Leviticus 23:33-44

The Festival of Tents (pp. 1021). This the final harvest home (fruit and vintage). It would naturally be, as elsewhere, of a joyous character. The Hebrew countryside, indeed, had turned the vintage into an organised picnic and camped out for a week; the celebrations are referred to in Judges 21:19; 1 Kings 8:2; 1 Kings 12:32 (Jeroboam fixed the celebration in N. Israel, not unnaturally, a month later) and Ezekiel 45:25; Ezra 3:4 etc. It is definitely ordained in Deuteronomy 16:13 f. Here two descriptions of the festival are given, broken by Leviticus 23:37 f., which is properly the conclusion of the whole section.