Annual Feasts
483
Psalm 122:7
;
118:19
;
Psalm
116:18, 19
.
All the houses in Jerusalem were thrown open to the pilgrims,
and rooms were furnished free; but this was not sufficient for the vast
assembly, and tents were pitched in every available space in the city
and upon the surrounding hills.
On the fourteenth day of the month, at even, the Passover was
celebrated, its solemn, impressive ceremonies commemorating the de-
liverance from bondage in Egypt, and pointing forward to the sacrifice
that should deliver from the bondage of sin. When the Saviour yielded
up His life on Calvary, the significance of the Passover ceased, and
the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper was instituted as a memorial of the
same event of which the Passover had been a type.
The Passover was followed by the seven day’s feast of unleavened
bread. The first and the seventh day were days of holy convocation,
when no servile work was to be performed. On the second day of the
feast, the first fruits of the year’s harvest were presented before God.
Barley was the earliest grain in Palestine, and at the opening of the
feast it was beginning to ripen. A sheaf of this grain was waved by
the priest before the altar of God, as an acknowledgment that all was
His. Not until this ceremony had been performed was the harvest to
be gathered.
[540]
Fifty days from the offering of first fruits, came the Pentecost,
called also the feast of harvest and the feast of weeks. As an expression
of gratitude for the grain prepared as food, two loaves baked with
leaven were presented before God. The Pentecost occupied but one
day, which was devoted to religious service.
In the seventh month came the Feast of Tabernacles, or of ingath-
ering. This feast acknowledged God’s bounty in the products of the
orchard, the olive grove, and the vineyard. It was the crowning festal
gathering of the year. The land had yielded its increase, the harvests
had been gathered into the granaries, the fruits, the oil, and the wine
had been stored, the first fruits had been reserved, and now the people
came with their tributes of thanksgiving to God, who had thus richly
blessed them.
This feast was to be pre-eminently an occasion of rejoicing. It
occurred just after the great Day of Atonement, when the assurance had