'And the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy
labours, which them hast sown In thy field: and the
feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year,
when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.'
--EXODUS xxiii. 16.
The Israelites seem to have had a double beginning of the year--one in
spring, one at the close of harvest; or it may only be that here the
year is regarded from the natural point of view--a farmer's year. This
feast was at the gathering in of the fruits, which was the natural
close of the agricultural year.
This festival of ingathering was the Feast of Tabernacles. It is
remarkable that the three great sacred festivals, the Passover,
Pentecost, Tabernacles, had all a reference to agriculture, though two
of them also received a reference to national deliverances. This fact
may show that they were in existence before Moses, and that he simply
imposed a new meaning on them.
Be that as it may, I take these words now simply as a starting-point
for some thoughts naturally suggested by the period at which we stand.
We have come to the end of another year--looked for so long, passed so
swiftly, and now seeming to have so utterly departed!
I desire to recall to you and to myself the solemn real sense in which
for us too the end of the year is a 'time of ingathering' and
'harvest.' We too begin the new year with the accumulated consequences
of these past days in our 'barns and garners.'
Now, in dealing with this thought, let me put it in two or three forms.