They were _to rejoice_ before the Lord their God at all these feasts. With what outward actions they were to rejoice we are not expressly told; probably it was left to each generation to express their joy in their own way. In the case of the Passover we know that they were to eat a lamb and unleavened bread; and we gather, I think, from many places, that both songs and dancing were freely used at the feasts; but further than this we do not know the outward form of their rejoicing. But we _do_ know the spirit in which they were to keep their feasts, the temper of mind in which God would have them rejoice before Him. This is most fully proclaimed. They were to keep alive in themselves and one another the memory of the great deliverances and blessings, which had been, and were being wrought for them. They were to remember that these deliverances had been wrought for ignorant despised bondmen, that these blessings were being poured down on a stiffnecked sinful people. Remembering these things, they were to come to their feasts, and rejoice before Him, with humble open hearts, thanking Him for all they possessed, with love towards their brethren, ready to forgive debts, to help the poor to his right, and to acknowledge and glory in the bond which bound them all together in one nation. Moreover, these feasts were to be feasts for the whole nation--for the rich and the poor, the free man and the slave, “for thee, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant;” for those who are in trouble and sorrow, as well as for the prosperous and happy; “for the stranger, and fatherless, and widow who are within thy gates.” One thing more I wish you to notice about the Jewish feasts; they had all the same character, all were God’s feasts--not one or two religious feasts, as we should say, and the rest national, but all God’s feasts, and all national also. There is no hint in the Bible of any distinction; all feasts ordained for the nation are God’s feasts, and their feasts also. Now such feasts--such rejoicings before the Lord--as these, you can see at once must have had no slight influence on the nation which kept them. Accordingly we find them interwoven with every fibre of the national life: sometimes kept as God’s feasts--as He had said they were to be kept--in humbleness and thankfulness, in breaking bonds and forgiving debts; often, as though they had been not his but the devil’s feasts, in persecuting prophets and slaying righteous men; and no doubt also, as the natural consequence, in debauchery, gluttony, and hard and usurious dealings with one another; in oppression of man-servant and maid-servant, the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger. But in whatever way the feasts were kept they were always exercising a great power over generation after generation.