Three Festivals

(Deuteronomy 16:1 - 16:17)

"To honor Jehovah your god celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread in the month of Abib [Nisan], for it was in the month of Abib that Jehovah your god brought you out of Egypt in the dead of night.  You should offer to Jehovah your god a sacrifice from the flock or the herd at a place of worship where Jehovah has chosen that his name should be honored.  You should eat with it no bread that is leavened.  For 7 days you should eat unleavened bread as you did when you departed Egypt in haste, for this is the bread of affliction, to remind you all the days of your life the time of your exodus from Egypt.  Throughout the land let there be no yeast in your possession for 7 days.  Let no meat you have sacrificed on the 1st day remain uneaten by the following morning.  You may not make the Passover sacrifice in the towns that Jehovah your god is giving to you: it must be offered only at a place of worship where Jehovah has chosen that his name should be honored.  Sacrifice it there at dusk when the sun is setting, the time when you began your exodus from Egypt.  You must cook it and eat it at the place that Jehovah your god will choose.  In the morning you may return home to your tents.  For the next 6 days you must not eat any leavened bread.  Then, on the 7th day, hold a sacred assembly and do no work on that day.

"Count off 7 weeks from the time you begin to harvest the standing grain.  Then you will celebrate the Harvest Festival to honor Jehovah your god.  You must bring to his altar voluntary offerings proportionate to the blessings you have received from him.  Celebrate before the altar at the place of worship where Jehovah has chosen that his name should be honored; celebrate with your children, your servants, the Levites who live in your towns, as well as the aliens, the widows, and orphans who live among you.  Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt and carefully observe these decrees. 

"When the grain has been threshed and the grapes have been pressed, you should celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles for 7 days.  Celebrate with your children, your servants, the Levites who live in your towns, as well as the aliens, the widows, and orphans who live among you.  For 7 days you will observe this festival to honor Jehovah your god at the designated place of worship, for it is Jehovah who blesses you with bountiful harvests and grants you success in all you undertake, so that you know great rejoicing. 

“Three times a year, at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Harvest Festival, and the Festival of Tabernacles, each man must appear before the altar of Jehovah your god at a designated place of worship.  He must not come empty handed, but must bring gifts for Jehovah proportionate to the blessings he has received from him."

Notes

1. A more detailed description of Jehovan holidays is presented in Leviticus -- another suggestion that Deuteronomy was written first and the previous books ascribed to Moses were later elaborations.

2. Abib, later called Nissan, occurring in early spring, is the first month of the Jewish religious calendar.  (The secular calendar begins in the early autumn month of Tishri, Rosh Hashanah being New Year's day.)  The Feast of Unleavened Bread is, of course, better known as Passover.  Here no mention is made of the Jehovah's mass murder of the Egyptian first born and his Angel of Death "passing over" the homes of the Israelites.  Reference is made only to the hasty departure of the Israelite slaves in embarking upon their exodus into the desert.  Previous notes have commented upon the unlikelihood that any large number of Israelites were Egyptian slaves, that the Ten Plagues of Egypt probably occurred long before the age of Moses, and that any large exodus out of Egypt is not only unsubstantiated by history and archaeology, but is, in practical and logistical terms, impossible.

3. The Harvest Festival, literally the Festival of Weeks, was, by the time of Jesus, known as the Festival of Pentecost, and is now celebrated as Shavuot or Shabuoth.  The Festival of Tabernacles, or Festival of Booths, was referred to in Exodus as the Festival of Ingathering, but is now celebrated as Sukkot or Succoth.  It is ironic that Moses is lecturing his people on harvest festivals when up to this time they have only been nomads, wandering around Sinai with their flocks and herds.  Having previously been slaves for generations, what would they even know of crops and harvests?