The Fall Festivals

On Wednesday, October 1, an unhinged antisemite rammed his car through the gates of the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Manchester, England and then jumped out of the car and began knifing Jews as they exited the synagogue. Two were murdered, and three others seriously wounded. That outrage—one of a growing number in our increasingly volatile, polarized, Psalm 2:1–3 world, is a subject for another post. I want to raise a much simpler, less emotionally charged but more theologically loaded question. What were Jews doing at synagogue on a Wednesday? Celebrating one of their seven major festival observances.

Ancient Jews, like modern Americans, observed certain yearly holidays. And they still do. Israel’s religious calendar is punctuated with seven celebratory feasts, high points in the Jewish year. Some of these feasts were memorials to certain significant events in their national history, while others were intended as days of reflection and gratitude. Ancient Israel had a divine mandate to observe these feasts as part of their worship-relationship to Yahweh. Three of the feasts were communal celebrations, requiring a yearly trip to Jerusalem. In addition to being commemorative, however, each of these feasts is a divinely sketched prophetic picture of future events that are part of the Bible’s bigger storyline that impacts “all the families of the earth.” The Jewish festive calendar forms a prophetic calendar as well.

Only Leviticus 23 includes all seven feasts. Numbers 28–29 list all but the Feast of Firstfruits. Exodus 23 and Deuteronomy 16 highlight only the three major pilgrimage feasts which required all males to go to Jerusalem (Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and Tabernacles).

Religiously and theologically, everything begins with Passover. God established the month in which he delivered Israel from the bondage of Egypt as the new “first” month of their religious year—marking their birth as the people of God graciously redeemed from bondage in Egypt (Ex 12:1ff). The feasts were so arranged on the calendar that it would not have been difficult for all Jews to attend all of them in Jerusalem. The first three feasts fell within the first three weeks of the first month (Abib), the next (fourth) feast was in the third month (Sivan), and the final three feasts were all observed within the first three weeks of the seventh month (Tishri). The Spring Feasts (Passover à Pentecost) have been prophetically fulfilled in the death and resurrection of the Messiah and the establishment and building of his church. The Fall Feasts (Trumpets à Tabernacles) are, as yet, unfulfilled. Since we are in the midst of the fall cycle, that’s the focus of this post.

Rosh Hashanah: Feast of Trumpets

Four months after the Feast of Pentecost came the last trilogy of feasts in the seventh month, beginning with the Feast of Trumpets, also called Rosh Hashanah (lit., “Head of the Year,” i.e. New Year’s Day). This year, the first day of autumn (September 22, 2025) also marked the Jewish New Year.

• When: Tishri 1. This was the first month of the Jewish civil new year, just as Passover fell in the first month of the Jewish religious calendar.
• OT Passages: Leviticus 23:23–25; Numbers 29:1–6
• Description: A day of rest from all work, with a public assembly and commemorative blowing of trumpets, along with the offering of designated sacrifices.
• Historical Significance: No explicit significance is ever clearly specified, but appears to be intended to turn Israel’s attention to the Lord in the celebration of a new year.
• NT References: None
• Prophetic Significance: Second Coming & Gathering of God’s People. Though there is no explicit NT reference to or interpretation of this feast, there are intriguing similarities between its commemoration and descriptions of the rapture and second coming. This feast was marked by a celebratory blowing of trumpets, a holy assembly, and a sabbath of rest; likewise, both the rapture (1 Thess 4:13–18) and the second coming (Mt 24:30–31) are marked by the blowing of trumpets and an assembling of God’s people, marking the commencement of a new era in which “there remains a rest for the people of God” (Heb 4:9).

Yom Kippur: Day of Atonement

Nine days after Rosh Hashanah is the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur. As already noted, Yom Kippur fell this year on October 1. In Beginning at Moses: A Guide to Finding Chist in the Old Testament, Mike Barrett writes that “the overriding theme of the Day of Atonement is that sinners cannot come to God in their own way or on their own terms. . . . True religion is extremely narrow and intolerant of any other way to God than through the Lord Jesus Christ”—the antitype superseding and fulfilling all the animal sacrifices under the old covenant. 

• When: Tishri 10
• OT Passages: Leviticus 16 and 23:26–32; Numbers 29:7–11
• Description: A day of rest, sacred assembly, and mandatory fasting, along with sacrifices of atonement for the tabernacle/temple, the priests, and the nation. This was the one day of the year in which the high priest, alone, was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies with the blood of atonement.
• Historical Significance: The covering of the sins of priests and people, reconciling the nation to God and maintaining their relationship to God.
• NT References: Romans 3:24–26; Hebrews 9:7, 10:3, 19–22
• Prophetic Significance: National Atonement & Conversion of Israel. Passover was a picture of individual faith and salvation; the Day of Atonement was a day of national cleansing, reconciling the nation in a right relationship to her God by blood. As such, the Day of Atonement uniquely typifies Israel’s future, national conversion via the full implementation of the New Covenant (Jer 31:34) at the Second Coming of Christ (Rom 11:25–27), when the nation of Israel is, as one man, finally reconciled to God (Zech 12:10–13:1) “through the blood of the everlasting [new] covenant” (Heb 13:20; 1 Cor 11:25).

Sukkoth: Feast of Tabernacles

The final feast of the year, and the third mandatory pilgrimage feast, comes 5 days after Yom Kippur. This year it falls on October 6–13. In some ways, the Feast of Tabernacles (also called the Feast of Booths, or Feast of Ingathering) is the most interesting and significant. It is the only feast that is specifically said to be universally observed in the Millennium (Zech 14:16–19).

• When: Tishri 15-22 (September-October)
• OT Passages: Exodus 23:16, 34:22; Leviticus 23:33–36, 39–43; Numbers 29:12–38; Deuteronomy 16:13–15, 31:10–13; Ezra 3:4; Nehemiah 8:13–18; Zechariah 14:16–19
• Description: The first and final days of the festival (Day 1 and Day 8, regardless of the day of the week) were designated as festal sabbaths calling for sacred assemblies and no work. Offerings were designated for each day, and the people were to construct temporary shelters in which to live for the week.
• Historical Significance: It was both a thanksgiving feast for the final harvests of the year, and a commemoration of their pilgrimage through the wilderness from Egypt to Canaan.
• NT References: John 7:2, 37
• Prophetic Significance: Kingdom Presence of God with His People.When Jesus Christ returns to establish his earthly millennial reign, the Feast of Tabernacles will be re-instituted and universally observed by all the nations of the earth (Zech 14:16–19), apparently as a recognition of the providential preservation of God’s redeemed people and millennial fulness under the rule of Christ.

The Jewish Feasts are not merely historical reminders or yearly opportunities for reflection. They are what one interpreter has called “picture prophecies”—in this case, events that image future realities for all the people of God: the return of the Messiah, the nationwide conversion of Israel, and the personal presence of God with his redeemed and preserved people.