Leviticus 23:33

Leviticus THE CONSECRATION OF JOYLeviticus 23:33 - Leviticus 23:44 . These directions for the observance of the great festival at the close of harvest are singularly arranged. Leviticus 23:33 - Leviticus 23:36 give part of the instructions for the Feast, Leviticus 23:37 - Leviticus 23:38 interrupt these with a summary of the contents of the chapter, and Leviticus 23:39 - Leviticus 23:44 pick up the broken thread, and finish the regulations for the feast. Naturally, this apparent afterthought has been pointed out as clear evidence of diversity of authorship. But a reasonable explanation may be given on the hypothesis of the unity of the section, by observing that Leviticus 23:33 - Leviticus 23:36 deal only with the sacrificial side of the feast, as worship proper, and thus come into line with the previous part of the chapter, which is occupied with an enumeration of the annual ‘feasts of the Lord’ { Leviticus 23:4 }. It was natural, therefore, that, when the list had been completed by the sacrificial prescriptions for the last of the series, the close of the catalogue should be marked, in Leviticus 23:37 - Leviticus 23:38 , and that then the other parts of the observances connected with this feast, which are not sacrificial, nor, properly speaking, worship, should be added. There is no need to invoke the supposition of two authors, and a subsequent stitching together, in order to explain the arrangement.

The unity is all the more probable because, otherwise, the first half would give the name of the feast as that of ‘tabernacles,’ and would not contain a word to account for the name. We need not, then, include the separating wedge, in Leviticus 23:37 , in our present consideration. The ritual of the feast is broadly divided by it, and we may consider the two portions separately. The first half prescribes the duration of the feast as seven days {the perfect number}, with an eighth, which is named, like the first, ‘an holy convocation,’ on which no work was to be done, but is also called ‘a solemn assembly,’ or rather, as the Revised Version reads, in margin, ‘a closing festival,’ inasmuch as it closed, not only that particular feast, but the whole series for the year. The observances enjoined, then, are the public assembly on the first and eighth days, with cessation from labour, and a daily offering. We learn more about the offering from Numbers 29:12 et seq. , which appoints a very peculiar arrangement. On each day there was to be, as on other feast days, one goat for a sin offering; but the number of rams and lambs for the burnt offering was doubled, and, during the seven days of the feast, seventy bullocks were offered, arranged in a singular diminishing scale,-thirteen on the first day, and falling off by one a day till the seventh day, when seven were sacrificed.

Verses 33-36. - The third of the great festivals, the Feast of Tabernacles - beginning on the 15th of Tisri, as the Feast of Unleavened Bread began on the 15th of Nisan - lasted seven days, and was followed by an octave; on two days, the first day and its octave, there is to be an holy convocation , and on these no servile work is to be done. The eighth day is also a solemn assembly . The meaning of the word atzereth , translated a solemn assembly , is doubtful. It occurs ten times in the Hebrew Scriptures, and appears to signify (1) the last day of a feast (see John 7:37 , where mention is made of "the last day, that great day of the feast"); (2) a solemn assembly held on the last day of a feast; whence it comes to mean (3) a solemn assembly. The Jews gave the name to the Feast of Pentecost, as being the close of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. On each of the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles was to be offered an offering made by fire unto the Lord. The sacrifices to be offered are enumerated in Numbers 29:12-38 . There were to be sacrificed two rams, and fourteen iambs, and bullocks diminishing by one a day from thirteen on the first day to seven on the last. These formed the burnt sacrifices. The sin offering on each day was one kid of the goats. On the eighth day the burnt offering consisted of one bullock, one ram, seven lambs, and the sin offering, as before, of one kid of the goats.