Text -- Leviticus 23:38-44 (NET)

23:38 besides the Sabbaths of the Lord and all your gifts, votive offerings, and freewill offerings which you must give to the Lord. 23:39 “‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you gather in the produce of the land, you must celebrate a pilgrim festival of the Lord for seven days. On the first day is a complete rest and on the eighth day is complete rest. 23:40 On the first day you must take for yourselves branches from majestic trees– palm branches, branches of leafy trees, and willows of the brook– and you must rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. 23:41 You must celebrate it as a pilgrim festival to the Lord for seven days in the year. This is a perpetual statute throughout your generations; you must celebrate it in the seventh month. 23:42 You must live in temporary shelters for seven days; every native citizen in Israel must live in temporary shelters, 23:43 so that your future generations may know that I made the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’” 23:44 So Moses spoke to the Israelites about the appointed times of the Lord.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Lev 23:38

¹ tn Heb “from to separation.” See BDB 94 s.v. בַּד 1.e for an explanation of this phrase. This phrase is repeated in front of each of the four items in this verse in the Hebrew text, but these have not been translated into English for stylistic reasons. Cf. KJV, NASB “besides”; NRSV “apart from.”

NET Notes: Lev 23:39

¹ tn Heb “Surely on the fifteenth day.” The Hebrew adverbial particle אַךְ (’akh) is left untranslated by most recent English versions; however, cf. NASB “On exactly the fifteenth day.”

NET Notes: Lev 23:40

¹ tn Heb “fruit of majestic trees,” but the following terms and verses define what is meant by this expression. For extensive remarks on the celebration of this festival in history and tradition see B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 163; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 389-90; and P. J. Budd, Leviticus (NCBC), 328-29.

NET Notes: Lev 23:41

¹ tn Heb “for your generations.”

NET Notes: Lev 23:42

¹ tn Heb “in the huts” (again at the end of this verse and in v. 43), perhaps referring to temporary shelters (i.e., huts) made of the foliage referred to in v. 40 (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 389).

NET Notes: Lev 23:44

¹ sn E. S. Gerstenberger (Leviticus [OTL], 352) takes v. 44 to be an introduction to another set of festival regulations, perhaps something like those found in Exod 23:14-17. For others this verse reemphasizes the Mosaic authority of the preceding festival regulations (e.g., J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 390).