Passover

PASSOVER

Hebrew PESACH, Greek PASCHA, a passing over, a name given to the festival established and to the victim offered in commemoration of he coming forth out of Egypt, Exo 12:1-51 ; because the night before their departure, the destroying angel, who slew the firstborn of the Egyptians, passed over the houses of the Hebrews without entering them, they being marked with the blood of the lamb, which for this reason was called he Passover, Mar 14:12,14 1Co 5:7, or the paschal lamb.The month of the exodus from Egypt, called Abib by Moses, and afterwards named Nisan, was ordained to be thereafter the first month of the sacred or ecclesiastical year. On the fourteenth day of this month, between the two evenings, (See EVENING,) they were to kill the paschal lamb, and to abstain from leavened bread. The day following, being the fifteenth, reckoned from six o’clock of the preceding evening, was the grand feast of the Passover, which continues seven days, usually called “the days of unleavened bread,” or “the Passover,” Luk 22:1 ; but only the first and the seventh day were peculiarly solemn, Lev 23:5-8 Num 28:16,17 Mat 26:17 . They were days of rest, and were called Sabbaths by the Jews. The slain lamb was to be without defect, a male, and of that year. If no lamb could be found, they might take a kid. They killed a lamb or a kid in each family; but if any family was not large enough to eat the lamb, they might associate another small family with them. The Passover was to be slain and eaten only at Jerusalem, though the remainder of the festival might be observed in any place. The lamb was to be roasted entire, and eaten the same night, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs; not a bone of it was to be broken; and all that was not eaten was to be consumed by fire, Exo 12:1-51 Joh 19:36 . If any one was unable to keep the Passover at the time appointed, he was to observe it on the second month; he that willfully neglected it, forfeited the covenant favor of God; while on the other hand resident foreigners were admitted to partake of it, Num 9:6-14 2Ch 30:1-27 . The direction to eat the Passover in the posture and with the equipments of travelers seems to have been observed only on the first Passover. Besides the private family festival, there were public and national sacrifices offered on each of the seven days of unleavened bread, Num 28:19 . On the second day also the first fruits of the barley harvest were offered in the temple, Lev 23:10 .Jewish writers give us full descriptions of the Passover feast, from which we gather a few particulars. Those who were to partake having performed the required purification and being assembled at the table, the master of the feast took a cup of unfermented wine, and blessed God for the fruit of the vine, of which all ten drank. This was followed by a washing of hands. The paschal lamb was then brought in, with unleavened cakes, bitter herbs, and a sauce or fruit-paste. The master of the feast then blessed God for the fruits of the earth, and gave the explanations prescribed in Exo 12:26,27, specifying each particular. After a second cup, with a second washing of hands, an unleavened cake was broken and distributed, and a blessing pronounced upon the Giver of Bread. When all had eaten sufficiently of the food before them, a third cup of thanksgiving, for deliverance from Egypt and for the gift of the law, was blessed and drunk, Mat 26:27 1Co 10:16 ; this was called “the cup of blessing.” The repast was usually closed by a fourth cup and psalms of praise, Psa 136:1-26 145:10 Mat 26:30 .Our Savior partook of the Passover for the last time, with his disciples, on the evening with which the day of his crucifixion commenced, Mat 26:17 Mar 14:12 Luk 22:7 . The following day, commencing with the sunset three hours after his death, was the Jewish Sabbath, and was also observed as “a Passover,” Joh 13:29 18:28 19:14,31. Compare Mat 27:62 .This sacred festival was both commemorative and typical in its nature and design; the deliverance which it commemorated was a type of the great salvation it foretold. The Savior identified himself with the paschal lamb as its great Antitype, in substituting the Lord’s supper for the Passover. “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us,” 1Co 5:7 ; and as we compare the innocent lamb slain in Egypt with the infinite lamb of God, the contrast teaches us how infinite is the perdition which He alone can cause to “pass over” us, and how essential it is to be under the shelter of his sprinkled blood, before the night of judgment and ruin overtakes us.The modern Jews also continue to observe the Passover. With those who live in Palestine the feast continues a week; but the Jews out of Palestine extend it to eight days, according to an ancient custom, by which the Sanhedrin sent two men to observe the first appearance of the new moon, who immediately gave notice of it to the chief of the council. For fear of error, they dept two days of the festival.As to the Christian Passover, the Lord’s supper, it was instituted by Christ when, at the last Passover supper he ate with his apostles, he gave them a symbol of his body to eat, and a symbol of his blood to drink, under the form of bread and wine; prefiguring that he should give up his body to the Jews and to death. The paschal lamb, which the Jews killed, tore to pieces, and ate, and whose blood preserved them from the destroying angel, was a type, and figure of our Savior’s death and passion, and of his blood shed for the salvation of the world.

Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

Passover

In the NT we meet with two alternative names for the great Jewish festal season of the Passover- and . These are the LXX_ equivalents for the corresponding Heb. terms in the OT, being a rough transliteration of Heb. pesa (probably through the Aramaic form pasa), and a translation of Heb. hammath (the unleavened bread, Exo 12:17), a brief form of reference to ag hammath (the feast of the unleavened bread, Exo 23:15). We have also one instance of the full phrase in Luk 22:1. Similarly is an abbreviation for (Luk 2:41); and this is parallel with the OT use of happesa (e.g. Jos 5:10) for the full ag happesa (e.g. Exo 34:25). In both cases the name of an essential feature of the feast (the lamb, the cakes) is used to denote the feast itself. The analogy of the use of the math (cakes) as a short name for the festival suggests that pesa was originally the special name for the lamb and that it is not the name of the feast transferred to the lamb. Killing and eating are just as often spoken of as keeping .

It would be impossible for readers of the LXX_, who were familiar only with Greek, to realize such word-play between passover and pass over as is found in Exodus 12 -word-play which is obvious alike in EVV_ and in Heb.; e.g. Exo 12:27 : zebhapesa sher psa, passover-sacrifice (to the Lord) who passed over. The LXX_, which uses invariably for pesa, reads in the same passage, A sacrifice to the Lord is this pasch ( ), for He screened () the houses of the people of Israel.

The Vulg._ handling of the term is very curious. At its first appearance in Exo 12:11 it is a sort of transliteration yielding the odd form Phase followed by an explanatory parenthesis, (id est, transitus) Domini. So throughout the OT, except in Ezra and Ezekiel, Phase as an indeclinable substantive continues to be used, but some caprice is shown in using sometimes Phase and sometimes phase. In Ezr 6:19-20 and Eze 45:21 the form Pascha appears: and in the NT this term is invariably used. It appears to be generally intended to mark the distinction between the name as applied to the feast and as applied to the lamb by using Pascha in the former case (facere, celebrare Pascha) and pascha in the latter (immolare, comedere, manducare pascha). Uncertainty, too, is shown as to the declension of the word, it being treated both as feminine and as neuter (e.g. Luk 2:41 in die solemni Paschae; Luk 22:8, parate nobis pascha). Similarly we have in Mar 14:1 Erat autem Pascha et Azyma, and in Luk 22:1 appropinquabat autem dies festus Azymorum, qui dicitur Pascha. In Act 12:3; Act 20:6 is found dies Azymorum.

Whether we have not here traces of two ancient Spring festivals, one pastoral (pea) and one agricultural (math), now merged into one and invested with a new significance as a historical commemoration which almost wholly obliterates the primitive origins, is a question that lies beyond the scope of this article. This much, however, may be said. The real origin of the term pesa (and so ) is, to say the least, obscure. The explanation given in Exodus 12 quite possibly indicates the well-known tendency to supply a derivation for a term from itself, especially when it is to be adapted to new uses. For , we know, a connection with (suffer), was found as early as Irenaeus (2nd cent. a.d.), who says: A Moyse ostenditur Filius Dei, cuius et diem passionis non ignoravit, sed figuratim pronunciavit, eum pascha nominans (Haer. iv. 10). Tertullian and Chrysostom repeated the error of connecting with our Lords Passion. There must have been very many, familiar only with Greek, to whom the term itself was meaningless.

1. The feast.-The Passover was a ag, i.e. a pilgrim feast characterized by joyousness; it was necessarily observed at the central sanctuary at Jerusalem. Josephus mentions more than once the large numbers that came up to the feast, and speaks of it as a particularly turbulent time when sedition was liable to break out on the slightest provocation (see Ant. XVII. ix. 3, XX. v. 3). He calculates that there were 2,700,200 capable of celebrating the Passover at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem (BJ_ VI. ix. 3; see also [for a.d. 65] BJ_ II. xiv. 3). Whatever exaggeration there may be in these numbers, it is clear that the concourse of people at the feast must have been great. According to the same authority, more than once in the unquiet years which preceded the fall of Jerusalem the Passover was made the occasion of massacre and bloodshed in which many perished.

With the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, the Passover necessarily ceased to be a ag. It became simply a domestic festival, though of peculiar preciousness. Their downfall as a nation, their being scattered abroad throughout the world, could not blot out for the Jews the memory of their redemption from Egyptian bondage, which the festival commemorated, whilst it also kept alive hopes for the days to come. The scene of the celebration was the home, and those who kept the feast were the family circle or household. But we are largely in the dark as to how the Jews observed the feast, say in a.d. 71, when it was no longer possible to go up to Jerusalem, and how exactly the celebration of the Passover (as well as other matters) was adjusted to the new order of things. All we know is that out of a period of uncertainty and dimness the Passover feast emerges as one of the most distinctive features of Judaism, one that has been made the subject of a special tractate of the Mishna (Pesaim), and one that has continued to this day as a specially valued festival.

2. The Passover as a note of time.-Twice in the Acts (Act 12:3; Act 20:6) we have the days of unleavened bread referred to as a note of time. No absolute certainty is attainable with reference to NT chronology; everything, therefore, that can shed light on it is to be welcomed. In Act 12:3 we have the fact explicitly mentioned that it was the Passover time when the occurrences there recorded took place; but unfortunately that does not give us information as to the year. The uncertainties, however, are narrowed down to the limits of a very few years, and careful calculation has shown that Herod Agrippa I. most probably died in a.d. 44. St. Peter mysteriously disappears from view, leaving us henceforth dependent on uncertain tradition for all further knowledge of his career. The unfortunate translation of in AV_ as after Easter is an obvious anachronism, unless, indeed, Easter was in the 16th cent. used indiscriminately for the Jewish and the Christian Pasch. Act 20:6 f. also probably indicates the Passover of a.d. 56 or 57 as marking the close of the missionary activity of St. Paul, who was arrested soon after (see art._ Chronology of the NT in HDB_ i. 416, 420).

Nothing could show better than these scanty notes of time how deep-rooted the custom was, how the feast was observed as regularly as the year came round. Men spoke naturally of the days of the unleavened bread as a significant point in the calendar, just as we speak of after Christmas or at Christmas. Ordinary dates dwindle into insignificance beside these fixed, outstanding seasons. Similarly we find the other primary Jewish festivals (Tabernacles and Pentecost) used in the same way-Joh 7:2 (Tabernacles), Act 2:1; Act 20:16, 1Co 16:8 (Pentecost).

3. How Passover was kept in apostolic times.-Even among the Jews the Paschal observance had undergone considerable changes in the course of time. Whilst a due reference was preserved to the all-important fact of the deliverance from Egypt, the emergence of the Jews as more or less a people, yet time and historical catastrophes had left their mark. What mention, e.g., is there in the Pentateuchal legislation of the four cups of wine? When were they introduced? We cannot tell; yet they were a settled feature of the feast in our Lords day. The cup which He took in the institution of the Lords Supper was no new thing. It is generally admitted that this was the third cup or cup of blessing which is still drunk at the conclusion of the meal (after supper, Luk 22:20, 1Co 11:25). The greatest difference, however, was made by the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. Up to that time the paschal lambs had been slain in their thousands year by year. Then it all ceased. A roasted shank-bone of a lamb is all that remains of the most notable element of the feast as originally ordained. On the other hand, the unleavened cakes and the bitter herbs (now taking the form of horse-radish) go back to primitive times.

But the present Passover liturgy contains comparatively very few relics from New Testament times (A. Edersheim, The Temple: its Ministry and Services as they were at the Time of Jesus Christ, London, n.d., p. 231). Perhaps it is more correct to say that the present Passover liturgy contains large expansions of and additions to the ritual observed in the 1st cent. a.d. What that form was exactly it is impossible to tell. It was pre-eminently a time of revolution: the breakup and passing away of the old order to give place to a new. The transformation of Passover from a ag to a purely domestic festival was not so sudden as might at first appear. Even before the destruction of Jerusalem the domestic festivities were of growing importance, although that stupendous event made an end of the whole sacrificial system and yearly festal gatherings. We may be sure, however, that the kernel of the commemoration was jealously maintained, that the essential framework of the ritual to-day was there from the first. That ritual briefly is as follows. The search for leaven on the eve of Passover with quaint formulae ushers in the feast. The festival commences with a sanctification; then comes the first cup of wine; the aphiomen (half a maah, which is reserved to be eaten at the close) is set aside; the question is asked, Why is this night distinguished from all other nights? to which a long response is given; this is followed by the first part of Hallel (Psalms 113, 114), the second cup of wine, washing of the hands; the unleavened bread (math) is eaten with bitter herbs (horse-radish); next comes Hillels ceremony (eating a piece of horse-radish placed between two pieces of unleavened bread); the aphiomen is eaten, grape after meals is said with considerable additions; then there is the third cup of wine and the opening of the door; Hallel is resumed (Psalms 115-118); Psalms 136 is recited with large expansions, followed by the fourth cup of wine and prayer for the Divine acceptance of the service; Adir hu, an impassioned song praying for the rebuilding of the Temple, brings all to a close.

Such a curious feature as the opening of the door is of uncertain date, but, though most likely later than the 1st cent. a.d., is yet of considerable age. The expansions are mostly seen in the Haggdic matter-the long narrative sections which are so conspicuous a feature of the observance. The compositions, How many are the benefits which God has conferred upon us? And it came to pass at midnight, Ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of Passover, To Him praise has ever been and ever will be due, and others, must be dated long after apostolic times. On the other hand, the Hallel and other portions of the Psalms are most probably amongst the oldest features.

One feature of the celebration on the second night of the Passover carries us back uninterruptedly to the primitive times when the Jews were settled in Canaan and were an agricultural people. It is the counting of the omer, and it most particularly reminds us that here we have originally a celebration of the recurring seasons of the year and the yearly ingathering of the earths fruits. The first-fruits of barley harvest were offered on the second day of Passover, and from then seven weeks were counted by primitive methods of calculation; this brought them to Pentecost and the beginning of wheat harvest. Though one ephah, or ten omers, of barley was cut down, only one omer of flour, or about 51 pints of our measure, was offered in the Temple on the second Paschal (Edersheim, op. cit. p. 259). Ages have passed, the Jews are scattered throughout the world, there is no longer flour to be offered, there is no omer; still at the evening service in the synagogue and on the second night of the festival in the home, as regularly as the Passover comes round, the words are said: Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast sanctified us with Thy precepts and commanded us concerning the counting of the Omer. This is the first day of the Omer. May it be Thy will, O Lord our God and the God of our fathers, to rebuild thy Temple speedily, in our days, and to make Thy law our portion. And at evening service in the synagogue daily the counting goes on until the night before Pentecost (see art._ Pentecost).

Whenever the custom may have originated, it is curious to think that still in every Jewish home, just after the third cup, or cup of blessing, has been drunk, the door is opened to admit the prophet Elijah, for whom a spare cup of wine is always set, as the forerunner of the Messiah. May the All-merciful send us Elijah the prophet who shall give us good tidings, salvation, and consolation. We think of the question: Why then say the scribes that Elijah must first come? (Mat 17:10), and of the answer: Elijah is come already. That which differentiates between Jew and Christian is mainly the recognition of Jesus as the Christ. How can we fail to feel the pathos in the impassioned prayers with which the Paschal service closes? O mighty God, rebuild Thy house speedily, speedily even in our days, rebuild it. O God, rebuild Thy Temple speedily! and in the aspiration repeated more than once, but especially before the fourth cup: Next year in Jerusalem! We wonder how far these words really express the yearning of the Jewish heart. Words and formulae often live on and survive the original desire, very intense and sincere, which prompted them.

The question arises, as in the matter of keeping Sabbath on the seventh day, whether the early Christians continued to observe these festivals just the same as the Jews. They did not at once break away from the practices in which they had been brought up (see, e.g., Act 3:1). The Christian Churches in Judaea existed as Jewish sects (C. von Weizscker, The Apostolic Age, i.2 [London, 1897] 175), and it is with Jewish Christians that we are first of all concerned. In all probability they went on for years observing the festivals with their old Jewish significance as they also complied with other traditional usages. J. Bingham, indeed, on very slender grounds holds that the first Christians of Jerusalem did not keep Easter with the Jews on what day of the week scever it fell, but on the Sunday following in honour of our Saviours resurrection (Ant. XX. v. 4 [in Works, Oxford, 1855, vol. vii.]). Apart even from the loose wording here, when we come to look into matters we see that he has little, if any, authority for the belief. The first day of the week, the Lords Day, was the regular, weekly commemoration of our Lords resurrection. It is more than doubtful if there was an annual commemoration (Easter) in apostolic times.

But the old runs into the new. Even though still marking events by the days of unleavened bread (Act 12:3), they might well invest the season with a new significance as time went on, and associate it with a new commemoration. When the apostles came to write of the bondage of sin and the new liberty and life in Christ, their teaching would be all the more easily understood and more lovingly accepted, because to many of their readers it recalled the Passover table of the family and the sound of silent voices (G. M. Mackie, The Jewish Passover in the Christian Church, ExpT_ xiii. [1901-02] 392).

St. Paul, however, who divined most accurately the true genius of Christianity as a religion with universal aims, evidently disapproved of the continuance of Judaism as a system crippling the spiritual energies of the Church, the new liberty in Christ. He explicitly deprecated the observance of Jewish feasts (Gal 4:8-11) on the part of purely Gentile converts. Col 2:16 is equally decided. Though he was, as he himself proudly claimed, a Hebrew of Hebrews, it is more than questionable if he kept the Passover after his conversion and after he had grasped the meaning of Christianity for the Gentile world. And when he makes an allusion to the feast in writing to the Corinthians (1Co 5:6-8), it shows only that the feast per se has no longer any interest for him. It may, indeed, show incidentally that it was somewhere about the time of its celebration that he was writing his Epistle; but his allusions are purely symbolic. He gives to the Paschal lamb and to the unleavened bread a meaning of which his forefathers never dreamed. To St. Paul more than to any other is it due that Christianity broke away from the swaddling-clothes of Judaism and became a faith with a far more glorious redemption than the Exodus to commemorate.

As L. Duchesne remarks, There was no reason why Christians should observe the feasts and fasts of the Jewish calendar. They were allowed to drop out of use. Nevertheless, each year one of these holy days, the Paschal Feast or the Feast of the Azymes, recalled the memory of the Passion of the Saviour. The memories which Israel had connected, and still connected, with this anniversary might no longer be of interest; but it was impossible to forget that Our Lord had died on one of those days. The Pasch was therefore retained, though the ritual details of the Jewish observance were omitted (Early History of the Christian Church, Eng. tr._ of 4th ed., i. [London, 1909] 207 f.).

4. Christ our Passover.-We have already referred in passing to 1Co 5:6-8, but both here and in 1Co 15:20; 1Co 15:23 there are allusions to Passover (the firstfruits, ) which call for a rather more extended notice. For they show us better than anything else how the transition from the Jewish to the Christian Pasch was made, how the new interest and commemoration swallowed up and superseded the old. Once again Passover was in all probability being celebrated in the Jewish community. But St. Paul, perhaps for the very first time, was quick to see an illustration of Christ and His redeeming work in the sacrifice of the lamb, and in the complete removal of leaven which preceded the feast (Exo 12:15) an illustration of the moral purification which Christianity calls for. He sees, again, in the first-fruits offered at the Passover an illustration of what Christ is in His resurrection to the harvest field of the dead.

(a) : our Paschal lamb, i.e. of Christians as distinct from Jews. It is altogether unnecessary to see in the lamb of the original institution an actual prototype of our Lord. To see in the Paschal lamb the prefiguration of Jesus Christ whose death is the sacrifice which averts the wrath of God from His community (C. von Orelli, art._ Passover in Schaff-Herzog_, viii. 370) is to go beyond what is warranted. The reference is too casual for so much to be built upon it. The Apostle never again speaks of Christ as a lamb. The lamb of the Passover, moreover, was partaken of in a festal meal, and St. Paul was probably thinking specially of this. For he immediately follows with Therefore let us keep festival (); not with a reference to any feast in particular, but to the new life of joyousness Christians are to live, in which sincerity and truth are essential (so Chrysostom, Hom. in 1 Cor. xv. 3. 8). Again we have Christ compared to a lamb without blemish and without spot (1Pe 1:19), absolute purity, however, being a general requirement in any sacrifice offered to God (Deu 17:1). Allegory soon became busy with these representations of the Lord. He was the Lamb of God (Joh 1:29) rather in antithesis to the whole sacrificial system of the Jews. The majestic apocalyptic figure of the Lamb which is all-prominent in Rev. is the outgrowth of this conception, and is mainly responsible for the Agnus Dei of Christian art._

(b) , LXX_ for Heb. reshth (Lev 23:10), firstfruits. It is almost impossible that St. Paul should use this particular term without having in mind a reference to the offering of first-fruits at Passover, especially when we take it in connection with Lev 5:6. R. F. Weymouth (The NT in Modern Speech3, London, 1909, p. 469) translates (no doubt advisedly) 1Co 15:20, being the first to do so of those who are asleep; and again 1Co 15:23, Christ having been the first to rise: but this entirely obscures the beautiful figure of the harvest field. As used by St. Paul, the gathering of first-fruits and the presenting of them to God is a pledge that the whole harvest shall be reaped.

5. Passover and the Eucharist.-Is there any connection between the Passover of the Jews and the Lords Supper of the Christian Church? Our limitations forbid any treatment in detail of what is still a very vexed question. It must be admitted that the materials are scanty and not free from obscurity. The difference, e.g., between the Synoptists and the Fourth Gospel as to the actual time when the Lord held His Last Supper, whether the meal was an anticipated Passover or Passover itself, is well known. Referring to the repeated attempts to harmonize them, Duchesne sensibly remarks: It is wiser to acknowledge that, on this point, we are not in a position to reconcile the evangelists (op. cit. p. 209, n._ 4). And why trouble, when even the fact that the Lord instituted some memorial observance for His disciples is itself open to question? Wilder extremists see in the Supper, not a simple memorial instituted naturally by Jesus and suggested by the circumstances of the time, but the influence of mystery-religions and strange cults with their eating and drinking of a god.

One thing is pretty certain. There was a meal in some form or another associated with Christianity from the very beginning. In Act 2:42 the , the breaking of the bread, suggests a distinctive custom of the first disciples. Still more in Act 20:7 is it apparent that this custom was observed on the first day of the week, and it becomes a more definitely religious ordinance. More than all we have fortunately St. Pauls treatment of a crying scandal in the Church at Corinth which incidentally gives us some light on the practice of the times (1Co 10:16 f., 1Co 11:17 ff.). From the first, apparently, the commemoration (Eucharist) was observed in connection with a common meal to symbolize and to foster fraternity (Agape). The Apostles action here was to set a hedge round the commemoration and rescue it from the disgraceful abuses which attended the common meal. It distinctly contributed to the ultimate separation of the Eucharist as a purely religious and symbolic feast, although at the time of the Didache (c._ a.d. 100) the Agape appears still to have been associated with it ( 10), at any rate in certain localities.

But St. Pauls mention of the cup of blessing (1Co 10:16), coupled with the fact that he had already seen in the Paschal lamb an illustration of Christ, makes it clear that he at any rate viewed this ordinance as the Christian counterpart of the Jewish Passover. Edersheim (LT_4, London, 1887, ii. 511) is very decided as to this relation, and even goes so far as to venture the opinion that the broken bread was none other than the aphiomen or unleavened cake eaten at the close of the meal. A. C. McGiffert (A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897, p. 70) seems hardly consistent in saying there is no indication in our sources that the Lords Supper was viewed as thus related to the Jewish Passover, as he remarks, It can hardly be doubted, in other words, that it was believed, at any rate at an early day, if not from the beginning, in the church of Jerusalem, that Jesus had commanded them to do as they actually were doing. If Jesus gave the command He gave it at the Paschal meal, or at least in close association with it. Whether in the words and acts of Jesus there is an implied reference to the Passover or not, the association of the Eucharist with the Passover was a natural one, though we may have to admit that the Paschal features in the language of St. Paul represent the later reflexion of a period when the idea of Christ as the true Passover (1Co 5:7, Joh 19:36) had influenced the conception of the institution (art._ Eucharist in ERE_ v. 543a). We may notice that really St. Pauls language is separated from the Crucifixion only by a score of years or so, no great interval after all. It is the more natural to think, considering the relation of Christianity to Judaism, that we have here a close point of connection between the old and the new.

6. Passover and Easter.-The true celebration of Easter, the festival of our Lords resurrection, was, as we have seen above, a thing of weekly occurrence. The first day of the week became established even in the Apostolic Church as the special day of joyful commemoration on the part of Christians. In that they were most sharply in contrast with the Jews. But whatever obscurity may hang round the original connection between the Paschal feast and the Eucharist, there can be no question that when Easter came to be observed, as it was observed at the same season of the year,-in spring-it was regarded as the counterpart of the Jewish Passover. Speaking of the movable feasts, Duchesne says: Dans ces ftes, comme en tant dautres choses, lEglise est, un certain degr, hritire de la Synagogue. Lanne ecclsiastique nest autre chose que la combinaison de deux calendriers, lun juif et lautre chrtien. Au calendrier juif correspondent les ftes mobiles, au calendrier chrtien les ftes fixes (Origines du culte chrtien4, Paris, 1909, p. 225). After observing that this symmetry must not be pressed too far, he remarks: Les chrtiens ne conservrent point toutes les ftes juives; et quant celles quils retinrent, ils y attachrent de bonne heure une signification approprie leurs croyances. On ne conserva que celles de Pques et de la Pentecte (ib.).

This correspondence is made abundantly clear by the fact that the name for the festival of the resurrection of our Lord is in most countries simply the name Pascha reproduced in various forms. Thus Lat. festa paschalia, which has passed into Fr. as Pques (a plur. form), Ital. Pasqua, etc. (see CED_, s.v. Pasch). The name Easter is, quite differently, from A.S._ plur. estron, a relic of heathenism with dim suggestions of the worship of nature powers awakening in spring. But even where Easter became the settled name, some form of Pascha such as Pasch existed side by side with it.

It was only to be expected that with the weekly celebration there should gradually grow up a special yearly commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is so tremendous and vital a fact that as each Paschal season came round the tendency would be more and more to give importance to the annual celebration at the very season when our Lord died and rose again. But this was after the Apostolic Age.

So there is no need to enter with any minuteness upon a controversy which, springing up in the 2nd cent., continued for long to agitate the Christian Church and was the occasion of great and widespread bitterness of feeling. Pity that such things should be! But it was a controversy that grew up out of this very relation of the Christian to the Jewish feast; and it had reference to the time when the festival should be kept. A large section of the Church, believing that on the 14th Nisan, the day of the Paschal sacrifice, Jesus also died, were firm in their resolve to keep their Pasch on the same day as did the Jews. (The term Pascha, it may be said, originally included a reference to the death as well as the resurrection of Christ. A distinction was made between , the Pascha crucifixionis, and , the Pascha resurrectionis.) On the other hand, seeing that the 14th Nisan could fall on any day of the week, and therefore the celebration of Easter also, the Roman Church, and those who were influenced by it, kept the festival on Sunday as a fixed day, arriving at the date by more or less intricate calculation. It was not, however, by any means the same Sunday that Christians observed even where this principle obtained. The former, mainly Asians, were called Quartodecimans or Fourteenthers. At first they agreed to differ. Polycarp [c._ a.d. 150], during his stay in Rome, tried to convince Pope Anicetus that the quartodeciman use was the only one permissible. He did not succeed. Neither could Anicetus succeed in persuading the old master to adopt the Roman method. They parted, nevertheless, on the best of terms (Duchesne, Early Hist. of the Christian Church, i. 210). A very different state of things followed when a later pope, Victor, interfered to secure one uniform way. It is a sorry story of schism and strife. But where now are the Tessarescaedecatitae, Audiani, Sabbatiani, Protopaschitae and other curious sects, who would not hold any communion with any that did not keep the Pasch at the same time that the Jews did? (Bingham, op. cit. XX. v. 3).

