"Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God at the place that He will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths" (Deuteronomy 16:16). The Feast of Booths is the third and final pilgrimage feast - the feast of harvest, of joy, and of remembrance. For seven days, Israel dwelt in booths, remembering that God made them dwell in booths when He brought them out of Egypt.
At this feast, John records Jesus standing up on the last day and declaring, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink" (John 7:37). John describes the incarnation with the Greek word eskēnōsen - He tabernacled among us (John 1:14). And Zechariah says all nations will keep the Feast of Booths in the age to come (Zechariah 14:16). The command, the Person, and the promise - traced through the text itself.
The Feast of Booths is one of the moedim - the appointed times - that God Himself established. "These are the appointed feasts of the LORD that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are My appointed feasts" (Leviticus 23:2). The Hebrew moed means an appointed time, a fixed meeting. These are not Israel's feasts. They are God's.
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the people of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month and for seven days is the Feast of Booths to the LORD. On the first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. For seven days you shall present food offerings to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall hold a holy convocation and present a food offering to the LORD. It is a solemn assembly; you shall not do any ordinary work."
"On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the LORD seven days. On the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest. And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days. You shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God."
"You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. For seven days you shall keep the feast to the LORD your God at the place that the LORD will choose, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful."
God commanded three things for this feast:
Dwell in booths. "You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths." The reason is stated explicitly: "that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God" (Leviticus 23:42-43). The booth is a commanded act of remembrance.
Take branches. "You shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook" (Leviticus 23:40). Scripture identifies palm branches and willows by name. The other two - "the fruit of splendid trees" and "boughs of leafy trees" - are described but not further identified in the text. Nehemiah 8:15 adds detail: "Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths."
Rejoice. "You shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days" (Leviticus 23:40). Deuteronomy makes it even stronger: "so that you will be altogether joyful" (Deuteronomy 16:15). This is not a suggestion. It is a command - seven full days of joy before God.
The feast is seven days. Then: "On the eighth day you shall hold a holy convocation and present a food offering to the LORD. It is a solemn assembly; you shall not do any ordinary work" (Leviticus 23:36). The text distinguishes this eighth day from the seven days of the feast. It is a separate holy convocation - a solemn assembly called after the feast is complete.
God gives the explicit reason for the booths: "that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt" (Leviticus 23:43). The purpose is stated. This feast is about remembering what happened in the wilderness - forty years of dwelling without permanent homes, entirely dependent on God.
"And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people" (Exodus 13:21-22). God was present with Israel. He led them. The pillar did not depart.
"And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. And He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you."
The text states God's purpose plainly: to humble, to test, and to teach Israel that "man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD." The wilderness was not punishment. It was discipline - a father teaching a son.
Consider what God provided during those forty years. Manna from heaven - "a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground" (Exodus 16:14) - enough for each day. Water from the rock at Horeb (Exodus 17:6) and again at Kadesh (Numbers 20:11). Clothing that did not wear out and feet that did not swell (Deuteronomy 8:4). Every need met by God alone.
And Scripture itself makes the connections to Christ. Jesus said: "My Father gives you the true bread from heaven... I am the bread of life" (John 6:32, 35) - identifying Himself as what the manna pointed to. Paul wrote: "They drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4) - identifying the rock as Christ.
The wilderness provision has Christ-ward connections that Scripture itself draws. Jesus says He is the true bread from heaven (John 6:32-35). Paul says the Rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4). These are not inferences - they are statements made by Jesus and the apostles. What Israel received in the wilderness, they received from the One who would later dwell among them in the flesh.
Scripture gives the Feast of Booths a second name: "You shall observe the Feast of Booths seven days, when you make your ingathering from your threshing floor and your winepress" (Deuteronomy 16:13 NASB). Exodus 23:16 names it directly: "the Feast of Ingathering, at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor." This is the final harvest - grain from the threshing floor, wine from the winepress, everything the land produced. The work is done.
