But the command to celebrate the festival of booths was not directed to the “vast mixed company” but was given to Israel.

The lulab was a cluster of branches from various trees and was carried in the hand of the Jewish celebrator. The idea of it is said to be drawn from Leviticus 23:40:

¹⁸ “And you must take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, the fronds of palm trees and the boughs of branchy trees and poplars of the torrent valley, and you must rejoice before Jehovah your God seven days.”

19. (a) Of what was the “lulab” composed? (b) In what kind of procedure did the Israelites carry the lulab, and with what chant?

¹⁹ The components of the lulab were (1) a shoot of the palm tree in its folded state, (2) three twigs of the myrtle with whorls of leaves in these, and (3) two willow-tree branches, the wood of which is reddish and the branches of which are long and entire. The Israelites carrying the lulabs waved them and disposed of them at the close of the festival. The lulab and the ethrog (a citrus fruit like a lemon but without the nipple that the lemon has at one end) were carried in procession around the altar in the Courtyard of Priests, with one circuit on each of the first six days and seven circuits on the seventh and last day. After that the ethrog, or citron, was eaten. Along with the procession, Psalm 118:25 would be chanted: “Ah, now, Jehovah, do save, please! Ah, now, Jehovah, do grant success, please!”