ears._

(c.) _The three annual festivals._ The _Passover_, which commenced on
the 15th of the 1st month, and lasted seven days, Deut. xvi. 3, 8. The
Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, which began on the 6th day of the 3d
month, and lasted seven days. Lev. xvi. 10, 11. The Feast of
Tabernacles, which commenced on the 15th of the 7th month, and lasted
eight days. Deut. xvi. 13, 15; Lev. xxiii. 34-39. As all met in one
place, much time would be spent on the journey. Cumbered caravans move
slowly. After their arrival, a day or two would be requisite for divers
preparations before the celebration, besides some time at the close of
it, in preparations for return. If we assign three weeks to each
festival--including the time spent on the journeys, and the delays
before and after the celebration, together with the _festival week_, it
will be a small allowance for the cessation of their regular labor. As
there were three festivals in the year, the main body of the servants
would be absent from their stated employments at least _nine weeks
annually_, which would amount in forty-two years, subtracting the
Sabbaths, to six years and eighty-four days.

(d.) _The new moons._ The Jewish year had twelve; Josephus says that the
Jews always kept _two_ days for the new moon. See Calmet on the Jewish
Calendar, and Horne's Introduction; also 1 Sam. xx. 18, 19, 27. This in
forty-two years, would be two years 280 days.

(e.) _The feast of trumpets_. On the first day of the seventh month, and
of the civil year. Lev. xxiii. 24, 25.

(f.) _The atonement day_. On the tenth of the seventh month. Lev. xxiii.
27.

These two feasts would consume not less than sixty-five days not
reckoned above.

Thus it appears that those who continued servants during the period
between the jubilees, were by law released from their labor,
TWENTY-THREE YEARS AND SIXTY-FOUR DAYS, OUT OF FIFTY YEARS, and those
who remained a less time, in nearly the same proportion. In this
calculation, besides making a donation of all the _fractions_ to the
objector, we have left out those numerous _local_ festivals to which
frequent allusion is made, Judg. xxi. 19; I Sam. ix. etc., and the
various _family_ festivals, such as at the weaning of children; at
marriages; at sheep shearings; at circumcisions; at the making of
covenants, &c., to which reference is often made, as in 1 Sam. xx. 28,
29. Neither have we included the festivals instituted at a later period
of the Jewish history