Deuteronomy’s Festival Calendar

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Shimon Gesundheit for the possibility of a long and intensive exchange about the subject of the festival calendars and to Christoph Berner, Reinhard Müller, and Peter Porzig for their critical and stimulating comments on the argument. I also would like to express my gratitude to Zev Farber and the editors of TheTorah.com for rewriting my little piece and make it suitable for the journal. A more detailed version of this contribution will appear both in English and German in 2022.

Here and in Deuteronomy, I am translating according to the Masoretic pointing, יֵרָאֶה, which has the verb in the niphʿal form. This is also the understanding of the Greek LXX, ὀφθήσεται. Nevertheless, it is likely that the original text was in the qal form, יִרְאֶה, meaning “he shall see,” and that later scribes wished to avoid the anthropomorphic implication of such a phrase as “he shall see the face of YHWH.” In fact, the lack of a preposition אל “before or to” in Exodus 23:15 (different to v. 17) implies that it was a qal, since the sentence as written is ungrammatical. The same is true of the accusative marker in Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 14:22–26 includes regulations for tithes of crops and firstborns, and Deuteronomy 15:19–23 covers the first fruits of animal origin. This latter set of laws is modeled after those in Exodus 22:28–29 and 23:19.

Elsewhere in Deuteronomy, the tithe is to be offered at the central sanctuary שָׁנָה שָׁנָה “yearly” (14:22) as are the firstborn animals שָׁנָה בְשָׁנָה “year after year” (15:20).

There is also a small difference in grammar in the phrase “to the face of”: Exodus has it as אֶל־פְּנֵי , a prepositional phrase, while Deuteronomy has it as אֶת־פְּנֵי, an accusative phrase. This difference may reflect the change in pointing noted above. The accusative makes good sense with an active verb “see” whereas the prepositional phrase makes better sense with “appear.” If so, insofar as this element is concerned, Exodus (in its current form) would be the corrected text and Deuteronomy the more original. That said, it is possible to read the form in Deuteronomy with the secondary prepositional usage of the term אֶת meaning “with,” which would work with the Masoretic pointing.

The form, style, and scope of verses 16–17 are also consistent with the other cultic commandments of centralization in Deuteronomy (12:13–18; 14:22–26; 15:19–23).

The (older) short formula for referring to the Jerusalem Temple, bamaqom asher yivchar (YHWH) “the place that (YHWH) will choose” (16:16) also appears in 12:14, 14:25, and 15:20. Deuteronomy 14:23 and 24 contain longer versions of the formula: בַּמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר־יִבְחַר לְשַׁכֵּן שְׁמוֹ שָׁם “in the place which He will choose, to make his name dwell there” (v. 23); and הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לָשׂוּם שְׁמוֹ שָׁם “the place which YHWH your God will choose, to set his name there” (v. 24).

Compare the phrasing in Jeremiah’s complaint about Judah’s waywardness:

^{ירמיה ה:כד} וְלֹא אָמְרוּ בִלְבָבָם נִירָא נָא אֶת יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ הַנֹּתֵן גֶּשֶׁם (וירה) [יוֹרֶה] וּמַלְקוֹשׁ בְּעִתּוֹ שְׁבֻעוֹת חֻקּוֹת קָצִיר יִשְׁמָר לָנוּ.

^{Jer 5:24} They have not said to themselves, “Let us revere YHWH our God, who gives the rain, the early and late rain in season, Who keeps for our benefit the weeks appointed for harvest.”

In Isaiah’s imagery describing Jerusalem’s place as the sole remaining stronghold in the desolation of Judah, the passage connects booths and the grape harvest:

^{ישעיה א:ח} וְנוֹתְרָה בַת צִיּוֹן כְּסֻכָּה בְכָרֶם כִּמְלוּנָה בְמִקְשָׁה כְּעִיר נְצוּרָה.

^{Isaiah 1:8} Fair Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a hut in a cucumber field, like a city beleaguered.

The formulation also repeats a phrase from the beginning of verse 16a, yeraʾeh…et pene YHWH, creating a frame around the list of festivals.

This formulation also appears in Deuteronomy 12:15 and is reminiscent of כִּי יְבָרֶכְךָ יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, “when YHWH your God blesses you,” in Deuteronomy 14:24.

