Exodus 23:14-17 - Exposition

Law of Festivals . "The sanctification of days and times," says Richard Hooker, "is a token of that thankfulness and a part of that public honour which we owe to God for admirable benefits, whereof it doth not suffice that we keep a secret calendar, taking thereby our private occasions as we list ourselves to think how much God hath done for all men; but the days which are chosen out to serve as public memorials of such his mercies ought to be clothed with those outward robes of holiness whereby their difference from other days may be made sensible" ( Eccles. Pol . 5.70, § 1). All ancient religions had solemn festival seasons, when particular mercies of God were specially commemorated, and when men, meeting together in large numbers, mutually cheered and excited each other to a warmer devotion and a more hearty pouring forth of thanks than human weakness made possible at other times. In Egypt such festivals were frequent, and held a high place in the religion (Herod. 2.58-64:). Abraham's family had probably had observances of the kind in their Mesopotamian home. God's providence saw good now to give supernatural sanction to the natural piety which had been accustomed thus to express itself. Three great feasts were appointed, of which the most remarkable features were—

1 . That they were at once agricultural and historical—connected with the regularly recurrent course of the seasons, and connected also with great events in the life of the nation;

2 . That they could be kept only at one spot, that namely where the tabernacle was at the time located;

3 . That they were to be attended by the whole male population.

The three festivals are here called—

1 . The Feast of Unleavened Bread ( Exodus 23:15 ), the early spring festival, at the beginning of barley harvest in the month Abib (Nisan), commemorative of the going forth from Egypt;

2 . The Feast of Harvest (elsewhere called "of weeks") at the beginning of summer, when the wheat crop had been reaped, commemorative of the giving of the law; and

3 . The Feast of Ingathering ( Exodus 23:16 ) in Tisri, at the close of the vintage, when all the crops of every kind had been gathered in, commemorative of the sojourn in the wilderness. The first of the three, the feast of unleavened bread, had been already instituted ( Exodus 13:3-10 ); the two others are now for the first time sketched out, their details being kept back to be fined in subsequently (Le Exodus 23:15-21 , and 34-36). Here the legislator is content to lay it down that the great feasts will be three, and that all the males are to attend them.