as a mark of hospitality (Gen. 19:3; 2 Sam. 3:20; 2 Kings 6:23);
on occasions of domestic joy (Luke 15:23; Gen. 21:8); on
birthdays (Gen. 40:20; Job 1:4; Matt. 14:6); and on the occasion
of a marriage (Judg. 14:10; Gen. 29:22).
Feasting was a part of the observances connected with the
offering up of sacrifices (Deut. 12:6, 7; 1 Sam. 9:19; 16:3, 5),
and with the annual festivals (Deut. 16:11). "It was one of the
designs of the greater solemnities, which required the
attendance of the people at the sacred tent, that the oneness of
the nation might be maintained and cemented together, by
statedly congregating in one place, and with one soul taking
part in the same religious services. But that oneness was
primarily and chiefly a religious and not merely a political
one; the people were not merely to meet as among themselves, but
with Jehovah, and to present themselves before him as one body;
the meeting was in its own nature a binding of themselves in
fellowship with Jehovah; so that it was not politics and
commerce that had here to do, but the soul of the Mosaic
dispensation, the foundation of the religious and political
existence of Israel, the covenant with Jehovah. To keep the
people's consciousness alive to this, to revive, strengthen, and
perpetuate it, nothing could be so well adapated as these annual
feasts." (See FESTIVALS T0001325.)
Feast
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