TABERNACLES, FEAST OF (Heb. Khag has sukkOth). The name given in the Old Testament codes to a festival which marked the close of the harvest of fruit, oil, and wine in Palestine. As a harvest festival it is also known as the Feast of Ingathering (Ex. xxiii. 16; xxxiv. 22) and can be traced back to the Canaanites. The festival was marked by general jubilation and by a visit to some sanctuary, accompanied by sacrifices for the purpose of testifying gratitude to the giver of fertility. Among the popular customs observed by the Canaanites was the erection of hooths in the vineyards, in which the people dwelt during the vintage. Hence the name Festival of Booths (or Tabernacles) in the four passages besides those already mentioned in which the ritual is set forth (Dent. xvi. 13-15; xxxi. 10-13; Lev. xxiii. 34-36; 39-44; Num. xxix. 12-40). This Canaanitish agricultural festival was adopted by the Hebrews and in the Denteronomic and Priestly codes was given an historical aspect by interpreting the custom of dwelling in booths as a reminiscence of the nomadic stage in the life of the people, and more particularly of the tra ditional forty years' sojourn in the wilderness when the tent formed the only habitation. The pristine importance of the festival may be gath ered from the fact that it was called 'the festi val' -par excellence and that originally it was the single occasion in the year on which a pilgrim age to a sanctuary was prescribed. As finally shaped in the Hebrew ritual, it extended over the seven days from the fifteenth to the twenty second day of Tishri (the seventh month), and in addition the eighth day was observed as a 'solemn assembly.' which in Rabbinical .Tudaism devel
oped into the festival of 'Rejoicing of the Law.' Booths were ereeted on the roofs of houses or in the courts and streets. made of olive, pine, myrtle, and palm branches (cf. Neh. viii. 15). The sac rifices prescribed for this feast were more numer ous than for any other, sin-offerings (one kid daily) and burnt-offerings (two rams and 14 lambs daily). being prescribed for each day, be sides 70 bullocks during the seven days (13 on the first day, 12 on the seeond, and so on in a diminishing scale). Besides these distinctly biblical enaetments, we find in the days of the second temple daily processions around the temple altar, the priestly procession to Siloam to fetch water and its libation in connection with the morning sacrifice (ef. John vii. 37), the sing ing of the Hallel psalms (Ps. exiii.-cxviii.), the lighting of the four great golden candelabra in the Court of the Women (John viii. 12), and the carrying of palm branches entwined with myrtle and willow together with a specimen of the ethrog (or citron) fruit by the worshipers into the synagogues. The erection of booths and the waving of the palm branches with the ethrog are customs still observed in orthodox Jewish com munities. Consult the Hebrew archasologics of Nowack and Benzinger.