up to Jerusalem. (Deut. xvi. 16.) It was held in autumn, aftei the completion of the harvest, in the seventh month. The time of the Jewish " Passover " answered to our Easter, " Pentecost " to our Whitsuntide, and "Tabernacles" to our Michaelmas. The seventh month was remarkable for the number of ordi- nances which the law of Moses required the Jews to observe. On the first day was the feast of trumpets, on the tenth day was the day of atonement, and on the fifteenth began the feast of tabernacles.
There are several things peculiar to the feast of tabernacles, which ought to be remembered in reading this chapter, because some of them throw light on it. (1) It was an occasion of special mirth and rejoicing with the Jews. They were ordered to dwell in booths, or tabernacles made of brauches, for seven days, in remembrance of their dwelling in temporary booths when they came out of Egypt, and to " rejoice before the Lord." (Lev. xxiii. 39 — 43.) (2) it was a feast at which more sacrifices were offered up than at any of the Jewish feasts. (Num. xxix. 12 — 34.) (3) It was a feast at which, once every seven years, the law was publicly read to the whole people. (4) It was a feast at which water was drawn from the pool of Siloam every day with great solemnity, and poured upon the altar, while the people sung the 12th chapter of Isaiah. (5) It was a feast which followed close on the great day of atonement, when the pecu- liarly typical ordinances of the scapegoat, and the High Priest going once in the year into the holy of holies, were fresh in the minds of the people. These things should be carefully noted, and remembered, as we read through the .chapter.
Josephus calls the feast of tabernacles "the holiest and greatest feast of the Jews." It was a Rabbinical saying, " The man who has not seen these festivities does not know what a jubilee is."
Whether this very year, when our Lord went to the feast of tabernacles, was the precise seventh year in which the public reading of the law took place, we cannot now know for certainty. Whether the custom of dwelling in booths was literally kept up when our Lord was on earth may also be matter of question. It certainly had not been observed for many years in the clays of Nehemiah. (Neh. viii. 17.) But that this feast was kept up with extraordinary festivity and rejoicing in the latter days of tlie Jewish dispensation is testified by all Jewish writers.
It was in the middle of this public rejoicing, and the con- course of Jews from every part of the world, that the things recorded in this chapter took place. It stauds to reason that all that our Lord said and did this week must have been more than usually public, and would necessarily attract great atten- tion.
Wordsworth, Bu-gon, and others, consider the feast of taber- nacles to have been a very siguilicaut type of our Lord's incar-
JOHlN^, CIIAP. VII. 7
nation. I confess that I am unable to see it. If the feast was typical at all, which is not certain, I venture the conjecture, that it was meant to be a type of our Lord's second advent. My reasons are these : —
(a.) It was the last in order of the Jewish feasts every year, and formed the completion of the annual routine of Mosaic ordinances. It wound up all.
(b.) It was kept at the end of harvest, when the year's work was done, and the fruits were all gathered in.
(c.) It was an occasion of special rejoicing and festivity more than any of the feasts. The dwelling in booths seems to have been a circumstance of the feast less essential than the rejoicing.
(d.) It followed immediately after the feast of trumpets, and the day of atonement. On that clay the High Priest went into the holy of holies and then came out to bless the people. (See Isa. xxvii. 13 ; 1 Thes. iv. 16.)
(e.) It followed immediately after the jubilee every fiftieth year. That jubilee, and proclamation of liberty to all, was in the seventh month.
(/.) It is that special feast which, after the Jews are restored and Jerusalem rebuilt, the nation are yet to keep in the future kingdom of Christ. (Zech. xiv. 16.)
I venture this conjecture with much diffidence ; but I think it deserves consideration. In the six points I have mentioned, I see much more of the second advent than of the first. To my eyes the feast of passover was a type of Christ crucified ;— the feast of pentecost, of Christ sending forth the Holy Ghost in this dispensation;— the feast of tabernacles, of Christ coming again to gather His people in one joyous company, to reap the harvest of the earth, to wiud up this dispensation, to come forth and bless His people, and to proclaim a jubilee to all the earth.
3.— [His brethren.] Who these " brethren " were is a matter of dispute. Some think, as Alford, Stier, and others, that they were literally our Lord's own brethren, and the children of Mary by Joseph, born after our Lord's birth. (See Psalm lxix. 8.) — Some think, as Theophylact and others, that they were the children of Joseph by a former marriage, and brought up by Mary under the same roof with our Lord. — Others think, as Augustine, Zwingle, Musculus, and Bengel, that the word "brethren" does not neccssarDy mean more than cousins or kinsmen. (See 1 Chron. xxiii. 22.) Tiiis is the most probable opinion. I take these "brethren" to have been relatives and kinsmen of Joseph and Mary, living at Nazareth, or Capernaum, or elsewhere in Galilee, — who naturally observed all our Lord's doings w'.th interest and curiosity, but at present did not believe on Him. To suppose, as some do, that these brethren were some of our Lord's Apostles, is to my mind a most improbable theory, and flatly contrary to the 5th verse of this chapter.