Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadLange Commentary - Exodus 12:1 - 12:20
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Exo_12:1-20
Exo_12:1-2. In the land of Egypt.—It is a mark of the dominion of Jehovah in the midst of His enemies, that He established the Jewish community in the land of Egypt, as also the Christian community in the midst of Judaism, and the Evangelical community under the dominion of the Papacy. To the triumphant assurance in regard to the place corresponds the triumphant assurance in regard to the time: the Passover, as a typical festival of redemption, was celebrated before the typical redemption itself; the Lord’s Supper before the real redemption; and in the constant repetition of its celebration it points forward to the final redemption which is to take place when the Lord comes. Keil calls attention to this legislation in the land of Egypt, as the first, in distinction from the legislation on Mt. Sinai and the fields of Moab.—The beginning of months.—It does not definitely follow from this ordinance that the Jews before had a different beginning of the year; but this is probable, inasmuch as the Egyptians had a different one. Vid. Keil, Vol. 11., p. 10. Nisan nearly corresponds to our April.
Exo_12:3. Unto all the congregation of Israel.—As heretofore, through the elders.—A lamb.—A lamb or kid.—According to households.—The companies were not to be formed arbitrarily, but were to be formed according to families. Vid. Exo_12:21.—On the tenth day of this month.—Vid. Exo_12:6.
Exo_12:4. Of course more than two families might unite, if some of them were childless. Also perhaps the gaps in smaller families might be filled by members from excessively large ones. Later tradition fixed upon ten as the normal number of participants.
Exo_12:5. Quality of the lamb: without blemish, male, one year old. For divergent opinions, see Keil, Vol. II., p. 11. That the lamb, as free from blemish, was designed to represent the moral integrity of the offerer (Keil), is a very doubtful proposition, since moral integrity needs no expiatory blood; it might, with more propriety, be taken to represent theocratic integrity. Also the requirement that the lamb be a male can hardly [as Keil assumes] have exclusive reference to the first-born sons [for whom the lambs were substituted]. The requirement of one year as the age probably is connected with the necessity that the lamb be weaned; furthermore, it was for a meal which was to suffice for an ordinary family. The first-born of beasts which were sacrificed on other occasions than at the Passover needed only to be eight days old. As the lamb was of more value than the kid, it is natural that for this occasion it became more and more predominantly used.
Exo_12:6. Ye shall keep it.—Does this mean simply: ye shall keep it in store? Probably it is intimated that the lamb was designed either to represent the persons, or to be held in custody for them. Why did this keeping of the animal last from the 10th to the 14th of Nisan? “Which regulation, however, Jonathan and Raschi regarded as applicable only to the passover slain in Egypt” (Keil). According to Hofmann, the four days refer to the four generations spent by the Israelites in Egypt. In that case the whole analogy would lie in the number four. If the 10th day of Nisan was near the day of the command, and Moses foresaw that the last plague would not come till after four days, it was natural for him not to leave so important a preparation to the last day; the four days, moreover, were by the ordinance itself devoted entirely to wholesome suspense and preparation; in another form Fagius refers to this when he says: “ut occasionem haberent inter se colloquendi et disputandi,” etc. Vid. Keil.—The whole assembly of the congregation of Israel.—Although every head of a family killed his lamb, yet the individual acts were a common act of the people in the view of the author of the rite. Israel was the household enlarged; the separate household was the community in miniature. Hence later the lambs were slain in the court.—In the evening (literally “between the two evenings”). This regulation, which distinguishes two evenings in one day, is explained in three ways: (1) between sunset and dark (Aben-Ezra, the Karaites and Samaritans, Keil and others); (2) just before and just after sunset (Kimchi, Raschi, Hitzig); (3) between the decline of the day and sunset (Josephus, the Mishna, and the practice of the Jews). Without doubt this is the correct explanation; in favor of it may be adduced Exo_16:12; Deu_16:6; Joh_13:2. According to this passage, preparation for the Passover was begun before the sun was fully set. Considerable time was needed for the removal of the leaven and the killing of the lamb. According to the Jewish conception of the day as reckoned from 6 A. M. to 6 P. M., there was in fact a double evening: first, the decline of the day of twelve hours; secondly, the night-time, beginning at 6 P. M., which, according to Gen_1:5 and Mat_28:1, was always evening in the wider sense—the evening of the day of twenty-four hours—which preceded the morning, the day in the narrower sense.
