TABERNACLES, FEAST OF
1. OT references.In Exo_23:16; Exo_34:22 it is called the Feast of Ingathering, and its date is placed at the end of the year.
In Deu_16:13-15 its name is given as the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths (possibly referring to the use of booths in the vineyard during the vintage). It is to last 7 days, to be observed at the central sanctuary, and to be an occasion of rejoicing. In the year of release, i.e. the sabbatical year, the Law is to be publicly read (Deu_31:10-13). The dedication of Solomons Temple took place at this feast; in the account given in 1Ki_8:66 the seven-day rule of Deut. is represented as being observed; but the parallel narrative of 2Ch_7:8-10 assumes that the rule of Lev. was followed.
In Lev_23:34 ff. and Num_29:12-39 we find elaborate ordinances. The feast is to begin on 15th Tishri (October), and to last 8 days, the first and the last being days of holy convocation. The people are to live in booths improvised for the occasion. A very large number of offerings is ordained; on each of the first 7 days 2 rams and 14 Iambs, and a goat as a sin-offering; and successively on these days a diminishing number of bullocks: 13 on the 1st day, 12 on the 2nd, and so on till the 7th, when 7 were to be offered. On the 8th day the special offerings were 1 bullock, 1 ram, 7 lambs, and a goat as a sin-offering.
We hear in Ezr_3:4 of the observance of this feast, but are not told the method. The celebration in Neh_8:16 followed the regulations of Lev., but we are expressly informed that such had not been the case since Joshuas days. Still, the feast was kept in some way, for Jeroboam instituted its equivalent for the Northern Kingdom in the 8th month (1Ki_12:32-33).
2. Character of the feast.It was the Jewish harvest-home, when all the years produce of corn, wine, and oil had been gathered in; though no special offering of the earths fruits was made, as was done at the Feasts of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost. (The reason was perhaps a desire to avoid the unseemly scenes of the Canaanite vintage-festival, by omitting such a significant point of resemblance; cf. Jdg_9:27.) It was also regarded as commemorating the Israelites wanderings in the wilderness. It was an occasion for great joy and the giving of presents; It was perhaps the most popular of the national festivals, and consequently the most generally attended. Thus Zec_14:16 names as the future sign of Judahs triumph the fact that all the world shall come up yearly to Jerusalem to keep this festival.
3. Later customs.In later times novel customs were attached to the observance. Such were the daily procession round the altar, with its sevenfold repetition on the 7th day; the singing of special Psalms; the procession on each of the first 7 days to Siloam to fetch water, which was mixed with wine in a golden pitcher, and poured at the foot of the altar while trumpets were blown (cf. Joh_7:37); and the illumination of the womens court in the Temple by the lighting of the 4 golden candelabra (cf. Joh_8:12). The 8th day, though appearing originally as a supplementary addition to the feast, came to be regarded as an integral part of it, and is so treated in 2Ma_10:6, as also by Josephus.
A. W. F. Blunt.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
(See FEASTS.) Hasukoth, "feast of in-gathering"; haciyp (Exo_23:16); Greek skenofgia (Joh_7:2). Third of the three great feasts; from Tisri 15 to 22 (Lev_23:34-43); commemorating Israel's passage through the desert. Thanksgiving for harvest (Deu_16:13-15). The rites and sacrifices are specified, Num_29:12-38. The law was read thereat publicly on the sabbatical year (Deu_31:10-13). Kept with joy on the return from Babylon (Nehemiah 8); compare the contemporary Psa_118:14-15; Psa_118:19-20; Psa_118:22-27, in undesigned coincidence, alluding to the feast, the joy, the building of the walls, and setting up of the gates; Zec_4:7-10; Zec_3:9; Zec_14:16-17. The earlier celebration under Zerubbabel was less formal and full according to the law (Ezr_3:4); therefore it is unnoticed in the statement (Neh_8:17) that since Joshua's days until then (when the later celebration under Nehemiah, which was fuller and more exact, took place) it had not been so kept.
The people in the wilderness dwelt in tents, not "booths" (sukot). The primary design was a harvest feast kept in autumn bowers, possibly first in Goshen. The booth, like the tent, was a temporary dwelling, and so suited fairly to represent camp life in the desert. So Hosea (Hos_12:9) uses "tabernacles" or "tents" for "booths," when speaking of the feast; the booth was probably used at times in the desert, when at certain places they made a more permanent stay during the forty years. It commemorated, with thanksgiving for the harvest which was the seal of their settlement in a permanent inheritance, their transition from nomadic to agricultural life. Its popularity induced Jeroboam to inaugurate his Bethel calf worship with an imitation feast of tabernacles on the 15th day of the eighth month, "which he devised of his own heart" (1Ki_12:32-33), possibly because the northern harvest was a little later, and he wished to break off Israel from the association with Judah by having a different month from the seventh, which was the legal month.
