The Passover teaches us that Jesus Christ was sinless and, as the true Lamb of God, gave His life so that the sins of humanity could be forgiven and the death penalty removed (1 Corinthians 5:7; 1 Peter 1:18-20; Romans 3:25). This painting shows a group of people taking their sheep to the temple and a group following Christ to Golgotha, where he was eventually crucified.

Jewish tradition says it was on the Last Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, after leading Israel out of Egypt, that God parted the waters of the Red Sea. The painting shows Moses and the children of Israel crossing through the Red Sea, able to view the reefs and marine life on both sides (Exodus 14:29). As God delivered the ancient Israelites from enslavement to Egypt, so He delivers us from our enslavement to sin (Romans 6:12-18).

On the Feast of Pentecost, Peter stood up and preached to a great multitude of Jews. At the end of his sermon, Peter said, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” The painting pictures the crowd’s response, when “they were cut to the heart”—the moment God opened their minds to the need to do something. This seminal moment of conversion was the beginning of the New Testament Church.

The Feast of Trumpets pictures Christ’s return to the earth. The book of Revelation reveals a sequence of earthshaking events heralded by angels sounding a series of seven trumpet blasts. The seventh angel’s sounding of the last trumpet signifies that “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15). The dead in Christ shall rise first, and those who are alive will also rise with them to meet Christ in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

The Day of Atonement represents a time when Satan will be put away, and all those who have lived in spiritual blindness will have their eyes opened to the light of the truth (Revelation 20:1-3). This painting shows people coming out of the Great Tribulation, a time of unparalleled suffering, pictured as physically blind. Those in front are beginning to have their eyes opened. The painting also serves as a metaphor for the work of the Church, opening the eyes of many to the truth of God.

The Feast of Tabernacles pictures the 1,000-year rule of Jesus Christ on the earth, known as the Millennium (Revelation 20:4-6). Isaiah describes this future period as a time of world peace when God’s law will go forth to all nations from Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:2-4). Countries will “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4; Micah 4:3).

The Eighth Day, also known as the “Last Great Day,” follows the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles. In Ezekiel 37, God gives a vision of a valley of dry bones where all Israel of ages past, long dead, will be given breath and restored to physical life. The painting pictures this moment symbolically as a sequence of events: the dry bones become skeletons, are covered with flesh and come back to life. This takes place at the end of Christ’s millennial reign when the land is fertile and the fall harvest abundant.