Festal Worship in the Temple of Solomon

Three national festivals were celebrated yearly in the temple: Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Booths.

Three times a year all adult men went to the temple to celebrate the national festivals (Exod. 23:17; Deut. 16:16): Passover (in April), the Feast of Weeks (in May), and the Feast of Booths (in October). When possible the whole family accompanied the men. But if they lived a long way from Jerusalem, they would only go up for one of the festivals (1 Sam. 1:3; Luke 2:41).

These festivals were tremendous occasions. Hundreds of thousands of people converged on Jerusalem. They would stay with relatives or camp in tents outside the city. The temple courts would be thronged with worshipers. The temple choirs sang psalms appropriate for the festival, while the priests and Levites offered hundreds, and at Passover thousands, of animals in sacrifice. The festivals were marked by colorful processions led by leaders of the tribes, accompanied by festive dance and the beat of tambourines (Ps. 68:24–27). The victory shout and the sound of the trumpet proclaimed the Lord’s presence with his people, amid the singing of his praises (Ps. 47:5–7).

Joy was the keynote of the major festivals, for the worshipers celebrated the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. At Passover, each family ate roasted lamb and bitter herbs to reenact the last meal their forefathers ate before leaving Egypt (Exod. 12). At the Feast of Booths, they built shelters of tree branches and lived in them for a week, as a reminder that the Israelites camped in tents during the forty years of wandering in the wilderness (Lev. 23:39–43). These great festivals served as reminders of how God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and had given them the land of Canaan as he had promised to Abraham.

Each of these festivals lasted a week, but one day of the year was totally different: the Day of Atonement when everyone fasted and mourned his sins. On this day the high priest confessed the nation’s sins as he pressed his hand on the head of a goat. Then the goat was led away into the wilderness, symbolizing the removal of sin from the people (Lev. 16).

Family Worship in the Temple of Solomon

Family worship at the temple included the rite of circumcision and various sacrifices and offerings for tithe, personal vows, sin, and sickness.

From time to time every family visited the temple in Jerusalem. Eight days after a baby boy was born he was circumcised to mark his membership in Israel. Then a month or two later the baby’s mother went to the temple to offer sacrifice (Lev. 12; cf. Luke 2:22–24).

Animals were sacrificed in the lambing and calving season. The first lamb or calf born to every ewe or cow was presented as a sacrifice (Exod. 22:30). Similarly, at the beginning of the harvest season a basket of the firstfruits was offered, and at the end of it a tenth of all the harvest, the tithe, was given to the priests as God’s representatives (Num. 18:21–32). Deuteronomy 26:5–15 gives a typical prayer for use on such occasions.

Sometimes a person would decide to offer a sacrifice for more personal reasons. In a crisis, vows could be made and sealed with a sacrifice (Gen. 28:18–22; 1 Sam. 1:10–11). Then when the prayer was answered, a second sacrifice was customarily offered (Gen. 35:3, 14; 1 Sam. 1:24–25). Serious sin or serious sickness were also occasions for sacrifice (Lev. 4–5; 13; 15).

All the animals offered in sacrifice had to be unblemished. Only the best was good enough for God, and wild animals, which cost the worshiper nothing, were unacceptable. With the obligation to bring tithes and firstlings, worship in Old Testament times could be extremely expensive.

It was also dramatic. The worshiper brought the animal into the temple court. Standing there before the priest he placed one hand on its head, thereby identifying himself with the animal, and confessed his sin or explained the reason for offering the sacrifice. Then the worshiper killed the animal and cut it up for the priest to burn on the great bronze altar. Some sacrifices (burnt offerings) involved the whole animal being burnt on the altar. In others, some of the meat was set aside for the priests, and in others the worshiper and his family shared. But in every case, the worshiper killed the animal from his own flock with his own hands. These sacrifices expressed in a vivid and tangible way the cost of sin and the worshiper’s responsibility. The animal represented the worshiper, dying that he might live. As the worshiper killed the animal, he recalled that sin would have caused his own death, had God not provided an escape through animal sacrifice.