The Feast of Tabernacles came at the end of the harvest and was the outstanding feast of rejoicing in the year. During its seven days the people lived in booths to recall the time Israel spent in the wilderness.
The Feast of Tabernacles (Ḥag Hassukkot), the third of the pilgrimage feasts, was celebrated for seven days from 15 to 21 Tishri, the seventh month, approximating our October. It was followed by an eighth day of holy convocation with appropriate sacrifices (Lev. 23:33–36; Num. 29:12–38; Deut. 16:13–15). It was also called the “Feast of Ingathering” (Exod. 23:16) for the autumn harvest of the fruits and olives, with the ingathering of the threshing floor and the winepress, which occurred at this time (Lev. 23:39; Deut. 16:13). It was the outstanding feast of rejoicing in the year, in which the Israelites, during the seven-day period, lived in booths or huts made of boughs in commemoration of their wilderness wanderings when their fathers dwelt in temporary shelters. According to Nehemiah 8:14–18, the booths were made of olive, myrtle, palm, and other branches, and were built on roofs of houses, in courtyards, in the court of the temple, and in the broad places of the city streets. Sacrifices were more numerous during this feast than at any other, consisting of the offering of 189 animals during the seven-day period.
When the feast coincided with a sabbatical year, the Law was read publicly to the entire congregation at the sanctuary (Deut. 31:10–13). As Josephus and the Talmud indicate, new ceremonies were gradually added to the festival, chief of which was the simḥat bet hashsho’evah, “the festival of the drawing of water.” In this ceremony, a golden pitcher was filled from the pool of Siloam and returned to the priest at the temple amid the joyful shouts of the celebrants, after which the water was poured into a basin at the altar (cf. John 7:37–38). At night the streets and temple court were illuminated by innumerable torches carried by the singing, dancing pilgrims. The booths were dismantled on the last day, and the eighth day was observed as a Sabbath of holy convocation. The feast is mentioned by Zechariah as a joyous celebration in the millennium (Zech. 14:16).