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Party Time

by Lance Ponder⁽⁸⁴⁾
http://fkiprofessor.xanga.com

Zeph 3:18 I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival [possibly: “those who are deprived of the festivals”], so that you will no longer suffer reproach.

This phrase is both curious and profound. An understanding of the feasts of Israel outlined in Lev 23 helps greatly in appreciating its importance. In a nutshell, there are three spring feasts (Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Weeks) and three autumn feasts (Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles). These feasts are celebrations with prophetic implications. Even though God commanded the people to keep these celebrations every year, they were not all kept every year by all the tribes of Israel.

Hosea predicted that Israel (the Northern Kingdom) would loose out on the feasts and by implication the messianic prophecies associated with those feasts (Hos 2:11-13, 9:5). Who mourns for or is deprived of the festivals? There are several possible answers to this question. One intriguing and likely answer is that as a messianic prophecy, this passage speaks of Old Testament believers like the prophets so often persecuted and killed for their faith who would be saved. These are people who did not live to see the fulfillment of the festivals. It could also mean all who perish from the earth before (or perhaps simply those who long to see) the final marriage feast of the Lord.

Article submitted Monday, October 10, 2011 & read 13 times.

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