Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/539



THE GLORIOUS CONSUMMATION 523

feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow," which Jehovah of hosts has prepared for them on Mount Zion. 1

Though not part of the original Mosaic appointment, the ceremonial service of this feast, which was in practice in the Temple, was also designed to point and emphasise its symbolic and prophetic significance. I will mention only two or three features of that ritual.

I. Simchat-bet-ha-Shdebhak literally, "Joy of the House of Drawing (the water) ; or, the Ceremonial of Water Libation."

Every morning of the feast, a joyous procession, accom panied by music and headed by a priest bearing a golden pitcher, measuring just a little over two pints, made its way from the Temple courts to the Pool of Siloam. At the same time another procession went to the place in the Kedron valley called Moza, or Colonia, whence they brought willow branches, which they bound on either side of the altar of burnt-offering, " bending them over towards it so as to form a kind of leafy canopy."

Then the ordinary sacrifice proceeded, " the priest who had gone to Siloam so timing it that he returned just as his brethren carried up the pieces of the sacrifice to lay them on the altar. As he entered by the Water Gate, which obtained its name from this ceremony, he was received by a threefold blast from the priests trumpets." Amid great demonstrations of excitement and joy this water was poured into a silver basin, or tube, on the altar, simultaneously with the prescribed libation of wine, which was poured into another tube.

On the seventh day, called the " Hoshanna rabba," the

1 Isa. xxv. "That these are not ideal comparisons, but the very design of the Feast of Tabernacles, appears not only from the language of the prophets and the peculiar services of the feast, but also from its position in the Calendar, and even from the names by which it is designated in Scripture. Thus in its refer ence to the harvest it is called Feast of Ingathering ; in that to the history of Israel in the past, the Feast of Tabernacles ; while its symbolic bearing on the future is brought out in its designation as emphatically the feast and the Feast of Jehovah. " Edersheim.