=37. In the last day, that great day of the feast.= The feast of the Tabernacles proper lasted for seven days (Lev. 23:34, 41, 42), but on the eighth day a solemn assembly kept as a feast-Sabbath was directed to be held (Lev. 23:36; Numb. 29:35; Neh. 8:18); and though the people dwelt in the booths only the seven days, this eighth day was reckoned by the Jews as a part of the feast. Whether the seventh or the eighth is intended here by the “last day of the feast” is a little uncertain, as it also is whether the drawing of water from the brook Siloah, which was a characteristic ceremonial of the other days of the feast, took place also on the eighth day. This ceremonial recalled the miraculous supply of water in the wilderness from the riven rock; it was connected by the more superstitious of the people with the notion that at this time God determined the amount of rain which should fall during the year; and the more spiritual saw in it a symbol of the time when the promised gift of the Holy Spirit should be bestowed upon Israel (Isa. 12:3). Whether the words of Christ were uttered, as Dr. Geikie supposes, during this ceremonial, or, as Alford supposes, the day after this service had come to an end, the reference to it is unmistakable. Dr. Geikie’s supposition certainly makes this reference more striking, and gives, if not peculiar significance, at least peculiar force, to Christ’s words. “The last day of the feast, known as ‘the Hosanna Rabba’ and the ‘Great Day,’ found him, as each day before, doubtless, had done, in the temple arcades. He had gone thither early, to meet the crowds assembled for morning prayer. It was a day of special rejoicing. A great procession of pilgrims marched seven times round the city, with their lulabs, music, and loud-voiced choirs preceding, and the air was rent with shouts of Hosanna, in commemoration of the taking of Jericho, the first city in the Holy Land that fell into the hands of their fathers. Other multitudes streamed to the brook of Siloah, after the priests and Levites, bearing the golden vessels with which to draw some of the water. As many as could get near the stream drank of it amidst loud shouting of the words of Isaiah--‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,’ ‘With joy shall we draw water from the wells of salvation’--rising in jubilant chants on every side. The water drawn by the priests was, meanwhile, borne up to the temple, amidst the boundless excitement of a vast throng. Such a crowd was, apparently, passing at this moment. Rising as the throng went by, his spirit was moved at such honest enthusiasm, yet saddened at the moral decay which mistook a mere ceremony for religion. It was burning autumn weather, when the sun had for months shone in a cloudless sky, and the early rains were longed for as the monsoons in India after the summer heat. Water at all times is a magic word in a sultry climate like Palestine, but at this moment it had a double power.