33 And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. 34 According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure. ~ Numbers 14:33-34
The Feast of Booths is about the Threshing Floor of God. It’s the separation of the righteous and the unrighteous. How can we be sure? The Feast of Booths is to commemorate or remember the 40 years in the wilderness. These 40 years in the wilderness were to let the unrighteous die before entering the Promised Land. Now, think about this. God could’ve, hypothetically, killed off all adults twenty years and older instead of this 40-year-long journey. The earth could’ve swallowed them, the Angel of the LORD could’ve struck them down, the fiery serpents could’ve bitten them, fire could’ve come out from the Ark of the Covenant and consumed them, but it didn’t. They died off over 40 years. Now, that definitely could be so that the children and nursing infants would not be orphans, which I definitely think has something to do with it, but I also think it’s because God continuously gives chance after chance after chance.
Think about this: Ahab provoked the LORD to wrath on multiple occasions, and for the longest time was the wickedest king of Israel, but God showed Ahab great mercy and forgiveness. Why? Because Ahab humbled himself before the LORD. Manasseh provoked the LORD even more than Ahab. More than any other king, he was even taken out of the land by a hook in his nose because of it; yet, when he humbled himself before the LORD, the LORD still showed him mercy and forgiveness, even going as far as to restore him to his throne. Who is to say that the LORD didn’t give them 40 years to repent? 40 years to humble themselves and finally get it right?
I believe this is not only true, but that it foreshadows His plan for the Millennial Reign of Christ. Isaiah prophesies that during those days they won’t just see a hundred years old, but that that will a mere child, and if one doesn’t see it, he is accursed (Isaiah 65:20). Why make this a point to do, if none will live a righteous life? If none will repent? I believe that Jesus’ Millennial isn’t just the fulfillment of our promised day of rest, but a chance for many to be saved. For many to see His Promised Land to the Saints: The New Earth. His Eternal Home with mankind.
Peace. Love. Go Forth and Understand The Past To Understand The Future.