Exo_12:7. Take of the blood.—The two door-posts, as well as the lintel of the door, denote the whole door; the threshold is excepted because the atoning blood should not be trodden under foot. “The door,” says Keil, “through which one goes into the house, stands for the house itself; as is shown by the frequent expression: ‘in thy gates,’ for ‘in thy cities,’ Exo_20:10, etc.” It is here assumed that every house or tent had a door properly so called. “Expiation was made for the house, and it was consecrated as an altar” (Keil). This is a confused conception. It was the household that was atoned for; the building did thus indeed become a sort of sanctuary; but in what sense was it to be an altar? For here all kinds of offerings were united in one central offering: the çֶøֶí , or the slaughter of the Egyptian firstborn; the expiatory offering, or the blood sprinkled by the hyssop-branch on the door-posts (Lev_14:49; Num_19:18), which, therefore, as such represent the several parts of the altar; the thank-offering, or the Passover-meal; the burnt-offering, or the burning of the parts left over. Because the door-posts themselves stand for the altar, the smearing of them was afterwards given up, and, instead, the lamb was killed in the court; and this change must have been made as soon as there was a court.
Exo_12:8. On that night.—The one following the 14th of Nisan. Why only on the same night? Otherwise it would not have been a festive meal. Why roasted? The fire (itself symbolically significant) concentrates the strength of the meat; by boiling a part of it passes into the water. The unleavened bread has a two-fold significance. When eaten at the Passover, it denotes separation from the leaven of Egypt (Mat_16:6; Mat_16:12; 2Co_5:8); as a feast by itself, the feast of unleavened bread, called bread of affliction, denotes remembrance of the afflictions which were connected with the flight from Egypt (Deu_16:3). This is overlooked, when it is inferred from Exo_12:17 that the ordinance of the feast of unleavened bread was made at a later time (as Keil does, II., p. 20).—With bitter herbs.— îְøֹøִéí , ðéêñßäåò (LXX.), lactucæ agrestes (Vulg.), the wild lettuce, the endive, etc. Vid. Keil II., p. 15, Knobel, p. 99. “According to Russell,” says Knobel, “there are endives in Syria from the beginning of the winter months to the end of March; then comes lettuce in April and May.” According to Keil, “the bitter herbs are not called accompaniments of the meal, but are represented as the principal part of the meal, here and in Num_9:11.” For òַì , he says, does not mean along with, together with, but retains its fundamental meaning, upon, over. In this way the following strange symbolic meaning is deduced: “The bitter herbs are to call to mind the bitterness of life experienced by Israel in Egypt, and this bitterness is to be overcome by the sweet flesh of the lamb.” If only the bitter herbs did not taste pleasant! If only the lamb did not form a meal of thank-offering, and in this meal were not the chief thing! May not the lamb, according to the usual custom, have lain upon a setting of bitter herbs? In the passage before us only the unleavened bread is said to be put upon the bitter herbs. The modification of the arrangement in Num_9:11 is unimportant. It is a strange notion that the bitter herbs and the sweet bread formed “the basis of the Passover-meal” (Keil). In that case the “sweet” bread ought to have made the “sweet” flesh of the lamb superfluous. Moreover, the opposite of sweet is not bitter, but sour. According to Knobel, the bitter herbs correspond to the frankincense which used to accompany many offerings of grain, inasmuch as they had, for the most part, a pleasant odor. But frankincense has a special reference to prayer. If the bitter herbs are to be interpreted as symbolic, we may understand that they supplement the negative significance of the unleavened bread by something positive, as being health-giving, vitalizing, consecratory herbs.
Exo_12:9. Its head with its legs. [“From the head to the thighs,” is Lange’s translation.] “I.e., as Raschi correctly explains, whole, not cut in pieces, so that the head and legs are not separated from the animal, no bone of him is broken (Exo_12:46), and the inward parts together with the (nobler?) entrails, these of course first cleansed, are roasted in and with the body.” The unity of the lamb was to remain intact; on which point comp. Bähr, Symbolik des Mosaischen Cultus II., p. 635, Keil, and others. The symbolic significance of the lamb thus tended towards the notion of personality and inviolability, that on which rested also the fact and continuance of the unity of the family which partook of it.
Exo_12:10. Let nothing of it remain. “But what nevertheless does remain till morning is to be burnt with fire” (Keil). But was any of it allowed to remain till morning? Vid. my hypothesis, Life of Christ, Vol. IV., p. 262.
