“Erat autem in proximo dies festus Judæorum, Scenopegia.”
“Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand.”
“However, the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near.”
“Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was at hand.”
“Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand.”
This was the festival of Tabernacles, on which the Jews made tents, in imitation of those which were their habitations during their sojournment in the wilderness, for forty years. See Leviticus xxiii. 34. The Jews called it a festival day; though it consisted not of one, but of many days successively. (St. Augustine, tract. 28. in Joan.)
II. The approach of the feast of tabernacles (v. 2), one of the three solemnities which called for the personal attendance of all the males at Jerusalem; see the institution of it, Lev 23 34, etc., and the revival of it after a long disuse, Neh 8 14. It was intended to be both a memorial of the tabernacle state of Israel in the wilderness, and a figure of the tabernacle state of God's spiritual Israel in this world. This feast, which was instituted so many hundred years before, was still religiously observed. Note, Divine institutions are never antiquated, nor go out of date, by length of time: nor must wilderness mercies ever be forgotten. But it is called the Jews' feast, because it was now shortly to be abolished, as a mere Jewish thing, and left to them that served the tabernacle.
Verses 1-13 The brethren or kinsmen of Jesus were disgusted, when they found there was no prospect of worldly advantages from him. Ungodly men sometimes undertake to counsel those employed in the work of God; but they only advise what appears likely to promote present advantages. The people differed about his doctrine and miracles, while those who favoured him, dared not openly to avow their sentiments. Those who count the preachers of the gospel to be deceivers, speak out, while many who favour them, fear to get reproach by avowing regard for them.