Bible Strands
Deuteronomy 16:13
You are to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses instructs the Israelites to observe a seven-day festival immediately after the grain and wine harvest is complete. This command follows a reminder to remember Egyptian slavery and precedes instructions for communal rejoicing with family, servants, and marginalized groups.
The words — The Hebrew phrase חַג סֻכּוֹת (chag sukkot) translates to "festival of booths," while תַעֲשֶׂה (ta'aseh) commands the people to "observe" it for שִׁבְעַת יָמִים (shiv'at yamim), "seven days." The text explicitly anchors this observance to the completion of gathering produce from the threshing floor and winepress.
The thread — The festival is later defined in Leviticus 23:34 as beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, grouped with other harvest feasts in Exodus 23:16, and identified in John 7:2 as a recognized Jewish observance.
Why it lands — The verse commands a fixed seven-day celebration strictly timed after agricultural labor concludes. It requires the reader to subordinate immediate economic activity to a mandated period of communal worship and remembrance.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine:
Cross-references
- Exodus 23:16 You are also to keep the Feast of Harvest with the firstfruits of the produce from what you sow in the field. And keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather your produce from the field.
- John 7:2 However, the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near.
- Leviticus 23:34 “Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the Feast of Tabernacles to the LORD begins, and it continues for seven days.
- 2 Chronicles 5:3 So all the men of Israel came together to the king at the feast in the seventh month.
- Exodus 34:22 And you are to celebrate the Feast of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.
- Numbers 29:12 On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, you are to hold a sacred assembly; you must not do any regular work, and you shall observe a feast to the LORD for seven days.
- Zechariah 14:16 Then all the survivors from the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of Hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.
- Deuteronomy 31:10 Then Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of remission of debt, during the Feast of Tabernacles,
- 2 Chronicles 7:8 So at that time Solomon and all Israel with him—a very great assembly of people from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt—kept the feast for seven days.
- 2 Chronicles 8:13 He observed the daily requirement for offerings according to the commandment of Moses for Sabbaths, New Moons, and the three annual appointed feasts—the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles.