23:23-44

Back to Contents

Mid-year festival season

(Le 23:23-44)

The first day of the seventh month (somewhere during September-October on our calendar) was the Day of Trumpets. On this occasion the people were called together for a religious ceremony by the blowing of trumpets, the purpose of the ceremony being to prepare the people for the solemn cleansing of sin that followed ten days later on the Day of Atonement (Le 23:23-32; see notes on Le 16:1-34).

A further five days later, on the fifteenth day of the month, was the start of the week-long Feast of Tabernacles (RSV: Feast of Booths; GNB: Festival of Shelters). On this occasion the people lived in booths (huts or shelters) made of branches of trees and palm leaves in memory of their time in the wilderness.

This feast was also called the Feast of Ingathering, for it marked the end of the agricultural year, when all the grapes, olives, dates, figs and other produce of the land had been gathered in. It was a joyous festival, as all Israel rejoiced in thanksgiving before God for his blessing on all their farming activity (Le 23:33-44; Deut 16:13-15; for details see Num 29:12-38).

The people were now well stocked with food for the winter months that lay ahead. During winter the rains came, and soon the people began sowing and planting for the next annual cycle.