The two festivals still exist side by side. It is true that, quite apart from the Jewish feast, Christians would still have celebrated the resurrection of the Lord. But, be that as it may, the historical connection of Christianity and Judaism is indubitably signified as year by year at the same time the Christian keeps Easter and the Jew Passover-though with what radical difference of meaning!

Literature.-In addition to works and articles quoted throughout, see artt._ Passover in HDB_ (W. J. Moulton), in EBi_ (I. Benzinger), in JE_ (E. G. Hirsch); art._ Pasch or Passover in CE_ (C. Aherne); in ERE_, artt._ Festivals and Fasts (Christian) (J. G. Carleton), Festivals and Fasts (Hebrew) (F. H. Woods); A. Hilgenfeld, Der Paschastreit der alten Kirche nach seiner Bedeutung fr die Kirchengeschichte, Halle, 1860; Eighteen Treatises from the Mischna (including Pesahim), tr._ D. A. de Sola and M. J. Raphall, London, 1843; F. Delitzsch, Der Passahritus zur Zeit des zweiten Tempels, Zeitschr. fr die ges. luther. Theologie und Kirche, xvi. [1855] 257 ff.; P. Gardner, The Origin of the Lords Supper, London, 1893; A. A. Green, The Revised Hagada, do., 1897; H. C. Trumbull, The Blood Covenant, do., 1887.

J. S. Clemens.

Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church

PASSOVER

A solemn festival of the Jews, instituted in commemoration of their coming out of Egypt; because, the night before their departure, the destroying angel, who put to death the first-born of the Egyptians, passed over the houses of the Hebrews, without entering therein; because they were marked with the blood of the lamb, which was killed the evening before, and which for this reason was called the paschal lamb.

See Exo 12:1-51 : Brown’s Dict. article FEAST; and Mc’Ewen on the Types. p. 172.

Fuente: Theological Dictionary

Passover

Jews of all classes and ways of thinking look forward to the Passover holidays with the same eagerness as Christians do to Christmastide. It is for them the great event of the year. With the exception of the Temple sacrifices, their manner of observing it differs but little from that which obtained in the time of Christ. Directions for keeping the feast were carefully laid down in the Law (see Exodus 12, 13, etc.), and carried out with great exactness after the Exile.

THE PREPARATION

The feast of the Passover begins on the fourteenth day of Nisan (a lunar month which roughly corresponds with the latter part of March and the first part of April) and ends with the twenty-first. The Jews now, as in ancient times, make elaborate preparations for the festival. Every house is subjected to a thorough spring cleaning.

The Saturday preceding the day of the Pasch (fifteenth) is called a “Great Sabbath”, because it is supposed that the tenth day of the month Abib (or Nisan) — when the Israelites were to select the Paschal lambs, before their deliverance from Egypt — fell on a Sabbath. On this Sabbath, the day of the following week on which the Passover is to fall is solemnly announced.

Some days before the feast, culinary and other utensils to be used during the festival are carefully and legally purified from all contact with leaven, or leavened bread. They are then said to be kosher. Special sets of cooking and table utensils are not unfrequently kept in every household.

On the evening of the thirteenth, after dark, the head of the house makes the “search for leaven” according to the manner indicated in the Mishna (Tractate Pesachim, I), which is probably the custom followed by the Jews for at least two thousand years. The search is made by means of a lighted wax candle. A piece of ordinary, or leavened, bread is left in some conspicuous place, generally on a window-sill. The search begins by a prayer containing a reference to the command to put away all leaven during the feast. The place of the piece of bread just mentioned is first marked to indicate the beginning of the search. The whole house is then carefully examined, and all fragments of leaven are carefully collected on a large spoon or scoop by means of a brush or bundle of quills. The search is ended by coming back to the piece of bread with which it began. This, also is collected on the scoop. The latter, with its contents, and the brush are then carefully tied up in a bundle and suspended over a lamp to prevent mice from scattering leaven during the night and necessitating a fresh search. The master of the house then proclaims in Aramaic that all the leaven that is in his house, of which he is unaware, is to him no more than dust.

During the forenoon of the next day (fourteenth) all the leaven that remains is burnt, and a similar declaration is made. From this time till the evening of the 22nd, when the feast ends, only unleavened bread is allowed. The legal time when the use of leavened bread was prohibited was understood to be the noon on the fourteenth Nisan; but the rabbis, in order to run no risks, and to place a hedge around the Law, anticipated this by one or two hours.

THE PASCHAL FEAST

On this day, the fourteenth, the first-born son of each family, if he be above thirteen, fasts in memory of the deliverance of the first-born of the Israelites, when the destroying angel passed over Egypt. On the evening of the fourteenth the male members of the family, attired in their best, attend special services in the synagogue.

On their return home they find the house lit up and the Seder, or Paschal Table, prepared. The head of the family takes his place at the head of the table, where there is an arm-chair prepared for him with cushions or pillows. A similar chair is also ready for the mistress of the house. The meal is called Seder by the Ashkenaziac Jews, and Haggadah (because of the story of the deliverance recited during it) by the Sephardic Jews. All the members of the Jewish family, including servants, sit round the table.

In front of the head of the family is the Seder-dish, which is of such a kind as to allow three unleavened cakes or matzoth, each wrapped in a napkin, to be placed on it one above the other. A shank bone of lamb (with a small portion of meat attached) which has been roasted on the coals is placed, together with an egg that has been roasted in hot ashes, on another dish above the three unleavened cakes. The roasted shank represents the Paschal lamb, and the roasted egg the chagigah, or free will offerings, made daily in the Temple. Bitter herbs, such as parsley and horseradish, a kind of sop called charoseth, consisting of various fruits pounded into a mucilage and mixed with vinegar, and salt water, are arranged in different vessels, sometimes disposed like candelabra above the leavened bread. The table is also furnished with wine, and cups or glasses for each person, an extra cup being always left for the prophet Elias, whom they expect as the precursor of the Messiah.

The First Cup

When all are seated around the table the first cup of wine is poured out for each. The head of the house rises and thanks God for the fruits of the vine and for the great day which they are about to celebrate. He then sits down and drinks his cup of wine in a reclining posture, leaning on his left arm. The others drink at the same time. In the time of the Temple the poorest Jew was to drink four cups of wine during this joyful meal; and if he happened to be too poor, it was to be supplied out of public funds. Though four cups are prescribed, the quantity is not restricted to that amount. Some water is generally added to the wine. In early days red wine was used; but on account of the fear of fostering the groundless blood accusations against Jews, this usage was discontinued. Unfermented raisin wine or Palestinian wine is now generally used.

The Bitter Herbs and Afikoman

After drinking the first cup the master rises and washes his hands, the others remaining seated, and Eldersheim is of the opinion that it was at this point of the supper that Christ washed the disciples feet. After washing his hands, the head of the family sits down, takes a small quantity of bitter herbs, dips them in salt water, and eats them, reclining on his left elbow. Jewish interpreters say that only the first Passover was to be eaten standing, and with circumstances of haste. During the Passovers commemorative of the first they reclined “like a king [or free man] at his ease, and not as slaves” — in this probably following the example of the independent Romans with whom they came into contact. After the head of the family has eaten his portion of bitter herbs, he takes similar portions, dips them in salt water, and hands them round to be eaten by the others.

He then takes out the middle unleavened cake, breaks it in two, and hides away one-half under a pillow or cushion, to be distributed and eaten after supper. If this practice existed in the time of Christ, it is not improbable that it was from this portion, called afikoman, that the Eucharist was instituted. As soon as this portion is laid aside, the other half is replaced, the dish containing the unleavened cakes is uncovered, and all, standing up, take hold of the dish and solemnly lift it up, chanting slowly in Aramaic: “This is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in Egypt. This year here, next year in Jerusalem. This year slaves, next year free.”

The Second Cup The dish is then replaced and the shank bone, roasted egg, etc. restored to their places above it. All sit down, and the youngest son asks why this night above all other nights they eat bitter herbs, unleavened bread, and in a reclining posture. The head of the house then tells how their fathers were idolaters when God chose Abraham, how they were slaves in Egypt, how God delivered them, etc. God is praised and blessed for His wondrous mercies to their nation, and this first part of the ceremony is brought to a close by their breaking forth with the recitation of the first part of the Hallel (Psalms 112 and 114) and drinking the second cup of wine, which is triumphantly held aloft and called the cup of the Haggadah or story of deliverance.

The Meal Proper

The ceremony so far has been only introductory. The meal proper now begins. First all wash their hands; the president then recites a blessing over the unleavened cakes, and, after having dipped small fragments of them in salt water, he eats them reclining. He next distributes pieces to the others. He also takes some bitter herbs, dips them in the charoseth, and gives them to the others to be eaten. He next makes a kind of sandwich by putting a portion of horse-radish between two pieces of unleavened bread and hands it around, saying that it is in memory of the Temple and of Hillel, who used to wrap together pieces of the paschal lamb, unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and eat them, in fulfilment of the command of Exodus 12:8.

The supper proper is now served, and consists of many courses of dishes loved by Jews, such as soup, fish, etc., prepared in curious ways unknown to Gentiles. At the end of the meal some of the children snatch the afikoman that has been hidden away, and it has to be redeemed by presents — a custom probably arising from a mistranslation of the Talmud. It is then divided between all present and eaten. Oesterly and Box think that this is a survival from an earlier time when a part of the paschal lamb was kept to the end and distributed, so as to be the last thing eaten.

The Third Cup

When the afikoman is eaten, the third cup is filled; and grace after meals is said, and the third cup drunk in a reclining posture. A cup of wine is now poured out for the prophet Elias, in a dead silence which is maintained for some time, and the door is opened. Imprecations against unbelievers, taken from the Psalms and Lamentations, are then recited. These were introduced only during the Middle Ages.

The Fourth Cup

After this the fourth cup is filled and the great Hallel (Psalms 115-118) and a prayer of praise are recited. Before drinking the fourth cup, the Jews of some countries recite five poetical pieces and then the fourth cup is drunk. At the end a prayer asking God to accept what they have done is added. Among the German and Polish Jews this prayer is followed by popular songs.

THE REMAINDER OF PASSOVER WEEK

The same ceremonies are observed the next evening. According to the Law the fifteenth and twenty-first were to be kept as solemn festivals and days of rest. At present the fifteenth and sixteenth, the twenty-first and twenty-second are whole holidays, a custom introduced among the Jews of the Dispersion to make sure that they fulfilled the precepts of the Law on the proper day. The other days are half-holidays. Special services are held in the synagogues throughout the Passover week. Formerly the date of the Pasch was fixed by actual observations [Schurer, History of the Jewish People (Edinburgh, 1902), I, II, Append. 3]. It is now deduced from astronomical calculations.

———————————–

OESTERLY AND BOX, Religion and Worship of the synagogue (London, 1907); DEMBITZ, Jewish Services in the Synagogue and Home (Philadelphia, 1898); GINSBURG in KITTO, Cyclop. Of Bibl. Lit..; ABRAHAMS in HASTINGS, Dict. Of the Bible, s.v. Passover; SMITH, Bibl. Dict.; ZANGWILL, Dreamers of the Ghetto (London): JACOBS, Jewish Year Book (LONDON, annual); EDERSHEIM, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, II (London, 1900), 479.

C. AHERNETranscribed by John Looby

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia

Passover

the first and most important of the three great annual festivals the other two being pentecost and the Feast of tabernacles on which the male population appeared before the Lord in Jerusalem. In the present article it is our aim to combine the Scriptural notices of this institution with whatever information ancient or modern authors give, especially the Talmudical regulations for its observance. SEE FESTIVAL.

I. Name and its Signification The Heb. word , Pesach (from , pasach, to pass through, to leap, to halt [2Sa 4:4; 1Ki 18:21], then tropically to pass by in the sense of sparing, to save, to show mercy [Exo 12:13; Exo 12:23; Exo 12:27; Isa 31:5]), denotes

1. An overstepping, passover, and is so rendered by Josephus (Ant. 2:14, 6, ), Aquila (), and the English version.

2. It signifies the paschal sacrifice, by virtue of which, according to the divine appointment, the passing over, or saving, was effected (Exo 12:21; Exo 12:27; Exo 12:48; 2Ch 30:15).

3. It designates the paschal meal on the evening of the 14th of Nisan; while the seven following days are called , the feast of unleavened bread (Lev 23:5-6), and hence the expression , the morrow of the Passover, for the 15th of Nisan (Num 33:3; Jos 5:11). It is used synecdochically for the whole festival of unleavened bread, which commenced with the paschal meal (Deu 16:1-3; comp. also Eze 45:21, where is explained by ), written fully (Exo 34:25). The whole feast, including the paschal-eve, is also denominated

, the festival of unleavened bread, , , festum azymorum (Exo 23:15; Lev 23:6 : 2Ch 8:13; Ezr 6:22; Luk 22:1; Luk 22:7; Act 12:3; Act 20:6; Josephus, War, 2:1, 3); or simply , (Exo 12:17; Mar 14:1). The simple name Pesach ( = ; Sept. 2Ch 30:15; 2Ch 35:1; 2Ch 35:11; Aramaean = ; Mar 14:1), however, is the one commonly used by the Jews to the present day to denote the festival of unleavened bread; and it is for this reason that this appellation is retained untranslated in the Sept. and N.T.

Some have taken the meaning of , the root, of , to be that of passing through, and have referred its application here to the passage of the Red Sea. Hence the Vulgate has rendered by transitus, Philo (De Vit. Mosis, lib. 3, c. 29) by , and Gregory of Nazianzum by . Augustine take’s the same view of the word; as do also Von Bohlen and a few other modern critics. Jerome applies transitus both to the passing over of the destroyer and the passing through the Red Sea (in Matthew 26). But the true sense of the Hebrew substantive is plainly indicated in Exo 12:27; and the best authorities are agreed that never expresses passing through, but that its primary meaning is leaping over. Hence the verb is regularly used with the preposition . But since, when we jump or step over anything, we do not tread upon it. the word has a secondary meaning to spare, or to show mercy (comp. Isa 31:5 with Exo 12:27). The Sept. has therefore used in Exo 12:13; and Onkelos has rendered , the sacrifice of the Passover, by , the sacrifice of mercy. In the same purport agree Theodotion, Symmachus, several of the fathers, and the best modern critics. Our own translators, by using the word Passover,’ have made clear Exo 12:12; Exo 12:23 and other passages, which are not intelligible in the Sept. nor in several other versions. (See Bahr, Symbolik, 2:627; Ewald, Alterthumer, p. 390; Gesenius, Thes. s.v.; Drusius, Noce Majores, in Exo 12:27; Carpzov, App. Crit. p. 394.)

Some of the Church fathers, not knowing the Heb. signification, have derived from the Greek to suffer. Thus Chrysostom tells us, , .(Homil. 5, in 1 Tim.); Irenaeus says: A Moyse osteniditur Filius Dei, cujus et diem passionis non ignoravit, sed-figuratim pronunciavit eum pascha niominans?(Adv. Fvr .iv. 22); Tertullian affirms, Hanc solemnitatem- praecanebat (sc. Moyset) et adjecit, Pascha esse Domini, id est, passionem Christi (Adv. Judaeos, c. x, s. f.). Chrvsostom appears to avail himself of it for a paronomasia in the above passage, in another place the format states the true meaning: . Gregory of Nazianzum seems to do the same (Orat. xlii), since he elsewhere (as is stated above) explains as (see Suicer, s.v.). Augustine, who took this latter view, has a passage which is worth quoting:

Pascha, fratres, non sicut quidam existimant, Grsecum nomen esth sed Hebranem; opportunissime tamen occurrit in hoc nomine qusedam congrnentia utrarumquie linuutirunm. Quia eniln peati Graece dicitur, idea Pascha passio putata est, velut hoc nomen a passione sit appellatunm; in sna vero lingna, hoc est in Ilebraea, Pascha transi-us dicitur; propterea tune priinum Pascha celeb’ravit populus Dei, quando ex AEgypto fugientes, rubrum mare transierunt. Nunc ergo tigura illa prophetica in veritate completa est, cum sicut ovis ad imnlolandum ducitur Christus, cujus sanguine illitis postibus nostris, id est, cnjus signo crucis signatis frontibus nostris, a perditione hujus saeculi tanquam a captivitate vel iiiterempttone AEgyptia liberamur; et agimus saluberrimum transitum cum a diabolo transimus ad Christum, et ab isto instabili saeculo ad ejus fundatissimum regnum, Col 1:13 (In Joan. Tract. 4).

II. Biblical Institution and Observance of the Passover (from the time of Moses to the Captivity). The following are the principal passages in the Pentateuch relating to the Passover: Exo 12:1-51, in which there is a full account of its original institution and first observance in Egypt; Exo 13:3-10, in which the unleavened bread is spoken of in connection with the sanctification of the first-born, but there is no mention of the paschal lamb? Exo 23:14-19, where, under the name of the feast of unleavened bread, it is first connectced with the two other great annual festivals, and also with the Sabbath, and in which the paschal lamb is styled My sacrifice; Exo 34:18-26, in which the festival is brought into the same connection, with immediate reference to the redemption of the first-born, aid in which the words of Exo 23:18, regarding the paschal lamb, are repeated; Lev 23:4-14, where it is mentioned in the same connection, the days of holy convocation are especially noticed, and the enactment is prospectively given respecting the offering of the first sheaf of harvest, with the offerings which were to accompany it, when the Israelites possessed the Promised Land; Num 9:1-14, in which the divine word repeats the command for the observance of the Passover at the commencement of the second year after the Exodus, and in which the observance of the Passover in the second month, for those who could not participate in it at the regular time, is instituted; Num 28:16-25, where directions are given for the offerings which were to be made on each of the seven-days of the festival; Deu 16:1-6, where the command is prospectively given that the Passover, and the other great festivals, should be observed in the place which the Lord might choose in the Land of Promise, and where there appears to be an allusion to the Chagigah, or voluntary peace-offerings. There are five distinct statutes on the Passover in the 12th and 13th chapters of Exodus (Exo 12:2-28; Exo 12:42-51; Exo 13:1-10).

1. At the Exode. In the first institution of the Passover it was ordained that the head of each family was to select, on the 10th of Nisan (i.e. four days beforehand, supposed to represent the four generations which had elapsed since the children of Israel had come to Egypt, Gen 15:16), a male lamb or goat of the first year, and without blemish, to kill it on the eve of the 14th, sprinkle the blood with a sprig of hyssop on the two side- posts and the lintel of the door of the house-being the parts of the house most obvious to passers-by, and to which texts of Scripture were afterwards affixed, SEE MEZUZAH to roast (and not boil) the whole animal with its head, legs, and entrails, without breaking a bone thereof, and when thoroughly done, he and his family were to eat it on the same evening together with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, having their loins girt, their sandals on their feet, and their staves in their hands. If the family, however, were too small in number to consume it, a neighboring family might join them, provided they were circumcised sons of Israel, or household servants and strangers who had been received into the community by the rite of circumcision. The whole of the Pesach was to be consumed on the premises, and if it could not be eaten it was not to be removed from the house, but burned on the spot on the following morning. The festival was to be celebrated seven days, i.e. till the twenty-first of the month, during which. time unleavened bread was to be eaten, built cessation from all work and trade was only to be on the first and seventh day of the festival. Though instituted to dispute them from the general destruction of Egypt’s first-born, the Israelites were told to regard the Passover as an ordinance forever, to teach its meaning to their children, and that the transgression of the enactments connected therewith was to be punished with excision (Exo 12:1-28; Exo 12:48-51).

The precise meaning of the phrase , between the two evenings, which is used with reference to the time when the paschal animal is to be slain (Exo 12:6; Lev 23:5; Num 9:3; Num 9:5), as well as in connection with the offering of the evening sacrifice (Exo 29:39; Exo 29:41; Num 28:4), and elsewhere (Exo 16:12; Exo 30:8), is greatly disputed. The Samaritans, the Karaites, and Aben-Ezra, who are followed by Michaelis, Rosenmller, Gesenius, Maurer, Kalisch, Knobel, Keil, and most modern commentators, take it to denote the space between the setting of the sun and the moment when the stars become visible, or when darkness sets in, i.e. between six and seven o’clock. Accordingly, Aben-Ezra explains the phrase between the two evenings as follows: Behold we have two evenings, the first is when the sun sets, and that is at the time when it disappears beneath the horizon; while the second is at the time when the light disappears which is reflected in the clouds, and there is between them an interval of about one hour and twenty minutes (Comment. on Exo 12:6). Tradition, however, interprets the phrase between the two evenings to mean from afternoon to the disappearing of the sun, the first evening being from the time when the sun begins to decline from its vertical or noontide point towards the west; and the second from its going down and vanishing out of sight, which is the reason why the daily sacrifice might be killed at 12:30 P.M. on a Friday (Mishna, Pesachim, v, 1; Maimonides, Hilchoth Korban Pesach. 1:4). But as the paschal lamb was slain after the daily sacrifice, it generally took place from 2:30 to 5:50 P.M. (Joseph. War, 6:9, 3).

We should have deemed it superfluous to add that such faithful followers of Jewish tradition as Saadia, Rashi, Kimchi, Ralbag, etc., spouse this definition of the ancient Jewish canons, were it not for the assertion which is made in some of the best Christian commentaries that Jarchi [= Rashi] and Kimchi hold that the two evenings were the time immediately before and immediately after sunset, so that the point of time at which the sun sets divides them. Now Rashi most distinctly declares, From the sixth hour [= twelve o’clock] and upwards is called between the two evenings ( ), because the sun begins to set for the evening. Hence it appears to me that the phrase between the two evenings denotes the hours between the evening of the day and the evening of the night. The evening of the day is from the beginning of the seventh hour [= immediately after noontide], when the evening shadows begin to (Commentary on Exo 12:6). Kimchi says almost literally the same thing: is from the time when the sun begins to incline towards the west, which is from the sixth hour [=twelve o’clock] and upwards. It is called because there are two evenings, for from the time’ that the sun begins to decline is one evening, and the other evening is after the sun has gone down, and it is the space between which is meant by between the two evenings (Lexicon, s.v. ). Eustathius, in a note on the seventeenth book of the Odyssey, shows that the Greeks too held that there were two evenings, one which they called the latter evening ( ), at the close of the day; and the other the former evening ( v), which commenced immediately after noon (see Bochart. Hieroz. pt. 1, lib. 2, cap. 1; Oper. 2:559, ed. 1712).

2. In the post-exodus legislation on this festival several enactments were introduced at different times, which both supplement and modify the original institution. Thus it is ordained that all the male members of the congregation are to appear in the sanctuary be fore the Lord with the offering of firstlings (Exo 23:14-19; Exo 34:18-26); that the first sheaf of the harvest () is to be offered on the morrow after the Sabbath (Lev 23:4-14); that those who, through defilement or absence from home, are prevented from keeping the. Passover on the 14th of Nisan, are in celebrate it on the 14th of the following month (Num 9:1-14); that special sacrifices are to be offered or each day of the festival (Num 28:16-25); than the paschal animals are to be slain in the national sanctuary, and that the blood is to be sprinkled on the altar instead of the two door-posts and lintels of the doors in the respective dwellings of the families (Deu 16:1-8). The ancient Jewish canons, therefore, rightly distinguished between the Egyptian Passover ( ) and the Permanent Passover ( ), and point out. the following differences between them

(a) In the former the paschal animal was to be selected on the tenth of Nisan (Exo 12:3).

(b) It was to be killed by the head of each family in his own dwelling, and its blood sprinkled on the two door-posts and the lintel of every house (Exo 12:6-7; Exo 12:22). dressed in their journeying garments (Exo 12:11).

(d) Unleavened bread was to be eaten with the paschal animal only on the first night, and not necessarily during the whole seven days, although the Israelites were almost compelled to eat unleavened bread, because they had no time to prepare leaven (Exo 12:39).

(e) No one who partook of the Pesach was to go out of the house until the morning (Exo 12:22).

(f) The women might partake of the paschal animal.

(g) Those who were Levitically impure were not necessarily precluded from sharing the meal.

(h) No firstlings were required to be offered.

(i) No sacrifices were brought.

(j) The festival lasted only one day, as the Israelites commenced their march on the 15th of Nisan (Mishna. Pesachim, 9:5; Tosiftha, Pesachim, 7; Maimonides, Iad Ha-Che zaka, Hilchoth Korban Pesach. 10:15).

Now these regulations were peculiar to the first Passover, and were afterwards modified and altered in the Permanent Passover. Elias of Byzantium adds that there was no command to burn the fat on the altar, that neither the Hallel nor any other hymn was sung, as was required in later times in accordance with Isa 30:29, and that the lambs were not slain in the consecrated place (quoted by Carpzov, App. Crit. p. 406. For other Jewish authorities, see Otho’s Lexicon, s.v. Pascha).

Dr. Davidson, indeed (Introduction to the O.T. 1:84, etc.), insists that the Deuteronomist (Deu 16:1-7) gives other variations that he mentions both , small cattle, and , oxen, as the paschal sacrifice, and states that the paschal victim is to be boiled (), while in the original institution in Exodus 12 it is enacted that the paschal sacrifice is to be a only, and is to be roasted. But against this is to be urged

(1) That the word in Deu 15:1-2, as frequently is used for the whole festival of unleavened bread, which commenced with the paschal sacrifice, and which indeed Dr. Davidson a little farther on admits, and that the sacrifices of sheep and oxen in question do not refer to the paschal victim, but to all the sacrifices appointed to be offered during the seven days of this festival. This is evident from Deu 15:3. where it is distinctly said, Thou shalt eat no leavened bread therewith. () [i.e. with the in Deu 15:2], seven days shalt thou eat therewith () [i.e. with the ] unleavened bread, thus showing that the sacrifice and eating of is to last seven days, and that it is not the paschal victim which had to be slain on the 14th and be consumed on that very night (Exo 12:10).

(2) simply denotes to cook, dress, or fit for eating in any manner, and here unquestionably stands for , to roast in fire,(as in 2Ch 35:13). This sense is not only given in the ancient versions (Sept., Vulg., Chaldee paraphrase of Jonathan ben-Uzziel, etc.), and by the best commentators and lexicographers (Rashi-Rashbam, Aben-Ezra, Ibn- Saruk, Kimchi, Furst, Keil, etc.), but is supported by Knobel (Comment. on Exodus and Leviticus p. 98), who is quite as anxious as Dr. Davidson to establish the discrepancy between the two accounts.

(3) We know from the non-canonical records that it has been the undeviating practice of the Jews during the second Temple to offer only as a pas’chal sacrifice, and to roast it, but not to boil it. Now the Deuteronomist, who, as we are assured by Dr. Davidson and others, lived at a very late period, would surely not contradict this prevailing practice of a later time. Besides, if the supposed variations recorded by the Deuteronomist describe practices which obtained in later times, how is it that the non-canonical records of the Jewish practices at a later period agree with the older description, and not with the supposed variations in Deuteronomy?

That the Israelites kept the Passover on the evening before they left Egypt is distinctly declared in Exo 12:28. Bishop Colenso, however, argues against the Mosaic institution of the Passover, and against the possibility of its having been celebrated, because

(1) Moses having received the command about the Passover on the very day at the close of which the paschal lambs were to be killed, could not possibly have communicated to every head of a family throughout the entire country the special and strict directions how to keep it;

(2) The notice to start at once in hurried flight in the middle of the night could not suddenly and completely be circulated; and

(3) As the people were 2,000,000 in number, and, if we take fifteen persons for each lamb, there must have been slain 150,000 paschal lambs, all males, one year old; this premises that 200,000 male lambs and 200,000 ewe-lambs were annually produced, and that there existed a flock of 2,000,000 (The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined, pt. 1, chap. 10).

