In regard to the Israelitish festivals, the antiquity and great importance of the new moon festival has already been pointed out[1138]. The Jews here follow a wide-spread custom. Whether they, like many other peoples, also preferred the time of full moon for their festivals, is a more difficult question. A fixed day for the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread and for the Feast of Tabernacles is first prescribed during and after the Exile, the last-named on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, the Feast of Unleavened Bread on the fifteenth day of the first month, and the Passover on the evening of the day before (the fourteenth of the first month)[1139]. The only other information we have from ancient times as to the date of the Feast of Tabernacles is contained in the earlier name ‘Feast of Vintage’; it was celebrated after the conclusion of the fruit-harvest and vintage. In regard to the Feast of Unleavened Bread--since it is with this chiefly that we have to do, not with the preliminary Feast of the Passover associated with it, which was a feast of a different nature--the order of the Yahwist runs ‘at the time appointed in the month Abib’[1140]; as a motive is adduced the fact that the Jews came out from Egypt in this month. The Deuteronomist[1141] transfers this to the preliminary festival. The time therefore, like that of the Feast of Vintage, is determined by an event in agriculture, but at the same time by the moon. Linguistically _chodesh_ can here mean ‘new moon’; in that case we could also translate ‘at the time appointed after the new moon of Abib’; but since the sense ‘month’ is so old and the original sense ‘new moon’ appears unequivocally only where monthly new moon festivals are in question[1142], it seems reasonable to translate the word here simply by ‘month’. Now it is often stated that the festive seasons both of the Unleavened Bread and of the Feast of Vintage were regulated purely by natural circumstances: the former was celebrated when the first ears ripened, and the latter when the fruit-harvest was at an end, each according to local conditions. But the Feast of Vintage at least was a general festival even in Canaanitish days[1143], and _moed_ properly means ‘determined, appointed time’. It was therefore not accidental circumstances but a rule that in early times called the people together to the festival. Chronological regulation is proved by the name of the festival of harvest (_chag haq-qazir_), ‘Feast of Weeks’, _chag shabuot_ in the Yahwist[1144]. The regulation by the weeks, however, is late and artificial in comparison with that by the moon.