondence between the types and the antitypes. Indeed, it

This beautiful" supposition" will grow into a certainty to every intelligent and devout student of Scripture, who cannot but find accumulating evidence as he proceeds that these "feasts," like Israel's ceremonial and ritual in general, are not of man's origination, but appointed and ordered by Him who is infinite in knowledge, and who knows the end from the beginning.

"For these rites and ceremonies must, every one of them, be regarded as predictions of those things they typified.

"Every well-established type is an instance of fulfilled prophecy; and when we view them all combined, we have a congerie of prophecies manifestly fulfilled, and affording an amount of accumulated evidence which must be convincing to any candid mind. In all the necessary elements of prophetic evidence, the argument derived from these types is remarkably certain and facile. Their antiquity or priority in point of time to their antitypes is undoubted, it is admitted on all hands. They were celebrated by successive generations, for centuries before those things which answered to them appeared to human observation, or could be known in any other way, than by Divine revelation.

"Their fulfilment, also, is equally certain; we compare the antitypes with the types and find them answer, the one to the other, in an immense variety of particulars. It is utterly impossible that this agreement should be the result of accident; it is so minute, and carried out is, so to speak, impressed upon the Old Testament by a law of internal necessity. For when God bound up the future of all nations in the history of Abraham and his seed He made that history prophetic, and each event and every rite became, as it were, a bud, destined to open in blossom and ripen into fruit on that tree under the shadow of which all nations were to be gathered."-Edersheim.