Exodus but not Deuteronomy notes that Matzot is a seven-day festival that is meant to commemorate the exodus from Egypt; this may be a gloss that was added into the Exodus text after Deuteronomy 16:16–17 had already been written. The seven-day festival concept is consistent with what will be argued below are expansions in the text of Deuteronomy itself, earlier in this same chapter. See also discussion in Zev Farber, “How Eating Matzot Became Part of the Exodus Story,” TheTorah (2018).

That this difference is no trifle is clear from the textual history. Thus, in the Samaritan Pentateuch and in the Septuagint in v. 8, at least for the seventh day of Pesach-Matzot, the term “feast for YHWH” (חג instead of עצרת) has crept in. Cf. also Exod 34:25.

The differences between the two versions are explained variously in scholarship. Some see verses 16–17 as a summary of verses 1–15. Others consider the short version to be a secondary addition to chapter 16. For the first option, see Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 53–97; for the second option, see Shimon Gesundheit, Three Times a Year: Studies on Festival Legislation in the Pentateuch, FAT 82 (Tübingen; Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 157–162.

I am simplifying a longer argument, which isolates smaller sublayers in the revision of the text, but for the purposes of this article, I am sticking only to the larger editorial revisions.

Seven weeks after the harvest in the case of Shavuot, for seven days after ingathering in case of Sukkot. The seven weeks after harvest time concept is a clear departure from the timing suggested in Exodus, though it might reflect a change that had already occurred by the time of the rewriting in vv. 16–17, as that text offers no date but it does refer to the festival as Shavuot (Weeks).

Verse 12, which is a general statement about the festivals, will be discussed in the section on the final expansion.

See Gesundheit, Three Times a Year, 96–166. On this point, Gesundheit and I are in agreement, though not on the next point, since he sees vv. 16–17 as a later addition and not the earliest layer as I do.

Editor’s note: See also discussion, Michael Satlow, “Passover and the Festival of Matzah: Synthesizing Two Holidays,” TheTorah (2014).

This half verse, requiring that the Pesach be entirely consumed that night, is tricky. In theory, it reads like an integral part of the rules for the Pesach offering and should be included in the other layer. If that is the case, then it would connect conceptually to verse 7b, “and in the morning you may start back on your journey home.” While some may favor this view, seeing only the phrase “on the first day” as a later gloss, there is a problem with attributing this half verse to the original layer of the Pesach law. Unlike the short festival calendar and the Matzot redaction, the Pesach law on its own has no literary connection to the laws in the Covenant Collection. And yet, v. 4b appears to be responding to Exodus 23:18, the verse immediately following the Covenant Collection’s festival calendar:

^{שמות כג:יח} לֹא תִזְבַּח עַל חָמֵץ דַּם זִבְחִי וְלֹא יָלִין חֵלֶב חַגִּי עַד בֹּקֶר.

^{Exod 23:18} You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with anything leavened; and the fat of My festal offering shall not be left lying until morning.

The text here reworks the rule about the festal offering to be about the Pesach (as is done also in Exodus 34:25). The first half of the verse is also reworked in Deuteronomy 16, 3aα, “you shall not eat anything leavened with it.” It would thus seem that the same hand is responsible for both reworkings of the Exodus verse, adding the prohibition against leaven in v. 3 and the requirement to eat the entire Pesach before dawn in v. 4. Whether these two laws were added before the Matzot festival passages (3aβ+4a) about seven days of Matzot and seven days of prohibited leaven (as Gesundheit believes) or at the same time (as seems more likely to me) is difficult to determine. According to Gesundheit, at least, the words “on the first day” in 4b would need to have been added by the later hand.

This was the strategy in Leviticus 23, for example, where Pesach is described as taking place on the 14^th (v. 5) and Matzot on the 15^th–21^st (vv. 6–8).

