How each of Israel’s seven appointed feasts remembers a step in the deliverance from Egypt, and points to a step in Jesus’s work and our deliverance from sin.
The appointed times
“These are the LORD’s appointed feasts, the sacred assemblies you are to proclaim at their appointed times.” (Leviticus 23:4)
The Hebrew word for “appointed feasts” is mo’adim, meaning appointed times or meetings. These were God’s calendar, not Israel’s: dates He set to meet with His people. Three of them were pilgrimage feasts when every man went up to Jerusalem: Passover with Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and Booths (Deuteronomy 16:16).
Paul says these feasts were “a shadow of the things to come, but the body that casts it belongs to Christ” (Colossians 2:16–17), as in the Shadows and Substance study. Each feast looks back to what God did for Israel and forward to what He would do in Christ.
Spring · first month (Nisan, March–April)
Passover: Nisan 14
Unleavened Bread: Nisan 15–21
Firstfruits: Day after the Sabbath
Weeks (Pentecost): 50 days later
Fulfilled at Jesus’s first coming
The long summer harvest
Fall · seventh month (Tishri, September–October)
Trumpets: Tishri 1
Day of Atonement: Tishri 10
Booths (Tabernacles): Tishri 15–22
Many expect fulfillment at His return
Passover
Feast 1 · Nisan 14 · Leviticus 23:5
Out of Egypt
Each household killed a spotless lamb and put its blood on the doorposts. “When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13). That night the firstborn of Egypt died, and Pharaoh let Israel go.
Jesus
Jesus was crucified at Passover. “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Not one bone of the lamb could be broken (Exodus 12:46), and none of Jesus’s were (John 19:36).
Our salvation
Saved from judgment by His blood: “Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from wrath through Him” (Romans 5:9). The first step out of slavery to sin.
The lamb was chosen on the tenth day of the month and kept until the fourteenth, to be examined for flaws (Exodus 12:3–6). Jesus entered Jerusalem in the days before Passover and was questioned by the religious leaders, yet Pilate concluded, “I find no basis for a charge against Him” (John 18:38). At the Last Supper, a Passover meal, Jesus took the bread and cup and said, “This is My body… This is My blood of the covenant” (Matthew 26:26–28).
Unleavened Bread
Feast 2 · Nisan 15–21 · Leviticus 23:6–8
Out of Egypt
Israel left in such haste that “the people took their dough before it was leavened” (Exodus 12:34, 39). For seven days, all leaven was removed from their homes. Jewish tradition places the crossing of the Red Sea on the seventh day of this feast.
Jesus
Leaven pictures sin spreading (Luke 12:1; Galatians 5:9). Jesus, without sin, was buried as this feast began. “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35), born in Bethlehem, meaning “house of bread.”
Our salvation
“Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch… Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old bread, leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and of truth” (1 Corinthians 5:7–8). A clean break with the old life.
Passover and Unleavened Bread always come together: first the blood that saves, then the clean break from Egypt. In the same way, forgiveness is followed by a new way of living. The Red Sea is the point of no return: Egypt’s army is gone, and Israel is “baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Corinthians 10:1–2).
Firstfruits
Feast 3 · The day after the Sabbath · Leviticus 23:9–14
Out of Egypt
God called Israel “My firstborn son” (Exodus 4:22), and after the Exodus every firstborn was set apart to Him (Exodus 13:2). When Israel finally entered Canaan, they kept Passover and ate the produce of the land, and the manna stopped the next day (Joshua 5:10–12): the first fruits of the promised land.
Jesus
The first sheaf of the barley harvest was waved before the Lord “on the day after the Sabbath.” Jesus rose on the first day of the week, the day after the Sabbath. “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20, 23).
Our salvation
New life and the promise of our own resurrection. The first sheaf guarantees the rest of the harvest. Believers are “a kind of firstfruits of His creation” (James 1:18).
Weeks (Shavuot, Pentecost)
Feast 4 · Fifty days after Firstfruits · Leviticus 23:15–21
Out of Egypt
Israel reached Mount Sinai in the third month (Exodus 19:1). There God came down in fire, with thunder and the sound of a trumpet, and gave the law (Exodus 19:16–20). Jewish tradition marks Shavuot as the day the law was given. After the golden calf, about 3,000 people died (Exodus 32:28).
Jesus
Fifty days after the resurrection, on the day of Pentecost, Jesus poured out the Spirit with “a sound like a mighty rushing wind” and “tongues like flames of fire” (Acts 2:1–4, 33). That day about 3,000 were saved (Acts 2:41).
Our salvation
The law written not on stone but on hearts: “I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33; 2 Corinthians 3:3). “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). The Spirit’s power, as in the Baptism study.
The offering at this feast was unusual: two loaves baked with leaven (Leviticus 23:17). Many see these two loaves as Jew and Gentile made one in the church (Ephesians 2:14–16): accepted by God, though not yet free from sin.
