Sukkot and Jewish History

The year is around 135 C.E. in the early fall and the place is Betar, southwest of Jerusalem. The embattled leader of Israel is Simon Bar Kokhba, proclaimed a few years earlier “the Son of the Star” (see Num 24:17) by the famous Rabbi Akiba. Bar Kokhba was a messianic figure.

Bar Kokhba and his army of soldiers, many of them simple people who had taken arms in this Second Jewish Revolt, are in their last months of life. They had defied Rome and for two years maintained kingdom independent of the greatest empire in history. It will not be long before the Romans come and slaughter hundreds of thousands.

Yet the time of year is Sukkot, the feast of booths or tabernacles (Lev 23:34; Deut 16:16; Zech 14:16-17; John 7:1-2, 37-39). Amid all the important things on the mind of this doomed commander of the people’s army is the festival. Archaeologist Yigael Yadin found in the surviving papyrus fragments containing Bar Kokhba’s orders one that stands out:

Simeon to Yehuda bar Menashe . . . I have sent two donkeys . . . in order that they shall pack and send to the camp, towards you, palm branches (lulavs) and citrons (etrogs). And you, from your place, send others who will bring myrtle and willow. . . . The request is made since the army is big.

Under siege and waiting for certain defeat, the army of Bar Kokhba celebrated one last Sukkot. They held their branches and citrons, reciting psalms and prayers. The spirit of hope in Messiah, even if their hope was misplaced on the general called Son of the Star, was stronger than fear of death. This Sukkot, October 3-9, 2009, may all of our thoughts be to Messiah’s return and the world’s redemption at last.