Hebrew Holidays
Concise References
Leviticus 23 The feasts
Leviticus 25 Sabbatical and Jubilee Years
Exodus 23 Sabbath
Numbers 28-29 What sacrifices for which holidays
Deuteronomy 16 A review
Annual Festivals
Trumpets Rosh Hashanah New Year Sept. 21, 2017
Atonement Yom Kippur Fast Sept. 30, 2017
Tabernacles Booths Ingathering Oct. 5 – 11, 2017
Passover Mar. 31, 2018
Unleavened Bread Apr. 1 – 7, 2018
Pentecost Harvest First Fruits May 20, 2018
Required attendance for all males at Passover (Unleavened Bread), Pentecost, and Tabernacles (Exodus 23:17, Deuteronomy 16:16).
Seven days were set aside like Sabbaths (no work), as “convocations” to the Lord: Unleavened Bread days 1 and 7, Tabernacles days 1 and 8, Pentecost, Trumpets, and Yom Kippur.
The festivals were designed to celebrate certain things:
Passover The Exodus
Unleavened Bread The haste with which they left Egypt
Barley harvest
No new growth could be eaten before the first sheaf was presented
on that Sunday
Pentecost Remember you were a slave, but now harvest in the promised land.
Wheat harvest, new grain offering
Tabernacles Wilderness wanderings
General harvest
Other Holidays
Hanukah Feast of Lights Dec. 13 – 20, 2017
Rededication of the Temple by the Maccabees
Purim Esther’s victory
Nicanor Victory by Nicanor over Syria (1 Maccabees 7:49)
Fast days in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. (Zech 7:3-5, 8:19)