1 Kings 8:2 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

The month Ethanim (called after the Captivity Tisri), corresponded with the end of September and beginning of October. The name is supposed (by Thenius) to be properly, as in the LXX., Athanim, and to signify the “month of gifts,” so called as bringing with it the gathering in of the vintage, and of the last of the crops. According to the Chaldee Targum, it was in old times the beginning of the civil, as Abib of the ecclesiastical year. The feast in this month was the Feast of Tabernacles — of all feasts of the year the most joyful — marking the gathering in of all the fruits of the land, commemorating the dwelling in tabernacles in the wilderness, and thanking God for settlement and blessing in the land (Leviticus 23:33-44). It was, perhaps, the time when the Israelites could best be absent from their lands for a prolonged festival; but there was also a peculiar appropriateness in thus giving it a higher consecration, by celebrating on it the transference of the ark from the movable tabernacle to a fixed and splendid habitation. In this instance the festival was doubled in duration, from seven to fourteen days. (See 1 Kings 8:65.)