The feast falls "when you have gathered in the produce of the land" (Leviticus 23:39). It is a feast after the work is finished. Israel was commanded to stop, look at what God had given, and rejoice.
Deuteronomy 16:15 states the reason for the joy plainly: "because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful."
Notice the causation. The text does not say "because the harvest is good." It says "because the LORD your God will bless you." The source of the joy is not the produce. It is the God who gave the produce. And the joy is not partial - it is complete. "Altogether joyful." This is commanded, full, unreserved joy before God.
Scripture places this feast at the end of the agricultural year (Exodus 23:16) and names it the Feast of Ingathering. Zechariah 14:16 places this same feast in the prophetic future as the one all nations will keep. Whether this suggests a pattern - that the final feast in the cycle corresponds to the final gathering of nations - is an observation across texts, not a connection any single passage states. But the texts are there. The reader must weigh them.
Numbers 29:12-38 prescribes the offerings for each day of Sukkot in remarkable detail. On the first day: thirteen bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs, and their grain and drink offerings. On the second day: twelve bulls. On the third: eleven. The bulls decrease by one each day - thirteen, twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven - totaling seventy bulls over seven days. On the eighth day, the solemn assembly: one bull, one ram, seven lambs.
Scripture does not explain the significance of the decreasing bulls or why they total seventy. The number is there in the text. What it means, the text does not say. The eighth day's single bull stands in contrast to the seventy, but again - the text records the prescription without stating a reason.
The prophets speak of water and salvation in ways that resonate with what Jesus declared during the feast. Whether Jesus was responding to specific ceremonies, to the prophetic texts themselves, or to the broader themes of the festival, the Gospel accounts do not specify. What we can trace is the prophetic backdrop:
"With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation."
Isaiah places water and salvation together, connected to joy. This is a prophetic promise - a day when God's people will draw from wells that never run dry, and the drawing itself will be joyful.
"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price."
God invites the thirsty to come. The language anticipates what Jesus will say at the Feast of Booths: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink" (John 7:37). The verbal overlap is clear - thirst, coming, water, invitation.
"On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter."
This is in the same chapter that requires all nations to keep the Feast of Booths (Zechariah 14:16). Living waters flowing from Jerusalem - in the prophetic future, at the feast of all nations.
The prophets also speak of light in ways that resonate with what Jesus declared at this feast. As with the water passages, the Gospel accounts do not specify the precise connection, but the prophetic backdrop is clear:
"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone."
"I will make you as a light for the nations, that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth."
God's servant will be a light for the nations. Jesus says: "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12). The prophetic language and Jesus's declaration use the same imagery - light, nations, the world.
Psalm 118:25-26 is part of the Hallel (Psalms 113-118), and its language is striking: "Save us, we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!" The Hebrew hoshia na - "save us, we pray" - is the word that becomes "Hosanna."
Matthew 21:9 records the crowds at the Triumphal Entry shouting these exact words: "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" They also carried palm branches (John 12:13). The Triumphal Entry occurred at Passover season (John 12:1), not during Sukkot. But the shared language is unmistakable - the same psalm, the same cry, the same branches. Whether the crowd was consciously echoing Sukkot practice or simply using the language of the Hallel, the text records the same words applied to Jesus.
Note on method: detailed descriptions of first-century Temple ceremonies during Sukkot - the water libation from the Pool of Siloam, the four great menorahs in the Court of Women, the specific practices of lulav waving - come from later Jewish sources (the Mishnah, compiled around 200 AD), not from Scripture. This teaching limits itself to what the Bible records. The prophetic water and light passages, the Hallel psalms, and the feast commands themselves provide the scriptural backdrop against which Jesus spoke.
"Now the Jews' Feast of Booths was at hand" (John 7:2). Jesus goes up to the feast, and about the middle of the feast He begins teaching in the Temple (John 7:14). The religious leaders are watching Him. The crowds are divided about Him. He is teaching with authority.
