Greek word · G4634

σκηνοπηγία

skēnopēgia

Feast of Booths

Literally 'the pitching or fixing of shelters.' In Jewish Greek it is the standard name for the autumn festival called in Hebrew ḥag hassukkot, 'the festival of booths.' A sukkah is a hut roofed with leafy branches. It is not a canvas tent and not a sanctuary.

Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·

What it means

σκηνοπηγία, -ας, ἡ

(σκηνή, πήγνυηι), [in LXX for סֻכָּה, Deuteronomy 16:16 31:10, Zechariah 14:16, 18-19; I Est.5:51, 1Ma.10:21, 2Ma.1:9 2Mac 1:18 * ;]

prop., the setting up of tents or dwellings (Arist.); in LXX and NT, ἡ σ., ἡ ἑορτή τῆς σ. (called also ἑορτὴ σκηνῶν, Leviticus 23:34, al.; see Deiss., LAE, 116 f.), the feast of Tabernacles: John 7:2.†

(AS)

From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of John 7:2

Range of meaning

Literally 'the pitching or fixing of shelters.' In Jewish Greek it is the standard name for the autumn festival called in Hebrew ḥag hassukkot, 'the festival of booths.' A sukkah is a hut roofed with leafy branches. It is not a canvas tent and not a sanctuary.

Against the English

KJV, BSB: 'Tabernacles'. ESV, WEB, NRSV: 'Booths'. NLT: 'Shelters'. YLT: 'tabernacles'. 'Booths' and 'Shelters' give the right picture of rough temporary huts. 'Tabernacles' now makes most readers think of the ornate wilderness sanctuary (the Tabernacle of Exodus) or a large church auditorium.

How it drifted

English 'tabernacle' comes from Latin tabernaculum, 'tent, hut, booth', and that was the right sense in early English Bibles. Over time English narrowed the word to the Mosaic sanctuary and then to large places of worship. The festival name stayed the same while the word took on a grander meaning.

Used elsewhere in the period

LXX (the Greek Old Testament): Deut 16:16; 31:10; Zech 14:16, 18, 19. Leviticus 23:34 instead says heortē skēnōn, 'festival of tents'. It also appears in 1 Esdras 5:50 and 2 Maccabees 1:9, 18. Josephus uses it often and calls the festival 'most holy and greatest among the Hebrews' (Antiquities 8.100). Philo discusses it in Special Laws 2.204–213. The Mishnah tractate Sukkah sets out how to build a valid booth and describes the temple rites of the festival.

Where it appears

John · 1

  1. John 7:2 σκηνοπηγία. of Booths.

    However, the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near.

    Here: The Greek name for Sukkot. It is built from skēnē ('tent, shelter') and pēgnymi ('to fix, set up'), so it means 'the setting-up of shelters.' The name describes the main activity of the festival: families built and lived in temporary huts of branches for seven days. This is the only time the word appears in the New Testament.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.