Over and above this the erection of
great royal temples must have exerted an important influence.
Alike at Jerusalem and at Bethel "the feast" was celebrated from
the days of Solomon and Jeroboam just as previously at Shechem and
Shiloh, in the former place in September, in the latter perhaps
somewhat later. /2/
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2. 1Kings xii. 32 is, it must be owned, far from trustworthy.
1Kings viii. 2 is difficult to harmonise with vi. 38, if the
interpretation of Bul and Ethanim is correct.
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This was at that period the sole actual _panegyris_. [national festivall
The feasts at the beginning of summer may indeed also have been
observed at this early period (Isa ix. 2), but in smaller local
circles. This distinction is still discernible in Deuteronomy, for
although in that book the feast of tabernacles is not theoretically
higher than the others, in point of fact it alone is observed from
beginning to end at the central sanctuary, while Easter, on the
other hand, is for the most part kept at home, being only during
the first day observed at Jerusalem; moreover, the smaller demand
is much more emphatically insisted on than the larger, so that the
first seems to have been an innovation, the latter to have had the
sanction of older custom.
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