On the tenth day of the seventh month the day of atonement was to be observed by a holy meeting, by fasting from the evening of the ninth till the evening of the tenth, by resting from all work on pain of death, and with sacrifices, of which the great expiatory sacrifice peculiar to this day had already been appointed in ch. 16, and the general festal sacrifices are described in Numbers 29:8-11. (For fuller particulars, see at ch. 16.) By the restrictive אך, the observance of the day of atonement is represented a priori as a peculiar one. The אך refers less to "the tenth day," than to the leading directions respecting this feast: "only on the tenth of this seventh month...there shall be a holy meeting to you, and ye shall afflict your souls," etc.

Leviticus 23:34 Parallel Commentaries

The fifteenth

Exodus 23:16 And the feast of harvest, the first fruits of your labors, which you have sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering...

Exodus 34:22 And you shall observe the feast of weeks, of the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.

Numbers 29:12 And on the fifteenth day of the seventh month you shall have an holy convocation; you shall do no servile work...

Deuteronomy 16:13-15 You shall observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that you have gathered in your corn and your wine...

Ezra 3:4 They kept also the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the custom...

Nehemiah 8:14 And they found written in the law which the LORD had commanded by Moses...

Zechariah 14:16-19 And it shall come to pass...

John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelled among us, (and we beheld his glory...

John 7:2 Now the Jew's feast of tabernacles was at hand.

Hebrews 11:9,13 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob...

the feast of tabernacles This feast was celebrated in commemoration of the Israelites' dwelling in tents in the wilderness for forty years; and was kept with greater hilarity that any of the other festivals. Hence, in the Talmud, it is often called chag, the feast, by way of excellence; and by Philo, [], the greatest of the feasts; it was therefore more noticed by the heathen than any other. It is probable that Cecrops borrowed from it the law which he made in Athens, `that the master of every family should after harvest make a feast for his servants, and eat together with them who had taken pains with him in tilling his grounds.'