their bread shall only be for their hunger, it shall not come into the house of the Lord.  What will ye do in the day of festival and in the day of the feast of the Lord?  For lo, after they have gone away from among the ruins, Egypt shall keep hold of them, Memphis shall bury them; their pleasant things of silver shall nettles possess, the thornbush shall be in their tents.”  It need not surprise us that here again the prophet places the worship which in intention is obviously meant for Jehovah on the same footing with the heathen worship which actually has little to distinguish it externally therefrom, being constrained to regard the “pleasant things of silver” in the tents in the high places not as symbols of Jehovah, but as idols, and their worship as whoredom.  Enough that once more we have a clear view of the character of the popular worship in Israel at that period.  Threshing-floor and wine-press, corn and wine, are its motives,—­vociferous joy, merry shoutings, its expression.  All the pleasure of life is concentrated in the house of Jehovah at the joyous banquets held to celebrate the coming of the gifts of His mild beneficence; no more dreadful thought than that a man must eat his bread like unclean food, like bread of mourners, without having offered the aparchai at the festival. 2 It is this

*********************************************** 2.  Times of mourning are, so to speak, times of interdict, during which intercourse between God and man is suspended.  Further, nothing at all was ever eaten except that of which God had in the first instance received His share;—­not only no flesh but also no vegetable food, for the “first-fruits” of corn and wine represented the produce of the year and sanctified the whole.  All else was unclean.  Comp.  Ezekiel iv. 13. **********************************************

thought which gives its sting to the threatened exile; for sacrifice and feast are dependent upon the land, which is the nursing-mother and the settled home of the nation, the foundation of its existence and of its worship.

The complete harmony of this with the essential character of the worship and of the festivals in the Book of the Covenant, in the law of the Two Tables, and in Deuteronomy, is clear in itself, but becomes still more evident by a comparison with the Priestly Code, to which we now proceed.

III.III.

In the Priestly Code the festal cycle is dealt with in two separate passages (Leviticus xxiii; Numbers xxviii., xxix.), of which the first contains a fragment (xxiii. 9-22, and partly also xxiii. 39-44) not quite homogeneous with the kernel of the document.  In both these accounts also the three great feasts occur, but with considerable alteration of their essential character.