'Feast, as a technical term, is applied only to certain specific

holidays: a holiday is an indefinite term, it may be employed for any

day or time in which there is a suspension of business ... A feast is

altogether sacred; a holiday has frequently nothing sacred in it, not

even in its cause ... a festival has always either a sacred or a

serious object ...'.

While the partaking of food is often a feature of a 'feast', it must be

remembered that one of the 'feasts of the Lord', the Day of Atonement, was

one on which Israel afflicted their souls, and it became known as 'the black

fast'.  The Hebrew words translated 'feast' that refer to holy gatherings and

not merely to eating and drinking, are chag, moed, and in the Greek the word

Chag, which gives us the name Haggai, is allied to a Chaldaic word

meaning 'to move in a circle' (Isa. 40:22); and so 'to reel' like a drunken

man (Psa. 107:27), and so 'a compass' (Isa. 44:13).  This word is applied to

the celebration of religious feasts whether in honour of the true God, or of

idols (1 Kings 12:32), and to religious dances.  There are no dances of this

character, or anything to compare with the drunken orgies of paganism in the

Feasts of the Lord, and it is very probable that the use of the word chag

indicates the periodical return of the solemn day, as Bates has it (Crit.

Heb.) 'the day returning at its round'.  The modern 'festive' element is

countered in the passages where 'solemn feast' and 'solemnity' is the

translation of chag and moed.

Moed means 'an appointed place', from yaad, 'to meet' by appointment,

both regarding 'place' (Exod. 25:22) and 'time' (2 Sam. 20:5), and was

extended by a figure to the conception of a betrothal (Exod. 21:8,9).

Heortazo means 'to keep a feast or festival', and heorte is translated

'feast', 'feast day' and 'holy day'.  All three features, time, place and

solemnity, are found in the law of Deuteronomy 16:15,16:

'Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the Lord thy God in the

place which the Lord shall choose ... three times in a year ... in the

feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast

of tabernacles'.

Few would consider a feast of 'unleavened bread' to

be a 'feast' in the modern sense of the word.  The twenty -third chapter of

Leviticus sets out the feasts of the Lord that were to be observed throughout

the year, while chapter 25 is devoted to the sabbatical year and the jubilee

after seven times seven years.  This feature is important and calls for

consideration.  We discover that an orderly sequence of days, weeks, months

and years runs through the Old Testament Scriptures, and that there is a

special and intentional emphasis of the number seven, as is evident from the

following list:

Seven days.  'Remember the sabbath day'

(Exod. 20:8 -11).

Seven weeks.

'Seven sabbaths shall be complete' (Lev. 23:15).

Seven months.

'In the seventh month -- a sabbath' (Lev. 23:24).

Seven years.

'In the seventh year -- a sabbath' (Lev. 25:2 -5).