Directory_and_Chronicle_1864 — Page 80

JEWISH FESTIVALS, FASTS, AND OBSERVANCES

JEWISH.

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The festivals of the Jews were held weekly, monthly, and yearly. Each seventh and fifteenth year, moreover, was kept with peculiar solemnities.

The weekly festival was the Sabbath, a day consecrated to rest and cheerful devo- tion. It was instituted when God rested on the seventh day from the work of Creation, and the precept was renewed to the Hebrews at Marah, ere yet the Decalogue had been given from Sinai. It was kept from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday.

The monthly festival was held on the day of the new moon, or the first day of every month, which was proclaimed by sound of trumpet; the laws, however, did not oblige the people to rest on these days though it appointed particular sacrifices.

The Feasts of the Passover, of Pentecost, and of Tabernacles, were the three principal festivals observed under the law; and they were times of real joy and festivity. As all the male inhabitants throughout the country were required on these occasions to go up to Jerusalem, and the females also permitted to accompany them if they chose, the concourse was generally very great. These religious assemblies, besides commemorating important events in their history, also subserved other important purposes. They kept them stead- fast to their religion, by the view of ceremonies and the Majesty of the divine service; they afforded the means of religious instruction, for the law of God was then read and explain- ed; and they served moreover to renew the acquaintance and friendship of tribes and fami- lies, who from all parts of the country thus met three times in the year in the holy city.

The PASSOVER was instituted to commemorate the departure out of Egypt, because on the night preceding that departure, the destroying angel who slew the first-born of the Egyptians passed over the houses of the Hebrews, they being marked with the blood of the lamb, which for this reason was called the Paschal Lamb. It was celebrated on the 14th day of the first month of the ecclesiastical year (March), and lasted seven days. A lamb, or, if that could not be found, a kid without blemish, was killed, roasted and eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The first Passover was eaten with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, and their staves in their hands, that they might be in readiness for their Journey, circumstances which were not observed in its celebration after the Exodus.

The Feast of PENTECOST was celebrated on the fiftieth day after the Passover, and was a feast of thanksgiving to the Lord, wherein they acknowledged his dominion over their country and their labours, by offering to him two loaves, as the first fruits of all their harvests. It also commemorated the giving of the law from Mount Sinai two years and fifty days after their departure from Egypt. The Hebrews counted seven weeks from the Passover, beginning on the second day of that solemnity and hence called it the Feast of Weeks; but by the Christians it was called Pentecost, a name which signifies the Fiftieth Day. It was on the day of Pentecost that the Holy Spirit was poured out from the as- cended Saviour upon his apostles, qualifying them with miraculous gifts for establishing the New Testament kingdom.

The Feast of TABERNACLES was instituted as a memorial of their fathers having dwelt in tents for forty years during the passage through the wilderness. It was kept in the first mouth of the civil year (September), and lasted eight days, the first and seventh being the most solemn. During its continuance they lived in booths, tents, or arbours, constructed of the branches and leaves of trees. On the first day they cut down branches of the handsomest trees, with their fruit, which they carried in ceremony to the synagogue. Holding in their right hand a branch of a palm-tree, three branches of myrtle, and two of willow, tied together, and having in their left hand a citron and its fruit, they waved them towards the four quarters of the world, singing songs and crying "Hosanna!"

These were the three great Festivals at which all the males were required to go up to Jerusalem to worship. "Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles."-(Deut xvi. 16; Ex. xxxiv. 23.)

The feast of TRUMPETS was celebrated on the first day of their civil year (September), its commencement being proclaimed by sound of trumpet, and the day was kept solemn, all business being forbidden, and certain sacrifices appointed to be offered.

There are also two other feasts, though not appointed by law, which require notice, as they are often mentioned in Jewish history. The feast of DEDICATION was appointed to celebrate the re-establishment of Divine worship in Jerusalem, after Antiochus Epiphanes