But

(1) from Exo 12:2-3 it is evident that, so far from receiving the command on the 14th of Nisan, Moses received it at the very beginning of the month, and that there was therefore sufficient time for the elders (comp. Exo 12:1-2 with Exo 12:21) to communicate the necessary instruction to the people, who were a well-organized body, presided over by the heads of families and leaders (Exo 5:6-23; Num 1:1, etc.; Jos 7:14, etc.). The expressions (12:12) and (11:4), on which Dr. Colenso lays so much stress, do not refer to the night following the day of the command, but to the night following the day when the command was to be executed here, as frequently elsewhere, denotes the same, and expresses simultaneousness, whether past, present, or future, inasmuch as in historical narrative not only that which one can see, or, as it were, point his finger at, is regarded as present, but that which has just been mentioned (Gen 7:11; Gen 7:13; Exo 19:1; Lev 23:6; Lev 23:21; Job 10:13), and that which is immediately to follow (Gen 5:1; Gen 6:15; Gen 45:19; Isa 66:2; Jer 5:7; Psa 74:18).

(2) The notice to quit was not momentary, but was indicated by Moses long before the celebration of the Passover (Exo 11:1-8), and was most unmistakably given in the order to eat the paschal meal in traveling attire, so as to be ready to start (Exo 12:11).

(3) The average of fifteen or twenty persons for each lamb, based upon the remark of Josephus (War li, vi, 9, 3), is inapplicable to the case in question, inasmuch as those who, according to later legislation, went up in after- times to Jerusalem to offer the paschal sacrifice were all full-grown and able-bodied men, and every company of twenty such persons, when the Jews were in their own land, where there was every facility for obtaining the requisite flocks, might easily get and consume a .sheep in one night. But among the several millions of Israelites in Egypt and in the wilderness there were myriads of women, children, invalids, uncircumcised and unclean, who did not partake of the Passover, and those who did eat thereof would fully obey the divine command if one or two hundred of them simply ate a morsel of one and the same animal when they found any difficulty in obtaining flocks, inasmuch as the paschal sacrifice was only to be commemorative; just as one loaf suffices for hundreds of persons at the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Instead, therefore, of 150,000 being required for this purpose, 15,000 animals would suffice. Moreover, Dr. Colenso, misled by the A.V., which renders by lamb, makes a mistake in restricting the paschal sacrifice of Egypt to a lamb. Any Hebrew lexicon will show that it denotes one of the flock, i.e. either a sheep or a goat, and it is so used in Deu 14:4, , one of the sheep and one of the goats (comp. Gesenius’s and Furst’s Lexicons. s.v. ). This mistake is all the more to be deplored, since at the institution of the Passover it is expressly declared that it is to be … , one of the sheep or of the goats (Exo 12:5). It is well known to scholars that the Jewish canons fixed a lamb for this purpose long after the Babylonian captivity. Hence the Targumist’s rendering of by or , which is followed by the A.V. It is well known also that goats have always formed a large admixture in Oriental flocks, and in the present which Jacob sent to Esau the proportion of sheep and goats is the same (Gen 32:14). Now the fifteen thousand paschal-sacrifices divided between the lambs and the goats would not be such an impossible demand upon the flocks.

3. Subsequent Notices before the Exile. After the celebration of the Passover at its institution (Exo 12:28; Exo 12:50). we are told that the Israelites kept it again in the wilderness of Sinai in the second year after the exodus (Numbers 9). Between this and their arrival at Gilgal under Joshua, about thirty-nine years, the ordinance was entirely neglected, not because the people did not practice the rite of circumcision, and were therefore legally precluded from partaking of the paschal meal (Jos 5:10, with Exo 12:44-48), as many Christian expositors will have it, since there were many thousands of young people that had left Egypt who were circumcised, and these were not legally disqualified from celebrating the festival; but because, as Kashi, Aben-Ezra, and other Jewish commentators rightly remark, Exo 12:25; Exo 13:5-10 plainly show that after the first Passover in the wilderness, the Israelites were not to keep it again till they entered the land of Canaan. Only three instances, however, are recorded in which the Passover was celebrated between the entrance into the Promised Land and the Babylonian captivity, viz. under Solomon (2Ch 8:13), under Hezekiah, when he restored the national worship (2Ch 30:15), and under Josiah (2Ki 23:21; 2Ch 35:1-19). Later Biblical instances are the one celebrated by Ezra after the return from Babylon (Ezra 6), and those occurring in the life of our Lord.

III. Rabbinical Regulations. After the return of the Jews from the captivity, where they had been weaned from idolatry, the spiritual guides of Israel reorganized the whole religious and political life of the nation, and defined, modified, and expanded every law and precept of the Mosaic code, so as to adapt them to the altered condition of the people. The celebration of the Passover, therefore, like that of all other institutions, became more: regular and systematic during this period,. while the different colleges which were now established and which were attended by numerous disciples, SEE EDUCATION, have faithfully transmitted to us all the sundry laws, rites, manners, and customs connected with this and all other festivals, which it was both impracticable and impossible to record in the limited space of the canonical books of the O.T. Hence it is that the manners and customs of this period, which were those of our Savior and his apostles, and which are therefore of the utmost importance and interest to Christians, and to the understanding of the N.T., can be more easily ascertained and more minutely described. Hence, also, the simple summary notice of the fact that the Israelites kept the Passover after their return from Babylon, contained in the canonical Scriptures (Ezr 6:19-22), may be supplemented by the detailed descriptions of the manner in which this festival was celebrated during the second Temple, given in the noncanonical documents. The various practices will be better understood and more easily followed if given in connection with the days of the festival on which they were respectively observed.

1. The Great Sabbath ( , Shabbdth Hag-Gadol) is the Sabbath immediately preceding the Passover. It is so called in the calendar because, according to tradition, the tenth of the month on which the Lord commanded every head of a family to select the paschal sacrifice (Exo 12:3) originally happened to fall on the Sabbath; and though in later legislation the animal was not required to be set aside four days beforehand, yet the Jewish canons determined that the Sabbath should be used to instruct the people in the duties of this great festival. Hence special prayers () bearing on the redemption from Egypt, the love of God to Israel, and Israel’s obligations to keep the Passover, have been ordained for this Sabbath, in addition to the ordinary ritual. Mal 3:1-18; Mal 4:1-6, was read as Maphtir () = the lesson for the day, SEE HAPHTARAH, and discourses were delivered by the spiritual guides of the community explanatory of the laws and domestic duties connected with the festival (Tur Orach Chajim, sec. 430). Though the present synagogal ritual for this day is of a later date, yet there can be no doubt that this Sabbath was already distinguished as the great Sabbath ( , Joh 19:31) in the time of the second Temple, and was used for preparing the people for the ensuing festival. SEE SABBATH.

2. The 13th of Nisan. On the evening of the 13th, which, until that of the 14th, was called the preparation for the Passover ( , , Joh 19:14), every head of the family searched for and collected by the light of a candle all the leaven (Mishna, Pesachim, 1:1). Before beginning the search he pronounced the following benediction: Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast sanctified us with thy commandments, and hast enjoined us to remove the leaven (Talmud, Pesachim, 7 a; Maimonides, Yad Ha-Chezaka, Hilchoth Chamez U-Maza, 3:6). After the search he said Whatever leaven remains in my possession which I cannot see, behold it is null, and accounted as the dust of the earth (Maimonides, ibid.). What constituted leaven will be understood when the ancient definition of unleavened bread is known. According to the Jewish canons, the command to eat unleavened bread (Exo 13:6; Exo 23:15; Exo 34:18; Lev 23:6; Num 28:17; Deu 16:3) is executed by making the cakes () which are to be eaten during the seven days of this festival of wheat, barley, spelt, oats, or rye (Mishna, Pesachim, 2:5). They appear to have been usually made of the finest wheat flour (Buxtorf, Sysn. Jud. c. 18, p. 397). It was probably formed into dry, thin biscuits, not unlike those used by the modern Jews. From these five kinds of grain ( ), which can be used for actual fermentation, the cakes are to be prepared before the dough begins to ferment; anything else made from one of these five kinds of corn with water constitutes leaven, and must be removed from the house and destroyed. Other kinds of produce and preparations made therefrom do not constitute leaven, and may be eaten. Thus we are told, Nothing is prohibited on the Feast of Passover because of leaven except the five kinds of corn, viz. wheat, barley, spelt, oats, and rye. Leguminous plants, such as rice, millet, beans, lentils, and the like, in these there is no leaven; and although the meal of rice or the like is kneaded with hot water and covered with cloths till it rises like leavened dough, yet it may be eaten, for this is not leaven, but putrefaction. Even the five kinds of corn, if simply kneaded with the liquor of fruit, without water, are not accounted leaven. Though the dough thus made stands a whole day and rises, yet it may be eaten, because the liquor of fruit does not engender fermentation but acidity. The fruit-liquor, oil, wine, milk, honey, olive-oil, the juice of apples, of pomegranates, and the like, but no water, is to be in it, because any admixture of water, however small, produces fermentation (Maimonides, Yad Ha-Chezaka, Hilchoth Chamnez U-Maza, v. 1; 2).

3. The 14th of Nisan. On this day, which, as we have seen, was till the evening called the preparation for the Passover, and which was also called the first day of Passover or of unleavened bread (Lev 23:5-6; Num 9:3; Num 28:16; Jos 5:10; Eze 45:21; 2Ch 30:15; 2 Chronicles 35 :l; Joseph. War, v. 3, 1), for the reason stated under the 13th of Nisan, handicraftsmen, with the exception of tailors, barbers, and laundresses, were obliged to relinquish their work either from morning or from noon, according to the custom of the different places in Palestine (Mishna, Pesachim, 4:1-8). Leaven was only allowed to be eaten till mid- day, when all leaven collected on the previous evening and discovered on this day had to be burned. The time for desisting from eating and burning the leaven was thus indicated: Two desecrated cakes of thanksgiving- offering were placed on a bench in the Temple: as long as they were thus exposed all the people ate leaven; when one of them was removed they abstained from eating, but did not burn it; and when the other was removed all the people began burning the leaven (ib. 1:5). It was on this day that every Israelite who was not infirm, ceremonially impure, uncircumcised, or who was on this day fifteen miles without the walls of Jerusalem (Mishna, Pesachim, 9:2; Maimonides, Hilchoth Korban Pesach. v. 89), appeared before the Lord in Jerusalem with an offering in proportion to his means (Exo 23:15; Deu 16:16-17). Though women were not legally obliged to appear in the sanctuary, yet they were not excluded from it (1Sa 1:7; Luk 2:41-42). The Israelites who came from the country to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover were gratuitously accommodated by the inhabitants with the necessary apartments (Luk 22:10-12; Mat 26:18); and the guests left in return to their hosts the skins of the paschal lambs, and the vessels which they had used in their religious ceremonies (Joma, 12 a). It was, however, impossible to house all the pilgrims in Jerusalem itself, since the circumference of the city was little more than one league, and the number of the visitors was exceedingly great. Josephus tells us that there were 3,000,000 Jews at the Passover A.D. 65 (Wars 2:14, 3), and that at the Passover in the reign of Nero there were 2,700,000, when 256,500 lambs were slain (ib. 6:9, 3), and most of them must therefore have encamped in tents without the walls of the town, as the Mohammedan pilgrims now do at Mecca. It is therefore not surprising that seditions broke out on these occasions, and that the Romans, fearing lest these myriads of pilgrims should create a disturbance, and try to shake off the foreign yoke when thus massed together, took all the precautionary measures of both force and conciliation during the festival (Joseph. Ant. 17:9, 3; War, 1:3, etc.; Mat 16:5; Luk 13:1). In confirmation of Josephus’s statement, which has been impugned by sundry writers, it is to be remarked that ancient Baraitha, preserved in Tosiftha Pesachim, cap. 4. (s.f.), and the Babylon Pesachim, 64 b, relate as follows: Agrippa was anxious to ascertain the number of the Jewish population. He therefore ordered the priests to put down the number of the paschal lambs, which were found to be 1,200,000; and as there was to every lamb a company of no less than ten persons, the number of Jews must have been tenfold.

4. The Offering of the Paschal Lamb. Having selected the lamb, which was neither to be one day above a year nor less than eight days old (Maimonides, Hilchoth Korban, 1:12, 13) being an extension of the law about firstlings and burnt-offerings (Exo 22:30; Lev 22:27) and agreed as to the exact number of those who were to join for one lamb, the representatives of each company went to the Temple. The daily evening sacrifice (Exo 29:38-39), which was usually. killed at the eighth hour and a half (= 2:30 P.M.), and offered up at the ninth hour and a half (3:30 P.M.), was on this day killed at 1:30, and offered at 2:30 P.M., an hour earlier; and if the 14th of Nisan happened on a Friday, it was killed at 12:30 and offered at 1:30 P.M., two hours earlier than usual (Mishna, Pesachim, v. 1; Maimonides, Hilchoth Korban Pesach. 1:4). All the representatives of the respective companies were divided into three bands or divisions. The first division then entered with the paschal sacrifices, until the court of the Temple was filled, when the doors of the court were closed, and the trumpets were sounded three times, differing in the notes ( ). The priests immediately placed themselves in two rows, holding bowls of silver and gold in their hands, i.e. one row holding silver bowls and the other gold ones. These bowls were not mixed up, nor had they stands underneath, in order that they might not be put down and. the blood become coagulated. The Israelites themselves killed their own paschal sacrifices, the nearest priest caught the blood, handed it to his fellow-priest, and he again passed it on to his fellow-priest, each receiving a full bowl and returning an empty one, while the priest nearest to the altar sprinkled it in one jet towards the base of the altar. Thereupon the first division went out, and the second division entered; and when the second again went out, the third entered; the second and third divisions acting in exactly the same way as the first. The Hallel was recited, SEE HALLEL, the whole time, and if it was finished before all the paschal animals were slain, it might be repeated a second and even a third time…. The paschal sacrifice was then suspended on iron hooks, which were affixed to the walls and pillars, and its skin taken off. Those who could not find a place for suspending and skinning it had pieces of wood provided for them, which they put on their own shoulders and on the shoulders of their neighbor, and on these they suspended the paschal sacrifice, and thus took off its skin. When the 14th of Nisan happened on a Sabbath, on which it was not lawful to use these sticks, one of the offerers put his left hand on the right shoulder of his fellow-offerer, while the latter put his right hand on the shoulder of the former, whereon they suspended the paschal sacrifice, and took off its skin.

As soon as it was opened, the viscera were taken out with the internal fat. The fat was carefully separated and collected in the large dish, and the viscera were washed and replaced in the body of the lamb, like those of the burnt sacrifices (Lev 1:9; Lev 3:3-5; comp. Pesachim, 6:1). Maimonides says that the tail was put with the fat (Not. in Pesach. v. 10). The fat was burned on the altar, with incense, that same evening. On the Sabbath, the first division, after leaving the court, remained on the Temple Mountain, the second between the ramparts (i.e. the open space between the walls of the court of the women and the trellis- work in the Temple, comp. Mishna, Middoth, 2:3), while the third remained in its place. When it became dark, they all went out to roast their paschal sacrifices (Mishna, Pesachim, v. 5-10). A spit, made of the wood of the pomegranate-tree, was put in at the mouth of the paschal lamb, and brought out again at its vent; it was then carefully placed in the oven so as not to touch its sides, lest the cooking should be affected (comp. Exo 12:9; 2Ch 35:13), and if any part of it happened to touch the earthenware oven, it had to be pared off; or if the fat which dripped from it had fallen on the oven, and then again fallen back on the lamb, the part so. touched had also to be cut out (Pesachim, 7:1, 2). If any one broke a bone of the paschal lamb, so as to infringe the command in Exo 12:46, he incurred the penalty of forty stripes (Pesachimn, 7:11). The bone, however, for the breaking of which the offender was to receive the stripes, must either have some flesh on it or some marrow in it, and he incurred the penalty even if some one had broken the same bone before him (Maimonides, Hilcloth Korban Pesach. 10:1, 3). The oven was of earthenware, and appears to have been in shape something like a bee- hive, with an opening in the side to admit fuel. According to Justin Martyr, a second spit, or skewer, was put transversely through the shoulders, so as to form the figure of a cross. As Justin was a native of Flavia Neapolis, it is a striking fact that the modern Samaritans roast their paschal lambs in nearly the same manner at this day. The lambs (they require six for the community now) are roasted all together by stuffing them vertically, head downwards, into an oven which is like a small well, about three feet in diameter, and four or five feet deep, roughly stoned, in which a fire has been kept up for several hours. After the lambs are thrust in, the top of the hole is covered with-bushes and earth, to confine the heat till they are done. Each lamb has a stake or spit run through him to draw him up by; and, to prevent the spit from tearing away through the roast meat with the weight, a cross piece is put through the lower end of it (Miss Rogers’s Domestic Life in Palestine). Vitringa, Bochart, and Hottinger have taken the statement of Justin as representing the ancient Jewish usage; and, with him, regard the crossed spits as a prophetic type of the cross of our Lord. But it would seem more probable that the transverse spit was a mere matter of convenience, and was perhaps never in use among the Jews. The Rabbinical traditions relate that the lamb was called Galeatus, qui quum totus assabatur, cum capite, cruribus, et intestinis, pedes autem et intestina ad latera ligabantur inter assandum, agnus ita quasi armatum repraesentaverit, qui galea in capite et ense in latere est munitus (Otho, Leax. Rab. p. 503).

5. The Paschal Supper. The paschal sacrifices, having been taken to the respective abodes of the companies, and the meals prepared, the parties arranged themselves in proper order, reclining at ease on the left side, round the table. A cup of wine was filled for everyone, over which the following benediction was pronounced: Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast created the fruit of the vine! Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast chosen us above all nations, and exalted us above all peoples, and hast sanctified us with thy commandments. Thou hast given us, O Lord our God, appointed seasons for joy, festivals and holy days for rejoicing, such as the feast of unleavened bread, the time of our liberation, for holy convocation, to commemorate our exodus from Egypt. Yea, thou hast chosen us, and hast sanctified us above all nations, and hast given us thy holy festivals with joy and rejoicing as an inheritance. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who hast sanctified Israel and the festivals! Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast preserved us and kept us, and hast safely brought us to this period! The cup of wine was then drunk, and a basin of water and a towel were handed round, or the celebrators got up to wash their hands; (Joh 13:4-5; Joh 13:12), after which thebles sing belonging thereto was pronounced. A table was then brought in, upon which were bitter herbs and unleavened bread, the Charseth (see below), the body of the paschal lamb, and the flesh of the Chagigah, or feast offering. The president of the meal then took the herb, dipped it in the Charoseth, and, after thanking God for creating the fruits of the earth, he ate a piece of the size of an olive, and gave a similar portion to each one reclining with him at the table (Mat 26:23; Joh 13:26).

A second cup of wine was then poured out, and the son, in accordance with Exo 12:26, asked his father as follows: Wherefore is this night distinguished from all other nights? On all other nights we may eat either leavened or unleavened bread, but on this night unleavened bread only; on all other nights we may eat every kind of herbs, but on this night bitter herbs only; on all other nights we may eat meat either roasted, boiled, or cooked in different ways, but on this night we must eat roasted meat only; on all other nights we may dip once what we eat, but on this night twice. On all other nights we may eat either sitting or reclining, but on this night reclining only. To this the father replied: Once we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord our God delivered us there-from with a strong hand and outstretched arm. If the Holy One blessed be he had not delivered our fathers from Egypt, we and our children, and our children’s children, might still be in Egyptian bondage; and although we may all be sages, philosophers, elders, and skilled in the law, it is incumbent upon us to speak of the exodus from Egypt, and whoso dwells much on the exodus from Egypt is all the more to be praised. The father then expounded Deu 26:5-12, as well as the import of the paschal sacrifice, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs; saying with regard to the latter, The paschal sacrifice is offered because the Lord passed over the houses of our, ancestors in Egypt, in accordance with Exo 12:27; the unleavened bread is eaten because our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt before they had time to leaven their dough, and the bitter herbs, are eaten because the Egyptians embittered the lives of our ancestors. It is therefore initimbent on everyone, in all ages, to consider as if he had personally gone forth from Egypt, as it is said in Exo 12:27. We are therefore in duty bound to thank, praise, adore, glorify, extol, honor, bless, exalt, and reverence him who wrought all these miracles for our forefathers and for us; for he brought us forth from bondage to freedom. He changed our sorrow into joy, our mourning into a feast; he led us from darkness into a great light, and from servitude to redemption. Let us therefore sing in his presence Hallelujah! The first part of the Hallel was then recited (see below), i.e. Psalms 113, 114, and the following blessing pronounced: Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast redeemed us, and redeemed our forefathers from Egypt, etc. A third cup of wine was then pounred out, and the grace after meals was recited. After pouring out the fourth cup the Hallel was finished (i.e. Psalms 115-118), and the blessing of the song (i.e. and!) was said. The meal being ended, it was unlawful for anything to be introduced in the way of dessert (Mishna, Pesachim, 10:1-8; Maimonides, Yad Ha-Chezaka Hilchoth Chonmez U-Maza, 8:1-3).

In this connection it is proper to notice more in detail several points relating to the meal under consideration.

(a) The Bitter Herbs and the Sauce. According to Pesachim (2:6), the bitter herbs (;. Sept. ; Vulg. lactucae agrestes, Exo 12:8) might be endive, chicory, wild lettuce, or nettles. These plants were important articles of food to the ancient Egyptians (as is noticed by Pliny), and they are said to constitute nearly half that of the modern Egyptians. According to Niebuhr they are still eaten at the Passover by the Jews in the East. They were used in former times either fresh or dried, and’ a portion of them is said to have been eaten before the unleavened bread (Pesach. 10:3).

The sauce into which the herbs, the bread, and the meat were dipped as they were eaten (Joh 13:26; Mat 26:23), is not mentioned in the Pentateuch. It is called in the Mishna , charoseth. According to Bartenora it consisted of only vinegar and water; but others describe it as a mixture of vinegar, figs, dates, almonds, and spice. The same sauce was used on ordinary occasions thickened with a little flour; but the Rabbinists forbade this at the Passover, lest the flour should occasion a slight degree of fermentation. Some say that it was beaten up to the consistence of mortar or clay, in order to commemorate the toils of the Israelites in Egypt in laying bricks (Buxtorf, Lex. Tal. col. 831; Pesachimn 2:8; 10:3, with the notes of Bartenora, Maimonides, and Surenhusius).

(b) The Four Cups of Wine. There is no mention of wine in connection with the Passover in the Pentateuch; but the Mishna strictly enjoins that there should never be less than four cups of it provided at the paschal meal even of the poorest Israelite (Pesach. 10:1). The wine was usually red, and it was mixed with water as it was drunk (Pesach. 7:13, with Bartenora’s note; and Otho’s Lex. p. 507). The cups were handed round in succession at specified intervals in the meal (see above). Two of them appear to be distinctly mentioned in Luk 22:17; Luk 22:20. The cup of blessing (1Co 10:16) was probably the latter one of these, and is generally considered to have been the third of the series, after which a grace was said; though a comparison of Luk 22:20 (where it is called the cup after supper) with Pesach. 10:7, and the designation , cup of the Hallel, might rather suggest that it was the fourth and last cup. Schottgen, however, is inclined to doubt whether there is any reference in either of the passages of the N.T. to the formal ordering of the cups of the Passover, and proves that the name cup of blessing ( ) was applied in a general way to any cup which was drunk with thanksgiving, and that the expression was often used metaphorically, e.g. Psa 116:13 (Hor. Heb. in 1Co 10:16; see also Carpzov, App. rit. p. 380). The wine drunk at the meal was not restricted to the four cups, but none could be taken during the interval between the third and fourth cups (Pesach. 10:7).

(c) The Hallel. The service of praise sung at the Passover is not mentioned in the law. The name is contracted from (Hallelujah). It consisted of the series of Psalms from 113 to 118. The first portion, comprising Psalms 113, 114, was sung in the early part of the meal, and the second part after the fourth cup of wine. This is supposed to have been the hymn sung by our Lord and his apostles (Mat 26:30; Mar 14:26; Buxtorf, Lex. Tal. s.v. h, and Syn. Jud. p. 48; Otho, Lex. p. 271; Garpzov. App. Crit. p. 374. SEE HALLEL.

(d) Persons Partaking. No male was admitted to the table unless he was circumcised, even if he was of the seed of Israel (Exo 12:48). Neither, according to the letter of the law, was any one of either sex admitted who was ceremonially unclean (Num 9:6; Joseph. War, 6:9, 3). But this rule was on special occasions liberally applied. In the case of Hezekiah’s Passover (2 Chronicles 30), we find that a greater degree of legal purity was required to slaughter the lambs than to eat them, and that numbers partook otherwise than it was written, who were not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary. The Rabbinists expressly state that women were permitted, though not commanded, to partake (Pesach. 8:1; Chargigqah, 1:1; comp. Joseph. War, 6:9, 3), in accordance with the instances in Scripture which have been mentioned of Hannah and Mary. But the Karaites, in more recent times, excluded all but full grown men. It was customary for the number of a party to be not less than ten (Joseph. War, 6:9, 3). It was perhaps generally under twenty, but it might be as many as a hundred, if each one could have a piece of the lamb as large as an olive (Pesach. 8:7).

(e) Position at the Table. When the meal was prepared, the family was placed round the table, the paterfamilias taking a place of honor, probably somewhat raised above the rest. There is no reason to doubt that the ancient Hebrews sat, as they were accustomed to do at their ordinary meals (see Otho, Lex. p. 7). But when the custom of reclining at table had become general, that posture appears to have been enjoined, on the ground of its supposed significance. The Mishna says that the meanest Israelite should recline at the Passover like a king, with the ease becoming a free man (Pesach. 10:1, with Maimonides’s note). He was to keep in mind that when his ancestors stood at the feast in Egypt they took the posture of slaves (R. Levi, quoted by Otho, p. 504). Our Lord and his apostles conformed to the usual custom of their time, and reclined (Luk 22:14, etc.).

6. The 15th of Nisan. On this day there was a holy convocation, and it was one of the six days on which, as on the Sabbath, no manner of work was allowed to be done; with this exception, however, that while on the Sabbath the preparation of the necessary articles of food was not allowed (Exo 16:5; Exo 16:23; Exo 16:29; Exo 35:2-3), on holy convocation it was permitted (Exo 12:16; Lev 23:7; Num 28:18). The other five days on which the Bible prohibits servile work are the seventh day of this festival, the day of Pentecost, New-Year’s day, and the first and last days of the feast of Tabernarcles. The needful work which was lawful to be done on these days is defined by the Jewish canons to be such as killing beasts, kneading dough, baking bread, boiling, roasting, etc.; but not such work as may be done in the evening of a fast-day, as, for instance, reaping, threshing, winnowing, or grinding; while servile work is building, pulling down edifices, weaving, etc. If any one engaged in servile work he was not to be stoned to death, as in the case of violating the Sabbath (Num 15:32; Num 15:35), but received forty stripes save one (Maimonides, Yad Ha- Chezaka, Hilchoth Yom Tob 1:1, etc.). In addition to the daily ordinary sacrifices, there were offered on this day and on the following six days two young bullocks, a ram, and seven lambs of the first year, with meat- offerings for a burnt-offering, and a goat for a sin-offering (Num 28:19-23).

Besides these public sacrifices, there were the voluntary offerings which were made by every private individual who appeared before the Lord in Jerusalem, in accordance with the injunction in Exo 23:15; Deu 16:16. The Jewish canons ordained that this freewill- offering from every attendant at the sanctuary () was to be a threefold one: 1, A burnt-offering of not less value than one meah silver =16 grains of corn; 2, a festive offering, called Chagigah (see below), of not less value than two meahs =32 grains of corn; and 3; a peace or joyful offering (Deu 27:7), the value of which was entirely left to be determined by the good-will of the offerer, according to Deu 16:16. The last two were alike denominated peace-offerings. They were generally offered on the first day of the festival, and if any one failed to bring them on this day, they might be brought on any other day of the festival; but if they were neglected during the festival, they could not be offered afterwards (Chagigah, 1, 6; Maimonides, Hilchoth Chagigah, 1:4, 5). Those who contracted any legal impurity were not allowed to offer the Chagigdh (Mishna, Pesachim, 6:3).