In Jerusalem the booths were built on the roofs, in house courts, in the temple court, and in the street of the water gate and of the Ephraim gate. They were made of boughs of olive, palm, pine, myrtle, and of her trees of thick foliage. From the first day of the feast to the seventh the Israelites carried in their hands "the fruit (margin) of goodly trees, branches of palm, thick trees, and willows" (Lev_23:40). In one hand each carried a bundle of branches (called luwlab or "palm" in rabbiical Hebrew) and in the other a citron (hadar, "goodly trees".) The feast of tabernacles, like Passover, began at full moon on the 15th day of the month; the first day was a day of holy convocation; the seven days of the feast were followed by an eighth day, forming no part of it (Lev_23:34-36; Num_29:35), a day of holy convocation, "a solemn assembly" ('atsereth), or, as the Hebrew denotes, "a closing festival" (2Ch_7:9). On each of the seven days the offering consisted of two rams, 14 lambs a year old, with 13 bulls on the first day, 12 on the second, and so on until on the seventh there were only seven, the whole amounting to 70 bulls; but on the 'atsereth only one bull, one ram, and seven lambs.
The booths or, according to Jewish tradition, huts of boards on the sides covered with boughs on the top, were occupied only the seven days, not on the 'atsereth. The feast of tabernacles is referred to in Joh_7:2-37; Joh_8:12. Jesus alludes to the custom of drawing water from Siloam in a golden goblet and pouring it into one of the two silver basins adjoining the western side of the altar, and wine into the other, while the words of Isa_12:3 were repeated, in commemoration of the water drawn from the rock in the desert; the choir sang the great hallel, and waved palms at different parts of Psalm 118, namely, Psa_118:1-25; Psa_118:29. Virtually Jesus said, I am the living Rock of the living water. Coming next day at daybreak to the temple court as they were extinguishing the artificial lights, two colossal golden candlesticks in the center of the temple court, recalling the pillar of fire in the wilderness, Jesus said, cf6 "I am the Light of the world" (Joh_8:1-2; Joh_8:12). As the sun by natural light was eclipsing the artificial lights, so Jesus implies, I, the Sun of righteousness, am superseding your typical light.
"The last great day of the feast" is the atsereth, though the drawing of water was on previous days not omitted. Joy was the prominent feature, from whence the proverb, "he who has never seen the rejoicing at the pouring out of the water of Siloam has never seen joy in his life" (Succah 5:1). The feast was called Hosanna, "save we beseech Thee." Isaiah 11 refers to the future restoration of Israel; the feast of tabernacles connected with chapter 12 doubtless will have its antitype in their restored possession of and rest in Canaan, after their long dispersion; just as the other two great feasts, Passover and Pentecost, have their antitype respectively in Christ's sacrifice for us, and in His writing His new law on our hearts at Pentecost. Jewish tradition makes Gog and Magog about to be defeated on the feast of tabernacles, or that the seven months' cleansing shall end at that feast (Eze_39:12). Rest after wanderings, lasting habitations after the life of wanderers, is the prominent thought of joy in the feast, alike in its former and in its future celebration.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
See FEASTS AND FASTS, I., A., 3.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Feast of Tabernacles, one of the three great festivals of the Jews, being that of the closing year, as the Passover was of the spring. In Lev_23:34-43, directions for observing the feast are given in very clear terms (comp. Num_29:13-34). It was held in commemoration of the divine goodness as exercised towards the Jews when they were wandering in the desert, as well as expressive of gratitude for the supply of the rich fruits of the earth; and so was fitted to awaken the most lively feelings of piety in the minds of the Hebrews in each successive generation. From the writings of the Rabbins we learn,
That those who took part in the festival bore in their left hand a branch of citron, and in their right a palm branch, entwined with willows and myrtle.
A libation of water took place on each of the seven days (Isa_12:3; Joh_7:37); at the time of the morning oblation a priest drew from the fount of Siloam water in a jar holding three logs, and poured it out, together with wine, into two channels or conduits, made on the west side of the altar, the water into the one, the wine into the other.
In the outer court of the women there began, on the evening of the first day, an illumination on great golden candlesticks, which threw its light over the whole of Jerusalem; and a dance by torch-light, attended by song and music, was performed before the candelabra.
From these details, it appears that the Feast of Tabernacles was a season of universal joy. Jerusalem bore the appearance of a camp. The entire population again dwelt in tents, but not with the accompaniments of travel, fatigue, and solicitude; all was hilarity, all wore a holiday appearance; the varied green of the ten thousand branches of different trees; the picturesque ceremony of the water-libation, the general illumination, the sacred solemnities in and before the temple; the feast, the dance, the sacred song; the full harmony of the choral music; the bright joy that lighted up every face, and the gratitude at 'harvest home,' which swelled every bosom?all conspired to make these days a season of pure, deep, and lively joy, which, in all its elements, finds no parallel among the observances of men.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.