The formulations לְמוֹעֵד חֹדֶשׁ הָאָבִיב and שָׁמוֹר אֶת־חֹדֶשׁ הָאָבִיב suggest the meaning of ח.ד.שׁ as “new moon” rather than “month” since “the appointed time of the chodesh” (not “in the chodesh” as Numbers 9:2f) and especially the wording “Observe” with accusative marker is only possible with a fixed day (see Deuteronomy 5:12) or date (“the festival of Matzot”), not a month. (This is the translation preferred in Zev Farber, “Israelite Festivals: From Cyclical Time Celebrations to Linear Time Commemorations,” Religions 10.5 [2019], 1­–19 [p. 6]). The dating of the Pesach-Matzot festival was only later changed from “(the time of) the new moon of the Abib” (Exod 23:15; Deut 16:1a) to the 10th or 14th day “in the month of the Abib” as the “first month” (Exod 12:2–3, 6, 18). The re-dating is probably due to a cultic-historical development that has to do with the adoption of the Babylonian calendar reflected maybe in the famous “Pesach Letter” (more correctly: “Matzot Letter”) of Elephantine (TAD A4.1). (Editor’s note: See discussion in, Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, “The Passover Papyrus Orders a Religious Furlough for Judean Soldiers,” TheTorah [2020]. For an alternative understanding of this papyrus, see Idan Dershowitz, “Darius II Delays the Festival of Matzot in 418 BCE,” TheTorah [2017].) The historically based halakha in Exodus 12–13 and the repercussions it had for the law in Exodus 23 and Deuteronomy 16 have been adopted in the later priestly calendars (Lev 23; Num 28–29; Ezek 45), which for their part have had an influence back upon the halakha in Exodus 12–13, resulting in mutual alignments that reverberate in the textual history (Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, Targum).

To be more precise, the connection was made for the first time by the dating of the Pesach regulation with “Observe the new moon of the Aviv” in verse 1 (following Exod 23:15), but only in terms of the date. Only later, when the Matzot additions were added together with the calendar expansions in vv. 9–15, was the connection made between Pesach and Matzot.

Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel, trans. J. Sutherland Black and Allan Menzies (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1885) 87–89; trans. from German, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, (Berlin: Reimers, 1883 [orig. Geschichte Israels, 1878]). Editor’s note: For another possible independent origin for the paschal sacrifice, as a protection ritual for Israelite firstborn, see Kristine Garroway, “The Origins of the Biblical Passover,” TheTorah (2015).

The text continues with the law of what to do if the animal is damaged and thus unworthy to be sacrificed on YHWH’s altar:

^טו:כא וְכִי יִהְיֶה בוֹ מוּם פִּסֵּחַ אוֹ עִוֵּר כֹּל מוּם רָע לֹא תִזְבָּחֶנּוּ לַי־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ. ^טו:כב בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ תֹּאכֲלֶנּוּ הַטָּמֵא וְהַטָּהוֹר יַחְדָּו כַּצְּבִי וְכָאַיָּל. ^טו:כג רַק אֶת דָּמוֹ לֹא תֹאכֵל עַל הָאָרֶץ תִּשְׁפְּכֶנּוּ כַּמָּיִם.

^15:21 But if it has a defect, lameness or blindness, any serious defect, you shall not sacrifice it to YHWH your God. ^15:22 Eat it in your settlements, the unclean among you no less than the clean, just like the gazelle and the deer. ^15:23 Only you must not partake of its blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.

See Oded Borowski, Every Living Thing: Daily Use of Animals in Ancient Israel (Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 1998), 52.

Editor’s note: For a discussion of the connection between Matzot and barley/wheat, see Yael Avrahami, “Why Do We Eat Matzah in the Spring?” TheTorah (2018).

The connection between Pesach and the exodus is also in view in the later priestly calendars in Leviticus 23, Numbers 28–29, and Ezekiel 45, as well as in some narrative literature texts influenced by them (Num 9; Josh 5; 2 Kgs 23; 2 Chr 30, 35; Ezra 6). Similarly, Matzot and exodus are connected in Exodus 12–13, 23:15, and 34:18.

Editor’s note: See, for example, David Frankel, “Integrating the Exodus Story into the Festivals,” TheTorah (2015).

Editor’s note: For a brief discussion of this editorial technique, see Zev Farber and Marc Brettler, “The Resumptive Repetition (Wiederaufnahme),” TheTorah (2013).

Editor’s note: For more on this point, see Zev Farber, “How Eating Matzah Became Part of the Exodus Story,” TheTorah (2018).

Is it meant to include only Shavuot or also Sukkot? Elsewhere in the Torah, in Leviticus 23:42–43, Sukkot is connected explicitly to the exodus. This too is a late text. Editor’s note: For a discussion of how this idea may have developed, see David Frankel, “How and Why Sukkot Was Linked to the Exodus,” TheTorah (2015); David Ben-Gad HaCohen, “When and Where the Israelites Dwelt in Sukkot,” TheTorah (2016).

Non-indented text is the oldest layer of the law collection. One indent is the Pesach supplement to the firstborn law. Double indent is the long festival calendar. Bold is the addition of the exodus story as an explanation.