But it is what Jesus does on the last day of the feast that matters most.
"On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, "Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."' Now this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified."
On the last day of the Feast of Booths - the feast of ingathering, the feast that Zechariah says all nations will keep - Jesus stood up and said: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink." The invitation echoes Isaiah: "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters" (Isaiah 55:1). "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation" (Isaiah 12:3). Jesus does not point to a well. He says: come to Me.
And John tells us what Jesus meant: "this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive." The living water is the Holy Spirit. The rivers flowing from within the believer are the Spirit's work. Jesus is the source. The Spirit is the water. The one who comes to Him and drinks receives not a cup but rivers.
"Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'"
John 8 follows immediately after the Feast of Booths narrative. Jesus is teaching in the Temple (John 8:2, 20). His declaration echoes the prophets: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light" (Isaiah 9:2). "I will make you as a light for the nations, that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth" (Isaiah 49:6). Jesus takes the prophetic promise and claims it as His own identity: "I am the light of the world."
Water and light. At the Feast of Booths, Jesus declares Himself to be both. He does not say "I will give you water" or "I will show you the light." He says "Come to Me and drink" and "I am the light." He is not a pointer to the source. He claims to be the source.
"When they heard these words, some of the people said, 'This really is the Prophet.' Others said, 'This is the Christ.' But some said, 'Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?' So there was a division among the people over Him."
Some recognized what He was claiming - "This is the Prophet" (the one Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18:15), "This is the Christ." Others stumbled over His apparent origins, not knowing He was born in Bethlehem. The division was about His identity. The crowd heard the claim. They could not ignore it.
What the text records is specific: Jesus made these declarations at the Feast of Booths, at God's appointed time. The feast that commemorates God's provision in the wilderness. The feast of ingathering. The feast all nations will keep. And at this feast, He claimed to be living water and the light of the world - using language the prophets had already loaded with the weight of salvation (Isaiah 12:3, 55:1, 9:2, 49:6). The setting is not incidental. It is what John chose to record.
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."
The English word "dwelt" translates the Greek eskēnōsen - from skēnoō, meaning to pitch a tent, to tabernacle. The noun form is skēnē - a tent, a tabernacle. This is the same word family used in the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) for the tabernacle where God's glory dwelt among Israel (Exodus 40:34-35). John says the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us - and then immediately adds: "we have seen His glory." The language echoes God's presence filling the tabernacle.
John does not say "this fulfills the Feast of Booths." What he does is use tabernacle language for the incarnation. The connection is to the entire biblical theme of God dwelling with His people - the tent of meeting (Exodus 33:7-11), the tabernacle filled with glory (Exodus 40:34-38), the temple where God placed His name (1 Kings 8:10-11). The Feast of Booths, which commemorates Israel dwelling in booths in the wilderness, is one part of this larger theme. The vocabulary link is real. Whether John intended a specific Sukkot reference or the broader dwelling-of-God theme is a question the text leaves open.
"Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
The word "shelter" translates skēnosei - He will spread His tabernacle over them. The same skēnoō word family. And what follows echoes both the wilderness provision and Jesus's Sukkot declaration: no more hunger, no more thirst, springs of living water (compare John 7:38). The connections are thematic - Revelation does not cite John 7 or the Feast of Booths directly - but the shared vocabulary and imagery are present in the text.
"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.'"
The "dwelling place" is skēnē - the tabernacle. "He will dwell" is skēnosei - He will tabernacle. The final vision of Scripture uses the same vocabulary as John 1:14. The arc is visible: God tabernacled with Israel in the wilderness, the Word tabernacled among us in the flesh, and the final state of all things is God's tabernacle with man. Whether this constitutes a "fulfillment of Sukkot" or a fulfillment of the broader dwelling-of-God theme that Sukkot participates in - that is a distinction the reader must weigh.
"Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain on them. And if the family of Egypt does not go up and present themselves, then on them there shall be no rain; there shall be the plague with which the LORD afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. This shall be the punishment to all the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths."
