Exodus 23:14-17

The three annual pilgrimages, at which every male was to appear before God at a sanctuary. These pilgrimages were festivals which marked originally stages in the agricultural operations of the year: they were the occasions of thanksgiving to Jehovah, the Owner of the land, for the gifts of the soil the festivals of Maẓẓothand Harvest celebrating the beginning and close of harvest, and the feast Ingathering the completion of the vintage and olive-gathering. In later times a historical significance was attached to them, and they were regarded as commemorative of events connected with the Exodus; in the case of Maẓẓothand Ingathering this character is attached to them in the OT. itself, in the case of the feast of Harvest (or of weeks), it is first met with in the post-Bibl. literature (see on v.16a). The present passage, with the nearly verbal parallel in Exodus 34:18; Exodus 34:22 f., contains the earliest legislation on the subject: the festivals are already recognized institutions; and the Israelite is merely commanded to observe them. The later codes prescribe the ritual with which, as time went on, they gradually came to be celebrated: see Deuteronomy 16:1-17; Leviticus 23 (H, expanded in parts from P); Numbers 28-29 (P); and (for Maẓẓoth) Exodus 12:14-20 (also P).