Feast of the Tabernacles (Booths)

One of three great festivals of Israel requiring attendance of all males. Also called Ingathering (in Hebrew, Sukkoth), Tabernacles was an autumn feast observed at the time of the full moon of the seventh month. It continued for eight days (Ex 23:16; 34:22; Lv 23:33-36; Dt. 16:13-17). The Feast of the Tabernacles came at the conclusion of the harvests of grapes, olives, and fruits. During its course the participants lived in tents or booths covered with branches, and thus remembered the forty years when their ancestors did the same as they wandered in the wilderness after the Exodus. It was such an important observance that it came to be referred to as the feast. It is referred to in Jn 7:10. The Feast of Tabernacles is a festival that has continued to be observed by Jewish people into the present. Passover/Leaven and Weeks/Pentecost are the other two great festivals of Israel at which the attendance of all males is required.