Feast: As a mark of hospitality
(Genesis 19:3; 2 Samuel 3:20; 2 Kings 6:23) on occasions of
domestic joy
(Luke 15:23; Genesis 21:8) on birthdays
(Genesis 40:20; Job 1:4; Matthew 14:6)
and on the occasion of a marriage
(Judges 14:10; Genesis 29:22) Feasting was a
part of the observances connected with the offering up of sacrifices
(Deuteronomy 12:6,7; 1 Samuel 9:19; 16:3,5) and with the annual festivals
(Deuteronomy 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."
