What…
feasts are in the Bible? and their purpose and significance?

  1. Feasts of hospitality (2 Kings 6:23)

    Then Abner and twenty men with him came to David at Hebron. And David made a feast for Abner and the men who were with him. —2 Samuel 3:20

    Yet he pressed them strongly, so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. —Genesis 19:3

  2. Feasts marking occasions of domestic joy

    And the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. —Genesis 21:8

    But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet, and bring the fattened calf, slaughter it, and let us eat and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ And they began to celebrate. —Luke 15:22-24

  3. Birthday feasts (Matthew 14:6)

    But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod —Matthew 14:6

    …on the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday… he made a feast for all his servants… —Genesis 40:20 excerpt

    His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. —Job 1:4

  4. Marriage feasts (Judges 14:10)

    Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in to her.” And Laban gathered all the men of the place and made a feast. —Genesis 29:21-22

    More information

Feasting was a part of the observances connected with the offering up of sacrifices (Deuteronomy 12:6, 7; 1 Samuel 9:19; 16:3, 5), and with the annual festivals (Deuteronomy 16:11).

“It was one of the designs of the greater solemnities, which required the attendance of the people at the sacred tent, that the oneness of the nation might be maintained and cemented together, by statedly congregating in one place, and with one soul taking part in the same religious services. But that oneness was primarily and chiefly a religious and not merely a political one; the people were not merely to meet as among themselves, but with Jehovah, and to present themselves before him as one body; the meeting was in its own nature a binding of themselves in fellowship with Jehovah; so that it was not politics and commerce that had here to do, but the soul of the Mosaic dispensation, the foundation of the religious and political existence of Israel, the covenant with Jehovah. To keep the people’s consciousness alive to this, to revive, strengthen, and perpetuate it, nothing could be so well adapated as these annual feasts.”

More information

Article Version: March 16, 2026