Feast

Feast (mishteh, chag in Hebrew; deipnon in Greek) encompasses both the ordinary social banquet and the great annual religious festivals of Israel. Feasts in their social dimension marked hospitality (Genesis 19:3; 2 Samuel 3:20), family celebrations (Genesis 21:8; Job 1:4), birthdays (Genesis 40:20), marriage (Judges 14:10), and the conclusion of covenants (Genesis 26:30). They were expressions of joy, abundance, and communal solidarity.

The religious feasts of Israel — the three great pilgrimage festivals (Passover/Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Tabernacles) and the Day of Atonement — were divinely instituted occasions for national gathering, sacrifice, and covenant renewal. Jesus attended and taught at these festivals; his final Passover became the Last Supper, the institution of the new covenant. In the New Testament the great feast imagery becomes eschatological: the parable of the great banquet (Luke 14) and the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9) present the consummation of redemption as the ultimate feast — a celebration of divine abundance and intimate fellowship surpassing all earthly feasts.