[3987] Comp. Yoma 3 a, and often.
[3988] Hence the benediction said at the beginning of every Feast is not only said on the first of that of Tabernacles, but also on the octave of it (Sukk. 48 a). The sacrifices for that occasion were quite different from those for Tabernacles;' the booths' were removed; and the peculiar rites of the Feast of Tabernacles no longer observed. This is distinctly stated in Sukk. iv. 1, and the diverging opinion of R. Jehudah on this and another point is formally rejected in Tos. Sukk. iii. 16. For the six points of difference between the Feast of Tabernacles and its Octave, see note at the end of ch. viii.
[3989] Bishop Haneberg speaks of the anniversaries of the Martyrs as part-fulfilment of the typical meaning of that Feast.
[3990] Also Lulabha and Luleybha.
[3991] Targ. Onkelos, and Pseudo-Jon. and Jerus. on Lev. xxiii. 40; Jos. Ant. xiii. 13. 5.
[3992] Vayy. R. 30, towards end, ed. Warsh., p. 47 a.
[3993] Sukk. iv. 5.
[3994] Jer. Sukk. iv. 3, p. 54 b.
[3995] For a full discussion of this point, see p. 636, note 3.
[3996] Rather more than two pints.
[3997] Curiously, in that passage the spring of the river is designated by the word Moza.
[3998] Comp. Neh. iii. 15.
[3999] 2 Chron. xxxii. 30; 2 Kings xx. 20.
[4000] St. John ix. 7.
[4001] 1 Kings i. 33, 38.
[4002] 1 Kings i. 9.
[4003] ver. 41.
[4004] Except on a Sabbath, and on the first day of the Feast. On these occasions it had been provided the day before.
[4005] Tos. Sukk iii. 8.
[4006] One of the gates that opened from the terrace' on the south side of the Temple.
[4007] Jer. Sukk. iv. 6; Sukk. 44 a.
[4008] On the other hand, R. Akiba maintained, that the water-pouring' was prescribed in the written Law.
[4009] Sukk. iv. 9: Jos. Ant. xiii. 13. 5.
[4010] Ps. cxviii. 25.
[4011] ver. 25.
[4012] Sukk. 55 a; Maimonides, Yad haChas. Hilkh. Temid. uMos. x. 11 (vol. iii. p. 204 a).
[4013] For the Psalms chanted on the otherdays of the Feast, and a detailed description of the Feast itself, see The Temple and its Services,' ch. xiv.
[4014] Ps. cxviii. 25.
[4015] Sukk. iv. 5.
[4016] u. s. 1 and 6.
[4017] u. s. 8.
[4018] I must respectfully differ from Canon Westcott (ad loc.) when he regards it as a doubtful question whether or not the water-pouring' had taken place on the day when our Lord so pointed to the fulfilment of its symbolical meaning.
[4019] Whether or not the last three words are spurious is, so far as the sense of the words is concerned, matter of comparative indifference.
[4020] St. John vii. 17.
[4021] Ps. 49 b.
[4022] Baba B. 8 b.
[4023] Pes. 49 d.
[4024] Kethub. 111 b.
[4025] For further details the reader is referred to Wagenseil's Sota, pp. 516-519.
[4026] The reader will observe, that the narrative of the woman taken in adultery, as also the previous verse (St. John vii. 53-viii. 11) have been left out in this History - although with great reluctance. By this it is not intended to characterise that section as Apocryphal, nor indeed to pronounce any opinion as to the reality of some such occurrence. For, it contains much which we instinctively feel to be like the Master, both in what Christ is represented as saying and as doing. All that we reluctantly feel bound to maintain is, that the narrative in its present form did not exist in the Gospel of St. John, and, indeed, could not have existed. For a summary of the external evidence against the Johannine authorship of the passage, I would refer to Canon Westcott's Note, ad loc., in the Speaker's Commentary.' But there is also internal evidence, and, to my mind at least, most cogent, against its authenticity - at any rate, in its present form. From first to last it is utterly un-Jewish. Accordingly, unbiassed critics who are conversant either with Jewish legal procedure, or with the habits and views of the people at the time, would feel obliged to reject it, even if the external evidence had been as strong in its favour as it is for its rejection. Archdeacon Farrar has, indeed, devoted to the illustration of this narrative some of his most pictorial pages. But, with all his ability and eloquence, his references to Jewish law and observances are not such as to satisfy the requirements of criticism. To this general objection to their correctness I must add a protest against the views which he presents of the moral state of Jewish society at the time. On the other hand, from whatever point we view this narrative - the accusers, the witnesses, the public examination, the bringing of the woman to Jesus, or the punishment claimed - it presents insuperable difficulties. That a woman taken in the act of adultery should have been brought before Jesus (and apparently without the witnesses to her crime); that such an utterly un-Jewish, as well as illegal, procedure should have been that of the Scribes and Pharisees'; that such a breach of law, and of what Judaism would regard as decency, should have been perpetrated to tempt' Him; or that the Scribes should have been so ignorant as to substitute stoning for strangulation, as the punishment of adultery; lastly, that this scene should have been enacted in the Temple, presents a veritable climax of impossibilities. I can only express surprise that Archdeacon Farrar should have suggested that the Feast of Tabernacles had grown into a kind of vintage-festival, which would often degenerate into acts of licence and immorality,' or that the lives of the religious leaders of Israel were often stained' with such sins. The first statement is quite ungrounded; and as for the second, I do not recall a single instance in which a charge of adultery is brought against a Rabbi of that period. The quotations in Sepp's Leben Jesu (vol. v. p. 183), which Archdeacon Farrar adduces, are not to cases in point, however much, from the Christian point of view, we may reprobate the conduct of the Rabbis there mentioned. __________________________________________________________________