Of all the feasts God instituted, the one Zechariah says will be required of all nations is the Feast of Booths. Not Passover. Not Weeks. Booths. Zechariah does not explain why. The text records the requirement without stating the reason.
But the question is worth sitting with. Why this feast? The text does not say. What the text does say is that the Feast of Booths commemorates God's provision during the wilderness (Leviticus 23:43), that it celebrates the harvest He gives (Deuteronomy 16:15), and that in the age to come, all nations will keep it (Zechariah 14:16). The reader can observe that the skēnē vocabulary connects God's dwelling with man across both Testaments. But whether "God dwelling with man" is the reason Zechariah singles out this feast - that is inference, not a stated answer.
The skēnē/skēnoō thread across Scripture: God's glory filled the tabernacle (skēnē) in the wilderness (Exodus 40:34-35). The Word tabernacled (eskēnōsen) among us (John 1:14). He will spread His tabernacle (skēnosei) over His people (Revelation 7:15). The dwelling place (skēnē) of God is with man (Revelation 21:3). These are the same words. The vocabulary thread is explicit. Whether it constitutes a unified "Sukkot fulfillment" or the broader arc of God dwelling with His people - in which the Feast of Booths is one significant chapter - is a question the texts raise but do not resolve in a single statement.
"On the eighth day you shall hold a holy convocation and present a food offering to the LORD. It is a solemn assembly; you shall not do any ordinary work."
The feast is seven days (Leviticus 23:34). The eighth day is a separate holy convocation - a solemn assembly. The text distinguishes it from the seven days that precede it without explaining its significance.
Numbers 29:12-34 prescribes the bull offerings for the seven days: thirteen on the first day, twelve on the second, eleven on the third - decreasing by one each day until seven on the seventh day. The total is seventy bulls. On the eighth day: one bull (Numbers 29:36).
The contrast between seventy and one is in the text. Scripture does not explain why the number decreases, why it totals seventy, or why the eighth day has only one. Some readers have noted that Genesis 10 lists seventy nations descended from Noah, and have connected the seventy bulls to the seventy nations. This is an interpretive observation, not a connection Scripture states. The number is there. The reason is not.
The name "Shemini Atzeret" means "the eighth-day assembly." The Hebrew root of atzeret (עצרת) is atzar (עצר), which carries the sense of restraining, holding back, or assembling (see Numbers 29:35 - "solemn assembly"; 2 Kings 4:24 - "do not restrain"; Joel 1:14 - "declare a solemn assembly"). The word itself suggests a gathering that is held or kept. Scripture does not explain the name further.
Several significant events in Scripture occur on the eighth day or involve the number eight:
Circumcision was performed on the eighth day (Genesis 17:12, Leviticus 12:3) - the sign of the covenant, given on the day after a complete week.
The priests were consecrated over seven days, and on the eighth day they began their ministry (Leviticus 9:1 - "On the eighth day Moses called Aaron and his sons").
Jesus rose on the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1, John 20:1) - the day after the seventh-day Sabbath.
These instances are in the text. Whether the number eight carries a deliberate theological meaning (new beginning, new creation) or whether these are separate events that happen to share a number - Scripture does not say. The pattern is observable. The interpretation is the reader's.
John 7:37 says Jesus made His declaration "on the last day of the feast, the great day." The text does not specify whether this is the seventh day or the eighth day. Both are possible. What the text makes clear is that Jesus chose this moment - the culmination of God's appointed time - to declare Himself to be living water.
Scripture prescribes the eighth day as a solemn assembly (Leviticus 23:36) but does not explain its significance beyond that designation. The structural position - a distinct day after seven days of celebration - has led readers to see themes of completion or new beginning, but these associations are inferred from the pattern, not stated by the text. The pattern of eights elsewhere in Scripture (circumcision, priestly consecration, resurrection) invites observation, but the meaning of the eighth day at Sukkot is left for the reader to weigh.
