II. We take for special notice among these periodical institutions the Seven Annual Solemnities of the Sacred Year. Most of these were instituted in the time of Mo´ses, but two of them arose later. We consider them all, however, in this place, rather than at the closing of the history, where two of the feasts properly belong. These may be classified as:
1. The Three Great Feasts: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles; all observed at the capital, and requiring the people to make annual pilgrimages to Je-ru´sa-lem.
2. The Annual Fast: the Day of Atonement.
3. The Three Lesser Feasts: Trumpets, Dedication, Purim. These were observed throughout the land, as well as in Je-ru´sa-lem.
With regard to each of these we will note: 1.) Its time. 2.) The event which it commemorated. 3.) How it was observed.
1. The Feast of Passover (Luke 22. 1).
1.) Was held in the spring, on the fourteenth of the month Abib, or Nisan, corresponding to parts of March and April (Exod. 12. 18).
2.) Commemorated the exodus from E´gypt (Exod. 12. 42).
3.) Observed with the eating of unleavened bread and the slain lamb (Exod. 12. 19-21).
2. The Feast of Pentecost (Acts 2. 1).