33 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
34 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord.
35 On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
36 Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord: it is a solemn assembly; and ye shall do no servile work therein.
37 These are the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, a burnt offering, and a meat offering, a sacrifice, and drink offerings, every thing upon his day:
38 Beside the sabbaths of the Lord, and beside your gifts, and beside all your vows, and beside all your freewill offerings, which ye give unto the Lord.
39 Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.
40 And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.
41 And ye shall keep it a feast unto the Lord seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month.
42 Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths:
43 That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
44 And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord. Leviticus 23: 33-44 KJV
What did we learn in the wilderness? They would relive or reenact the time of living in tents, wandering as strangers in a land that would not greet them with open arms. Can we acknowledge the sense of softness, the seduction of ease, and the pettiness of entitlement to which we all fall "victim". Victim is probably a stretch in these matters. A tent provides shelter, the manna was bread and the quail were meat. There was a cloud that protected from the full wrath of the sun, and fire by night to keep their enemies at bay. They had everything they physically needed, but there was still this spiritual problem. We would remain strangers there until the time of Christ and then we become more and more like stranger here, to our friends, our neighbors. It is from the spiritual that we come to realize that this time in tents is only temporary, not worth worry, no room for hate, and preciously short.
Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11Beloved, I urge you as foreigners and exiles, to abstainfrom the desires of the flesh, which war against your soul. 12Conduct yourselves with such honor among the Gentiles that, though they slander you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.… 1 Peter 2:10-12
