During the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths (Sukkot in Hebrew), a long-standing ceremony has been the waving of a bundle of plants and a citrus fruit toward the four points of the compass. There is an important message for all times in what those plants symbolize.
Food for thought from the recorded discussion
Leviticus 20 — Why do we live in tents? Why are the lulav ceremonial bundles of different species of plants waved during Sukkot make from trees? Why do we use the types of trees we use? What are we gathering?
What are the Biblical and Jewish traditions on the meaning of the items in the lulav? What are the physical characteristics of these items?
Zech. 1:7-17 — What place did the myrtle tree have? What purpose did the myrtle trees serve? How did Esther shelter her people?
Ezekiel 40–41 — What does David say about the palms? What is one of the most prominent features of the Temple described in Ezekiel’s temple?
What does a willow do?
Neh. 8:13 — Are willows and myrtles a required part of the lulav? What does the word lulav mean? Did God get angry at the people for using olive and pine trees in their booths and lulavs? Why does God want us to be “so in touch with trees”?
Mark 8:22-24 — What did the blind man see the first time? What value did it serve for Yeshua to take two turns to heal the blind man?
What is the purpose of olives and olive oil? What does it mean to lack light?
Zechariah 4; Rev. 11:1–6 — What does the prophet Zechariah see? What are the two olive branches? What do they feed? What kind of power do they wield?What does the olive tree mean to believers in Yeshua as Messiah (Romans 11)? What was the warning?
Judges 9:7–15 — Why did Jotham the son of Gideon chose Mt. Gerazim as the mountain he would condemn Shechem? What did the trees symbolize? Who was the olive tree? How do we know that Othneil was the olive tree? Who was the fig tree? Why is Deborah symbolized by the fig tree? What is unique about figs? Who was the vine? Why was Gideon associated with the vine?
Matt. 7:15-20 — How do we make sure we produce fruit rather than thorns and bramble?
What is an etrog, usually represented by a citron or lemon? Why do we wave etrog rather than other good fruits? What fruits are in season in Israel this time of year?
What do trees need? What is the difference between the land of Egypt and Israel as far as the source of water is concerned? What is the distinction between the early and the latter rain? When do the early rains fall? When do the latter rains fall? When do trees produce their fruit?
What do the trees ask for? What does barley ask for? Who are the barley? Who are the wheat? What does it mean that “the last shall be first and the first shall be last”?
Why during Sukkot do we wave the lulav to the “four corners of the earth”? What does it mean to rejoice?
Speaker: Daniel Agee.