The long summer harvest
Between the spring and fall feasts came the summer harvest, with no feasts. Right in that gap, Leviticus 23 adds a command that seems out of place: “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap all the way to the edges of your field… Leave them for the poor and the foreign resident” (Leviticus 23:22).
Many see this gap as the present church age, the long harvest between Christ’s first and second comings. “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (Matthew 9:37). The command to leave the edges for the sojourner, the foreigner, pictures the Gentiles being gathered in during this time, like Ruth gleaning in the field of Boaz (Ruth 2).
In the Exodus story, this matches the wilderness years between Sinai and entering the land.
Trumpets (Yom Teruah)
Feast 5 · Tishri 1 · Leviticus 23:23–25
Out of Egypt
Trumpets sounded throughout the journey: a long blast at Sinai when God came down (Exodus 19:16, 19), silver trumpets to gather the camp and signal it to move (Numbers 10:1–10), and at Jericho, trumpets as Israel began taking the promised land (Joshua 6:20).
Jesus
Many see His return: “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven… with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). “At the last trumpet… the dead will be raised imperishable” (1 Corinthians 15:52). “He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect” (Matthew 24:31).
Our salvation
The resurrection and the gathering of God’s people to Him, the blessed hope (Titus 2:13). A call to wake up: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise up from the dead” (Ephesians 5:14).
This is the only feast falling on a new moon. In ancient Israel the month began when witnesses sighted the new moon, so the exact day wasn’t certain in advance. Some connect this with Jesus’s words, “no one knows about that day or hour” (Matthew 24:36).
Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
Feast 6 · Tishri 10 · Leviticus 23:26–32; 16
Out of Egypt
After the golden calf, Moses interceded for the people and went back up the mountain for forty days. He returned with new tablets and God’s word of forgiveness, “the LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious” (Exodus 32:30–32; 34:1–9). Jewish tradition places his return on the Day of Atonement. The ritual itself was given in the wilderness (Leviticus 16).
Jesus
Once a year the high priest entered the Most Holy Place with blood. Christ “entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, thus securing eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:11–12, 24–28). The scapegoat carried the people’s sins away into the wilderness (Leviticus 16:21–22): “the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
Our salvation
Complete forgiveness and access to God: “We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus… let us draw near” (Hebrews 10:19–22). “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).
It was a day to “humble yourselves,” a day of repentance and fasting (Leviticus 23:27). Many see a future fulfillment for Israel as a nation: “They will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him… On that day a fountain will be opened… to cleanse them from sin” (Zechariah 12:10; 13:1; Romans 11:26–27), as in the Israel study.
Booths (Sukkot, Tabernacles)
Feast 7 · Tishri 15–22 · Leviticus 23:33–43
Out of Egypt
For seven days Israel lived in temporary shelters, “so that your descendants may know that I made the Israelites dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 23:43). In the wilderness God dwelt among them in the tabernacle (Exodus 25:8; 40:34). It was also the final harvest feast, after the journey ended in a land of plenty.
Jesus
“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us” (John 1:14), where “dwelt” literally means “tabernacled.” At this feast, during the water-pouring ceremony, Jesus stood up and cried, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink… streams of living water” (John 7:2, 37–38). Large lamps lit the temple courts, and He said, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).
Our salvation
God dwelling with His people forever: “Behold, the dwelling place [literally ‘tabernacle’] of God is with man, and He will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3). In the kingdom, the nations will go up to keep this feast (Zechariah 14:16).
This was the most joyful feast: “you are to rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days… your joy will be complete” (Leviticus 23:40; Deuteronomy 16:15). Israel’s journey from Egypt ended in rest and abundance in the land, and God’s plan ends with His people at rest in His presence. The palm branches carried at this feast (Leviticus 23:40) appear again with the great multitude before the throne (Revelation 7:9).
The whole story at a glance
Feast
Israel’s journey
Jesus
Our salvation
1. Passover
The lamb’s blood; death passes over
Crucified as our Passover lamb
Saved by His blood
2. Unleavened Bread
Leaving Egypt in haste; through the Red Sea
His sinless body buried
A clean break with sin
3. Firstfruits
God’s firstborn; the first fruit of the land
Raised from the dead
New life; our future resurrection
4. Weeks
The law given at Sinai
The Spirit poured out at Pentecost
The law written on our hearts
The gap
The wilderness years
The church age
The harvest of the nations
5. Trumpets
Trumpets gather the camp; Jericho
The trumpet of His return
Resurrection and gathering
6. Atonement
Forgiveness after the golden calf
Our High Priest; the sin-bearer
Full cleansing; Israel’s national turning
7. Booths
God dwelling among them; rest in the land
The Word who “tabernacled” with us
God dwelling with us forever
Read in order, the feasts trace the whole path of salvation: rescued by the blood, separated from sin, raised to new life, filled with the Spirit, gathered at the trumpet, cleansed completely, and dwelling with God forever.
“These are a shadow of the things to come, but the body that casts it belongs to Christ.” (Colossians 2:17)