RTW 2023

So the people went out and cut branches and used them to build shelters on the roofs of their houses, in their courtyards, in the courtyards of God’s Temple, or in the squares just inside the Water Gate and the Ephraim Gate. So everyone who had returned from captivity lived in these shelters during the festival, and they were all filled with great joy! The Israelites had not celebrated like this since the days of Joshua son of Nun.

Nehemiah 8:16-17

Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were interpreting for the people said to them, “Don’t mourn or weep on such a day as this! For today is a sacred day before the LORD your God.” For the people had all been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.

Nehemiah 8:9

• The Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot, was celebrated with the new temple.
• The priest took living water and poured it out while people waved palm branches.
• Some scholars think the water ceremony could have been influenced by the prophecy in Zechariah 14:8: On that day life-giving waters will flow out from Jerusalem, half toward the Dead Sea and half toward the Mediterranean, flowing continuously in both summer and winter.
• Fruit trees of all kinds will grow along both sides of the river. The leaves of these trees will never turn brown and fall, and there will always be fruit on their branches. There will be a new crop every month, for they are watered by the river flowing from the Temple. The fruit will be for food and the leaves for healing.
  Ezekiel 47:12
• On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ ”
  John 7:37-38 (RSV)
• Jesus is Living Water and came to heal (spiritually, sometimes physically).
• Ray Vander Laan teaching about Sukkot (Go to “The House-Temple Part 4”)

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