fices, hastened to be partakers of the unlawful allowance in the place of exercise, after the game of Discus called them forth."* Herod subsequently completed what Jason had begun, building a hippodrome even within the walls of the Holy City, and another at Cæsarea. It would be a wide error to suppose, with the ancient pagans, that because the Jews had no other public diversions than those furnished by their sacred ceremonies, they must be necessarily a gloomy, saturnine, and unsocial people. A directly contrary inference would be justified by the character of their religion, which was essentially as festive and joyous as that of the pagans, and infinitely more so than would be deemed consistent with the notions of modern puritans and rigourists, or even with the interests of state policy. At a time when we are abolishing our holidays, and many well-meaning but mistaken people are anxious to restrict, as much as possible, the few diversions and the scanty hours of relaxation allowed to the labouring classes, it may not be uninstructive to exhibit a statement of the whole number of sabbaths and other holidays which Moses prescribed to the Israelites. In a year of twelve moons the followin holidays were ordered to be kept : 12 days 7 in all 35 days; but of these thirty-five days five would fall, taking one year with another, upon the weekly sabbath, and must therefore be deducted from the total number; * 2 Maccabees iv. 10 to 14. C and besides, among the thirty-five holidays there were but eight festal sabbaths on which they durst not work. 66 According therefore to the Mosaic law, if we reckon fifty-two weekly sabbaths, and thirty holidays, the Israelites kept eighty-two sacred days in the year; namely, fifty-nine on which there was an entire cessation from labour, and twenty-three wherein they might work if they chose, and on some of which indeed their greatest traffic occurred. Of fast-days there was only one, and that too we should remark in a southern climate, where fasting is easier and more common than with us.' Besides these there were other festivals, not of Mosaic appointment; of which sort appears to have been the yearly festival, when the young women of Shiloh danced by the highway-side (Judg. xxi. 19). It is probable that other cities, as well as Jerusalem, had their particular holidays; and we might almost conclude that family festivals were not unusual, since Jonathan, to apologize for David's absence from the royal table, pretended that he had been obliged to attend a family sacrifice at Bethlehem. This indeed was not true; but the practice must have been common, or Jonathan would not have resorted to such a pretext. Among the feasts instituted in addition to those enjoined by Moses, we may notice the feast of Purim, or lots, appointed by Esther and Mordecai to commemorate the deliverance of the Jews from the massacre which Haman had by lot determined against them, and in the celebration of which that arch enemy of their race was treated with ridiculous indignities, not altogether dissimilar from those which we heap upon the effigy of Guy Fawkes. Of a more rational * See Michaelis, art. 201; a learned writer, to whose commentaries the author acknowledges his obligations in this brief sketch. nature was the Festival of the Dedication, instituted by Judas Maccabeus, to commemorate the recovery of the Temple from the Syro-Grecians, and its renewed dedication to the service of the true God. This feast, which was observed in other places as well as at Jerusalem, lasted eight days, which we must add, as well as those consumed in the wild festivities of the Purim, to the eighty-two holidays already enumerated, making altogether above a fourth part of the year set aside for purposes of commingled religion and amusement. Having stated the number of these celebrations, it may be necessary to say something of their nature, in order to show that they were not merely religious observances, but for the most part festivals and holidays, in the cheerful and joyous sense which we ourselves assign to those words, and as such strictly entitled to be ranked among the sports, pastimes, and amusements of the people. Of the three high festivals, when all the males of Israel were obliged to assemble at the sanctuary, two lasted seven days, for which sabbatical number the Jews had a particular reverence ;— and the third was continued during eight days; but we must guard against the notion that during all this time labour or occupation were interdicted. Such a prohibition, especially to an uneducated people, would have been the severest of all punishments, for no burden is so insupportable to the mass of mankind as that of protracted and compulsory idleness. Only the first and last of these festival days were sabbaths, on which there was to be no work on the remaining five the people might labour, or employ themselves in whatever way they thought fit; and there is reason to believe that in this interval the great fairs of the whole nation were held, when the most business would of course be done, and during the continuance of which we may conclude there was no lack of the pastimes and diversions that characterize similar merry meetings in our own times. During the eight days of the Feast of Tabernacles, which was the festival of gratitude for the fruits and vintage, the Israelites dwelt in booths formed of green branches interwoven together, an embowered mode of encamping, which in conjunction with the festive occasion, the beauty of the October weather, and the pleasant excitement of social intercourse upon so extensive a scale, must have naturally predisposed them to indulge in every species of joyful recreation and amusement. They who had been specially ordered to 66 serve the Lord with gladness, and come into his presence with a song," thought they could not better solemnize the intermediate days of the high festivals, than by offerings, feasts, and dances, accompanied by hymns, in which the bounty of the Deity was celebrated thus moralizing and sanctifying their pleasures by uniting them with religion. Their festivals, in short, were days of pleasure, on which they gave or received entertainments, and in the joys of which the poor and the slaves were entitled to participate. Feast offerings were not to be frugal every-day meals, but real merry meetings, intended to supply good cheer to widows, orphans, strangers, and paupers, as well as to the offerer and his friends; and wine, so far from being forbidden by Moses, is expressly appointed for an accompaniment both to blood and to meal offerings, as if nothing might be wanting that could exhilarate and delight the people on these joyous occasions. Moses commonly terms such banquets, rejoicing before Jehovah, and in order to make the intention of the festal offerings more fully understood, he sometimes adds that they should rejoice before Jehovah in the intervals of their labours, that is, interrupt their ordinary occupations by these joyous assemblages, and lighten them by the good cheer of the feasts. It is recorded, to the especial praise and glory of Solomon, that the people of Judah and Israel were numerous as the sadn of the sea-" Eating and drinking and making merry." Nor are the Scriptures elsewhere sparing in exhortations to "make merry before the Lord." Dancing, during which songs of praise were sung, formed a very ancient part of the festal solemnities of the Hebrews. After the passage of the Red Sea the damsels of Israel, with Miriam at their head, playing on the tabret, sang and danced in celebration of that miraculous event. David himself danced at the induction of the Ark into the Tabernacle: we learn from the 68th Psalm, that singers, minstrels, and damsels playing on timbrels, accompanied the sacred processions, and these probably danced also. The yearly festival held not far from Shiloh, at which the damsels were seized by the Benjaminites, consisted of the same amusement. From these authorities, and from the still more explicit terms of Psalm cxlix. 3, and cl. 4, we may reasonably maintain that dancing was expressly commanded by the Lord, and it becomes, therefore, the more difficult to understand how certain gloomy censors and theologians can condemn as sinful a practice which was distinctly enjoined under the Old Testament, and is nowhere forbidden by the New. If it were thus prevalent in the public ceremonies of the Hebrews, we cannot doubt that the same recreation, varied by music and singing, constituted one of the principal attractions in their private entertainments, and in the amusements of the domestic circle. Although the injunction for attending the Israelitish festivals was only imperative upon the males, the fathers, we may presume, gratified their daughters by taking them up to the Holy City upon these occasions, thus affording to the men an opportunity of seeing and dancing with all the young beauties of the nation. By these means marriages were promoted between individuals of the different tribes, family friendships were formed, and a general brotherhood * 1 Kings iv. 20. |
