A One-Law Midrash About Shemini Atzeret (UPDATED)

NOACH

1 Peter 3:20 says that there were eight souls saved in the ark through water. Thus, we see that eight is the number of the covenant and that it includes all of humanity.

NOTE:  Seventy nations come from Noach (Gen. 10).

AVRAHAM

Circumcision occurs on the eighth day.  Why the eighth day?  Because Avraham was supposed to see all of humanity as potential proselytes who would join his family and come under the covenant.  Avraham was not only the model proselyte but also the model proselytizer, bringing with him "many souls."

MOSHE

The dimensions of the Holy of Holies are based on the number eight.  

Moshe appointed seventy elders to the Sanhedrin.

YESHUA

On Sukkot, a festival for which Torah requires seventy sacrifices which symbolize the seventy nations of humanity, Yeshua quoted Isaiah 55, a passage that talks about an everlasting covenant being made with all peoples:

John 7:37-39, "³⁷ On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”³⁹ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified."

Isaiah 55, ""Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David. See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of the peoples. Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations that do not know you will hasten to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor."

CONCLUSION

There's an old Jewish midrash that says the seventy sacrifices of Sukkot represent the nations and the single sacrifice on Shemini Atseret represents only Israel.

Here's a One-Law midrash:

"The seventy sacrifices of Sukkot represent all of humanity; the single sacrifice of Shemini Atseret represents all of humanity becoming one."

On that Great Day His People will be one even as He is one.

Shalom,

Peter