The special sort of sacrifice named above as connected with the Passover, as well as with the other great festivals, is called in the Talmud (Chagigah, i.e. festivity). It was a voluntary peace-offering made by private individuals. The victim might be taken either from the flock or the herd. It might be either male or female, but it must be without blemish. The offerer laid his hand upon its head and slew it at the door of the sanctuary. The blood was sprinkled on the altar, and the fat of the inside, with the kidneys, was burned by the priest. The breast was given to the priest as a wave offering, and the right shoulder as a heave-offering (Lev 3:1-5; Lev 7:29-34). What remained of the victim might be eaten by the offerer and his guests on the day on which it was slain, and on the day following; but if any portion was left till the third day, it was burned (Lev 7:16-18; Pesach. 6:4). The connection of these free-will peace-offerings with the festivals appears to be indicated in Num 10:10; Deu 14:26; 2Ch 30:22, and they are included under the term Passover in Deu 16:2 : Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the Passover unto the Lord thy God, of the flock and of the herd. Onkelos here understands the command to sacrifice from the flock to refer to the paschal lamb, and that to sacrifice from the herd to the Chagigah. But it seems more probable that both the flock and the herd refer to the Chagigah, as there is a specific command respecting the paschal lamb in Deu 16:5-7 (see De Muis’s note in the Crit. Sac.; and Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. on Joh 18:28). There are evidently similar references in 2Ch 30:22-24; 2Ch 35:7. Hezekiah and his princes gave away at the great Passover which he celebrated two thousand bullocks and seventeen thousand sheep; and Josiah, on a similar occasion, is said to pave supplied the people at his own cost with lambs for the Passover offerings, besides three thousand oxen. From these passages and others, it may be seen that the eating of the Chagigah was an occasion of social festivity connected with the festivals, and especially with the Passover. The principal day for sacrificing the passover Chagigah was the 15th of Nisan, the first day of holy convocation, unless it happened to be the weekly Sabbath. The paschal lamb might be slain on the Sabbath, but not the Chagigah. With this exception, the Chagigah might be offered on any day of the festival, and on some occasions a Chagigah victim was slain on the 14th, especially when the paschal lamb was likely to prove too small to serve as meat for the party (Pesach. 4:4; 10:3; Lightfoot, Temple Service, c. 12; Reland, Ant. 4, c. ii, 2).

That the Chagigah might be boiled, as well as roasted, is proved by 2Ch 35:13, And they roasted the passover with fire according to the ordinance; but the other holy offerings sod they in pots, and in caldrons, and in pans, and divided them speedily among all the people.

7. The 16th of Nisan. On the 16th, or the day after the holy convocation, called the morrow after the Sabbath, SEE PENTECOST, the omer (, , munipulus epicarum) of the first produce of the harvest was brought to the priest, to be waved before the Lord in accordance with the injunction in Lev 23:10-14 which was of barley, being the grain which ripened before the wheat (Exo 9:31-32; 2Sa 21:9; Rth 2:23; 2Ki 4:42; Manachoth, 84 a). The omer had to be from the best and ripest standing corn of a field near Jerusalem. The measure of an omer had to be of the meal obtained from the barley offering. Hence three seahs =one ephah, or ten omers, were at first gathered in the following manner: Delegates from the Sanhedrim went [into the field nearest to Jerusalem] a day before the festival, and tied together the ears in bundles, while still fastened to the ground, so that they might easily be cut. [On the afternoon of the 16th the inhabitants of the neighboring towns assembled together, that the reaping might take place amid great tumult. As soon as it became dark, each of the reapers asked, Has the sun gone down? To this the people replied, Yes. He asked again, Has the sun gone down? To this the people again replied, Yes. Each reaper then asked, Is this the scythe? To this the people replied, Yes. Is it the scythe? Yes, was again the reply. Is this the box? Yes, they replied. Is it the box.? Yes, was again the reply. Is this the Sabbath? Yes, his the Sabbath they replied. Is it the Sabbath? Yes, this is the Sabbath, was again the reply. Shall I cut? Yes, cut, they replied. Shall I cut? Do cut, they again replied. Every question was asked three times, and the people replied to it each time. This was done because of the Boethuseans (), who maintained that the reaping of the omer was not to be at the exit of the festival. When cut it was laid in boxes, brought into the court of the Temple, threshed with canes and. stalks, that the grains might not be crushed, and laid on a roast with holes, that the fire might touch each grain; it was then spread in the court of the Temple for the wind to pass over it, and ground in a barley-mill [which left the hulls unground]. The flour thus obtained was sifted through thirteen different sieves Each one finer than its predecessor], and in this manner was the prescribed omer, or tenth part, got from the seah. The residue was redeemed, and could be used by every one. They mixed the omer of meal with a log [=half a pint] of oil, put on it a handful of frankincense (Lev 2:15), as on other meat-offerings, waved it, took a handful of it, and caused it to ascend in smoke (Lev 2:16), and the residue was eaten by the priests. Immediately after the ceremony, bread, parched corn, green ears, etc., of the new crop were exposed for sale in the streets of Jerusalem, as prior to the offering of the omer no use whatever was allowed to be made of the new corn (Mishna, Menachoth, 10:2-5; Maimonides, Yad Ha-Chezakl, Hilchoth Tamidin U-Mosaphin, 7:4-21; comp. also Josephus, Ant. 3:10, 5). From this day the fifty days began to be counted to the day of Pentecost (Lev 23:15).

8. The 17th to the 20th of Nisan. This period was half-holy day ( ), called the middle days of the festival, or the lesser festival ( ), which had already commenced with the 16th. The people either left Jerusalem and returned to their respective homes, or remained and indulged in public amusements, as dances, songs, games, etc., to fill up the time in harmony with the joyful and solemn character of the festival. The work allowed to be done during the middle days of the festival was restricted to irrigating dry land, digging watercourses, repairing conduits, reservoirs, roads, market-places, baths, whitewashing tombs, etc. Dealers in fruit, garments, or in utensils were allowed to sell privately what was required for immediate use. Whatever the emergencies of the public service required, or was necessary for the festival, or any occupation the omission of which might cause loss or injury, was permitted. Hence no new graves were allowed to be dug, nor wives espoused, nor houses, slaves, or cattle purchased, except for the use of the festival. Mourning women, though allowed to wail, were not permitted to clap their hands together. The work allowed to be done during these days of the festival is strictly regulated by the Jewish canons contained in the Mishna, Moed Katon. In the Temple, however, the additional sacrifices appointed for the festival were offered up, except that the lesser Hallel was now recited, and not the Great Hallel.

9. The 21st of Nisan. On the last day of the festival, as on the first, there was again a holy convocation. It was in all respects celebrated like the first day, except that it did not commence with the paschal meal. As at all the festivals, cheerfulness was to prevail during the whole week, and all care was to be laid aside (Deu 27:7; comp. Joseph. Ant. 11:5; Michaelis, Laws of Moses, art. 197).

10. The Second or Little Passover. According to the injunction in Num 9:9-12, any one who was prevented by legal impurity, or by being at too great a distance from Jerusalem, from celebrating the regular Passover on the eve of the 14th of Nisan, was obliged to keep it on the 14th of the following month. This is called by the ancient Jewish tradition the Second or the Little Passover ( , ), and the Jewish canons also add, most justly, that those-who have been prevented from observing the first or ordinary Passover through error or compulsory force, are absolutely bound to keep the second Passover. The difference between the two Passovers is thus summed up in these canons: In the case of the first Passover no leaven was to be seen or found in the house, the paschal sacrifice could not be offered with leaven, no piece thereof was allowed to be removed from the house in which the company ate it, the Hallel had to be recited at the eating thereof, the Chagigah had to be brought with it and it might be offered in uncleanness in case the majority of the congregation contracted it by contact with a corpse; while in the case of the second Passover both leavened and unleavened bread might be kept with it in the house, the Hallel had not to be recited at the eating of it, portions thereof might be removed from the house in which the company ate it, no Chagigah was brought with it, and it could not be offered under the above- named legal impurity (Mishna, Pesachim, 9:3; Maimonides, Hilchoth Korban Pesach. 10:15).

11. Release of Prisoners. It is a question whether the release of a prisoner at the Passover (Mat 27:15; Mar 15:6; Luk 23:17; Joh 18:39) was a custom of Roman origin, resembling what took place at the lectisternium (Livy, v. 13), and in later times on the birthday of an emperor; or whether it was an old Hebrew usage belonging to the festival, which Pilate allowed the Jews to retain. Grotius argues in favor of the former notion (on Mat 27:15). But others (Hottinger, Schottgen, Winer) consider that the words of St. John render it most probable that the custom was essentially Hebrew. Schottgen thinks that there is an allusion to it in Pesachinz (8:6), where it is permitted that a lamb should be slain on the 14th of Nisan for the special use of one in prison to whom a release had been promised. The subject is discussed at length by Hottinger, in his tract De Ritu dimittendi Reun in Festo Paschatis, in the Thesaurus Novus Theologico-Philologicus.

IV. The Manner in which the Passover is Celebrated at the Present Day. With the exception of those ordinances which were legal, and belonged to the Temple, and the extension and more rigid explanation of some of the rites, the Jews to the present day continue to celebrate the feast of Passover as in the days of the second Temple. Several days before the festival all the utensils are cleansed ( ); on the eve of the 13th of Nisan the master of the family, with a wax candle or lamp in his hand, searches most diligently into every hole and crevice throughout the house, lest any crumb of leavened bread should remain in the premises ( ). Before the search commences he pronounces the benediction, and after this he recites the formal renunciation of all leaven given in the former part of this article. On the 14th of Nisan, the Preparation Day ( ), all the first-born males above thirteen years of age fast in commemoration of the sparing of the Jewish first-born at the time when all Egypt’s first-born were destroyed. On this evening the Jews put on their festive garments, resort to the synagogue, and offer up the prayers appointed for the occasion, after which they return to their respective homes, where they find the houses illuminated and the tables spread. Three of the thin, round, and perforated unleavened cakes, which are made of wheaten flour, resembling the oatmeal bread made in Scotland, and which are eaten during the whole of the Passover week, are put on a plate, wrapped up in a napkin in such a manner as to be separated from each other, though lying one above the other. These three cakes represent the division of the Jews into the three orders, viz. Priests, Levites, and Israelites. SEE HAPHTARAH.

A shank-bone of a shoulder of lamb, having a small bit of meat thereon roasted on the coals to commemorate the paschal lamb, and an egg roasted hard in hot ashes, to signify that it was to be roasted whole, are put on another dish; the bitter herbs are on a third dish, while the Charoseth (), in remembrance of the bricks and mortar which the Israelites made in Egypt, and some salt water or vinegar in memory of their passage through the Red Sea, are put into two cups. When all the family have sat round the table, including the servants, to remind them that they were all alike in bondage, and should equally celebrate their redemption; and when the paterfamilias, arrayed in his death-garments, has reclined at the. head of the table to indicate the freedom of Israel, the following order is gone through:

1. () Each one has a cup of wine, over which they all, standing up and holding their respective cups in their hand, pronounce the blessing for the juice of the grape, welcome the festival, and drink the first cup leaning on the left side;

2. () Thereupon the head of the family washes his hands;

3. () Takes the parsley or shervil, dips it into the salt water, and hands it round to every one at the table, pronouncing the following benediction: Blessed art thou, O Lord-our God, King of the universe, who hast created the fruit of the earth;

4. () He then breaks in two the middle of the. three unleavened cakes on the dish, conceals one half for an after-dish ( = ), and leaves the other half on the dish;

5. () He then uncovers the unleavened cake, takes the egg and the bone of the lamb from the dish, holds them up and says, Lo! this is the bread of affliction which our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt. Whosoever is an hungered let him come and eat with us; whosoever is needy let him come and celebrate with us the Passover. This year we are here, next year we shall be in the land of Israel; this year we are servants, next year we shall be free children. The second cup is then filled, and the son asks the father the meaning of this festival, who replies to him in the manner described above. Having given a summary of the Egyptian bondage, and the deliverance therefrom, they all, lifting up the cup, exclaim, Therefore it is our duty to give thanks, etc. The cup is then put down, the unleavened cakes covered, and the first part of the Hallel is recited.

The unleavened cakes are again uncovered, the cups of wine taken up, and the following benedictions are pronounced: Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast redeemed us and redeemed our forefathers from Egypt, and preserved us this evening to eat thereon unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Let us thus, O Lord our God, and our fathers’ God, also peacefully reach other festivals and holy days, to which we look forward. Cause us to rejoice in the rebuilding of thy city, and to be joyful in thy service, so that we may there eat of the thanksgiving offering and the paschal sacrifices, whose blood was sprinkled on the sides of thine altar as an acceptance. Then shall we sing unto thee a new song for our redemption and deliverance. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who redeemeth Israel! The blessing over, the second cup is then filled, a blessing pronounced, and the wine drunk, whereupon each one washes his hands, and says, Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast sanctified us with thy commandments, and enjoined us to wash the hands. The master of the family takes up all the three unleavened cakes together in the order in which they are arranged, pronounces the following blessing over the uppermost cake: Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who bringest forth food from the earth! and then pronounces the blessing for eating unleavened bread over the middle broken cake, which is as follow’s: Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast sanctified us with thy commandments, and enjoined us to eat unleavened cakes! He next breaks off a piece from the upper whole cake, and a piece from the half central cake, dips them in salt, and eats the two pieces in a reclining position. He then takes some of the bitter herbs, dips them in the Chardseth, pronounces the blessing over them. distributes them all round, and they eat them, not reclining. The master then takes a piece from the undermost cake and some of the bitter herbs, and eats them in a reclining position, saving, In remembrance of the Temple according to Hillel. Thus Hillel did at the time when the Temple still existed. He wrapped up unleavened cakes with bitter herbs and ate them together, in order to perform what is said, It shall be eaten with unleavened cakes and bitter herbs.

This concludes the first part of the ceremony, and the supper ( ) is now served. After the supper the master takes the half cake, which has been concealed () for the after- dish (), eats thereof the size of an olive, and gives each one of the household a similar piece; whereupon () the third cup is filled, the usual grace after meals is said, the blessing over the fruit’ of the vine is pronounced, and the third cup drunk in a reclining position. A cup of wine is now poured out for the prophet Elijah, when profound silence ensues for a few seconds; then the door is opened for this harbinger of the Messiah to enter, and the following passages of Scripture are recited at the moment when he is expected to make his appearance: Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name, for they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling-place (Psa 79:6-7). Pour out thine indignation upon them, and cause thy fierce anger to overtake them; pursue them in wrath, and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord (Lam 3:66). The fourth cup is then filled and the Hallel is finished, pieces are recited which recobine the power and goodness of God, the wonderful things which he wrought at midnight in Egypt, and in connection with the Passover; the blessing is pronounced over the fourth cup, which is drunk, and after which the following last blessing is said: Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, for the vine and for the fruit of the vine, and for the increase of the field, and for that desirable good and broad land wherein thou hast pleasure, and which thou hast given to our forefathers as an inheritance, to eat of its fruit and be satisfied with its goodness. Have mercy, O Lord our God, on Israel thy people, on Jerusalem thy city, on Zion the habitation of thy glory on thine altar. Rebuild Jerusalem, the holy city, speedily in our days; bring us back to it; cause us to rejoice in it, that we may eat its fruit, be satisfied with its goodness, and we shall bless thee for it in holiness and purity. Cause us to rejoice on this day, the feast of unleavened bread, for thou, O Lord, art good and gracious to all. We will therefore praise thee for the land and the fruit of the vine. Blessed art thou, O Lord, for the land and for the fruit of the vine! The whole is concluded with the singing of the soul-stirring Paschal Hymn:

He is mighty, He will rebuild his house speedily;

Quickly, quickly in our days, speedily,

God build, God build, O build thy house speedily,

etc. The same service is gone through the following evening, as the Jews have doubled the days of holy convocation. In the morning and evening of the festive week the Jews resort to the synagogue and recite the prayers appointed for the feasts. The lessons from the law and prophets read on the days of holy convocations, as well as on the middle days of the festival, are given in the article HAPHTARAH SEE HAPHTARAH . It must be remarked that, in accordance with the injunction in Lev 23:10-11; Lev 23:15-16, the Jews to the present day begin to count the forty-nine days until Pentecost at the conclusion of the second evening’s service, when they pronounce the following benediction: Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast sanctified us with thy commandments, and has enjoined us to count the omer! This day is the first day of the omer. May it please thee, O Lord our God, and the God of our fathers, to rebuild the sanctuary speedily in our days, and give us our portion in thy law! There are many curious particulars in the mode in which the modern Jews observe this festival to be found in Buxtorf, Syn. Jud. c. 18, 19; Picart, Cerem. Religieuses, vol. I; Mill, The British Jews (Lond. 1853); Stauben, Scenes de la vie Juive en Alsace (Paris, 1860).

V. Christ’s last Passover. Whether or not the meal at which our Lord instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist was the paschal supper according to the law is a question of great difficulty. No point in the Gospel history has been more disputed. SEE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY.

1. Statement of the Case.

(1.) If we had nothing to guide us but the first three Gospels, no’ doubt of the kind could well be raised, though the narratives may not be free from difficulties in themselves. We find them speaking, in accordance with Jewish usage, of the day of the supper as that on which the passover must be killed, and as the first day of unleavened bread (Mat 26:17; Mar 14:12; Luk 22:7). (Josephus in like manner calls the 14th of Nisan the first day of unleavened bread [War, v. 3, 1]; and he speaks of the festival of the Passover as lasting eight days [ib. 2:15, 1]. But he elsewhere calls the 15th of Nisan the commencement of the feast of unleavened bread [Ant. 3:10, 5]. Either mode of speaking was evidently allowable: in one case regarding it as a matter of fact that the eating of unleavened bread began on the 14th, and in the other distinguishing the feast of unleavened bread, lasting from the first day of holy convocation to the concluding one, from the paschal meal.) Each of the three evangelists relates that the use of the guestchamber was secured in the manner usual with those who came from a distance to keep the festival. Each states that they made ready the Passover, and that, when the evening was come, our Lord, taking the place of the head of the family, sat down with the twelve. He himself distinctly calls the meal this Passover (Luk 22:15-16). After a thanksgiving, he passes round the first cup of wine (Luk 22:17), and, when the supper is ended, the usual cup of blessing (comp. Luk 22:20; 1Co 10:16; 1Co 11:25). A hymn is then sung (Mat 26:30; Mar 14:26), which it is reasonable to suppose was the last part of the Hallel.

If it be granted that the supper was eaten on the evening of the 14th of Nisan, the apprehension, trial, and crucifixion of our Lord must have occurred on Friday the 15th, the day of holy convocation, which was the first of the seven days of the Passover week. The weekly Sabbath on which he lay in the tomb was the 16th, and the Sunday of the resurrection was the 17th.

(2.) But, on the other hand, if we had no information but that which is to be gathered from John’s Gospel, we could not hesitate to infer that the evening of the supper was that of the 13th of Nisan, the day preceding that of the paschal meal. It appears to be spoken of as occurring before the feast of the Passover (Joh 13:1-2). Some of the disciples suppose that Christ told Judas, while they were at supper, to buy what they had need of against the feast (Joh 13:29). In the night which follows the supper, the Jews will not enter the prmetorium lest they should be defiled, and so not be able to eat the passover (Joh 18:28). When our Lord is before Pilate, about to be led out to crucifixion, we are told that it was the preparation of the Passover (Joh 19:14). After the crucifixion, the Jews are solicitous, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, for that Sabbath day was a high day (Joh 19:31).

If we admit, in accordance with the first view of these passages, that the last supper was on the 13th of Nisan, our Lord must have been crucified on the 14th, the day on which the paschal lamb was slain and eaten; he lay in the grave on the 15th (which was a high day or double Sabbath, because the weekly Sabbath coincided with the day of holy convocation), and the Sunday of the resurrection was the 16th.

It is alleged that this view of the case is strengthened by certain facts in the narratives of the synoptical Gospels, as well as that of John, compared with the law and with what we know of Jewish customs in later times. If the meal was the paschal supper, the law of Exo 12:22, that none shall go out of the door of his house until the morning, must have been broken, not only by Judas (Joh 13:30), but by our Lord and the other disciples (Luk 22:39). (It is true that, according to Jewish authorities, this law was disused in later times. But even if this were not the case, it does not seem that there can be much difficulty in adopting the arrangement of Greswell’s Harmony, that the party did not leave the house to go over the brook till after midnight.) In like manner it is said that the law for the observance of the 15th, the day of holy convocation with which the paschal week commenced (Exo 12:16; Lev 23:35, etc.), and some express enactments in the Talmud regarding legal proceedings and particular details, such as the carrying of spices, must have been infringed by the Jewish rulers in the apprehending of Christ, in his trials before the high-priest and the Sanhedrim, and in his crucifixion; and also by Simon of Cyrene, who was coming out of the country (Mar 15:21; Luk 23:26); by Joseph, who bought fine linen (Mar 15:46); by the women who brought spices (Mar 16:1; Luk 23:56), and by Nicodemus, who brought to the tomb a hundred pounds weight of a mixture of myrrh and aloes (Joh 19:39). The same objection is considered to lie against the supposition that the disciples could have imagined, on the evening of the Passover, that our Lord was giving directions to Judas respecting the purchase of anything or the giving of alms to the poor. The latter act (except under very special conditions) would have been as much opposed to rabbinical maxims as the former (Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. on Mat 27:1).

It is further urged that the expressions of our Lord, My time is at hand (Mat 26:18), and this Passover (Luk 22:15), as well as Paul’s designating, it as the same night that he was betrayed, instead of the night of the Passover (1Co 11:23), and his identifying Christ as our slain paschal lamb (v. 7), seem to point to the time of the supper as being peculiar, and to the time of the crucifixion as being the same as that of the killing of the lamb (Neander and Lucke).

(3.) It is not surprising that some modern critics should have given up as hopeless the task of reconciling this difficulty. Several have rejected the narrative of John (Bretschneider, Weisse), but a greater number (especially De Wette, Usteri, Ewald, Meyer, and Thiele) have taken an opposite course, and have been content with the notion that the first three evangelists made a mistake, and confounded the meal with the Passover.

2. The reconciliations which have been attempted fall under the following principal heads:

(1.) Those which regard the supper at which our Lord washed the feet of his disciples (John 13) as having been a distinct meal eaten one or more days before the regular Passover, of which our Lord partook in due course according to the synoptical narratives. This method has the advantage of furnishing the most ready way of accounting for John’s silence on the institution of the Holy Communion. It has been adopted by Maldonat (On Joh 13:1), Lightfoot, and Bengel, and more recently by Kaiser (Chronologie und Harmonie der vier Ev.; mentioned by Tischendorf, Synop. Evang. p. 45). Lightfoot identifies the supper of John xiii with the one in the house of Simon the leper at Bethany two days before the Passover, when Mary poured the ointment on the head of our Savior (Mat 26:6; Mar 14:3); and quaintly remarks, While they are grumbling at the anointing of his head, he does not scruple to wash their feet (Ex. Heb. on Joh 13:2, and Mat 26:6). Bengel supposes that it was eaten only the evening before the Passover (On Mat 26:17, and Joh 18:28).

But any explanation founded on the supposition of two meals appears to be rendered untenable by the context. The fact that all four evangelists introduce in the same connection the foretelling of the treachery of Judas with the dipping of the sop, and of the denials of Peter and the going out to the Mount of Olives, can hardly leave a doubt that they are speaking of the same meal. Besides this, the explanation does not touch the greatest difficulties, which are those connected with the day of preparation.

Dernburg (in Juynboll, Roorder, etc., Orientalia, Amsterdam, 1840, i, p. 175 sq.) has endeavored to unite both views, namely, that Jesus slew the passover at the same time with the Jews, but only ate the customary supper, in the following manner: In that year in which the first paschal day fell on a Sunday, the paschal lamb could not be slain on the previous day, the Jewish Sabbath; nor could it conveniently have been slain on Friday, the preparation for the Sabbath. Suppose, then, that it was slain on Thursday, to be eaten on Sunday, the 14th of Nisan; but that Jesus, in view of his own approaching death, chose to anticipate the day. But we are expressly assured by the Mishna (Pesach. 6:1) that the passover could be slain on Sunday, and this authority cannot be overthrown by a passage of the Gemara. Besides, the expression eat the passover (see esp. Luk 22:7; Luk 22:11) cannot well be referred to such a customary meal. This reconciliation of the Synoptics with John thus depends upon a makeshift supposition that the former expressed themselves very inaccurately. Under such a view, how is it possible that the day on which Jesus slew and ate the paschal lamb could be called the first day of unleavened bread? (Mat 26:17; Mar 14:12; Luk 22:7). (For a careful discussion of this question, see the art. on The alleged discrepancy, etc., in the Biblioth. Sac. 1845, p. 406 sq.)

(2.) The current of opinion in modern times (Lucke, Ideler, Tittmann, Bleek, De Wette, Neander, Tischendorf, Winer, Ebrard, Alford, Ellicott; of earlier critics, Erasmus, Grotius, Suicer, Carpzov) has set in favor of taking the more obvious interpretation of the passages in John, that the supper was eaten on the 13th, and that our Lord was crucified on the 14th. It must, however, be admitted that most of those who advocate this view in some degree ignore the difficulties which it raises in any respectful interpretation of the synoptical narratives. Tittmann (Meletemata, p. 476) simply remarks that (Mat 26:17; Mar 14:12) should be explained as . Dean Alford, while he believes that the narrative of John absolutely excludes such a supposition as that our Lord and his disciples ate the usual passover, acknowledges the difficulty and dismisses it (On Mat 26:17).

Those who thus hold that the supper was eaten on the 13th day of the month have devised various ways of accounting for this circumstance, of which the following are the most important. It will be observed that in the first three the supper is regarded as a true paschal supper, eaten a day before the usual time; and in the other two, as a meal of a peculiar kind.

(a.) It is assumed that a party of the Jews, probably the Sadducees and those who inclined towards them, used to eat the passover one day before the rest, and that our Lord approved of their practice. But there is not a shadow of historical evidence of the existence of any party which might have held such a notion until the controversy between the Rabbinists and the Karaites arose, which was not much before the 8th century. Then (Dissertationes, vol. ii, diss. 10 and 12), forgetting the late date of the Karaite controversy, supposed that our Lord might have followed them in taking the day which, according to their custom, was calculated from the first appearance of the moon. Carpzov (App. Crit. p. 430) advocates the same notion, without naming the Karaites. Ebrard conjectures that some of the poorer Galilaeans may have submitted to eat the passover a day too early to suit the convenience of the priests, who were overdone with the labor of sprinkling the blood and (as he strangely imagines) of slaughtering the lambs.

(b.) It has been conjectured that the great body of the Jews had gone wrong in calculating the true Passover-day, placing it a day too late, and that our Lord ate the passover on what was really the 14th, but what commonly passed as the 13th. This was the opinion of Beza, Bucer, Calovius, and Scaliger. It is favored by Stier. But it is utterly unsupported by historical testimony.

(c.) Calvin supposed that on this occasion, though our Lord thought it right to adhere to the true legal time, the Jews ate the passover on the 15th instead of the 14th, in order to escape from the burden of two days of strict observance (the day of holy convocation and the weekly Sabbath) coming together (Harm. in Matthew 26:17; 2:305, edit. Tholuck). But that no practice of this kind could have existed so early as our Lord’s time is satisfactorily proved in Cocceius’s note to Sanhedrim, vol. i, 2 (Surenhusius’s Mishna, 4:209).

(d.) Grotius (On Mat 26:19, and Joh 13:1) thought that the meal was a (like the paschal feast of the modern Jews), and such as might have been observed during the Babylonian captivity, not a . But there is no reason to believe that such a mere commemorative rite was ever observed till after the destruction of the Temple.

(e.) A view which has been received with favor far more generally than either of the preceding is that the Last Supper was instituted by Christ for the occasion, in order that he might himself suffer on the proper evening on which the paschal lamb was slain. Neander says, He foresaw that he would have to leave his disciples before the Jewish Passover, and determined to give a peculiar meaning to his last meal with them, and to place it in a peculiar relation to the Passover of the Old Covenant (Life of Christ, 265). This view is substantially the same as that held by Clement, Origen, Erasmus, Calmet, Kuinol, Winer, and Alford. Dean Ellicott regards the meal as a paschal supper eaten twenty-four hours before that of the other Jews, within what were popularly considered the limits of the festival, and would understand the expression in Exo 12:6, between the two evenings, as denoting the time between the evenings of the 13th and 14th of the month. A somewhat similar explanation is given in the Journal of Sacred Literature for October, 1861. Erasmus (Paraphrase on Joh 13:1; Joh 18:18; Luk 22:7) and others have called it an anticipatory Passover, with the intention, no doubt, to help on a reconciliation between John and the other evangelists. But if this view is to stand, it seems better, in a formal treatment of the subject, not to call it a Passover at all. The difference between it and the Hebrew rite must have been essential. Even if a lamb was eaten in the supper, it can hardly be imagined that the priests would have performed the essential acts of sprinkling the blood and offering the fat on any day besides the legal one (see Maimonides, quoted by Otho, Lex. p. 501). It could not therefore have been a true paschal sacrifice.

