After a marathon reading session of the Scriptures, God’s People had been sent home to rejoice and worship God with their families rather than mourn over their disobedience. While their past disobedience was sinful, their repentance was a sweet savour to God, and a reason to be joyful and feast, because resting in the joy of God is a strength to believers.
The following day, the menfolk returned to hear more from God’s Word. There, they learnt of the Feast of Booths (or Tabernacles), instituted by God for their instruction and benefit. They faithfully obeyed God by reinstituting this festival among the people. While the Feast finds its fulfilment in Christ and is not an obligation for us today, it does remind us that obedience to God and his Word is a response of faith. As we pour over the Scriptures ourselves, we too will find things which we ought to do as well.
A spirit of revival and reformation was present in Judah. “On the second day the heads of fathers’ houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the Law” (v.13). As if hours from the previous day was not enough, there was a hunger for God’s Word in the land!
As they read through the Scriptures, “they found it written in the Law that the LORD had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month” (v.14). While an initial feast had occurred when Ezra and the first exiles returned, this festival had fallen by the wayside: “from the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so” (v.17). It was time to get back into gear.
This was not a Jerusalem-only event. They read “that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem, ‘Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written’” (v.15).
They responded with faithful obedience. “The people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Water Gate and in the square at the Gate of Ephraim. And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in the booths” (vv.16-17).
This was not a half-hearted obedience. They immediately got up and gathered what was needed, and moved out of their houses and into their booths for the week.
As they did so, they were remembering and commemorating God’s goodness to their ancestors when God brought them out of slavery in Egypt and provided for them in the wilderness journey. It also reminded them that the good things they enjoyed in the Land were not their own doing, but a gift of God to them, especially as the timing of the feast was during the crop harvest season.
They did not respond out of reluctance either. “There was very great rejoicing” (v.17). Not only were they obeying, but they wanted to obey! They were motivated by thankfulness to God, from repentant hearts that delighted in God’s mercy and goodness to them.
While the first night might have been fun, by the end of the week it may have got tiring. Despite that, they kept the Feast fully. Each day, Ezra read more of God’s Word, and on the eighth day they held an assembly together to worship God (v.18).
The example here is one of faithful obedience. The Jews acted on their belief. They behaved in a way which pleased God, by obeying his commands to them. They did not presume on God’s grace but changed how they lived to follow God’s will. This does not mean they were assuming they could earn God’s favour by keeping God’s rules. Instead, they followed God’s commands in thanks for God’s grace to them.
This is the attitude that God desires from us too. We cannot earn our salvation by keeping God’s rules, and making ourselves somehow good enough to please God. Instead, God is pleased with us because of the work and sacrifice of Christ credited to our account. Our faithful obedience to God responds in thanks to the mercy and grace he has already shown us.
While the ceremonies like the Feast of Booths are fulfilled in Jesus, there is still plenty in the Scriptures that shows us how to behave in ways which please God. It could be greater devotion to Scripture (like the Jews in this passage), more regular time spent in prayer or a change in priorities in our life, or a change in behaviour.
None of these things save us. But they do reflect a heart devoted to God, thankful for his mercy, and seeking to live a faithfully obedient life in response to God’s goodness and grace.