Question XVIII. Whether, by the festival of the Xylophoria [wood-carrying], the wood-servitude of the Gabaonites was taken away?

The festival of the Xylophoria [wood-bearing] was, among the ancient Jews, on the 22nd day of the month Ab, which corresponds to our August. And since they were wont to name those months, on which some chief feast-day fell, “melachim” — that is, Kings — the month Ab, or August, was also called “King,” because, as R. Jacob ben Asher says (in the book Orach Chaiim, or Way of Life), “in it [there] were those cutting wood for the oblation.” For when, in the times of Ezra, the Israelites entered a new covenant with God, they said (Neh. 10:34): “We cast lots, therefore, concerning the oblation of wood among the Priests, and the Levites, and the people, that they might be brought into the house of our God, according to the houses of our fathers, at [appointed] times from the seasons of the year, unto the [next] year — that they might burn upon the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the law of Moses” (namely, Leviticus, ch. 6). But for “according to the houses of the fathers,” the Hebrew and the 70 say “into the house of the fathers,” which is the House of God (in the same place, last verse), or the temple. And Josephus describes this feast-day thus (bk. 2 of the Captivity [Jewish War], ch. 31), in the Greek: Ἐν τῇ τῶν ξυλοφορίων ἑορτῇ πᾶσιν ἔθος ὕλην τῷ βωμῷ προσφέρειν, ὅπως μήποτε τροφὴ τῷ πυρὶ λείπηται· διαμένει γὰρ ἄσβεστον ἀεί [en tē tōn xylophoriōn heortē pasin ethos hylēn tō bōmō prospherein, hopōs mēpote trophē tō pyri leipētai; diamenei gar asbeston aei], that is: “At the festival of carrying wood [it is] the custom for all to offer wood or fuel at the altar, so that fuel may never be lacking to the fire. For it [the fire] remains ever unextinguished.” Since, then, on the day of bearing wood, all bore wood, and that custom had long since prevailed — where were the Gabaonites, and what were they doing? Did the people voluntarily take away their wood-servitude from them? [Was it] on account of their number, greatly diminished by Saul (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 21)? [Was it] on account of some greater and more abundant compensation for the loss inflicted on them? Was it the religion and piety of the people, that they reckoned [it] a glorious [thing], and of their own accord laid upon themselves — for the veneration of God and the public liturgy of the altar — the otherwise vile and contemned office of camp-servants [calones]? Or rather [was it that] the people, as the lot fell to each, or as devotion urged him, designated wood from their own [woods], or from woods or portions of woods, or bought [it] from others’ [woods] — which they would then offer to God, standing indeed and not yet cut — but the Gabaonites would afterward cut it and carry it to the temple? For thus both the custom of the people and the service of the Gabaonites cohere best.