(3.) Those who take the facts as they appear to lie on the surface of the synoptical narratives (Lightfoot, Bochart, Reland, Schottgen, Tholuck, Olshausen, Stier, Lange, Hengstenberg, Robinson, and Davidson) start from a simpler point. They have nothing unexpected in the occurrences to account for, but they have to show that the passages in John may fairly be interpreted in such a manner as not to interfere with their own conclusion, and to meet the objections suggested by the laws relating to the observance of the festival. We shall give in succession, as briefly as we can, what appear to be their best explanations of the passages in question.

(a.) Joh 13:1-2. Does limit the time oully of the proposition in the first verse, or is the limitation to be -carried on to Joh 13:2, so as to refer to the supper? In the latter case, for which De Wette and others say there is a logical necessity, must refer more directly to the manifestation of his love which he was about to give to his disciples in washing their feet; and the natural conclusion is that the meal was one eaten before the paschal supper. Bochart, however, contends that is equivalent to , quod ita prmececedit festum, ut tamen sit pars festi. Stier agrees with him. Others take to mean the seven days of unleavened bread as not including the eating of the lamb, and justify the limitation by Luk 22:1 ( ). But not a few of those who take this side of the main question (Olshansen, Wieseler, Tholuck, and others) regard the first verse as complete in itself; understanding its purport to be that Before the Passover, in the prospect of his departure, the Savior’s love was actively called forth towards his followers, and he gave proof of his love to the last. Tholuck remarks that the expression (Tischendorf reads ), while supper was going on (not as in the A.V., supper being ended), is very abrupt if we refer it to anything except the Passover. The evangelist would then rather have used some such expression as ; and he considers that this view is confirmed by 21:20, where this supper is spoken of as if it were something familiarly known and not peculiar in its character . On the whole, Neander himself admits that nothing can safely be inferred from Joh 13:1-2 in favor of the supper having taken place on the 13th.

(b.) Joh 13:29. It is purged that the things of which they had need against the feast might have been the provisions for the Chagigah, perhaps with what else was required for the seven days of unleavened bread. The usual day for sacrificing the Chagigah was the 15th, which was then commencing. But there is another difficulty, in the disciples thinking it likely either that purchases could be made, or that alms could be given to the poor, on a day of holy convocation. This is of course a difficulty of the same kind as that which meets us in the purchases actually made by the women, by Joseph and Nicodemus. Now it must be admitted that we have no proof that the strict rabbinical maxims which have been appealed to on this point existed in the time of our Savior, and that it is highly probable that the letter of the law in regard to trading was habitually relaxed in the case of what was required for religious rites, or for burials. There was plainly a distinction recognized between a day of holy convocation and the Sabbath in the Mosaic law itself, in respect to the obtaining and preparation of food, under which head the Chagigah might come (Exo 12:16); and in the Mishna the same distinction is clearly maintained (Yom Tob, v. 2, and legilla, 1:5). It also appears that the school of Hillel allowed more liberty in certain particulars on festivals and fasts in the night than in the day time (Pesachim, 4:5. The special application of the license is rather obscure. See Bartenora’s note. Comp. also Pesachim, 6:2). And it is expressly stated in the Mishna that on the Sabbath itself wine, oil, and bread could be obtained by leaving a cloak () as a pledge, and when the 14th of Nisan fell on a Sabbath the paschal lamb could be obtained in like manner (Sabbath, 23:1). Alms also could be given to the poor under certain conditions (ib. 1:1).

(c.) Joh 18:28. The Jews refused to enter the praetorium lest they should be defiled, and so disqualified from eating the passover. Neander and others deny that this passage can possibly refer to anything but the paschal supper. But it is alleged that the words may either be taken in a general sense, as meaning that they might go on keeping the Passover, or that may be understood specifically to denote the Chagigah. That it might be so used is rendered probable by Luk 22:1; and the Hebrew word which it represents () evidently refers equally to the victims for the Chagigah and the paschal lamb (Deu 16:2), where it is commanded that the passover should be sacrificed of the flock and the herd. In the plural it is used in the same manner (2Ch 35:7; 2Ch 35:9). It is moreover to be kept in view that the passover might be eaten by those who had incurred a degree of legal impurity, and that this was not the case in respect to the Chagigah. (See 2Ch 30:17; also Pesachim, 7:4, with Maimonides’s note.) Joseph appears not to have participated in the scruple of the other rulers, as he entered the praetorium to beg the body of Jesus (Mar 15:43). Lightfoot (Ex. Heb. in loc.) goes so far as to draw an argument in favor of the 14th being the day of the supper from the very text in question. He says that the slight defilement incurred by entering a Gentile house, had the Jews merely intended to eat the supper in the evening, might have been done away in good time by mere ablution; but that as the festival had actually commenced, and they were probably just about to eat the Chagigah, they could not resort even to such a simple mode of purification. Dr. Fairbairn takes the expression that they might eat the passover in its limited sense, and supposes that these Jews, in their determined hatred, were willing to put off the meal to the verge of, or even beyond, the legal time (Herm. Manual, p. 341).

In opposition to this view it may be argued,

(i.) That according to the Mishna (Pesach. 6:4) the flesh of these voluntary offerings might be eaten at any time within two days and one night; and even this. might be postponed for individuals.

(ii.) By the same passage, since the 14th of Nisan fell in that year on a working-day, these sacrifices might have been brought at the same time with the paschal lamb, and the sacrificial meal must already have been eaten by many of the Jews. In this case the expression of the evangelist is too general, and the Sanhedrim would certainly have sent to the heathen procurator such delegates as had no further reason to fear the uncleanness thus contracted.

(iii.

) Since the paschal lamb must be slain in the Temple by those who offered it, this, according to the prescribed regulations, was done from the first to the fifth hour, and could be done only by those who were clean; such uncleanness continuing until evening was a hinderance, and would certainly be avoided in the general fear of an impurity, which would disturb this festival (comp. Lucke, Op. cit. 725).

(iv.) Again, the mode of speech in Deu 16:2, Thou shalt sacrifice the passover, cannot prove any wider meaning of the words eat the passover than the common one, least of all a technical or offerings alone, to the exclusion of the paschal lamb; and indeed the effect of the loose use of these words in the second verse is completely removed by the strict use of the same. phrase in the sixth.

(v.) In the same manner the argument from. 2Ch 30:22 is without force, since eating throughout the feast (2Ch 30:22) is distinguished clearly enough from eating the passover (2Ch 30:18).

(d.) Joh 19:14. The preparation of the Passover at first sight would seem as if it must be the preparation for the Passover on the 14th, a time set apart for making ready for the paschal week and for the paschal supper in particular. It is naturally so understood by those who advocate the notion that the last supper was eaten on the 13th. But they who take the opposite view affirm that, though there was a regular preparation for the Sabbath, there is no mention of any preparation for the festivals (Bochart, Reland, Tholuck, Hengstenberg). The word is expressly explained by (Mar 15:42 : Lachmann reads ). It seems to be essentially connected with the Sabbath itself (Joh 19:31). It cannot, however, be denied that the days of holy convocation are sometimes designated in the O.T. simply as Sabbaths (Lev 16:31; Lev 23:11; Lev 23:32). It is therefore not quite impossible that the language of the Gospels considered by itself might refer to them. There is no mention whatever of the preparation for the Sabbath in the O.T., but it is mentioned by Josephus (Ant. 16:6, 2), and it would seem from him that the time of preparation formally commenced at the ninth hour of the sixth day of the week. The is named in Jdt 8:6 as one of the times on which devout Jews suspended their fasts. It was called by the rabbins ; quia est (Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. col. 1659).

The phrase in Joh 19:14 may thus be understood as the preparation of the Sabbath which fell in the Passover week. This mode of taking the expression seems to be justified by Ignatius, who calls the Sabbath which occurred in the festival (Ep. ad Philippians 13), and by Socrates, who calls it (Hist. Eccles. 5:22). If these arguments are admitted, the day of the preparation mentioned in the Gospels might have fallen on the day of holy convocation, the 15th of Nisan. (Comp. Reland, 4:3, 11; Gabler, Op. cit. 445 sq.; Baur, Gottesd. Verfiss. 2, 227; Tholuck, John, p. 300 sq.; Jahn, Archceol. 3:314; Guericke, in the Neues krit. Journ. der Theol. 3:257 sq.; Olshausen, Bibl. sq.; Kern, in the Tubinger Zeitschr. 1836, 3:7 sq.; Crusius, John ii,138, 148; Wieseler, Chroi. Synops. p. 339 sq. Ebrard, on the Evaig. Joh. p. 42 sq.; Von Ammer, Leben Jesu 3:295, 411 sq.)

All this, however, seems forced, and contradicts the usus loquendi (see Thiele, in Neues krit. Journ. v. 129 sq.). The explanation of the preparation of the Passover, also, by the Sabbath of the Passover (comparing Ignat. ad Philip. c. 13), cannot well be accepted; for Ignatius, a Christian writer, simply calls the Saturday before Easter the preparation for Easter, which is altogether analogous to the preparation of the Passover, in the usual sense; nor indeed is the reference certain (Bleek, Op. cit. p. 119). It would seem that Greek readers would understand this phrase ( .) only of the preparation for the Passover. It would require good proof to lead even a Jew to understand it as an abridged way of saying the preparation for the Passover-Sabbath. But suppose this proof discovered, how could John use this mode of speech, intelligible to none but Jews, in his Gospel ?

(e.) Joh 19:31. That Sabbath-day was an high day . Any Sabbath occurring in the Passover week might have been considered a high day, as deriving an accession of dignity from the festival. But it is assumed by those who fix the supper on the 13th that the term was applied owing to the 15th being a double Sabbath, from the coincidence of the day of holy convocation with the weekly festival. Those, on the other hand, who identify the supper with the paschal meal, contend that the special dignity of the day resulted from its being that on which the omer was offered, and from which were reckoned the fifty days to Pentecost. One explanation of the term seems to be as good as the other.

(f.) The difficulty of supposing that our Lord’s apprehension, trial, and crucifixion took place on the day of holy convocation has been strongly urged, especially by Greswell (Dissert. 3:156). If many of the rabbinical maxims for the observance of such days which have been handed down to us were then in force, these occurrences certainly could not have taken place. But the statements which refer to Jewish usage in regard to legal proceedings on sacred days are very inconsistent with each other. Some of them make the difficulty equally great whether we suppose the’ trial to have taken place on the 14th or the 15th. In others, there are exceptions permitted which seem to go far to meet the case before us. For example, the Mishna forbids that a capital offender should be examined in the night or on the day before the Sabbath or a feast-day (Sanhedrins. 4:1). This law is modified by the glosses of the Gemara (see the notes of Cocceius in Surenhusius, 4:226). But if it had been recognized in its obvious meaning by the Jewish rulers, they would have outraged it in as great a degree on the. preceding day (i.e. the 14th) as on the day of holy convocation before the Sabbath. It was also forbidden to administer justice on a high feast-day, or to carry arms (Yom Tob, v. 2). But these prohibitions are expressly distinguished from unconditional precepts, and are reckoned among those which may be set aside by circumstances. The members of the Sanhedrim were forbidden to eat any food on the same day after condemning a criminal (Bab. Gem. Sanhedrim, quoted by Lightfoot on Mat 27:1). Yet we find them intending to eat the passover (Joh 18:28) after pronouncing the sentence (Mat 26:65-66). The application of this prohibition to the point in hand will, however, hinge on the way in which we understand it not to have been lawful for the Jews to put any man to death (Joh 18:31), and therefore to pronounce sentence in the legal sense. If we suppose that the Roman government had not deprived them of the power of life and death, it may have been to avoid breaking their law, as expressed in Sanhedrim, 4:1, that they wished to throw the matter on the procurator. (See Biscoe, Lectures on the Acts, p. 166; Scaliger’s note in the Critici Sacri on Joh 18:31; Lightfoot, Ex. Heb. Mat 26:3, and Joh 18:31, where the evidence is given which is in favor of the Jews having resigned the right of capital punishment forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem.) It was, however, expressly permitted that the Sanhedrim might assemble on the Sabbath as well as on feast-days, not indeed in their usual chamber, but in a place near the court of the women (Gemara, Sanhedrim). And there is a remarkable passage in the Mishna in which it is commanded that an elder not submitting to the voice of the Sanhedrim should be kept at Jerusalem till one of the three great festivals, and then executed, in accordance with Deu 17:12-13 (Sanhedrim, 10:4). Nothing is said to lead us to infer that the execution could not take place on one of the days of holy convocation. It is, however, hardly necessary to refer to this, or any similar authority, in respect to the crucifixion, which was carried out in conformity with the sentence of the Roman procurator, not that of the Sanhedrim.

But we have better proof than either the Mishna or the Gemara can afford that the Jews did not hesitate, in the time of the Roman domination, to carry arms and to apprehend a prisoner on a solemn feast-day. We find them at the feast of Tabernacles, on the great day of the feast, sending out officers to take our Lord, and rebuking them for not bringing him (Joh 7:32-45). St. Peter also was seized during the Passover (Act 12:3-4). And, again, the reason alleged by the rulers for not apprehending Jesus was, not the sanctity of the festival, but the fear of an uproar among the multitude which was assembled (Mat 26:5).

On the whole, then, notwithstanding the express declaration of the law and of the Mishna that the days of holy convocation were to be observed precisely as the Sabbath, except in the preparation of food, it is highly probable that considerable license was allowed in regard to them, as we have already observed. It is very evident that the festival times were characterized by a free and jubilant character which did not belong, in the same degree, to the Sabbath, and which was plainly not restricted to the days that fell between the days of holy convocation (Lev 23:40; Deu 12:7; Deu 14:26). It should also be observed that while the law of the Sabbath was enforced on strangers dwelling among the’ Israelites, such was not the case with the law of the festivals. A greater freedom of action in cases of urgent need would naturally follow, and it is not difficult to suppose that the women who rested on the Sabbath-day according to the commandment had prepared the spices and linen for the entombment on the day of holy convocation. To say nothing of the way in which the question might be affected by the much greater license permitted by the school of Hillel than by the school of Shammai, in all matters of this kind, it is remarkable that we find, on the Sabbath-day itself, not only Joseph (Mar 15:43), but the chief priests and Pharisees coming to Pilate, and, as it would seem, entering the praetorium (Mat 27:62).

(g.) Finally, it must be admitted that the narrative of John, so far as the mere succession of events is concerned, bears consistent testimony in favor of the last supper having been eaten on the evening before the Passover. That testimony, however, does not appear to be so distinct, and so incapable of a second interpretation, as that of the synoptical Gospels in favor of the meal having been the paschal supper itself, at the legal time (see especially Mat 26:17; Mar 14:1; Mar 14:12; Luk 22:7). Whether the explanations of the passages in John, and of the difficulties resulting from the nature of the occurrences related, compared with the enactments of the Jewish law, be considered satisfacfory or not, due weight should be given to the antecedent probability that the meal was no nother than the regular Passover, and that the reasonableness of the contrary view cannot be maintained without some artificial theory, having no proper foundation either in Scripture or ancient testimony of any kind.

3. Evidence of Later Writers. There is a strange story preserved in the Gemara (Sanhedrin, 6:2) that our Lord, having vainly endeavored during forty days to find an advocate. was sentenced and, on the 14th of Nisan, stoned, and afterwards hanged. As we know that the difficulty of the Gospel narratives had been perceived long before this statement could have been written, and as the two opposite opinions on the chief question were both current, the writer might easily have taken up one or the other. The statement cannot be regarded as worth anything in the way of evidence. Other rabbinical authorities countenance the statement that Christ was executed on the 14th of the month (see Jost, Judenth. 1:404). But this seems to be a case in which, for the reason stated above, numbers do not add to the weight of the testimony.

Not much use can be made in the controversy of the testimonies of the fathers. But few of them attempted to consider the question critically. Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. 5:23, 24) has recorded the traditions which were in favor of John having kept Easter on the 14th of the month. It has been thought that those traditions rather help the conclusion that the supper was on the 14th. But the question on which Eusebius brings them to bear is simply whether the Christian festival should be observed on the 14th, the day , on whatever day of the week it might fall, or on the Sunday of the resurrection. It seems that nothing whatever can be safely inferred from them respecting the day of the month of the supper or the crucifixion. Clement of Alexandria and Origen appeal to the Gospel of John as deciding in favor of the 13th. Chrysostom expresses himself doubtfully between the two. St. Augustine was in favor of the 14th. Numerous patristic authorities are stated by Maldonat On Matthew 26.

On this question respecting the Lord’s Supper, see, in addition to the works cited above, Robinson, Harmony of the Gospels, and Bibliotheca Sacra for Aug. 1845; Tholuck, On John 13; Stier, On John 12 i; Kuinol, On Matthew 26; Neander, Life of Christ, 265; Greswell, Harm. of the Evang. and Dissertations; Wieseler, Chronol. Synopsis der vier Evang.; Tischendorf, Syn. Evang. p. 45; Bleek, Dissert. fiber den Monatstag des Todes Christi (Beitirge zur Evangelien-Kritik, 1846); Frisch. muth, Dissertatio, etc. (Thes. Theol. Philolog.); Haren. berg, Demonstratio, etc. (Thes. Novus Theol. Philippians vol 2); Eude, Demonstratio quod Chr. in Caon. agnum paschalem non comedeorit (Lips. 1742); Ellicott, Lectures on the Life of our Lord, p. 320; Fairbairn, Hermeneutical Manual, 2:9; Davidson, Introduction to the N.T. 1:102; Andrews, Life of our Lord, p. 425 sq.; Lewin, Fasti Sacri, p. 31 sq.; Ebrard, Kritik d, evang. Gesch. p. 615 sq.; Caspari, Chronol. geogr. Einleit. p. 164 sq.; Westcott, Introd. to the Gosp. p. 335 sq.; Stud. und Krit. 1832, 3:537; Isenberg, Der Todestag des Herrn (Hannov. 1868; maintains that Jesus died on the 14th of Nisan according to the Roman reckoning). SEE LORDS SUPPER.

VI. Origin and Import of the Feast of Passover.

1. Naturalistic Interpretation. Each of the three great festivals contained a reference to the annual course of nature. Two, at least, of them the first and the last also commemorated events in the history of the chosen people. The coincidence of the times of their observance with the most marked periods in the process of gathering in the fruits of the earth has not unnaturally suggested the notion that their agricultural significance is the more ancient; that, in fact, they were originally harvest feasts observed by the patriarchs, and that their historical meaning was superadded in later times (Ewald).

Hupfeld has devised an arrangement of the passages in the Pentateuch bearing on the Passover so as to show, according to this theory, their relative antiquity. The order is as follows:

(1) Exo 23:14-17;

(2) Exo 34:18-26;

(3) Exo 13:3-10;

(4) Exo 12:15-20;

(5) Exo 12:1-14;

(6) Exo 12:43-50; Num 9:10-14.

It may seem at first sight as if some countenance were given to the notion that the feast of unleavened bread was originally a distinct festival from the Passover, by such passages as Lev 23:5-6 : In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord’s Passover; and on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread (see also Num 28:16-17). Josephus, in like manner, speaks of the feast of unleavened bread as following the Passover (Ant. 3:10, 5). But such language may mean no more than the distinction between the paschal supper and the seven days of unleavened bread, which is so obviously implied in the fact that the eating of unleavened bread was observed by the country Jews who were at home, though they could not partake of the paschal lamb without going to Jerusalem. Every member of the household had to abstain from leavened bread, but some only went up to the paschal meal (see Maimonides, De Fernentato et Azymo, 6:1). It is evident that the common usage, in later times at least, was to employ, as equivalent terms, the feast of the Passover, and the feast of unleavened bread (Mat 26:17; Mar 14:12; Luk 22:1; Josephus, Ant. 14:2, 1; War, 2:1, 3).

That the feast of Passover, as such, was instituted to commemorate the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt will be admitted by all who give credence to the historical veracity of the Pentateuch. Its institution, however, to commemorate this great historical fact has been thought by some by no means to preclude the idea that a festival, of somewhat similar rites, was celebrated by the Jews at this season, in common with other nations of antiquity, containing a reference to the annual course of nature. The following circumstances are adduced to sustain this view. When the first appeal was made to Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, it was that they might celebrate an approaching festival (Exo 3:19; Exo 5:1). Moreover, it is a well-known fact that all the Eastern nations, who were dependent upon the course of the sun, celebrated two principal annual festivals referring to the seasons: viz. the spring festival, at the time when the sun passes over () into the sign of Aries, and when the corn began to ripen; and the other, the autumn festival, when the last fruits were gathered in, which is identical with the feast of Tabernacles (). We are told that, since the time of this spring festival was both an occasion of gratitude and anxiety-inasmuch as not only was the barley gathered, but it decided the fertility or the barrenness of the year-the spring festival was celebrated in a double manner: (a) As a token of gratitude, the fresh grains of barley were quickly ground into flour, bread was made of the dough at once, before it had time to leaven, and thus offered; and (b) as an expression of anxiety, and of a desire to conciliate the divine favor, an, expiatory sacrifice was offered for the transgressions of the past year. Indeed Epiphanius declares (Adv. Haer. cap. 19:3) that the Egyptians on this occasion marked their sheep with red, because of the general conflagration which once raged at the time when the sun passed over into the sign of Aries, thereby to symbolize the fiery death of those animals which were not actually offered up; while Von Bohlen assures us that the ancient Peruvians marked with blood the doors of the temples, royal residences, and private dwellings, to symbolize the triumph of the sun over the winter (Ates Indien, 1:140; also General Introduction to the Pentateuch, p. 140; comp. Kalisch, Commentary on Exodus, p. 184; Ewald, Alterthumer, p. 390). Now it is admitted that two of the three great Jewish festivals viz. Pentecost and Tabernacles refer to the annual course of nature, SEE FESTIVAL, and that the festival of New Moon, which existed prior to the Mosaic legislation, was introduced by the inspired legislator into the cycle of Jewish festivals. SEE NEW MOON, FEAST OF THE.

There can therefore be no difficulty in admitting that the third festival was also celebrated in the patriarchal age as a barley-harvest festival, which is indicated by the very name, Abib (), of this month, and that God in his infinite wisdom and goodness chose to redeem Israel at the time of this festival, and thus connected with the celebration of the regeneration of nature the celebration of the birth of the nation (Isa 43:1; Isa 43:15-17; Eze 16:4; Hos 2:5), super-adding thereto rites and ceremonies commemorative of the historical event, as well as assigning to some already existing ceremonies a spiritual and original significance. This explains the fact why the unleavened bread, which was undoubtedly connected with sacrifices before the institution of the Passover, and which was enjoined to be eaten with the paschal sacrifices, without giving to it any significance in the original ordinance (Exo 12:1-20), was afterwards made to symbolize the haste in which the children of Israel had to leave Egypt (Exo 12:34; Deu 16:3). That the unleavened bread could not from the first have been the symbol of the fact that there was no time for the dough to leaven (Exo 12:33-34; Exo 12:39) is evident from Exo 12:8; Exo 12:15, where the Israelites were commanded to eat unleavened bread before their departure, and when there was plenty of time for the dough to leaven. Moreover, the fact that this primeval festival has been divested of many old superstitions, and invested with new ideas of a most exalting tendency, in being made to commemorate the exodus as well as the barley harvest, sets aside the arguments brought against the possibility of its having been celebrated at the exodus, inasmuch as the people were quite prepared for the celebration, so far as arrangements and cattle were concerned.

On the other hand, the above view of Baur, that the Passover was an astronomical festival and the lamb a symbol of the sign Aries, and that of Von Bohlen, that it resembled the sun-feast of the Peruvians, are well exposed by Bahr (Symbolik). Spencer has endeavored in his usual manner to show that many details of the festival were derived from heathen sources, though he admits the originality of the whole. It must be admitted that the relation to the natural year expressed in the Passover was less marked than that in Pentecost or Tabernacles, while its historical import was deeper and more pointed. It seems hardly possible to study the history of the Passover with candor and attention, as it stands in the Scriptures, without being driven to the conclusion that it was, at the very first, essentially the commemoration of a great historical fact. That part of its ceremonies which has a direct agricultural reference the offering of the omer holds a very subordinate place. But as regards the whole of the feasts, it is not very easy to imagine that the rites which belonged to them connected with the harvest were of patriarchal origin. Such rites were adapted for the religion of an agricultural people, not for that of shepherds like the patriarchs. It would seem, therefore, that we gain but little by speculating on the simple impression conveyed in the Pentateuch, that the feasts were ordained by Moses in their integrity, and that they were arranged with a view to the religious wants of the people when they were to be settled in the Land of Promise.

2. Historical Significance of the Festival as a Whole. The deliverance from Egypt was regarded as the starting- point of the Hebrew nation. The Israelites were then raised from the condition of bondmen under a foreign tyrant to that of a free people owing allegiance to no one but Jehovah. Ye have seen, said the Lord, what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings and brought you unto myself (Exo 19:4). The prophet in a later age spoke of the event as a creation and a redemption of the nation. God declares himself to be the creator of Israel, in immediate connection with evident allusions to his having brought them out of Egypt; such as his having made a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters, and his having overthrown the chariot and horse, the army and the power (Isa 43:1; Isa 43:15-17). The exodus was thus looked upon as the birth of the nation; the Passover was its annual birthday feast. Nearly all the rites of the festival, if explained in the most natural manner, appear to point to this as its primary meaning. It was the yearly memorial of the dedication of the people to him who had saved their first-born from the destroyer, in order that they might be made holy to himself. This was the lesson which they were to teach to their children throughout all generations. When the young Hebrew asked his father regarding the paschal lamb, What is this? the answer prescribed was, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage: and it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of beast; therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the womb, being males; but all the first-born of my children I redeem (Exo 13:14-15). Hence, in the periods of great national restoration in the times of Joshua, Hezekiah, Josiah, and Ezra, the Passover was observed in a special manner, to remind the people of their true position, and to mark their renewal of the covenant which their fathers had made.

3. Import of the Details.

(1.) The paschal lamb must of course be regarded as the leading feature in the ceremonial of the festival. Some Protestant divines during the last two centuries (Calov, Carpzov), laying great stress on the fact that nothing is said in the law respecting either the imposition of the hands of the priest on the head of the lamb, or the bestowing of any portion of the flesh on the priest, have denied that it was a sacrifice in the proper sense of the word. They appear to have been tempted to take this view, in order to deprive the Romanists of an analogical argument bearing on the Romish doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. They affirmed that the lamb was a sacramentum, not a sacrificium. But most of their contemporaries (Cudworth, Bochart, Vitringa), and nearly all modern critics, have held that it was in the strictest sense a sacrifice. The chief characteristics of a sacrifice are, all distinctly ascribed to it. It was offered in the holy place (Deu 16:5-6); the blood was sprinkledon the altar, and the fat was burned (2Ch 30:16; 2Ch 35:11). Philo and Josephus commonly call it or . The language of Exo 12:27; Exo 23:18; Num 9:7; Deu 16:2; Deu 16:5, together with 1Co 5:7, would seem to decide the question beyond the reach of doubt.

As the original institution of the Passover in Egypt preceded the establishment of the priesthood and the regulation of the service of the tabernacle, it necessarily fell short in several particulars of the observance of the festival according to the fully developed ceremonial law (see II, 1). The head of the family slew the lamb in his own house, not in the holy place; the blood was sprinkled on the doorway, not on the altar. But when the: law was perfected, certain particulars were altered in order to assimilate the Passover to the accustomed order of religious service. It has been conjectured that the imposition of the hands of the priest was one of these particulars, though it is not recorded (Kurtz). But whether this was the case or not, the other changes which have been stated seem to be abundantly sufficient for the argument. It can hardly be doubted that the paschal lamb was regarded as the great annual peace-offering of the family, a thank-offering for the existence and preservation of the nation (Exo 13:14-16), the typical sacrifice of the elected and reconciled children of the promise. It was peculiarly the Lord’s own sacrifice (Exo 23:18; Exo 34:25).

