Camping can be great fun. God wanted His people to spend a week camping every year. But why?
The Hebrews call this last of the annual festivals Sukkot (or Succot) meaning “booths.” It is still practiced by many Jewish families today, when they build temporary structures outside, with walls of cloth or wood and roofs made of “branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook” (v 40). They use branches from lulav (date palm), etrog (citron), hadassim (myrtle), and aravot (willow). Interestingly, almost one quarter of Leviticus 23 is dedicated to this feast (vv 33-44). It is the second seven-day festival, with a “sacred assembly” or “holy convocation” on the first and last days, when no “customary work” was to be done (vv 35-36). Like the first festival, Passover (or Pesach), this looks both backward and forward. In retrospect, “All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt” (vv 42-43). It was good for Israel to remember the lessons and the provisions given by the Lord on their 40-year journey. Likewise, “all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor 10:11). What lessons are we to learn from their wanderings? “That we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become idolaters as were some of them.…Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did…nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted,…nor complain, as some of them also complained” (vv 6-10). Is that plain enough? I think so! We also are pilgrims and strangers in this world, “For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come” (Heb 13:14). So let’s not drive our tent pegs in too deeply here!