Exodus 12:1

_AND THE LORD SPAKE UNTO MOSES AND AARON IN THE LAND OF EGYPT, SAYING,_ The Lord spake - rather, had spoken unto Moses and Aaron; for it is evident that the communication here described must have been made to them some time previous to the tenth of the month. Moses, writing the history of the events which preceded and accompanied the Exodus, seems to have inserted this parenthetical section, with all its minute details, because the express purpose of letting future generations of Israel know that the national institution of the Passover was not the legislative device of a subsequent period, but was enacted, with all its specialties, by divine authority before, and with reference to, the great catastrophe which led to the emancipation of the Hebrews....

1._And the Lord spake. _Although the institution of the Passover in some degree appertains to the Fourth Commandment, where the Sabbath and Feast-days will be treated of; yet, in so far as it was a solemn symbol (308) of their redemption, whereby the people professed their obligation to God their deliverer, and in a manner devoted themselves to His dominion, I have not hesitated to insert it here as a supplement of the First Commandment. The observation of the day itself will again recur in its proper place; it will only be suitable to observe here, that God enjoined this ceremony in order that He might wholly bind the people under obligation to Himself alone, and that from it the Israelites might learn that they should never turn away from Him, by whose kindness and hand they were redeemed. For by these means He had purchased them to Himself as His peculiar people; and, therefore, whene...

1-20 The Lord makes all things new to those whom he delivers from the bondage of Satan, and takes to himself to be his people. The time when he does this is to them the beginning of a new life. God appointed that, on the night wherein they were to go out of Egypt, each family should kill a lamb, or that two or three families, if small, should kill one lamb. This lamb was to be eaten in the manner here directed, and the blood to be sprinkled on the door-posts, to mark the houses of the Israelites from those of the Egyptians. The angel of the Lord, when destroying the first-born of the Egyptians, would pass over the houses marked by the blood of the lamb: hence the name of this holy feast or ordinance. The passover was to be kept every year, both as a remembrance of Israel's preservation and deliverance out of Egypt, and as a remarkable type of Christ. Their safety and deliverance were no...

CHAPTER XII _The month_ Abib _is to be considered as the commencement of_ _the year_, 1, 2. _The_ PASSOVER _instituted; the_ lamb _or_ kid _to be used on the_ _occasion to be taken from the flock the_ tenth _day of the_ _month, and each family to provide one_, 3, 4. _The lamb or kid to be a male of the first year without_ _blemish_, 5. _To be killed on the_ fourteenth _day_, 6, _and the blood to be sprinkled on the side posts and lintels_ _of the doors_, 7....

This chapter was written some time after the Exodus, probably when Moses put together the portions of the book toward the end of his life. The statements that these instructions were given in the land of Egypt, and that they were given to Moses and Aaron, are important: the one marks the special dignity of this ordinance, which was established before the Sinaitic code; the other marks the distinction between Moses and Aaron and all other prophets. They alone were prophets of the law, i. e. no law was promulgated by any other prophets....

FIRST INSTITUTION OF THE PASSOVER. EXPOSITION THE INSTITUTION OF THE PASSOVER AND THE REASONS FOR IT.—In the interval allowed by God, according to the precedent of former announced plagues, between the warning concerning the first-born and the execution, Moses received instructions for the institution of a new religious rite,_ _founded possibly upon some previous national usage, but so re-shaped, re-cast, and remodelled as to have an entirely new and fresh character. In all Eastern nations, the coming in of spring was observed as a jocund and festive time, with offerings, processions, and songs of rejoicings. When the date of the vernal equinox was known, it was naturally made the starting-point f

AND THE LORD SPAKE UNTO MOSES AND AARON IN THE LAND OF EGYPT,.... Before they and the children of Israel came out of it, before the slaying of the firstborn, yea, before Moses came from the presence of Pharaoh, and had given him notice of it; and it is very probable even before the three days darkness, seeing it seems necessary it should be four days before the passover, since on the tenth day the lamb was to be taken, and on the fourteenth slain, Exodus 12:3 and by what follows it looks as if it was at the beginning or first day of the month, and so the words may be rendered, "the Lord had spoke" y; and the following account is deferred to this place, that there might be no interruption of the history of the plagues, and that the passover, with all its rites and ceremonies, both at the first institution and observance of it, and in later times, might be laid together. y ויאמר "allo

Exodus 12:1. _And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you._ And for this reason that, now, as a nation, they were to begin their separate history, separate in existence from all the rest of mankind. Exodus 12:3. _Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house: and if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb._ The separation of the lamb was to take p

5. REDEMPTION BY BLOOD, THE PASSOVER AND THE LAW OF THE FIRSTBORN CHAPTER 12 The Passover Instituted and Kept, the Death of the Firstborn and the Exodus _ 1. The Passover instituted and the feast of unleavened bread (Exodus 12:1)_ 2. The command given to the people and obeyed (Exodus 12:21) 3. The death of the firstborn in Egypt (Exodus 12:29) 4. The departure of the children of Israel (Exodus 12:31) 5. From Rameses to Succoth (Exodus 12:37) 6. The fulfillment of the 430 years ...

EXODUS 12:1 P. RULES FOR THE PASSOVER (first set). On the history of the Passover, see pp. 102f. Most ceremonial rules are dated from Sinai or the land of Moab: so these that follow are noted in Exodus 12:1 as given in Egypt. The first month (Exodus 12:2) is in J, E, and D Abib, and later (Nehemiah 2:1) Nisan. As the Quakers dropped the names of the days of the week on account of their pagan origin, so P avoids the Canaanitish or Phœ nician names, using numbers only, as in the later Biblical books. The critical months in autumn and spring, which closed or began the harvest, were natural starting points for the year among an agricultural people. Befo