It was more ancient than the written law, and called to mind that covenant on which the law was based. It retained in a special manner the expression of the sacredness of the whole people, and of the divine mission of the head of every family, according to the spirit of the old patriarchal priesthood. No part of the victim was given to the priest as in other peace-offerings, because the father was the priest himself. The custom, handed on from age to age, thus guarded from superstition the idea of a priesthood placed in the members of a single tribe, while it visibly set forth the promise which was connected with the deliverance of the people from Egypt, Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exo 19:6). In this way it became a testimony in favor of domestic worship. In the historical fact that the blood in later times sprinkled on the altar had at first had its divinely appointed place on the lintels and door-posts, it was declared that the national altar itself represented the sanctity which belonged to the house of every Israelite, not that only which belonged to the nation as a whole. As regards the mere place of sprinkling in the first Passover, on the reason of which there has been some speculation, Bahr reasonably supposes that the lintels and door- posts were selected as the parts of the house most obvious to passers-by, and to which inscriptions of different kinds were often attached (comp. Deu 6:9).

A question, perhaps not a wise one, has been raised regarding the purpose of the sprinkling of the blood on the lintels and door-posts. Some have considered that it was meant as a mark to guide the destroying angel. Others (especially Bochart and Bahr) suppose that it was merely a sign to confirm the faith of the Israelites in their safety and deliverance. Surely neither of these views can stand alone. The sprinkling must have been an act of faith and obedience which God accepted with favor. Through faith (we are told) Moses kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the first-born should touch them (Heb 11:28). Whatever else it may have been, it was certainly an essential part of a sacrament, of an effectual sign of grace and of God’s good-will, expressing the mutual relation into which the covenant had brought the Creator and the creature. That it also denoted the purification of the children of Israel from the abominations of the Egyptians, and so had the accustomed significance of the sprinkling of blood under the law (Heb 9:22), is evidently in entire consistency with this view.

No satisfactory reason has been assigned for the command to choose the lamb four days before the paschal supper. Kurtz (following Hofmann) fancies that the four days signified the four centuries of Egyptian bondage. As in later times the rule appears not to have been observed, the reason of it was probably of a temporary nature.

That the lamb was to be roasted and not boiled has been supposed to commemorate the haste of the departure of the Israelites (so Bahr and most of the Jewish authorities). Spencer observes on the other had that, as they had their cooking-vessels with them, one mode would have been as expeditious as the other. Some think that, like the dress and the posture in which the first Passover was to be eaten, it was intended to remind the people that they were now no longer to regard themselves as settled down in a home, but as a host upon the march, roasting being the proper military mode of dressing meat. Kurtz conjectures that the Iamb was to be roasted with fire, the purifying element, because the meat was thus left pure, without the mixture even of the water, which would have entered into it in boiling. The meat in its purity would thus correspond in signification with the unleavened bread.

It is not difficult to determine the reason of the command, not a bone of him shall be broken. The lamb was to be a symbol of unity; the unity of the family, the unity of the nation, the unity of God with his people whom he had taken into covenant with himself. While the flesh was divided into portions, so that each member of the family could partake, the skeleton was left one and entire to remind them of the bonds which united them. Thus the words of the law are applied to the body of our Savior, as the type of that still higher unity of which he was himself to be the author and center (Joh 19:36). The same significance may evidently be attached to the prohibition that no part of the meat should be kept for another meal, or carried to another house. The paschal meal in each house was to be one, whole and entire.

(2.) The unleavened bread ranks next in importance to the paschal lamb. The notion has been very generally held, or taken for granted, both by Christian and Jewish writers of all ages, that it was intended to remind the Israelites of the unleavened cakes which they were obliged to eat in their hasty flight (Exo 12:34; Exo 12:39). But there is not the least intimation to this effect in the sacred narrative. On the contrary, the command was given to Moses and Aaron that unleavened bread should be eaten with the lamb before the circumstance occurred upon which this explanation is based (comp. Exo 12:8 with 12:39).

It has been considered by some (Ewald, Winer, and the modern Jews) that the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs alike owe their meaning to their being regarded as unpalatable food. The expression bread of affliction, (Deu 16:3), is regarded as equivalent to fasting- bread, and on this ground Ewald ascribes something of the character of a fast to the Passover. But this seems to be wholly inconsistent with the pervading joyous nature of the festival. The bread of affliction may mean bread which, in present gladness, commemorated, either in itself, or in common with the other elements of the feast, the past affliction of the people (Bahr, Kurtz, Hofmann). It should not be forgotten that unleavened bread was not peculiar to the Passover. The ordinary meat – offering was unleavened (Lev 2:4-5; Lev 7:12; Lev 10:12, etc.), and so was the shewbread (Lev 24:5-9). The use of unleavened bread in the consecration of the priests (Exo 29:23), and in the offering of the Nazarite (Num 6:19), is interesting in relation to the Passover, as being apparently connected with the consecration of the person, On the whole, we are warranted in concluding that unleavened bread had a peculiar sacrificial character, according to. the law, and it call hardly be supposed that a particular kind of food should have been offered to the Lord because it was insipid or unpalatable. Hupfeld imagines that bread without leaven, being the simplest’ result of cooked grain, characterized the old agricultural festival which existed before the sacrifice of the lamb was instituted.

It seems more reasonable to accept Paul’s reference to the subject (1Co 5:6-8) as furnishing the true meaning of the symbol. Fermentation is decomposition, a dissolution of unity. This must be more obvious to ordinary eyes where the leaven in common use is a piece of sourdough, instead of the expedients at present employed in this country to make bread light. The pure dry biscuit, as distinguished from bread thus leavened, would be an apt emblem of unchanged duration, and, in its freedom from foreign mixture, of purity also. The root signifies to make dry. Kurtz thinks that dryness rather than sweetness is the idea . But sweet in this connection has the sense of uncorrupted, or incorruptible, and hence is easily connected with dryness. Perhaps our authorized version has lost. something in expressiveness by substituting the term unleavened bread for the sweet bread of the older versions, which still holds its place in 1Es 1:19. If this was the accepted meaning among the Jews, the unleavened bread of sincerity and, truth must have been a clear and familiar expression to Paul’s Jewish readers. Bahr conceives that as the blood of the lamb figured the act of purifying, the getting rid of the corruptions of Egypt, the unleavened bread signified the abiding state of consecrated holiness.

(3.) The bitter herbs are generally understood by the Jewish writers (Maimonides in Pesach. 8:4) to signify the bitter sufferings which the Israelites had endured (Exo 1:14). But it has been remarked by Aben-Ezra that these herbs are a good and wholesome accompaniment for meat, and are now, and appear to have been in ancient times, commonly so eaten.

(4.) The offering of the omer, though it is obviously that part of the festival which is immediately connected with the course of the seasons, bore- a- distinct analogy to its historical significance. It may have denoted a deliverance from winter, as the lamb signified deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, which might well be considered as a winter in the history of the nation. This application of the rite perhaps derives some support from the form in which the ordinary first-fruit offering was presented in the Temple. SEE FIRST-FRUITS. The call of Jacob ( a Syrian ready to perish), and the deliverance of his children from Egypt, with their settlement in the land that flowed with milk and honey, were then related (Deu 26:5-10). It is worthy of notice that, according to Pesachim, an exposition of this passage was an important part of the reply which the father gave to his son’s inquiry during the paschal supper. The account of the procession in offering the first-fruits in the Mishna (Bikurin). with the probable reference to the subject in Isa 30:29, can hardly have anything to do with the Passover. The connection appears to have been suggested by the tradition mentioned by Aben-Ezra that the army of Sennacherib was smitten on the night of the Passover. Regarding this tradition, Vitringa says, Non recipio, nec sperno (In Isaiam 30:29).

Again, the consecration of the first-fruits, the firstborn of the soil, is an easy type of the consecration of the first-born of the Israelites. This seems to be countenanced by Exo 13:2-4, where the sanctification of the first-born, and the unleavened bread which figured it, seem to be emphatically connected with the time of year, Abib, the month of green ears (see Gesenius, Thesaur. In the Sept. it is called , sc. ). If Nisan is a Shemitic word, Gesenius thinks that it means the month of flowers, in agreement with a passage in Macarius (Hom. 17), in which it is called . But he seems inclined to favor an explanlation of the word suggested by a Zend root, according to which it would signify the month of New-year’s day.

4. Typical Import of the Festival. No other shadow of good things to come contained in the law can vie with the festival of the Passover in expressiveness and completeness. Hence we are so often reminded of it, more or less distinctly, in the ritual and language of the Church. Its outline, considered in reference to the great deliverance of the Israelites which it commemorated, and many of its minute details, have been appropriated as current expressions of the truths which God has revealed to us in the fullness of times in sending his Son upon earth.

It is not surprising that ecclesiastical writers should have pushed the comparison too far, and exercised their fancy in the application of trifling or accidental particulars either to the facts of our Lord’s life or to truths connected with it. The crossed spits on which Justin Martyr laid stress are noticed above. The subject is expanded by Vitringa (Observat. Sac. 2:10). The time of the new moon, at which the festival was held, has been taken as a type of the brightness of the appearing of the Messiah; the lengthening of the days at that season of the year as figuring the ever-increasing light and warmth of the Redeemer’s kingdom; the advanced hour of the day at which the supper was eaten, as a representation of the fullness of times; the roasting of the lamb, as the effect of God’s wrath against sin; the thorough cooking of the lamb, as a lesson that Christian doctrine should be well arranged and digested; the prohibition that any part of the flesh should remain till the morning, as a foreshowing of the haste in Which the body of Christ was removed from the cross; the unfermented bread, as the emblem of an humble spirit, while fermented bread was the figure of a heart puffed up with pride and vanity (see Suicer, sub ). In the like spirit Justin Martyr and Lactantius take up the charge against the Jews of corrupting the O.T., with a view to deprive the Passover of its clearness as a witness for Christ. They specifically allege that the following passage has been omitted in the copies of the book of Ezra: Et dixit Esdras ad populum: Hoc pascha salvator noster est, et refugium nostrum. Cogitate et ascendat in cor vestrum, quoniam habemus humiliare eum in signo; et: post haec sperabimus in eum, ne deseratur hic locus in: aeternum tempus (Just. Mart. Dialog. cun Tryp.; Lact. Inst. 4:18). It has been conjectured that the words may have been inserted between vers. 20 and 21 in Ezra 6. But they have been all but universally regarded as spurious.

But, keeping within the limits of sober interpretation indicated by Scripture itself, the application is singularly full and edifying. The deliverance of Israel according to the flesh from the bondage of Egypt was always so regarded and described by the prophets as to render it a most apt type of the deliverance of the spiritual Israel from the bondage of sin into the glorious liberty with which Christ has made us free. The blood of the first paschal lambs sprinkled on the doorways of the houses has ever been regarded as the best defined foreshadowing of that blood which has redeemed, saved, and sanctified us (Heb 11:28). The lamb itself, sacrificed by the worshipper without the intervention of a priest, and its flesh being eaten without reserve as a meal, exhibits the most perfect of peace-offerings, the closest type of the atoning Sacrifice who died for us and has made our peace with God (Isa 53:7; Joh 1:29; comp. the expression my sacrifice, Exo 34:25, also Exo 12:27; Act 8:32; 1Co 5:7; 1Pe 1:18-19). The ceremonial law, and the functions of the priest in later times, were indeed recognized in the sacrificial rite of the Passover; but the previous existence of the rite showed that they were not essential for the personal approach of the worshipper to God (Isa 61:6; 1Pe 2:5; 1Pe 2:9). The unleavened bread is recognized as the figure of the state of sanctification which is the true element of the believer in Christ (1Co 5:8). The haste with which the meal was eaten, and the girt-up loins, the staffs and the sandals, are fit emblems of the life of the Christian pilgrim, ever hastening away from the world towards his heavenly destination (Luk 12:35; 1Pe 1:13; 1Pe 2:11; Eph 5:15; Heb 11:13).

It has been well observed by Kurtz (on Exo 12:38), that at the very crisis when the distinction between Israel and the nations of the world was most clearly brought out (Exo 11:7), a mixed multitude went out from Egypt with them (Exo 12:38), and that provision was then made for all who were willing to join the chosen seed and participate with them in their spiritual advantages (Exo 12:44). Thus, at the very starting-point of national separation, was foreshadowed the calling in of the Gentiles to that covenant in which all’ nations of the earth were to be blessed.

The offering of the omer, in its higher signification as a symbol of the first- born, has already been noticed. But its meaning found full expression only in that Firstborn of all creation, who, having died and risen again, became the first-fruits of them that slept (1Co 15:20). As. the first of the first-fruits, no other offering of the sort seems so likely as the omer to have immediately suggested the expressions used in Rom 8:23; Rom 11:16; Jam 1:18; Rev 14:4.

The crowning application of the paschal rites to the truths of which they were the shadowy promises appears to be that which is afforded by the fact that our Lord’s death occurred during the festival. According to the divine purpose, the true Lamb of God was slain at nearly the same time as the Lord’s Passover, in obedience to the letter of the law. It does not seem needful that, in order to give point to this coincidence, we should (as some have done) draw from it an a priori argument in favor of our Lord’s crucifixion having taken place on the 14th of Nisan. It is enough to know that our own Holy Week and Easter stand as the anniversary of the same great facts as were foreshown in those events of which the yearly Passover was a commemoration.

As compared with the other festivals, the Passover was remarkably distinguished by a single victim essentially its own, sacrificed in a very peculiar manner. (The only parallel case to this, in the whole range of the public religious observances of the law, seems to be that of the scapegoat of the day of atonement.) In this respect, as well as in the place it held in the ecclesiastical year, it had a formal dignity and character of its own. It was the representative festival of the year, and in this unique position it stood in a certain relation to circumcision as the second sacrament of the Hebrew Church (Exo 12:44). We may see this in what occurred at Gilgal, when Joshua, in renewing the divine covenant, celebrated the Passover immediately after the circumcision of the people. But the nature of the relation in which these two rites stood to each other did not become fully developed until its types were fulfilled, and the Lord’s Supper took its place as the sacramental feast of the elect people of God. (It is worthy of remark that the modern Jews distinguish these two rites above all others, as being immediately connected with the grand fulfillment of the promises made to their fathers. Though they refer to the coming of Elijah in their ordinary grace at meals, it is only on these occasions that their expectation of the harbinger of the Messiah is expressed by formal observances. When a child is circumcised, an empty chair is placed at hand for the prophet to occupy. At the paschal meal a cup of wine is poured out for him; and at an appointed moment the door of the room is solemnly set open for him to enter.) Hupfeld well observes: En pulcherrima mysteriorum nostrorum exempla: circumcisio quidem baptismatis, scilicet signum gratiae divinae et feederis cum Deo pacti, quo ad sanctitatem populi sacri vocamur; Paschalis vero agnus et ritus, continuate quippe gratis divinae et servati feederis cum Deo signum et pignuts, quo sacra et cum Deo et cum caeteris populi sacri membris communio usque renovatur et alitur, ccene Christi sacrae typus aptissimus!

VII. Literature. The Mishna, Pesachim (with the notes by Surenhusius),. Chagiga, and Moed Katon; and the Talmud or Gemara on these Tractates; Maimonides, Iad Ha-Chezaka, Hilchoth Chamez U-Maza; Hilchoth Korban Pesach., and Hilchoth Chagiga; Lightfoot, The Temple Service, cap. xii-xiv, p. 951, 961, vol. i, fol. ed.; Hupfeld, De Fest. Hebr.; Bochart, De Aqno Paschali (vol. i of the Hierozoicon); Ugolini, De Ritibus in Cmn. Dom. ex Pasch. illustr. (vol. 17 of the Thesaurus); Maimonides, De Fermentato et A zyno; Rosenmller, Scholia in Exodus xii, etc.; Otho, Lex. Rab. s.v. Pascha; Carpzov, App. Crit.; Vitringa, Obs. Sac. lib. 2:3, 10; Reland, Antiq. 4:3; Spencer, De Leg. Heb 2:4; Kurtz, Hist. of the Old Covenant, 2:288 sq. (Clark’s ed.); Hottinger, De Ritu dimittendi Reum in Fest. Pasch. (Thes. Nov. Theologico-Philolog. vol. ii); Buxtorf, Syzag. Jud. xviii; Cudworth, True Notion of the Lord’s Supper; Meyer, De tempp. sacris Hebrceorum, p. 278 sq.; Bahr. Symbolik des Mosaischen Cultzs, 2:613 sq., 627 sq.; Saalschitz, Das Mosaische Recht (Berlin, 1853), p. 406 sq.; Ewald, Die Alterthumer des Volkes Israel (Gbttingen, 1854), p. 390 sq.; Kalisch, Historical and Critical Commentary on Exodus, p. 178, etc.; Keil, Handbuch der biblischen Archaologie, p. 380 sq.; Knobel, Die Buicher Exodus und Leviticus, p. 91 sq., 532 sq.; The Jewish Ritual, entitled Derech. Ha-Caojim (Vienna, 1859), p. 233 sq.; Landshuth, Hagada, Vortrag fur die beiden Pessachabende, which contains a masterly dissertation on the respective ages of the different portions constituting the Passover service, written in Hebrew by the editor, and a valuable treatise on the bibliography of the Passover service, written in German bv the erudite Steinschneider; also the monographs cited byVolbeding, Index Programmatum, p. 50, 52, 59, 60, 62, 121, and by Hase, Leben Jesu, p. 138, 174. SEE EASTER.

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Passover

the name given to the chief of the three great historical annual festivals of the Jews. It was kept in remembrance of the Lord’s passing over the houses of the Israelites (Ex. 12:13) when the first born of all the Egyptians were destroyed. It is called also the “feast of unleavened bread” (Ex. 23:15; Mark 14:1; Acts 12:3), because during its celebration no leavened bread was to be eaten or even kept in the household (Ex. 12:15). The word afterwards came to denote the lamb that was slain at the feast (Mark 14:12-14; 1 Cor. 5:7).

A detailed account of the institution of this feast is given in Ex. 12 and 13. It was afterwards incorporated in the ceremonial law (Lev. 23:4-8) as one of the great festivals of the nation. In after times many changes See m to have taken place as to the mode of its celebration as compared with its first celebration (comp. Deut. 16:2, 5, 6; 2 Chr. 30:16; Lev. 23:10-14; Num. 9:10, 11; 28:16-24). Again, the use of wine (Luke 22:17, 20), of sauce with the bitter herbs (John 13:26), and the service of praise were introduced.

There is recorded only one celebration of this feast between the Exodus and the entrance into Canaan, namely, that mentioned in Num. 9:5. (See JOSIAH) It was primarily a commemorative ordinance, reminding the children of Israel of their deliverance out of Egypt; but it was, no doubt, also a type of the great deliverance wrought by the Messiah for all his people from the doom of death on account of sin, and from the bondage of sin itself, a worse than Egyptian bondage (1 Cor. 5:7; John 1:29; 19:32-36; 1 Pet. 1:19; Gal. 4:4, 5). The appearance of Jerusalem on the occasion of the Passover in the time of our Lord is thus fittingly described: “The city itself and the neighbourhood became more and more crowded as the feast approached, the narrow streets and dark arched bazaars showing the same throng of men of all nations as when Jesus had first visited Jerusalem as a boy. Even the temple offered a strange sight at this season, for in parts of the outer courts a wide space was covered with pens for sheep, goats, and cattle to be used for offerings. Sellers shouted the merits of their beasts, sheep bleated, oxen lowed. Sellers of doves also had a place set apart for them. Potters offered a choice from huge stacks of clay dishes and ovens for roasting and eating the Passover lamb. Booths for wine, oil, salt, and all else needed for sacrifices invited customers. Persons going to and from the city shortened their journey by crossing the temple grounds, often carrying burdens…Stalls to change foreign money into the shekel of the temple, which alone could be paid to the priests, were numerous, the whole confusion making the sanctuary like a noisy market” (Geikie’s Life of Christ).

Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Passover

Pasach () gives its name to the Pascha or Passover Feast. [Dr. Geddes gravely proposed that this word should be translated skip-offering. But leap-offering would be more exact; compare the word leap-year.] It is used of the angel passing over the houses of Israel in Exo 12:13; Exo 12:23; Exo 12:27, and it occurs perhaps with significant reference to the great deliverance from Egypt in Isa 31:5, ‘ as birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it; and passing over he will preserve it.’ It is not a little remarkable that the word means not only to leap, and hence to pass over, but also to limp. It is the only word rendered ‘lame’ in the O.T., and is also found in 1Ki 18:21, when Elijah says, ‘How long halt ye between two opinions?’ and in verse 26 it occurs in the Piel or intensive voice, with reference to the priests of Baal ‘leaping’ on the altar.

The Paschal Feast is in the LXX, except in the Books of Chronicles, where the more exact form adopted.

While the whole Gospel narrative points to the relationship between Christ and the Paschal Lamb, there is only one passage in the N.T. which definitely asserts it, but that single sentence is clear enough, ‘Christ our passover is sacrificed (i.e. slain) for us’ (1Co 5:7).

Fuente: Synonyms of the Old Testament

Passover

(See FEASTS.) Pecach (Exo 12:11, etc.). The word is not in other Semitic languages, except in passages derived from the Hebrew Bible; the Egyptian word pesht corresponds, “to extend the arms or wings over one protecting him.” Also she’or, “leaven,” answers to Egyptian seri “seething pot,” seru “buttermilk,” Hebrew from shaar something left from the previous mass. Pass-over is not so much passing by as passing so as to shield over; as Isa 31:5, “as birds flying so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem, defending also He will deliver it, passing over He will preserve it” (Mat 23:37, Greek episunagon, the “epi” expresses the hen’s brooding over her chickens, the “sun” her gathering them together; Rth 2:12; Deu 32:11). Lowth, “leap forward to defend the house against the destroying angel, interposing His own person.” Vitringa, “preserve by interposing.” David interceding is the type (2Sa 24:16); Jehovah is distiller from the destroying angel, and interposes between him and the people while David intercedes.

So Heb 11:28; Exo 12:23. Israel’s deliverance front Egyptian bondage and adoption by Jehovah was sealed by the Passover, which was their consecration to Him. Exo 12:1-14 directs as to the Passover before the Exodus, Exo 12:15-20 as to the seven days’ “feast of unleavened bread” (leaven symbolising corruption, as setting the dough in fermentation; excluded therefore from sacrifices, Lev 2:11). The Passover was a kind. of sacrament, uniting the nation to God on the ground of God’s grace to them. The slain lamb typified the “Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world” (Joh 1:29). The unleavened loaves, called “broad of affliction” (Deu 16:3) as reminding them of past affliction, symbolized the new life cleansed from the leaven of the old Egyptian-like nature (1Co 5:8), of which the deliverance from the external Egypt was a pledge to the believing.

The sacrifice (for Jehovah calls it “My sacrifice”: Exo 23:15-18; Exo 34:25) came first; then, on the ground of that, the seven days’ feast of unleavened bread to show they walked in the strength of the pure bread of a new life, in fellowship with Jehovah. Leaven was forbidden in all offerings (Lev 2:4-5; Lev 7:12; Lev 10:12); symbol of hypocrisy and misleading doctrine (Mat 16:12; Luk 12:1). The seven stamped the feast with the seal of covenant relationship. The first and seventh days (the beginning and the end comprehending the whole) were sanctified by a holy convocation and suspension of work, worship of and rest in Jehovah, who had created Israel as His own people (Isa 43:1; Isa 43:15-17). From the 14th to the 21st of Nisan. See also Exo 13:3-10; Lev 23:4-14. In Num 9:1-14 God repeats the command for the Passover, in the second year after the Exodus; those disqualified in the first month were to keep it in the second month.

Talmudists call this “the little Passover,” and say it lasted but one day instead of seven, and the Hallel was not sung during the meal but only when the lamb was slain, and leaven was not put away. In Num 28:16-25 the offering for each day is prescribed. In Deu 16:1-6 directions are given as to its observance in the promised land, with allusion to the voluntary peace offerings (chagigah, “festivity”) or else public offerings (Num 28:17-24; 2Ch 30:22-24; 2Ch 35:7-13). The chadigah might not be slain on the Sabbath, though the Passover lamb might. The chagigah might be boiled, but the Passover lamb only roasted. This was needed as the Passover had only once been kept in the wilderness (Numbers 9), and for 38 years had been intermitted. Joshua (Jos 5:10) celebrated the Passover after circumcising the people at Gilgal. First celebration. On the 10th of Abib 1491 B.C. the head of each family selected a lamb or a kid, a male of the first year without blemish, if his family were too small to consume it, he joined his neighbor.

Not less than ten, generally under 20, but it might be 100, provided each had a portion (Mishna, Pes. 8:7) as large as an olive, formed the company (Josephus, B. J., 6:9, section 3); Jesus’ party of 13 was the usual number. On the 14th day he killed it at sunset (Deu 16:6) “between the two evenings” (margin Exo 12:6; Lev 23:5; Num 9:3-5). The rabbis defined two evenings, the first the afternoon (proia) of the sun’s declension before sunset, the second (opsia) began with the setting sun; Josephus (B. J., 6:9, section 3) “from the ninth (three o’clock) to the 11th hour” (five o’clock). The ancient custom was to slay the Passover shortly after the daily sacrifice, i.e. three o’clock, with which hour Christ’s death coincided. Then he took blood in a basin, and with a hyssop sprig sprinkled it (in token of cleansing from Egypt-like defilements spiritually: 1Pe 1:2; Heb 9:22; Heb 10:22) on the lintel and two sideposts of the house door (not to be trodden under; so not on the threshold: Heb 10:29).

The lamb was roasted whole (Gen 22:8, representing Jesus’ complete dedication as a holocaust), not a bone broken (Joh 19:36); the skeleton left entire, while the flesh was divided among the partakers, expresses the unity of the nation and church amidst the variety of its members; so 1Co 10:17, Christ the antitype is the true center of unity. The lintel and doorposts were the place of sprinkling as being prominent to passers by, and therefore chosen for inscriptions (Deu 6:9). The sanctity attached to fire was a reason for the roasting with fire; a tradition preserved in the hymns to Agni the fire god in the Rig Veda. Instead of a part only being eaten and the rest burnt, as in other sacrifices, the whole except the blood sprinkled was eaten when roast; typifying Christ’s blood shed as a propitiation, but His whole man hood transfused spiritually into His church who feed on Him by faith, of which the Lord’s supper is a sensible pledge. Eaten with unleavened bread (1Co 5:7-8) and bitter herbs (repentance Zec 12:10).

No uncircumcised male was to partake (Col 2:11-13). Each had his loins girt, staff in hand, shoes on his feet; and ate in haste (as we are to be pilgrims, ready to leave this world: 1Pe 1:13; 1Pe 2:11; Heb 11:13; Luk 12:35-36; Eph 6:14-15), probably standing. Any flesh remaining was burnt, and none left until morning. No morsel was carried out of the house. Jehovah smote the firstborn of man and beast, and so “executed judgment against all the gods of Egypt” (Exo 12:12; Num 33:3-4), for every nome and town had its sacred animal, bull, cow, goat, ram, cat, frog, beetle, etc. But the sprinkled blood was a sacramental pledge of God’s passing over, i.e. sparing the Israelites. The feast was thenceforth to be kept in “memorial,” and its significance to be explained to their children as “the sacrifice of the Passover (i.e. the lamb, as in Exo 12:21, ‘kill the Passover’), to Jehovah” (Hebrew Exo 12:27).

In such haste did Israel go that they packed up in their outer mantle (as the Arab haik or “burnous”) their kneading troughs containing the dough prepared for the morrow’s provision yet unleavened (Exo 12:34). Israel’s firstborn, thus exempted from destruction, became in a special sense Jehovah’s; accordingly their consecration follows in Exodus 13. This is peculiar to the Hebrew; no satisfactory reason for so singular an institution can be given but the Scripture account. Subsequently (Lev 23:10-14) God directed an omer or sheaf of firstfruits (barley, first ripe, 2Ki 4:42), a lamb of the first year as a burnt offering, with meat offerings, on the morrow after the sabbath (i.e. after the day of holy convocation) to be presented before eating bread or parched grain in the promised land (Jos 5:11). If Luk 6:1 mean “the first Sabbath after the second day of unleavened bread,” the day on which the firstfruit sheaf was offered, from whence they counted 50 days to Pentecost, it will be an undesigned coincidence that the disciples should be walking through fields of standing grain at that season, and that the minds of the Pharisees and of Jesus should be turned to the subject of grain at that time (Blunt, Undesigned Coincidences, 22). (But (See SABBATICAL YEAR.)

