The feast of booths is the harvest festival that was celebrated for eight days in the seventh month (see above at verse 1). Revised Standard Version calls it a feast perhaps because this was an occasion when sacrifices were made that were eaten by the people. A festival refers to a celebration that may last for several days. This was originally an agricultural festival at the harvest of fruit and grapes and was one of three annual festivals (see Exo 23.14-17; 34.22-23; Deut 16.13-17). Later it was associated with the exodus from Egypt. During this festival the people lived in temporary huts made of tree branches. In this way they remembered the time that their ancestors lived in booths during their wanderings in the desert (Lev 23.43). The instructions for the observance of the festival are in Lev 23.33-36, 39-43; Num 29.12-38; and Deut 16.13-17. A variety of translations are found for the name of this festival: “Festival of Shelters” (Good News Translation), “pilgrim-feast of Tabernacles” (New English Bible), “festival of Tabernacles” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), “festival of Huts” (Bible en français courant, Osty-Trinquet), “foliage hut festival” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch), “festival of Tents” (Bible de Jérusalem), and “festival of Cabins” (La Sainte Bible: La version Etablie par les moines de Maredsous). For booths translators may use a word that refers to temporary shelters such as are made for short-term habitation during traditional hunting or fishing expeditions. The same term should be used here that is used for this festival elsewhere in the Old Testament.
They kept … as it is written: “To keep a feast” means to hold a festival, to carry it out, or to celebrate it (Good News Translation). The importance of following the regulations for the festival as they were written is underscored by the repeated expression of the same meaning through the words translated according to the ordinance and as each day required.
The daily burnt offerings were offered by number, meaning they offered the required number for each day, day after day. The number is not specified here, but in Num 29.12-38 the number of animals to be sacrificed each day is indicated. On the first day of the festival thirteen young bulls were to be sacrificed; on each following day one less bull was to be sacrificed until the seventh day when it was to be seven bulls. Then on the eighth day only one bull was to be sacrificed. On each of the eight days of the festival, two male sheep and fourteen male lambs were to be sacrificed.
According to the ordinance: The Hebrew word mishpat, which Revised Standard Version renders ordinance, here means what was prescribed in the Law of Moses regarding the festival and the sacrifices.
As each day required: The days did not require sacrifices, as a literal understanding of Revised Standard Version might imply, but rather the Law of Moses “prescribed” (Revised English Bible) sacrifices for each day.
Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Ezra. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .