Exo_12:6

“And it shall be to you for preservation (ye shall keep it) until the fourteenth day, and then...slay it at sunset.” Among the reasons commonly assigned for the instruction to choose the lamb on the 10th, and keep it till the 14th, which Jonathan and Rashi supposed to refer to the Passover in Egypt alone, there is an element of truth in the one given most fully by Fagius, “that the sight of the lamb might furnish an occasion for conversation respecting their deliverance from Egypt,...and the mercy of God, who had so graciously looked upon them;” but this hardly serves to explain the interval of exactly four days. Hoffmann supposes it to refer to the four doroth (Gen_15:16), which had elapsed since Israel was brought to Egypt, to grow into a nation. The probability of such an allusion, however, depends upon just what Hoffmann denies without sufficient reason, viz., upon the lamb being regarded as a sacrifice, in which Israel consecrated itself to its God. It was to be slain by “the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel:” not by the whole assembled people, as though they gathered together for this purpose, for the slaughtering took place in every house (Exo_12:7); the meaning is simply, that the entire congregation, without any exception, was to slay it at the same time, viz., “between the two evenings” (Num_9:3, Num_9:5, Num_9:11), or “in the evening at sunset” (Deu_16:6). Different opinions have prevailed among the Jews from a very early date as to the precise time intended. Aben Ezra agrees with the Caraites and Samaritans in taking the first evening to be the time when the sun sinks below the horizon, and the second the time of total darkness; in which case, “between the two evenings” would be from 6 o'clock to 7:20. Kimchi and Rashi, on the other hand, regard the moment of sunset as the boundary between the two evenings, and Hitzig has lately adopted their opinion. According to the rabbinical idea, the time when the sun began to descend, viz., from 3 to 5 o'clock, was the first evening, and sunset the second; so that “between the two evenings” was from 3 to 6 o'clock. Modern expositors have very properly decided in favour of the view held by Aben Ezra and the custom adopted by the Caraites and Samaritans, from which the explanation given by Kimchi and Rashi does not materially differ. It is true that this argument has been adduced in favour of the rabbinical practice, viz., that “only by supposing the afternoon to have been included, can we understand why the day of Passover is always called the 14th (Lev_23:5; Num_9:3, etc.);” and also, that “if the slaughtering took place after sunset, it fell on the 15th Nisan, and not the 14th.” But both arguments are based upon an untenable assumption. For it is obvious from Lev_23:32, where the fast prescribed for the day of atonement, which fell upon the 10th of the 7th month, is ordered to commence on the evening of the 9th day, “from even to even,” that although the Israelites reckoned the day of 24 hours from the evening sunset to sunset, in numbering the days they followed the natural day, and numbered each day according to the period between sunrise and sunset. Nevertheless there is no formal disagreement between the law and the rabbinical custom. The expression in Deu_16:6, “at (towards) sunset,” is sufficient to show that the boundary line between the two evenings is not to be fixed precisely at the moment of sunset, but only somewhere about that time. The daily evening sacrifice and the incense offering were also to be presented “between the two evenings” (Exo_29:39, Exo_29:41; Exo_30:8; Num_28:4). Now as this was not to take place exactly at the same time, but to precede it, they could not both occur at the time of sunset, but the former must have been offered before that. Moreover, in later times, when the paschal lamb was slain and offered at the sanctuary, it must have been slain and offered before sunset, if only to give sufficient time to prepare the paschal meal, which was to be over before midnight. It was from these circumstances that the rabbinical custom grew up in the course of time, and the lax use of the word evening, in Hebrew as well as in every other language, left space enough for this. For just as we do not confine the term morning to the time before sunset, but apply it generally to the early hours of the day, so the term evening is not restricted to the period after sunset. If the sacrifice prescribed for the morning could be offered after sunrise, the one appointed for the evening might in the same manner be offered before sunset.

