The feast of tabernacles - In this solemnity the people left their houses, and dwelt in booths or tents made of the branches of goodly trees and thick trees, (of what kind the text does not specify), together with palm-trees and willows of the brook, Leviticus 23:40. And in these they dwelt seven days, in commemoration of their forty years' sojourning and dwelling in tents in the wilderness while destitute of any fixed habitations. In imitation of this feast among the people of God, the Gentiles had their feasts of tents. Plutarch speaks particularly of feasts of this kind in honor of Bacchus, and thinks from the custom of the Jews in celebrating the feast of tabernacles, that they worshipped the god Bacchus, "because he had a feast exactly of the same kind called the feast of tabernacles, Σκηνη, which they celebrated in the time of vintage, bringing tables out into the open air furnished with all kinds of fruit, and sitting under tents made of vine branches and ivy." - Plut. Symp., lib. iv., Q. 6. According to Ovid the feast of Anna Perenna was celebrated much in the same way. Some remained in the open air, others formed to themselves tents and booths made of branches of trees, over which they spread garments, and kept the festival with great rejoicings.

"Sub Jove pars durat; pauci tentoria ponunt;

Sunt, quibus e ramis frondea facta easa est.

Pars sibi pro rigidis calamos statuere columnis;

Desuper extentas imposuere togas."

Ovid, Fast., lib. ill.

Concerning this feast of tabernacles, see the note on John 7:37, John 7:38; and for the various feasts among the Jews, See the note on Exodus 23:14.

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.'

The Deputation from Jerusalem - the Three Sects of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes - Examination of their Distinctive Doctrines.
APART from the repulsively carnal form which it had taken, there is something absolutely sublime in the continuance and intensity of the Jewish expectation of the Messiah. It outlived not only the delay of long centuries, but the persecutions and scattering of the people; it continued under the disappointment of the Maccabees, the rule of a Herod, the administration of a corrupt and contemptible Priesthood, and, finally, the government of Rome as represented by a Pilate; nay, it grew in intensity …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah