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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Leviticus 23:33 - 23:33
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On the fifteenth of the same month the feast of Tabernacles was to be kept to the Lord for seven days: on the first day with a holy meeting and rest from all laborious work, and for seven days with sacrifices, as appointed for every day in Num 29:13-33. Moreover, on the eighth day, i.e., the 22nd of the month, the closing feast was to be observed in the same manner as on the first day (Lev 23:34-36). The name, “feast of Tabernacles” (booths), is to be explained from the fact, that the Israelites were to dwell in booths made of boughs for the seven days that this festival lasted (Lev 23:42). עֲצֶרֶת, which is used in Lev 23:36 and Num 29:35 for the eighth day, which terminated the feast of Tabernacles, and in Deu 16:8 for the seventh day of the feast of Mazzoth, signifies the solemn close of a feast of several days, clausula festi, from עָצַר to shut in, or close (Gen 16:2; Deu 11:17, etc.), not a coagendo, congregando populo ad festum, nor a cohibitione laboris, ab interdicto opere, because the word is only applied to the last day of the feasts of Mazzoth and Tabernacles, and not to the first, although this was also kept with a national assembly and suspension of work. But as these clausaulae festi were holidays with a holy convocation and suspension of work, it was very natural that the word should be transferred at a later period to feasts generally, on which the people suspended work and met for worship and edification (Joe 1:14; Isa 1:13; 2Ki 10:20). The azareth, as the eighth day, did not strictly belong to the feast of Tabernacles, which was only to last seven days; and it was distinguished, moreover, from these seven days by a smaller number of offerings (Num 29:35.). The eighth day was rather the solemn close of the whole circle of yearly feasts, and therefore was appended to the close of the last of these feasts as the eighth day of the feast itself (see at Num 28 seq.). - With Lev 23:36 the enumeration of all the yearly feasts on which holy meetings were to be convened is brought to an end. This is stated in the concluding formula (Lev 23:37, Lev 23:38), which answers to the heading in Lev 23:4, in which the Sabbaths are excepted, as they simply belonged to the moadim in the more general sense of the word. In this concluding formula, therefore, there is no indication that Lev 23:2 and Lev 23:3 and Lev 23:39-43 are later additions to the original list of feasts which were to be kept with a meeting for worship. וגו לְהַקְרִיב (to offer, etc.) is not dependent upon “holy convocations,” but upon the main idea, “feasts of Jehovah.” Jehovah had appointed moadim, fixed periods in the year, for His congregation to offer sacrifices; not as if no sacrifices could be or were to be offered except at these feasts, but to remind His people, through these fixed days, of their duty to approach the Lord with sacrifices. אשֶּׁה is defined by the enumeration of four principal kinds of sacrifice-burnt-offerings, meat-offerings, slain (i.e., peace-) offerings, and drink-offerings. בּ יֹום דְּבַר: “every day those appointed for it,” as in Exo 5:13.