Exo_12:7

Some of the blood was to be put (נָתַן as in Lev_4:18, where יִתֵּן is distinguished from הִזָּה, to sprinkle, in Lev_4:17) upon the two posts and the lintel of the door of the house in which the lamb was eaten. This blood was to be to them a sign (Exo_12:13); for when Jehovah passed through Egypt to smite the first-born, He would see the blood, and would spare these houses, and not permit the destroyer to enter them (Exo_12:13, Exo_12:23). The two posts with the lintel represented the door (Exo_12:23), which they surrounded; and the doorway through which the house was entered stood for the house itself, as we may see from the frequent expression “in thy gates,” for in thy towns (Exo_20:10; Deu_5:14; Deu_12:17, etc.). The threshold, which belonged to the door quite as much as the lintel, was not to be smeared with blood, in order that the blood might not be trodden under foot. But the smearing of the door-posts and lintel with blood, the house was expiated and consecrated on an altar. That the smearing with blood was to be regarded as an act of expiation, is evident from the simple fact, that a hyssop-bush was used for the purpose (Exo_12:22); for sprinkling with hyssop is never prescribed in the law, except in connection with purification in the sense of expiation (Lev_14:49.; Num_19:18-19). In Egypt the Israelites had no common altar; and for this reason, the houses in which they assembled for the Passover were consecrated as altars, and the persons found in them were thereby removed from the stroke of the destroyer. In this way the smearing of the door-posts and lintel became a sign to Israel of their deliverance from the destroyer. Jehovah made it so by His promise, that He would see the blood, and pass over the houses that were smeared with it. Through faith in this promise, Israel acquired in the sign a firm pledge of its deliverance. The smearing of the doorway was relinquished, after Moses (not Josiah, as Vaihinger supposes, cf. Deu_16:5-6) had transferred the slaying of the lambs to the court of the sanctuary, and the blood had been ordered to be sprinkled upon the altar there.

Exo_12:8-9

With regard to the preparation of the lamb for the meal, the following directions were given: “They shall eat the lamb in that night” (i.e., the night following the 14th), and none of it נָא (“underdone” or raw), or בָּשֵׁל (“boiled,” - lit., done, viz., בַּמִּיִם מְבֻשָּׁל, done in water, i.e., boiled, as בָּשַׁל does not mean to be boiled, but to become ripe or done, Joe_3:13); “but roasted with fire, even its head on (along with) its thighs and entrails;” i.e., as Rashi correctly explains it, “undivided or whole, so that neither head nor thighs were cut off, and not a bone was broken (Exo_12:46), and the viscera were roasted in the belly along with the entrails,” the latter, of course, being first of all cleansed. On כְּרָעִים and קֶרֶב see Lev_1:9. These regulations are all to be regarded from one point of view. The first two, neither underdone nor boiled, were connected with the roasting of the animal whole. As the roasting no doubt took place on a spit, since the Israelites while in Egypt can hardly have possessed such ovens of their own, as are prescribed in the Talmud and are met with in Persia, the lamb would be very likely to be roasted imperfectly, or underdone, especially in the hurry that must have preceded the exodus (Exo_12:11). By boiling, again, the integrity of the animal would have been destroyed, partly through the fact that it could never have been got into a pot whole, as the Israelites had no pots or kettles sufficiently large, and still more through the fact that, in boiling, the substance of the flesh is more or less dissolved. For it is very certain that the command to roast was not founded upon the hurry of the whole procedure, as a whole animal could be quite as quickly boiled as roasted, if not even more quickly, and the Israelites must have possessed the requisite cooking utensils. It was to be roasted, in order that it might be placed upon the table undivided and essentially unchanged. “Through the unity and integrity of the lamb given them to eat, the participants were to be joined into an undivided unity and fellowship with the Lord, who had provided them with the meal” (cf. 1Co_10:17).

(Note: See my Archäologie i. p. 386. Baehr (Symb. 2, 635) has given the true explanation: “By avoiding the breaking of the bones, the animal was preserved in complete integrity, undisturbed and entire (Psa_34:20).