tent of tryst." No description of it is given, nor is its origin spoken of, but something of the old narrative has obviously been lost before Exod. xxxiii. 7, and here what is lacking was probably explained. It appears, however, that it was very different from the tabernacle described by the priestly narrator. It was not in the centre of the camp but stood some distance outside it,[1] and it was not the seat of an elaborate organization of priests and guarded by a host of Levites, but had a single minister and custodian, viz., Joshua, who was not a Levite at all but Moses' attendant (Exod. xxxiii. 11).
The existence of such a simple tent sanctuary presents none of the difficulties that beset the priestly narrative. Portable shrines were familiar to Semitic antiquity, and tents as sanctuaries were known to the Israelites in much later times at the high places and in connexion with irregular worships (Ezek, xvi. 16, "thou didst take of thy garments and madest for thyself sewn high places," i.e., shrines of curtains sewn together; 2 Kings xxiii. 7, where for "hangings for the grove" read "tents for the Ashera"; comp. Hos. ix. 6 and Syriac prakk, Assyrian parakku, a small chapel or shrine, from the same root as Hebrew pārōketh the vail of the Holy of Holies). Such idolatrous tabernacles were probably relics of the usages of the nomadic Semites, and it is only natural that Israel in its wanderings should have had the like. And it is noteworthy that the portable chapels of the heathen Semites were mainly used for divination (comp. Journ. of Philol., xiii. 283 sq.), just as the Mosaic tabernacle is described by the Elohist not as a place of sacrifice (such as the tabernacle of the Priestly Code is) but as a place of oracle.
The heathen shrines of this sort contained portable idols or baetylia (see Selden, De Diis Syriis, i. 6); but what the Mosaic tabernacle contained is not expressly told. The ordinary and seemingly the easiest assumption is that the ark stood in it, and Deut. x. 1 sq., which must be drawn from the lost part of the older narrative already alluded to, certainly places the construction of the ark, to contain the tables of stone, just before the time when the tabernacle is first mentioned by the Elohist. But neither in Deuteronomy nor before it are the ark and the tabernacle ever mentioned together, and of the two old narrators it is not clear that the Jahvist ever mentions the tabernacle or the Elohist the ark. The relation between the two calls for further investigation, especially as the ark retains its importance after the occupation of Canaan, while the "tent of tryst" is not mentioned after the time of Moses, who, according to the Elohist (Exod. xii.), enjoyed at it a privilege of direct access to the Deity not accorded to later prophets.
TABERNACLES, Feast of. The original character of this Hebrew feast, celebrated at the close of the agricultural year as a thanksgiving for the produce of the seasons, but especially for the vintage and olive harvest, has been explained in Pentateuch, vol. xviii. p. 511. As such it is described in the old law of Exod. xxiii. 16, under the name of "the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year" (which, in the old Hebrew calendar, ran from autumn to autumn), "when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field" (comp. Exod. xxxiv. 22). The same feast is spoken of in Deut. xvi. 13 as "the feast of booths" (E.V. "tabernacles," whence the current name of the feast), when "thou hast gathered in thy corn and wine" from the corn-floor and the wine-press. No explanation is here given of the name "feast of booths"; but after the exile it was understood that during this feast the people assembled at Jerusalem were to live in booths constructed of branches of trees (Lev. xxiii. 39 sq.; Neh. viii. 14 sq.). The passage in Nehemiah, describing the celebration of the feast in 444 b.c., serves as a commentary on the post-exilic law in Leviticus, and from it we learn that the use of booths on that occasion had no foundation in traditional usage, but was based directly on the law, which then for the first time became generally known.[2] According to the law in question, the booths were to be a memorial of the wilderness wandering (Lev. xxiii. 43), but of this there is no hint in Deuteronomy; and, while it is quite in the style of the later law to attach a new historical reference to an old name like "feast of booths," it is certain from Exodus that the feast had originally agricultural and not historical significance. As such it is exactly parallel to the vintage feasts of other ancient nations, e.g., to the Athenian Oschophoria. And, in particular, it is noteworthy that in Judges ix. 27 we find a vintage feast at Shechem among the Canaanites, from whom the Israelites first learned the ways of agricultural life, and from whom so much of the popular religion was copied. To acts of worship nominally addressed to Jehovah, but really to the Canaanite Baalim, Hosea expressly reckons rites celebrated "on all corn-floors" (ix. 1), expressing thanks for divine gifts of corn, wine, and oil (ii. 8 sq.), and in their context these allusions leave no doubt that the prophet refers, in part at least, to autumn feasts, in which Jehovah worship was mingled with Canaanite elements (comp. Wellhausen, Prol. zur Gesch. Isr., cap. 3, ii.; Eng. trans., p. 92 sq.). These feasts were local in character, but in northern Israel there was a great autumn feast at the royal sanctuary at Bethel (1 Kings xii. 33), as even in the days of Solomon there was such a feast at Jerusalem (1 Kings viii. 2). In the nature of things the local feasts were the older, and it was the fame of great shrines that gradually tended to draw worshippers from a distance to temples like those of Jerusalem and Bethel. Finally, the Deuteronomic law of the one sanctuary and the course of events which made that law the practical rule of the remnant of Israel put an end to all local religious feasts, but at the same time obscured the old significance of the festal cycle, and made room for the historical interpretation of the celebrations, now concentrated at the temple, which prevailed among the later Jews (comp. Passover and Pentecost). In their later form all the yearly feasts have exact times and rules. In Deuteronomy the autumn feast is not yet tied to a day — it could hardly be so while it was still essentially a harvest thanksgiving — but in the priestly legislation it is fixed to commence on the fifteenth day of the seventh month (Lev. xxiii. 34). In Deuteronomy the feast lasts seven days; Lev. xxiii. 36 adds an eighth, and this day ultimately became the most important (John vii. 37).
If we accept the conclusion that the autumn festival was originally a vintage feast celebrated in local sanctuaries, the name "feast of booths" admits of a natural explanation. The Canaanite feast at Shechem and the Hebrew feast at Shiloh (Judges xxi. 21) were partly celebrated abroad in the vineyards, and Hosea also knows such feasts on the open corn-floors. That it was usual to go forth and live in booths during the vintage may he concluded from Isa. i. 8; the same practice still prevails at Hebron (Robinson, Bibl. Res., ii. 81). If it was these booths erected among the vineyards that originally gave their name to the feast, we can understand how the book of Nehemiah recognizes the erection of booths within the city of Jerusalem as an innovation. No doubt at all feasts where there was a great concourse of visitors many would be tents; this seems to have been the case even in old Israel (Hos. xii. 9). But that is quite a different thing from the later observance, in which booths or bowers had to be made and used even by those who had houses of their own.
- ↑ In old Israel the sanctuary, after the people had settled down in cities, usually stood outside the town, and this was the case even with the temple at Jerusalem when it was first built.
- ↑ The expression that the Israelites had not done so since the days of Joshua means that there was no recollection of their having ever done so; for of course it is assumed that Joshua carried out every direction of the law.