The consecration of the firstborn in Exodus 13, naturally connects itself with the consecration of the firstfruits, which is its type. Again these typify further “Christ the firstfruits of them that slept”; also the Spirit, the firstfruits in the believer and earnest of the coming full redemption, namely, of the body (Rom 8:23); also Israel, the firstfruit of the church (Rom 11:16; Rev 14:4), and elect believers (Jam 1:18). “The barley was smitten, for the barley was in the ear … but the wheat was not smitten, for it was not grown up” (Exo 9:31-32). The seasons in Judaea and Egypt. were much the same. Therefore in Deu 16:9 the direction is “seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the grain,” namely, at the Passover when the wave sheaf was offered, the ceremony from which the feast of weeks was measured. By “grain” the barley harvest is meant: had Moses written “wheat” it would have been impossible to reconcile him with himself; but as “corn” means here barley, all is clear, seven weeks still remaining until wheat harvest, when at Pentecost or the feast of weeks the firstfruit loaves were offered (Blunt, Undesigned Coincidences, 1).

Moreover, the Passover lambs were to be slain at the sanctuary, and their blood sprinkled on the altar, instead of on the lintel and doorposts (Deu 16:1-6). The Mishna (Pesachim, 9:5) marks the distinctions between “the Egyptian Passover” and “the perpetual passover.” The lamb was at the first Passover selected on the tenth day of the month (not so subsequently: Luk 22:7-9; Mar 14:12-16); the blood was sprinkled on the lintels and side-posts; the hyssop was used; the meal was eaten in haste; and only for a day was unleavened bread abstained from. The subsequent command to burn the fat on the altar, and that the pure alone should eat (Num 9:5-10; Num 18:11), and that the males alone should appear (Exo 23:17; Deu 16:16), was unknown at the first celebration; nor was the Hallel sung as afterward (Isa 30:29); nor were there days of holy convocation; nor were the lambs slain at a consecrated place (Deu 16:2-7). Devout women, as Hannah and Mary, even in late times attended (1Sa 1:7; Luk 2:41-42).

The fat was burned by the priests (Exo 23:18; Exo 34:25-26), and the blood sprinkled on the altar (2Ch 35:11; 2Ch 30:16). Joy before the Lord was to be the predominant feeling (Deu 27:7). The head of the family or anyone ceremonially clean brought the lamb to the sanctuary court, and slew it, or on special occasions gave it to Levites to slay (2Ch 30:17). Numbers at Hezekiah’s Passover partook “otherwise than it was written,” “not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary” (Num 9:5-10). Instead therefore of the father of the family slaying the lamb and handing the blood to the priest, to sprinkle on the altar, the Levites did so; also at Josiah’s Passover (2Ch 35:6; 2Ch 35:11). Hezekiah prayed for the unpurified partakers: “the good Jehovah pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God … though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary.”

Hezekiah presumes that those out of Ephraim coming to the Passover were sincere in seeking Jehovah the God of their fathers, though they had been unable to purify themselves in time for the Passover. Sincerity of spirit in seeking the Lord is acceptable to Him, even where the strict letter of the law has been unavoidably unfulfilled (Hos 6:6; Mic 6:8; Mat 9:13). Hezekiah kept the Passover as “the little passover” in the second month, for “they could not keep it” at the regular time, “because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, neither had the priests gathered themselves to Jerusalem.” They kept other seven days beside the first seven,

(1) because Hezekiah had given so many beasts that there was more than they could use during the ordinary seven days;

(2) so many priests bad sanctified themselves as to be able to carry on the altar services with such numerous sacrifices.

Josiah’s Passover is the next recorded (2 Chronicles 35). Then Ezra’s (6). The Pesachim (7:1) say a wooden (pomegranate) spit was thrust lengthwise through the lamb; Justin Martyr says (Trypho, 40) another spit was put crosswise, to which the front feet were attached; so do the modern Samaritans in roasting the Passover lamb; type of the cross, it was roasted thoroughly in an earthen beehive-shaped oven, but not touching the sides, that the roasting might be wholly by fire (Exo 12:9; 2Ch 35:6-13). The modern Jews use dry thin biscuits as unleavened bread; a shoulder of lamb thoroughly roasted, instead of a whole one; a boiled egg, symbolizing wholeness; sweet sauce to represent the sort of work in Egypt; a vessel of salt and water (representing the Red Sea) into which they dip their bitter herbs; a cup of wine stands all the night on the table for Elijah (Mal 4:5); before filling the guests’ cups a fourth time an interval of dead silence follows, and the door is opened to admit him. The purging away of leaven from the house, and the not eating leavened bread, is emphatically enforced under penalty of cutting off (Exo 12:15-20; Exo 13:7).

The rabbis say that every corner was searched for leaven in the evening before the 14th Nisan. The bitter herbs (wild lettuces, endive, chicory, or nettles, all articles of Egyptian food: Pesachim 2:6) symbolized Israel’s past bitter affliction, and the sorrow for sin which becomes us in spiritually feeding on the Lamb slain for us (Luk 22:62). The sauce is not mentioned in the Pentateuch, but in Joh 13:26; Mat 26:23. Called haroseth) in the Mishna: of vinegar and water (Bartenora). Some say it was thickened to the consistency of mortar to commemorate Israel’s brick-making hardships in Egypt. Four cups of wine handed round in succession were drunk at the paschal meal (Mishna, Pes. 10:1, 7), which the Pentateuch does not mention; usually red, mixed with water (Pes. 7:13). (See Luk 22:17; Luk 22:20; 1Co 10:16; and (See LORD’S SUPPER.)

The second cup was filled before the lamb was eaten, and the son (Exo 12:26) asked the father the meaning of the Passover; he in reply recounted the deliverance, and explained Deu 26:5, which was also connected with offering the firstfruits. The third was “the cup of blessing.” The fourth the cup of the Hallel; others make the fourth, or “cup of the Hallel,” the “cup of blessing” answering to “the cup after supper” (Luk 22:20). Schoettgen says “cup of blessing” was applied to any cup drunk with thanksgiving (compare Psa 116:13). The Hallel consisted of Psalm 113; 114, sung in the early part of the Passover, before the lamb was carved and eaten; Psalm 115-118, after the fourth cup (the greater Hallel sung at times was Psalm 120-138). So the “hymn” sung by Jesus and His apostles (Mat 26:30; Mar 14:26). The ancient Israelites sat. But reclining was the custom in our Lord’s time (Luk 22:14; Mat 26:20; Joh 21:20 Greek).

A marble tablet found at Cyricus shows the mode of reclining at meals, and illustrate, the language of the Syrophoenician woman, “the dogs eat of the crumbs.” The inhabitants of Jerusalem accommodated at their houses as many as they could, so that our Lord’s direction to His disciples as to asking for a guestchamber to keep the Passover in was nothing unusual, only His divine prescience is shown in His command (Mat 26:18; Mar 14:13-15). Those for whom there was no room in the city camped outside in tents, as the pilgrims at Mecca. In Nero’s reign they numbered, on one occasion, 2,700,000, according to Josephus (B. J. 6:9, section 3); seditions hence arose (Mat 26:5; Luk 13:1). After the Passover meal many of the country pilgrims returned to keep the remainder of the feast at their own homes (Deu 16:7). The release of a prisoner at the Passover was a Jewish and Roman custom which Pilate complied with (Mat 27:15; Joh 18:39). (See PILATE.)

As to the reconciling of the synoptical Gospels, which identify the last supper with the Passover, and John, who seems to make the Passover a day later, probably Joh 13:1-2 means “before the Passover (i.e. in the early part of the Passover meal) Jesus gave a proof of His love for His own to the end. And during supper” (ginomenou, the Vaticanus, Sinaiticus manuscripts, even if genomenou be read with the Alexandrinus manuscript it means when supper had, begun to be), etc. Again, Joh 13:29, “buy those things that we have need of against the feast,” refers to the chagigah provisions for the seven days of unleavened bread. The day for sacrificing the chagigah was the 15th, then beginning, the first day of holy convocation. The lamb was slain on the 14th, and eaten after sunset, the beginning of the 15th. Also Joh 18:28, the rulers “went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover,” means that they might go on keeping the Passover, or that they might eat it even yet, though having suffered their proceedings against Christ to prevent their eating it before, or especially that they might eat the chagigah (Deu 16:2; 2Ch 35:7-9); the Passover might be eaten by those not yet cleansed (2Ch 30:17), but not so the chagigah.

Joseph however did not scruple to enter the praetorium and beg Jesus’ body from Pilate (Mar 15:43). Had the Passover supper not been until that evening (Joh 18:28) they might have been purified in good time for it by ablution; but as the feast had begun, and they were about to eat the chagigah (or the Passover lamb itself, which they ought to have eaten in the early part of the night), they could not. Lastly, Joh 19:14, “the preparation of the passover,” is explained by Mar 15:42, “the preparation, the day before the subbark” in the Passover week; the day of holy convocation, the 15th Nisan, not “before the Passover.” So Joh 19:31, “the preparation for the sabbath” began the ninth hour of the sixth day of the week (Josephus, Ant. 16:6, section 2). “That sabbath was a high day,” namely, because it was the day (next after the day of holy convocation) on which the omer sheaf was offered, and from which were reckoned the 50 days to Pentecost. It is no valid objection that our Lord in this view was tried and crucified on the day of holy convocation, for on the “great day of the feast” of tabernacles the rulers sent officers to apprehend Jesus (Joh 7:32-45).

Peter was seized during the Passover (Act 12:3-4). They themselves stated as their reason for not seizing Him during the Passover, not its sanctity, but the fear of an uproar among the assembled multitudes (Mat 26:5). On the Sabbath itself not only Joseph but the chief priests come to Pilate, probably in the praetorium (Mat 27:62). However, Caspari (Chronicles and Geogr. Introduction Life of Christ) brings arguments to prove Christ did not eat the paschal lamb, but Himself suffered as the true Lamb at the paschal feast. (See JESUS CHRIST.) The last supper and the crucifixion took place the same (Jewish) day. No mention is made of a lamb in connection with Christ’s last supper. Matthew (Mat 27:62) calls the day after the crucifixion “the next day that followed the day of preparation.” The phrase, Caspari thinks, implies that “the preparation” was the day preceding not merely the Sabbath but also the first day of the Passover feast. All the characteristics of sacrifice, as well as the term, are attributed to the Passover.

It was offered in the holy place (Deu 16:5-6); the blood was sprinkled on the altar, the fat burned (2Ch 30:16; 2Ch 35:11; Exo 12:27; Exo 23:18; Num 9:7; Deu 16:2; Deu 16:5; 1Co 5:7). The Passover was the yearly thank offering of the family for the nation’s constitution by God through the deliverance from Egypt, the type of the church’s constitution by a coming greater deliverance. It preserved the patriarchal truth that each head of a family is priest. No part of the victim was given to the Levitical priest, because the father of the family was himself priest. Thus when the nation’s inherent priesthood (Exo 19:6) was delegated to one family, Israel’s rights were vindicated by the Passover priesthood of each father (Isa 61:6; 1Pe 2:5; 1Pe 2:9).

The fact that the blood sprinkled on the altar was at the first celebration sprinkled on the lintel and doorposts of each house attested the sacredness of each family, the spiritual priesthood of its head, and the duty of family worship. Faith moving to obedience was the instrumental mean of the original deliverance (Heb 11:28) and the condition of the continued life of the nation. So the Passover kept in faith was a kind of sacrament, analogous to the Lord’s supper as circumcision was to baptism. The laying up the lamb four days before Passover may allude to the four centuries before the promise to Abram was fulfilled (Genesis 15), typically to Christ’s being marked as the Victim before the actual immolation (Mar 14:8; Mar 14:10-11). Christ’s blood must be sprinkled on us by the hyssop of faith, else guilt and wrath remain (Isa 53:7; Act 8:32; 1Pe 1:18-19). Being first in the religious year, and with its single victim, the Passover stands forth preeminent.

Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary

PASSOVER

The Feast of Passover was Gods appointed way for the people of Israel to celebrate their miraculous escape from Egypt (Exo 12:14; Exo 12:24). The name of the feast recalled Gods act of passing over the houses of the Israelites while killing the firstborn of the Egyptians (Exo 12:27). However, God withheld judgment from the Israelite households only when he saw the blood of the sacrificial animal around the front door. The blood was a sign that an innocent life had been taken in place of the one under judgment (Exo 12:5; Exo 12:7; Exo 12:12-13; Exo 12:21-23; cf. Lev 17:11; see BLOOD).

Regulations and practices

The month of the Passover became the first month of the Jewish religious year (Exo 12:2). (This was the season of spring in Israel and corresponds with March-April on our calendar.) Late in the afternoon of the fourteenth day, each household killed a lamb, which the people ate in a sacrificial meal that night. This was now the beginning of the fifteenth day according to Israelite reckoning, for they considered sunset to mark the end of one day and the beginning of the next (Exo 12:6; Exo 12:8).

Each Passover meal was a re-enactment of the first Passover meal, when people prepared and ate it in haste, dressed ready for their departure in the morning (Exo 12:11; Exo 12:25-27). They did not cut up the animal and boil it, but roasted it whole over an open fire. They made their bread without yeast (leaven), to save time waiting for the dough to rise. The entire meal was deliberately kept simple, to keep the people from any feeling of self-glory. They were to burn the leftovers, and so prevent any defilement of the solemn occasion through the meats spoiling or the peoples keeping portions as sacred charms (Exo 12:8-10).

Following the Passover, and joined to it, was the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread. The two were considered one festival (Deu 16:1-8; Mar 14:1). Having removed leaven from their houses before preparing the Passover, the people kept their houses free of leaven for the week after the Passover (Exo 12:14-20). This reminded them that, having been saved through the Passover, they had fled from Egypt hastily, cooking unleavened bread as they travelled (Exo 12:33-34; Exo 12:39). (Concerning the offerings made at the Feast of Unleavened Bread see FEASTS.)

Once the Israelites arrived in Canaan, they were to celebrate the Passover only at the central place of worship. At first this was the tabernacle, and later the temple (Deu 16:5-6; Jos 5:10-11; 2Ch 8:12-13; 2Ch 30:1; 2Ch 35:1; Luk 2:41; Joh 2:13; Joh 11:55).

All adult male Israelites had to attend the Passover celebration (Exo 23:14; Exo 23:17), and so could foreigners, provided they had accepted circumcision and so become part of the covenant people (Exo 12:43-49). There were special provisions for those Israelites who were unable to attend because of unavoidable circumstances (Num 9:6-13; cf. 2Ch 30:17-20). The reforms that became necessary at various times in Israels later history show that people had frequently neglected or misused the Passover (2Ch 30:5; 2Ch 35:16-18).

Jesus last Passover

By the time of Jesus, the Passover had developed into a set form with a number of added rituals. Although people killed the lamb at the temple, they ate the meal privately with friends and relatives (Luk 22:8-13). Among the additions to the meal was a cup of wine, for which the head of the household offered a prayer of thanks (or blessing; 1Co 10:16), and which he passed around among the participants, both before and after the eating of unleavened bread (Mar 14:22-24; Luk 22:15-20).

Singing also became part of the celebration, the participants singing a collection of psalms known as the Hallel (Psalms 113; Psalms 114; Psalms 115; Psalms 116; Psalms 117; Psalms 118). They usually sang the first two psalms before eating the lamb, the other psalms after (Mar 14:26).

It appears that on the occasion of Jesus last Passover, he and his disciples ate the meal a day earlier than the official time, and probably without a lamb (Luk 22:15; Joh 13:1). If this was so, the reason was probably that Jesus knew that he himself was now the Passover lamb. On the next day he would lay down his life at the same time as the animals were being killed in preparation for the meal that was to follow that night (Joh 18:28; Joh 19:14; Joh 19:31; Joh 19:42).

Jesus death on the cross was the great act of redemption of which the Israelite Passover was but a picture (cf. Exo 12:5 with 1Pe 1:18-19; cf. Exo 12:46 with Joh 19:36; cf. Exo 12:21; Exo 12:27 with 1Co 5:7). Once Jesus had died, the Passover was of no further use. It was replaced by a new remembrance ceremony, the Lords Supper (Mat 26:17-30; 1Co 10:16; 1Co 11:23-26; see LORDS SUPPER).

Nevertheless, the New Testament refers to the requirements of the Passover to provide a lesson for Christians. Just as the Passover festival meant that Israelites removed leaven from their houses, so the sacrifice of Jesus Christ means that Christians should remove sin from their lives (1Co 5:7-8; see LEAVEN).

Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

Passover

While we have the comment which God the Holy Ghost hath given us by his servant Paul, (1Co 5:7) concerning the Passover, in expressly calling Christ by that name, we must be convinced that it is our highest interest and most bounden duty to study the subject with the closest apprehension, in order to obtain the clearest sense of that the important subject of the Passover means. The reader, therefore, I trust, will bear with me if I call his attention somewhat more particularly to this point.

The Jews called the Passover Paschah or Pesach, and the original meaning is flight or passage-perhaps in allusion to the flight or hasty departure of Israel from Egypt. We have a very circumstantial account of the Passover, Exo 12:1-51 to which I refer. The Israelites, no doubt, had higher views in the institution itself than to suppose it merely referred as a memorial of their deliverance from Egypt. They considered it typical; and the ordination of it being of perpetual standing in the church, must have led them to this conclusion. And may we not add, that, since all the leading features of the redemption by the Lord Jesus, in his person, work, offices, and character, are more or less exhibited in shadow and figure in the Passover, surely the Lord the Spirit gave to many a true Israelite grace and faith to eye, in the paschal lamb, the type of the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev 13:8)

If the lamb appointed in the Jewish Passover was to be a male of the first year without blemish and without spot; such was Christ. If the lamb was set apart four days before the Passover-so was Christ, not only in the original purpose, and council, and foreknowledge of God before all worlds, but also in four days’ entrance into Jerusalem, as it is remarkable Christ did before his sufferings and death. And if the Jewish lamb was roasted whole with fire, and not a bone of him broken, who but must see in this a type of him who, in the accomplishment of salvation sustained all the fire of divine wrath against sin in his sacrifice, and whose bones, it is expressly said, were not broken, that this Scripture might be fulfilled? (Joh 19:36)

Various are the accounts given by various writers of the manner in which the Jews of modern times observe the Passover. They all make it a very high festival. Eight days, for the most part they continue this festivity, during which time they would not for the world knowingly have any leaven within their houses. Nothing would hurt the mind of a Jew more than the discovery of any thing disposed to fermentation, or to make leaven. And on the fourteenth day of Nisan the Passover begins. And the ceremony generally commenceth in every family by the first-born observing fasting, by way of reference to the destruction of the first-born in Egypt. When this is over, and the time of the evening service being come, all the household enter on prayer, which when finished they proceed to the feast of unleavened bread, with some portion of a lamb, and bitter herbs. During the service they hold wine in their hands, and recount the history of their fathers in Egypt, and the Lord’s deliverance of them. The close of their devotions is generally with some of the Psalms, such as from Psa 112:1-10, to Psa 118:1-29, always beginning with Hallelujah. When the devotional part is all over, they sit down to eat and drink, generally break up their meeting with praying for the health and prosperity of the prince in whose dominions they dwelt, agreeably to the advice of Jer 29:7. So much concerning the method of the observance of the Passover by the children of Israel. I cannot dismiss this part of the subject without first remarking, that as far as decency and seriousness are observed by them in their seasons of worship, it were to be wished that many Christians would follow their example.

It appears from the relation given by the several evangelists, that the Lord Jesus observed this feast of the Passover four times during his ministry, which was but about three years and a half; but by our Lord’s entering upon his ministry sometime before the first of the four Passovers he kept, the annual period came round the fourth time before his crucifixion, and therefore we count four in the life of Jesus.

The first public Passover Christ observed is related to us by Joh 2:13-25.

The second Passover which Christ graced with his presence is recorded Joh 5:1, etc. when he healed the cripple at the pool of Bethesda

The third public Passover where we find the Lord Jesus also present is recorded Joh 6:4. The feast we read of Joh 7:37 was the feast of tabernacles. (See Joh 7:2, etc.)

The fourth and last Passover the Lord Jesus honoured in the observance was, as is recorded by all the evangelists, when in the midst of it he summed up and finished the whole shadow of types and ordinances in that one offering of himself upon the cross, whereby “he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” (See the relation of this Passover at large, Mat 26:1-75 Mar 14:1-72 Luk 22:1-71 Joh 12:1-50 and Joh 13:1-38)

I would only make one observation upon the whole in this place, namely, if the Lord Jesus never once during his ministry omitted his attendance on the Passover, how hath he thereby endeared to his redeemed his holy Supper, instituted and appointed as it was by himself to take place in his church in the room of the Jewish Passover! Surely by this Jesus might be supposed to intimate his holy pleasure, that his people should be always present at the celebration of it. Methinks by this constant attendance of the Lord, he meant to say that not one of his little ones should be absent at his Supper. And his servant, the apostle, seems to have had the same views of his Master’s gracious design in this particular when he saith, “For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he comes.” (1Co 11:26)

Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures

Passover

paso-ver (, pesah, from pasah, to pass or spring over or to spare (Exo 12:13, Exo 12:23, Exo 12:17; compare Isa 31:5. Other conjectures connect the word with the passing over into a new year, with assyr pasahu, meaning to placate, with Hebrew pasah, meaning to dance, and even with the skipping motions of a young lamb; Aramaic , pasha’, whence Greek , Pascha; whence English paschal. In early Christian centuries folk-etymology connected pascha with Greek pascho, to suffer (see PASSION), and the word was taken to refer to Good Friday rather than the Passover):

1.Pesach and Maccoth

2.Pesach Micrayim

3.Pesach Doroth

4.Maccoth

5.The ‘Omer

6.Non-Traditional Theories

7.The Higher Criticism

8.Historical Celebrations: Old Testament Times

9.Historical Celebrations: New Testament Times

10.The Jewish Passover

1. Pesach and Maccoth:

The Passover was the annual Hebrew festival on the evening of the 14th day of the month of ‘Abhbh (Abib) or Nisan, as it was called in later times. It was followed by, and closely connected with, a 7 days’ festival of maccoth, or unleavened bread, to which the name Passover was also applied by extension (Lev 23:5). Both were distinctly connected with the Exodus, which, according to tradition, they commemorate; the Passover being in imitation of the last meal in Egypt, eaten in preparation for the journey, while Yahweh, passing over the houses of the Hebrews, was slaying the firstborn of Egypt (Exo 12:12 f; Exo 13:2, Exo 13:12 ff); the maccoth festival being in memory of the first days of the journey during which this bread of haste was eaten (Exo 12:14-20).

2. Pesach Micrayim:

The ordinance of pesah micrayim, the last meal in Egypt, included the following provisions: (1) the taking of a lamb, or kid without blemish, for each household on the 10th of the month; (2) the killing of the lamb on the 14th at even; (3) the sprinkling of the blood on doorposts and lintels of the houses in which it was to be eaten; (4) the roasting of the lamb with fire, its head with its legs and inwards – the lamb was not to be eaten raw nor sodden (bashal) with water; (5) the eating of unleavened bread and bitter herbs; (6) eating in haste, with loins girded, shoes on the feet, and staff in hand; (7) and remaining in the house until the morning; (8) the burning of all that remained; the Passover could be eaten only during the night (Ex 12:1-23).

3. Pesah Doroth:

This service was to be observed as an ordinance forever (Exo 12:14, Exo 12:24), and the night was to be lel shimmurm, a night of vigils, or, at least, to be much observed of all the children of Israel throughout their generations (Exo 12:42). The details, however, of the pesah doroth, or later observances of the Passover, seem to have differed slightly from those of the Egyptian Passover (Mishna, Pesahm, ix.5). Thus, it is probable that the victim could be taken from the flock or from the herd (Deu 16:2; compare Eze 45:22). (3), (6) and (7) disappeared entirely, and judging from Deu 16:7, the prohibition against seething (Hebrew bashal) was not understood to apply (unless, indeed, the omission of the expression with water gives a more general sense to the Hebrew word bashal, making it include roasting). New details were also added: for example, that the Passover could be sacrificed only at the central sanctuary (Deu 16:5); that no alien or uncircumcised person, or unclean person could partake thereof, and that one prevented by uncleanness or other cause from celebrating the Passover in season could do so a month later (Num 9:9 ff). The singing of the Hallel (Psalms 113 through 118), both while the Passover was being slaughtered and at the meal, and other details were no doubt added from time to time.

4. Maccoth:

Unleavened bread was eaten with the Passover meal, just as with all sacrificial meals of later times (Exo 23:18; Exo 34:25; Lev 7:12), independently perhaps of the fact that the Passover came in such close proximity with the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Exo 12:8). Jewish tradition distinguishes, at any rate, between the first night and the rest of the festival in that the eating of maccoth is an obligation on the first night and optional during the rest of the week (Pesahm 120a), although the eating of unleavened bread is commanded in general terms (Exo 12:15, Exo 12:18; Exo 13:6, Exo 13:7; Exo 23:15; Exo 34:18; Lev 23:6; Num 28:17). The eating of leavened bread is strictly prohibited, however, during the entire week under the penalty of kareth, excision (Exo 12:15, Exo 12:19 f; Exo 13:3; Deu 16:3), and this prohibition has been observed traditionally with great care. The 1st and 7th days are holy convocations, days on which no labor could be done except such as was necessary in the preparation of food. The festival of maccoth is reckoned as one of the three pilgrimage festivals, though strictly the pilgrimage was connected with the Passover portion and the first day of the festival.

During the entire week additional sacrifices were offered in the temple: an offering made by fire and a burnt offering, 2 young bullocks, 1 ram, 7 lambs of the first year without blemish, together with meal offerings and drink offerings and a goat for a sin offering.

5. The ‘Omer:

During the week of the maccoth festival comes the beginning of the barley harvest in Palestine (Menahoth 65b) which lasts from the end of March in the low Jordan valley to the beginning of May in the elevated portions. The time of the putting-in of the sickle to the standing grain (Deu 16:9) and of bringing the sheaf of the peace offering is spoken of as the morrow after the Sabbath (Lev 23:15), that is, according to the Jewish tradition, the day after the first day, or rest-day, of the Passover (Mena 65b; Meg Taan. 1; Josephus, Ant., III, x, 5), and according to Samaritan and Boethusian traditions and the modern Karites the Sunday after the Passover. At this time a wave offering is made of a sheaf, followed by an offering of a lamb with a meal and drink offering, and only thereafter might the new grain be eaten. From this day 7 weeks are counted to fix the date of Pentecost, the celebration connected with the wheat harvest. It is of course perfectly natural for an agricultural people to celebrate the turning-points of the agricultural year in connection with their traditional festivals. Indeed, the Jewish liturgy of today retains in the Passover service the Prayer of Dew (tal) which grew up in Palestine on the basis of the needs of an agricultural people.

6. Non-Traditional Theories:

Many writers, however, eager to explain the entire festival as originally an agricultural feast (presumably a Canaanitic one, though there is not a shred of evidence that the Canaanites had such a festival), have seized upon theomer, or sheaf offering, as the basis of the hagh (festival), and have attempted to explain the maccoth as bread hastily baked in the busy harvest times, or as bread quickly baked from the freshly exempted first-fruits. Wherein these theories are superior to the traditional explanation so consistently adhered to throughout the Pentateuch it is difficult to see. In a similar vein, it has been attempted to connect the Passover with the sacrifice or redemption of the firstborn of man and beast (both institutions being traditionally traced to the judgment on the firstborn of Egypt, as in Exo 13:11-13; Exo 22:29, Exo 22:30; Exo 23:19; Exo 34:19, Exo 34:20), so as to characterize the Passover as a festival of pastoral origin. Excepting for the multiplication of highly ingenious guesses, very little that is positive has been added to our knowledge of the Passover by this theory.