Scripture commands Israel to dwell in booths for seven days (Leviticus 23:42) and states the reason: "that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt" (Leviticus 23:43). Nehemiah describes the materials used when Israel rebuilt the practice after the exile: "Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths" (Nehemiah 8:15).
Scripture does not describe construction rules for the booth - no specifications about roof density, visibility of the sky, or structural fragility. (Detailed construction rules found in later Jewish sources are not biblical.) What the text gives us is the purpose: remembrance of the wilderness, where Israel was entirely dependent on God.
What was true of Israel in the wilderness? Deuteronomy 8:2-3 says God led them there "that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart... that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD." The booth commemorates this reality. It points back to a time when Israel had no permanent dwelling and relied on God for everything.
Scripture connects this kind of dependence to faithfulness. "The fruit of the Spirit is... faithfulness" (Galatians 5:22). "It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). "Apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). The wilderness was a place where this truth was inescapable. The booth brings it back into view once a year.
"For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened - not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life."
Paul uses the Greek skēnos - tent - for the human body. He contrasts this temporary tent with "a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Paul does not reference the Feast of Booths here. But the vocabulary is from the same word family (skēnos/skēnē/skēnoō), and the contrast is the same: temporary dwelling now, permanent dwelling to come. Whether Paul had the feast in mind or was simply using tent-language common in the culture, the parallel is present in the text.
What Scripture gives us about the booth is its stated purpose (remembering the wilderness), its vocabulary (skēnē-family words that appear across both Testaments), and its placement in a feast that all nations will one day keep (Zechariah 14:16). The booth commemorates temporary dwelling. Paul uses the same vocabulary for the temporary body that awaits a permanent dwelling from God (2 Corinthians 5:1). Revelation uses the same vocabulary for the final dwelling of God with man (Revelation 21:3). The connections are in the text. Whether they form a single, unified picture or are parallel uses of a common metaphor - the reader must weigh the evidence.
The Feast of Booths, as Scripture records it, connects to three realities: the wilderness past ("that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths" - Leviticus 23:43), the harvest present ("when you have gathered in the produce of the land" - Leviticus 23:39), and the prophetic future ("everyone who survives of all the nations... shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths" - Zechariah 14:16).
What Scripture explicitly connects to Christ: Jesus declared Himself to be living water at this feast (John 7:37-38). Jesus declared Himself to be the light of the world in the same context (John 8:12). Jesus identified Himself as the true bread from heaven, fulfilling the manna (John 6:32-35). Paul identified the rock in the wilderness as Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4). John used tabernacle language (eskēnōsen) for the incarnation (John 1:14). Revelation uses the same vocabulary for the final state: "the dwelling place (skēnē) of God is with man" (Revelation 21:3).
What Scripture does not state: that the Feast of Booths itself is "fulfilled" in Christ (no New Testament passage says this), that the Temple ceremonies described in later Jewish sources were the specific backdrop to Jesus's declarations (John does not mention them), or that the eighth day represents eternity (the text does not assign this meaning). These are inferences - some of them strong, built on explicit vocabulary links - but they are inferences. The distinction matters.
Zechariah 14:16 singles out the Feast of Booths as the one feast all nations will keep. The text does not say why. Readers may observe that the skēnē vocabulary connecting God's dwelling with man runs from the wilderness tabernacle (Exodus 40:34) through the incarnation (John 1:14) to the new creation (Revelation 21:3), and that the Feast of Booths sits within this vocabulary thread. They may also observe that this is the feast of ingathering (Exodus 23:16) - the feast of the final harvest - and that the prophetic future includes all nations being gathered in (Zechariah 14:16). These observations come from the text. But the question "why this feast?" is one Zechariah raises and does not answer.
What the text does say, with no ambiguity: "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God" (Revelation 21:3). And: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink" (John 7:37). The feast, the Person, and the promise. The connections are there for the reader who will sit with the text and let it speak.