Leviticus 23 Footnotes

23:3 The kinds of work not permitted on the Sabbath, according to the Pentateuch, included plowing and harvesting (Ex 34:21), preparing food by baking and boiling (Ex 16:23), making a fire (Ex 35:3), and gathering of wood (Nm 15:32-36). The Sabbath was to be a day of joy and praise (Ex 23:12; Dt 5:12-15; Is 58:13; Hs 2:11). It was a distinctive sign of the covenant (between the Lord and Israel, Ex 31:13-17). As the first sacred assembly listed in the chapter, the Sabbath was the most celebrated assembly, observed every seven days. The recurrence of the Sabbath in a seven-day cycle seems to be a model for the rest of the other sacred assemblies. There are seven festivals in the year. During these festivals there are seven days of rest. Most of these festivals occur in the seventh month of the year. This elaborate system of festivals and sabbatical years underscored the importance of the Sabbath.

23:37-44 The religious calendar was closely aligned with the agricultural year and its times of harvest. The Passover and Festival of Unleavened Bread came at the time of the barley harvest in the spring, and the Festival of Shelters was celebrated during the wheat harvest in our June. The seventh month (our September–October) contained three festivals—the Festival of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Festival of Shelters—and coincided with the ripening of grapes, figs and olives.