7. The Higher Criticism:

The Pentateuch speaks of the Passover in many contexts and naturally with constantly varying emphasis. Thus the story of the Exodus it is natural to expect fewer ritual details than in a manual of temple services; again, according to the view here taken, we must distinguish between the pesah micrayim and the pesah doroth. Nevertheless, great stress is laid on the variations in the several accounts, by certain groups of critics, on the basis of which they seek to support their several theories of the composition of the Pentateuch or Hexateuch. Without entering into this controversy, it will be sufficient here to enumerate and classify all the discrepancies said to exist in the several Passover passages, together with such explanations as have been suggested. These discrepancies, so called, are of three kinds: (1) mere omissions, (2) differences of emphasis, and (3) conflicting statements. The letters, J, E, D, P and H will here be used to designate passages assigned to the various sources by the higher criticism of today merely for the sake of comparison. (1) There is nothing remarkable about the omission of the daily sacrifices from all passages except Lev 23:8 (H) and Num 28:19 (P), nor in the omission of a specific reference to the holy convocation on the first day in the contexts of Deu 16:8 and Exo 13:6, nor even in the omission of reference to a central sanctuary in passages other than Dt 16. Neither can any significance be attached to the fact that the precise day is not specified in Ex 23 (E) where the appointed day is spoken of, and in Lev 23:15 (H) where the date can be figured out from the date of Pentecost there given. (2) As to emphasis, it is said that the socalled Elohist Covenant (E) (Ex 23) has no reference to the Passover, as it speaks only of maccoth in Exo 23:15, in which this festival is spoken of together with the other reghalm or pilgrimage festivals. The so-called Jehovistic source (Jahwist) (Exo 34:18-21, Exo 34:25) is said to subordinate the Passover to maccoth, the great feast of the Jehovistic history (JE) (Exo 12:21-27, Exo 12:29-36, Exo 12:38, Exo 12:39; Exo 13:3-16); in Dt (D) the Passover is said to predominate over maccoth, while in Lev (P and H) it is said to be of first importance. JE and P emphasize the historical importance of the day. Whether these differences in emphasis mean much more than that the relative amount of attention paid to the paschal sacrifice, as compared with maccoth, depends on the context, is of course the fundamental question of the higher criticism; it is not answered by pointing out that the differences of emphasis exist. (3) Of the actual conflicts, we have already seen that the use of the words flock and herd in Dt and Hebrew bashal are open to explanation, and also that the use of the maccoth at the original Passover is not inconsistent with the historical reason for the feast of maccoth – it is not necessary to suppose that maccoth were invented through the necessity of the Hebrews on their journey. There is, however, one apparent discrepancy in the Biblical narrative that seems to weaken rather than help the position of those critics who would ascribe very late dates to the passages which we have cited: Why does Ezekiel’s ideal scheme provide sacrifices for the Passover different from those prescribed in the so-called P ascribed to the same period (Eze 45:21)?

8. Historical Celebrations: Old Testament Times:

The children of Israel began the keeping of the Passover in its due season according to all its ordinances in the wilderness of Sinai (Num 9:5). In the very beginning of their national life in Palestine we find them celebrating the Passover under the leadership of Joshua in the plains of Jericho (Jos 5:10). History records but few later celebrations in Palestine, but there are enough intimations to indicate that it was frequently if not regularly observed. Thus Solomon offered sacrifices three times a year upon the altar which he had built to Yahweh, at the appointed seasons, including the Feast of Unleavened Bread (1Ki 9:25 = 2Ch 8:13). The later prophets speak of appointed seasons for pilgrimages and sacrifices (compare Isa 1:12-14), and occasionally perhaps refer to a Passover celebration (compare Isa 30:29, bearing in mind that the Passover is the only night-feast of which we have any record). In Hezekiah’s time the Passover had fallen into such a state of desuetude that neither the priests nor the people were prepared for the king’s urgent appeal to observe it. Nevertheless, he was able to bring together a large concourse in Jerusalem during the 2nd month and institute a more joyful observance than any other recorded since the days of Solomon. In the 18th year of King Josiah, however, there was celebrated the most memorable Passover, presumably in the matter of conformity to rule, since the days of the Judges (2Ki 23:21; 2Ch 35:1 ff). The continued observance of the feast to the days of the exile is attested by Ezekiel’s interest in it (Eze 45:18). In post-exilic times it was probably observed more scrupulously than ever before (Ezr 6:19 ff).

9. Historical Celebrations: New Testament Times:

Further evidence, if any were needed, of the importance of the Passover in the life of the Jews of the second temple is found in the Talmud, which devotes to this subject an entire tractate, Pesahm on which we have both Babylonian and Palestine gemara’. These are devoted to the sacrificial side and to the minutiae of searching out and destroying leaven, what constitutes leaven, and similar questions, instruction in which the children of Israel sought for 30 days before the Passover. Josephus speaks of the festival often (Ant., II, xiv, 6; III, x, 5; IX, iv, 8; XIV, ii, 2; XVII, ix, 3; BJ, II, i, 3; V, iii, 1; VI, ix, 3). Besides repeating the details already explained in the Bible, he tells of the innumerable multitudes that came for the Passover to Jerusalem out of the country and even from beyond its limits. He estimates that in one year in the days of Cestius, 256, 500 lambs were slaughtered and that at least 10 men were counted to each. (This estimate of course includes the regular population of Jerusalem. But even then it is doubtless exaggerated.) The New Testament bears testimony, likewise, to the coming of great multitudes to Jerusalem (Joh 11:55; compare also Joh 2:13; Joh 6:4). At this great festival even the Roman officers released prisoners in recognition of the people’s celebration. Travel and other ordinary pursuits were no doubt suspended (Compare Act 12:3; Act 20:6). Naturally the details were impressed on the minds of the people and lent themselves to symbolic and homiletic purposes (compare 1Co 5:7; Joh 19:34-36, where the paschal lamb is made to typify Jesus; and Heb 11:28). The best-known instance of such symbolic use is the institution of the Eucharist on the basis of the paschal meal. Some doubt exists as to Whether the Last Supper was the paschal meal or not. According to the Synoptic Gospels, it was (Luk 22:7; Mat 26:17; Mar 14:12); while according to John, the Passover was to be eaten some time following the Last Supper (Joh 18:28). Various harmonizations of these passages have been suggested, the most in genious, probably, being on theory that when the Passover fell on Friday night, the Pharisees ate the meal on Thursday and the Sadducees on Friday, and that Jesus followed the custom of the Pharisees (Chwolson, Das letzte Passahmal Jesu, 2nd edition, Petersburg, 1904). Up to the Nicene Council in the year 325, the church observed Easter on the Jewish Passover. Thereafter it took precautions to separate the two, condemning their confusion as Arianism.

10. The Jewish Passover:

After the destruction of the temple the Passover became a home service. The paschal lamb was no longer included. Only the Samaritans have continued this rite to this day. In the Jewish home a roasted bone is placed on the table in memory of the rite, and other articles symbolic of the Passover are placed beside it: such as a roasted egg, said to be in memory of the free-will offering; a sauce called haroseth, said to resemble the mortar of Egypt; salt water, for the symbolic dipping (compare Mat 26:23); the bitter herbs and the maccoth. The sedher (program) is as follows: sanctification; washing of the hands; dipping and dividing the parsley; breaking and setting aside a piece of maccah to be distributed and eaten at the end of the supper; reading of the haggadhah shel pesah, a poetic narrative of the Exodus, in answer to four questions asked by the youngest child in compliance with the Biblical command found 3 times in Exodus and once in Deuteronomy, Thou shalt tell thy son on that day; washing the hands for eating; grace before eating; tasting the maccah; tasting the bitter herbs; eating of them together; the meal; partaking of the maccah that had been set aside as’aphkomen or dessert; grace after meat; Hallel; request that the service be accepted. Thereafter folk-songs are sung to traditional melodies, and poems recited, many of which have allegorical meanings. A cup of wine is used at the sanctification and another at grace, in addition to which two other cups have been added, the 4 according to the Mishna (Pesahm x.1) symbolizing the 4 words employed in Exo 6:6, Exo 6:7 for the delivery of Israel from Egypt. Instead of eating in haste, as in the Egyptian Passover, it is customary to recline or lean at this meal in token of Israel’s freedom.

The prohibition against leaven is strictly observed. The searching for hidden leaven on the evening before the Passover and its destruction in the morning have become formal ceremonies for which appropriate blessings and declarations have been included in the liturgy since the days when Aramaic was the vernacular of the Jews. As in the case of other festivals, the Jews have doubled the days of holy convocation, and have added a semi-holiday after the last day, the so-called ‘ssur hagh, in token of their love for the ordained celebration and their loathness to depart from it.

Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Passover

Passover. The Passover, like the sabbath and other institutions, had a twofold referencehistorical and typical. As a commemorative institution it was designed to preserve among the Hebrews a grateful sense of their redemption from Egyptian bondage, and of the protection granted to their first-born on the night when all the first-born of the Egyptians were destroyed (Exo 12:27); as a typical institute its object was to shadow forth the great facts and consequences of the Christian Sacrifice (1Co 5:7).

The word Passover has three general acceptations in Scripture. First, it denotes the yearly solemnity celebrated on the 14th day of Nisan or Abib, which was strictly the Passover of the Lamb, for on that day the Israelites were commanded to roast the lamb and eat it in their own houses; Second, It signifies that yearly festivity, celebrated on the 15th of Nisan, which may be called the Feast of the Passover (Deu 16:2; Num 28:16-17); Third, it denotes the whole solemnity, commencing on the 14th, and ending on the 21st day of Nisan (Luk 22:1). The paschal lamb, in the age following the first institution of the Passover in Egypt, and after the settlement of the Hebrews in Palestine, could only be killed by the priests in the court of the temple (Deu 16:5-7; 2Ch 35:1-11; Lev 17:3-6), whence the owner of the lamb received it from the priests, and ‘brought it to his house in Jerusalem, and roasted it, and ate it in the evening;’ and it was thus that Christ kept the Passover, eating it in a chamber within Jerusalem (Luk 22:7-11); but the feast of unfermented things (Exo 12:15) the Jews thought themselves bound to keep in every place in which they might dwell, if they could not visit Jerusalem. As, however, from the evening of the 14th to the 21st day of Abib or Nisan (April), all ferment was banished from the habitations of the Hebrews, both institutions thus received a common name (1Co 5:5; 1Co 5:7-8; 1Co 5:13).

On the 10th of the month Abib, the master of a family separated a ram or a goat of a year old, without blemish (Exo 12:1-6; 1Pe 1:19), which was slain on the 14th day, between the two evenings, before the altar (Deu 16:2; Deu 16:5-6). Originally the blood was sprinkled on the posts of the door (Exo 12:7), but afterwards the priests sprinkled the blood upon the bottom of the altar (comp. Deu 6:9; 1Pe 1:2; Heb 8:10; Heb 9:13-14). The ram or kid was roasted in an oven whole, with two spits made of pomegranate wood thrust through it, the one lengthwise, the other transversely (crossing the longitudinal one near the fore-legs), thus forming a cross. Thus roasted with fire, as an emblem of purification, it was served up with a bitter salad unpickled, indicative of the bitterness of their bondage in Egypt, and with the flesh of the other sacrifices (Deu 16:2-6). What of the flesh remained uneaten was to b e consumed with fire, lest it should see corruption (comp. Exo 12:10; Psa 16:10; Act 2:27). Not fewer than ten, nor more than twenty persons, were admitted to this sacred solemnity. At its first observance the Hebrews ate the Passover with loins girt about, sandals on their feet, staves in their hands, and in haste, like travelers equipped and prepared for immediate departure (Exo 12:11); but subsequently the usual mode of reclining was adopted in token of rest and security (Joh 13:23).

Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature

Passover

Institution of

Exo 12:3-49; Exo 23:15-18; Exo 34:18; Lev 23:4-8; Num 9:2-5; Num 9:13-14; Num 28:16-25; Deu 16:1-8; Deu 16:16; Psa 81:3; Psa 81:5

Design of

Exo 12:21-28

Special Passover, for those who were unclean, or on journey, to be held in second month

Num 9:6-12; 2Ch 30:2-4

Lamb killed by Levites, for those who were ceremonially unclean

2Ch 30:17; 2Ch 35:3-11; Ezr 6:20

Strangers authorized to celebrate

Exo 12:48-49; Num 9:14

Observed:

– At place designated by God

Deu 16:5-7

– With unleavened bread

Exo 12:8; Exo 12:15-20; Exo 13:3; Exo 13:6; Exo 23:15; Lev 23:6; Num 9:11; Num 28:17; Deu 16:3-4; Mar 14:12; Luk 22:7; Act 12:3; 1Co 5:8

Penalty for neglecting to observe

Num 9:13

Reinstituted by Ezekiel

Eze 45:21-24

Observation of:

– Renewed by the Israelites on entering Canaan

Jos 5:10-11

– By Hezekiah

2Ch 30:1

– By Josiah

2Ki 23:22-23; 2Ch 35:1; 2Ch 35:18

– After return from captivity

Ezr 6:19-20

– By Jesus

Mat 26:17-20; Luk 22:15; Joh 2:13; Joh 2:23; Joh 13

Jesus in the temple at time of

Luk 2:41-50

Jesus crucified at time of

Mat 26:2; Mar 14:1-2; Joh 18:28

The lamb of, a type of Christ

1Co 5:7

Lord’s supper ordained at

Mat 26:26-28; Mar 14:12-25; Luk 22:7-20

Prisoner released at, by the Romans

Mat 27:15; Mar 15:6; Luk 23:16-17; Joh 18:39

Peter imprisoned at time of

Act 12:3

Christ called our Passover

1Co 5:7 Feasts

Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible

Passover

Passover, the principal annual feast of the Jews. Comp. 1Co 5:7-8. It was appointed to commemorate the “passing over” of the families of the Israelites when the destroying angel smote the first-born of Egypt, and also their departure from the land of bondage. Exo 12:1-51. At even of the 14th day of the first month (Nisan) the Passover was to be celebrated, and on the 15th day commenced the seven days’ feast of unleavened bread. The term “Passover” is strictly applicable only to the meal of the paschal lamb, and the feast of unleavened bread was celebrated on the 15th onward for seven days to the. 21st inclusive. This order is recognized in Jos 5:10-11. But in the sacred history the term “Passover” is used also to denote the whole periodthe 14th day, and the festival of the seven days following. Luk 2:41; Joh 2:13; Joh 2:23; Joh 6:4; Joh 11:55. As to the time of the celebration of the Passover, it is expressly appointed “between the two evenings,” Exo 12:6; Lev 23:5; Num 9:3; Num 9:5, or, as it is elsewhere expressed, “at even, at the going down of the sun.” Deu 16:6. This is supposed to denote the commencement of the 15th day of Nisan, or at the moment when the 14th day closed and the 15th began. The twenty-four hours, reckoned from this point of time to the same period of the next day, or 15th, was the day of the Passover. At sunset of the 14th day the 15th began, and with it the feast of unleavened bread. The lamb was to be selected on the 10th day, and kept till the 14th day, in the evening of which day it was to be killed. Exo 12:3-6. The feast began by the handing around of a cup of wine mixed with water; over which the head of the family or the chief of the association pronounced the benediction. The lamb, roasted whole, and the other dishes were then placed on the table, and after a second cup of wine the meal was eaten. Everybody present partook of the lamb, the bitter herbs, and the unleavened bread, and care was taken that no bone was broken. What was left of the flesh was immediately burnt. After the meal followed the third cup of wine, then the singing of psalms and hymns, and finally a fourth, and perhaps a fifth, cup of wine. Then followed the feast of unleavened bread, occupying seven days, the first and last or which were peculiarly holy, like the Sabbath. Exo 12:15-16. That the Passover was a type of the sacrifice of Christ is clearly shown by Christ himself, where he says, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer: For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Luk 22:15-16. He at that time instituted what is called the Lord’s Supper to commemorate his death and which since then has taken the place of the Passover in his church.

Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible

Passover

Pass’over. The first of the three great annual festivals of the Israelites, celebrated in the month Nisan, (March-April) from the 14th to the 21st. (Strictly speaking the Passover only applied to the Paschal Supper, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread followed, which was celebrated to the 21st). (For the corresponding dates in our month, see the Jewish Calendar, at the end of this volume). The following are the principal passages, in the Pentateuch, relating to the Passover : Exo 12:1-51; Exo 13:3-10; Exo 23:14-19; Exo 34:18-26; Lev 23:4-14; Num 9:1-14; Num 28:16-25; Deu 16:1-6.

Why instituted. — This feast was instituted by God, to commemorate the deliverance of the Israelites, from Egyptian bondage, and the sparing of their firstborn, when the destroying angel smote the first-born of the Egyptians. The deliverance from Egypt was regarded, as the starting-point of the Hebrew nation. The Israelites were, then, raised from the condition of bondmen under a foreign tyrant, to that of a free people owing allegiance to no one, but Jehovah. The prophet, in a later age, spoke of the event as a creation and a redemption of the nation.

God declares himself to be “the Creator of Israel.” The Exodus was, thus, looked upon as the birth of the nation; the Passover was its annual birthday feast. It was the yearly memorial, of the dedication of the people to him, who had saved their first-born from the destroyer, in order that they might be made holy to himself.

First celebration of the Passover. — On the tenth day of the month, the head of each family was to select from the flock, either a lamb or a kid, a male of the first year, without blemish. If his family was too small to eat the whole of the lamb, he was permitted to invite his nearest neighbor to join the party.

On the fourteenth day of the month, he was to kill his lamb, while the sun was setting. He was then to take blood in a basin, and with a sprig of hyssop, to sprinkle it on the two side-posts, and the lintel of the door of the house. The lamb was then thoroughly roasted, whole. It was expressly forbidden that it should be boiled, or that a bone of it should be broken. Unleavened bread and bitter herbs were to be eaten with the flesh.

No male who was uncircumcised was to join the company. Each one was to have his loins girt, to hold a staff in his hand, and to have shoes on his feet. He was to eat in haste, and it would seem that, he was to stand during the meal. The number of the party was to be calculated as nearly as possible, so that all the flesh of the lamb might be eaten; but if any portion of it happened to remain, it was to be burned in the morning. No morsel of it was to be carried out of the house.

The lambs were selected, on the fourteenth, they were slain, and the blood sprinkled, and in the following evening, after the fifteenth day of the Passover had commenced, the first Paschal Meal was eaten. At midnight, the firstborn of the Egyptians were smitten. The king and his people were now urgent that the Israelites should start immediately, and readily bestowed on them supplies for the journey. In such haste did the Israelites depart, on that very day, Num 33:3, that they packed up their kneading troughs, containing the dough prepared, for the morrow’s provisions, which was not yet leavened.

Observance of the Passover in later times. — As the original institution of the Passover in Egypt, preceded the establishment of the priesthood, and the regulation of the service of the Tabernacle, it necessarily fell short, in several particulars, of the observance of the festival , according to the fully-developed ceremonial law. The head of the family slew the lamb in his own house, not in the Holy Place; the blood was sprinkled on the doorway, not on the altar.

But when the law was perfected, certain particulars were altered, in order to assimilate the Passover, to the accustomed order of religious service. In the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of Exodus, there are not only distinct references, to the observance of the festival in future ages, for example, Exo 12:2; Exo 12:14; Exo 12:17; Exo 12:24-27; Exo 12:42; Exo 13:2; Exo 13:5; Exo 13:8-10, but there are several injunctions, which were evidently not intended for the first Passover, and which, indeed, could not possibly have been observed.

Besides the private family festival, there were public and national sacrifices offered, each of the seven days of unleavened bread. Num 28:19. On the second day, also, the first-fruits of the barley harvest were offered in the Temple. Lev 23:10. In the latter notices of the festival in the books of the law, there are particulars added, which appear as modifications of the original institution. Lev 23:10-14; Num 28:16-25; Deu 16:1-6. Hence, it is not without reason that the Jewish writers have laid great stress on the distinction between “the Egyptian Passover, ” and “the perpetual Passover.”

Mode and order of the Paschal Meal. — All work, except that belonging to a few trades, connected with daily life was suspended, for some hours before the evening of the 14th Nisan. It was not lawful to eat any ordinary food after midday. No male was admitted to the table unless he was circumcised, even if he were of the seed of Israel. Exo 12:48. It was customary for the number of a party to be not less than ten.

When the meal was prepared, the family was placed round the table, the paterfamilias taking a place of honor, probably, somewhat raised above the rest. When the party was arranged, the first cup of wine was filled, and a blessing was asked by the head of the family on the feast, as well as a special one, on the cup. The bitter herbs were then placed on the table, and a portion of them eaten, either with or without the sauce. The unleavened bread was handed round next, and afterward, the lamb was placed on the table, in front of the head of the family.

The Paschal Lamb could be legally slain, and the blood and fat offered only in the national sanctuary. Deu 16:2. Before the lamb was eaten, the second cup of wine was filled, and the son, in accordance with Exo 12:26, asked his father, the meaning of the feast. In reply, an account was given of the sufferings of the Israelites in Egypt , and of their deliverance, with a particular explanation of Deu 26:5, and the first part of the Hallel, (a contraction from Hallelujah), Psalms 113; Psalms 114, was sung.

This being gone through, the lamb was carved and eaten. The third cup of wine was poured out and drunk, and soon afterward the fourth. The second part of the Hallel, Psalms 115 to Psalms 118, was then sung. A fifth wine-cup appears to have been occasionally produced, but perhaps, only in later times. What was termed the greater Hallel, Psalms 120 to Psalms 138, was sung on such occasions.

The Israelites, who lived in the country, appear to have been accommodated at the feast, by the inhabitants of Jerusalem, in their houses, so far if there was room for them. Mat 26:18; Luk 22:10-12 Those who could not be received into the city, encamped without the walls in tents, as the pilgrims now do at Mecca.

The Passover as a type. — The Passover was not only commemorative, but also typical. “The deliverance which it commemorated was a type of the great salvation it foretold.” — No other shadow of things to come contained in the law can vie with the festival of the Passover, in expressiveness and completeness.

(1) The Paschal Lamb must of course be regarded, as the leading feature, in the ceremonial of the festival. The lamb slain typified Christ, the “Lamb of God,” slain for the sins of the world. Christ, “our Passover, is sacrificed for us.” 1Co 5:7.

According to the divine purpose, the true Lamb of God was slain, at nearly the same time as, “the Lord’s Passover,” at the same season of the year; and at the same time of the day, as the daily sacrifice at the Temple, the crucifixion beginning at the hour of the morning sacrifice, and ending at the hour of the evening sacrifice. That the lamb was to be roasted and not boiled, has been supposed to commemorate the haste of the departure of the Israelites. It is not difficult to determine the reason of the command, “not a bone of him shall be broken.” The lamb was to be a symbol of unity — the unity of the family, the unity of the nation, the unity of God with his people, whom he had taken into covenant with himself.

(2) The unleavened bread ranks, next in importance to the Paschal Lamb. We are warranted in concluding that, unleavened bread had a peculiar sacrificial character, according to the law. It seems more reasonable to accept St, Paul’s reference to the subject, 1Co 5:6-8, as furnishing the true meaning of the symbol. Fermentation is decomposition, a dissolution of unity. The pure dry biscuit would be an apt emblem of unchanged duration, and, in its freedom from foreign mixture, of purity also.

(3) The offering of the omer, or first sheaf of the harvest, Lev 23:10-14, signified deliverance from winter: the bondage of Egypt being well considered, as a winter in the history of the nation.

(4) The consecration of the first-fruits, the firstborn of the soil, is an easy type of the consecration of the first born of the Israelites, and of our own best selves, to God. Further than this…

(1) the Passover is a type of deliverance from the slavery of sin.

(2) It is the passing over of the doom we deserve for your sins, because the blood of Christ has been applied to us by faith.

(3) The sprinkling of the blood upon the door-posts was a symbol of open confession of our allegiance and love.

(4) The Passover was useless unless eaten; so we live upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

(5) It was eaten with bitter herbs, as we must eat our Passover with the bitter herbs of repentance and confession, which yet, like the bitter herbs of the Passover, are a fitting and natural accompaniment.

(6) As the Israelites ate the Passover all prepared for the journey, so do we with a readiness and desire to enter the active service of Christ, and to go on the journey toward heaven. — Editor).

Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary

PASSOVER

general references to

Exo 12:11; Num 33:3; Deu 16:1; 2Ch 30:15; 2Ch 35:11; Ezr 6:20

Mar 14:12; 1Co 5:7

— Feast of. SEE Feasts, FEASTS, JEWISH

Fuente: Thompson Chain-Reference Bible

Passover

the Greek spelling of the Aramaic word for the Passover, from the Hebrew pasach, “to pass over, to spare,” a feast instituted by God in commemoration of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, and anticipatory of the expiatory sacrifice of Christ. The word signifies (I) “the Passover Feast,” e.g., Mat 26:2; Joh 2:13, Joh 2:23; Joh 6:4; Joh 11:55; Joh 12:1; Joh 13:1; Joh 18:39; Joh 19:14; Act 12:4; Heb 11:28; (II) by metonymy, (a) “the Paschal Supper,” Mat 26:18-19; Mar 14:16; Luk 22:8, Luk 22:13; (b) “the Paschal lamb,” e.g., Mar 14:12 (cp. Exo 12:21); Luk 22:7; (c) “Christ Himself,” 1Co 5:7.

Fuente: Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words

Passover

, signifies leap, passage. The passover was a solemn festival of the Jews, instituted in commemoration of their coming out of Egypt; because the night before their departure the destroying angel that slew the first-born of the Egyptians passed over the houses of the Hebrews without entering them, because they were marked with the blood of the lamb, which, for this reason, was called the paschal lamb. The following is what God ordained concerning the passover: the month of the coming out of Egypt was after this to be the first month of the sacred or ecclesiastical year; and the fourteenth day of this month, between the two evenings, that is, between the sun’s decline and its setting, or rather, according to our reckoning, between three o’clock in the afternoon and six in the evening, at the equinox, they were to kill the paschal lamb, and to abstain from leavened bread. The day following, being the fifteenth, reckoned from six o’clock of the preceding evening, was the grand feast of the passover, which continued seven days; but only the first and seventh days were peculiarly solemn. The slain lamb was to be without defect, a male, and of that year. If no lamb could be found, they might take a kid. They killed a lamb or a kid in each family; and if the number of the family was not sufficient to eat the lamb, they might associate two families together. With the blood of the lamb they sprinkled the door posts and lintel of every house, that the destroying angel at the sight of the blood might pass over them. They were to eat the lamb the same night, roasted, with unleavened bread, and a sallad of wild lettuces, or bitter herbs. It was forbid to eat any part of it raw, or boiled; nor were they to break a bone; but it was to be eaten entire, even with the head, the feet, and the bowels. If any thing remained to the day following it was thrown into the fire, Exo 12:46; Num 9:12; Joh 19:36. They who ate it were to be in the posture of travellers, having their reins girt, shoes on their feet, staves in their hands, and eating in a hurry. This last part of the ceremony was but little observed; at least, it was of no obligation after that night when they came out of Egypt. During the whole eight days of the passover no leavened bread was to be used. They kept the first and last day of the feast; yet it was allowed to dress victuals, which was forbidden on the Sabbath day. The obligation of keeping the passover was so strict, that whoever should neglect it was condemned to death, Num 9:13. But those who had any lawful impediment, as a journey, sickness, or uncleanness, voluntary or involuntary, for example, those who had been present at a funeral, &c, were to defer the celebration of the passover till the second month of the ecclesiastical year, the fourteenth day of the month Jair, which answers to April and May. We see an example of this postponed passover under Hezekiah, 2Ch 30:2-3, &c.

The modern Jews observe in general the ceremonies practised by their ancestors in the celebration of the passover. While the temple was in existence, the Jews brought their lambs thither, and there sacrificed them; and they offered their blood to the priest, who poured it out at the foot of the altar. The paschal lamb was an illustrious type of Christ, who became a sacrifice for the redemption of a lost world from sin and misery; but resemblances between the type and antitype have been strained by many writers into a great number of fanciful particulars. It is enough for us to be assured, that as Christ is called our passover; and the Lamb of God, without spot, by the sprinkling of whose blood we are delivered from guilt and punishment; and as faith in him is represented to us as eating the flesh of Christ, with evident allusion to the eating of the paschal sacrifice; so, in these leading particulars, the mystery of our redemption was set forth. The paschal lamb therefore prefigured the offering of the spotless Son of God, the appointed propitiation for the sins of the whole world; by virtue of which, when received by faith, we are delivered from the bondage of guilt and misery; and nourished with strength for our heavenly journey to that land of rest, of which Canaan, as early as the days of Abraham, became the divinely instituted figure.

Fuente: Biblical and Theological Dictionary

Passover

Exo 12:11 (a) This is plainly a type of the Lord JESUS. the young man, the young King, sacrificed for us at Calvary and under the protection of whose Blood we are safe, as in 1Co 5:7. (See also Lev 23:5; Deu 16:2; Mat 26:19).

Fuente: Wilson’s Dictionary of Bible Types