A Sojourner's Quest

PA RT I I I : L I V I NG I N T H E WAY / 1 7 1

The Jewish Sacred Year Taken from the Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary , Merrill C. Tenney, ed., 1967, pp. 280-281.

Feasts (Heb. mô’édh, an assembling; hagh, dance, or pilgrimage ). The feasts, or sacred festivals, held an important place in Jewish religion. They were religious services accompanied by demonstrations of joy and gladness. In Leviticus 23, where they are described most fully, they are called “holy convocations.” Their times, except for the two instituted after the exile, were fixed by divine appointment. Their purpose was to promote spiritual interests of the community. The people met in holy fellowship for acts and purposes of sacred worship. They met before God in holy assemblies. 1. The Feast of the Weekly Sabbath. This stood at the head of the sacred seasons. The holy convocations by which the sabbaths were distinguished were quite local. Families and other small groups assembled under the guidance of Levites or elders among them and engaged in some common acts of devotion, the forms and manner of which were not prescribed. Little is known of where or how the people met before the Captivity, but after it they met in synagogues and were led in worship by teachers learned in the law. 2. The Passover, or the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Passover was the first in point or time of all the annual feasts, and historically and religiously it was the most important of all. It was called both the Feast of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the two really forming a double festival. It was celebrated on the first month of the religious year, on the 14th of Nisan (our April), and commemorated the deliverance of the Jews from Egypt and the establishment of Israel as a nation by God’s redemptive act. The Feast of Unleavened Bread began on the day after the Passover and lasted seven days (Lev. 23:5-8). This combined feast was one of the three feasts the Mosaic Law enjoined to be attended by all male Jews who were physically able and ceremo- nially clean (Exod. 23:17; Deut. 16:16), the other two being the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. These were known