Exo_12:11. And thus. The preparation for the journey is here at once real and symbolic. The readiness to start is expressed by three marks: the loins girded (tucked up); the travelling shoes on the feet; the walking-stick in the hand. That even the O. T. ritual was no rigid ordinance is proved by the remarkable fact that at the time of Christ they ate the passover lying on couches.—In haste. [“In readiness for flight,” Lange.] A meal could hardly have been taken in “anxious flight” (Keil), or in “anxious haste” (Knobel).—It is Jehovah’s Passover. Not the Passover unto Jehovah, as Keil takes it, referring to Exo_20:10, Exo_32:5. For the Passover designates Jehovah’s own going through, going by, passing over (sparing), as symbolically represented and appropriated by the Passover festival. The feast, it is true, is celebrated to Jehovah; but it celebrates Jehovah’s act, and in the place where the rite is first instituted, it cannot appear as already instituted. The LXX say: ðÜó÷á ἐóôὶ êõñßῳ . The Vulg. “est enim Phase (id est transitus) domini. On the meaning of ôָñַç vid. the lexicons, and Keil II., p. 17. The pesach is primarily the divine act of “passing over;” next the lamb with the killing of which this exemption is connected; finally, the whole eight days’ festival, including that of unleavened bread (Deu_16:1-6), as, on the other hand, the latter feast also included that of the Passover. That this first Passover was really a sacrificial feast, Keil proves, in opposition to Hofmann, II., p. 17. Comp. Hofmann’s Schriftbeweis II., p. 271.
Exo_12:12-13. Explanation of the Passover. And I. The counterpart and prototype of the Passover festival are historic facts. First, Jehovah, as judge, passes through all Egypt. Secondly, He visits upon the young life in the land a plague whose miraculousness consists especially in the fact that the first-born fall, the infliction beginning with the house of Pharaoh. The result is that all the gods of Egypt are judged by Jehovah. What does that mean? Keil says: the gods of Egypt were spiritual powers, äáéìüíéá . Pseudo-Jonathan: idols. Knobel compares Num_33:4, and says: “We are to think especially of the death of the first-born beasts, since the Egyptians worshipped beasts as gods,” (!) etc. The essential thing in the subjective notion of gods are the religious conceptions and traditions of the heathen, in so far as they, as real powers, inhere in national ideals and sympathies. Legends in point, vid. in Knobel, p. 100. Thirdly, Jehovah spares the first-born of the Israelites.—The blood shall be to you for a sign. The expression is of psychological importance, even for the notion of atonement. It does not read: it shall be to me for a sign. The Israelites were to have in the blood the sacramental sign that by the offering of blood the guilt of Israel in connection with Egypt was expiated, in that Jehovah had seen the same blood. This looking on the blood which warded off the pestilence reminds us of the looking up to the brazen serpent, and of the believer’s contemplation of the perfect atonement on the cross. Keil says, “In the meal the sacrificium becomes a sacramentum.”
Exo_12:14. The solemn sanction of the Passover.—As an ordinance for ever. The institution of the Passover continues still in its completed form in the new institution of the Lord’s Supper.
Exo_12:15. The solemn institution of the seven days’ feast of unleavened bread. It was contemporaneous with the Passover; not afterwards appended to it, for this is not implied by Exo_12:17. (See above on Exo_12:8). The real motive was the uniform removal of the Egyptian leaven, a symbol of entire separation from everything Egyptian. Hence the clearing away of the leaven had to be done on the first day, even before the incoming of the 15th of Nisan, on the evening of the 14th. Vid. Exo_12:18. Hence also every one who during this time ate anything leavened was to be punished with death. He showed symbolically that he wished to side with Egypt, not with Israel. The explanation, “The unleavened bread is the symbol of the new life, cleansed from the leaven of sin,” (Keil), is founded on the fundamentally false assumption, revived again especially by Hengstenberg, that the leaven is in itself a symbol of the sinful life. If this were the case, the Israelites would have had to eat unleavened bread all the time, and certainly would not have been commanded on the day of Pentecost to put leavened bread on the altar (Lev_23:17). The leaven is symbol only of transmission and fellowship, hence, in some cases, of the old or of the corrupt life. “Leaven of the Egyptian character,” says Keil himself, II., p. 21.
Exo_12:16. On the first day. This is the day following the holy night, the second half of the 15th of Nisan. Like the seventh day it is appointed a festival, but to be observed less rigidly than the Sabbath. According to Lev_23:7, the only employments forbidden are the regular labors of one’s vocation or service, and food may be prepared according to the necessities of the day; this was not allowed on the Sabbath.
Exo_12:17. For on this self-same day. Strictly speaking then, the days of unleavened bread began with the beginning of the 15th of Nisan, and in commemoration of the exodus itself, whereas the Passover was devoted to the commemoration of the preceding dreadful night of judgment and deliverance, the real adoption or birth of God’s people Israel.
Exo_12:18. On the fourteenth day of the month. This is the feast of unleavened bread in the wider sense, including the Passover. The Passover, according to the very idea of it, could not be celebrated with leavened bread, i.e., in connection with any thing Egyptian, for it represented a separation, in principle, from what was Egyptian.
Exo_12:19. Also the foreigner, who wishes to live among the Israelites, must submit to this ordinance, even though he has continued to be a foreigner, i.e., has not been circumcised. The one born in the land is the Israelite himself, so called either in anticipation of his destined place of settlement, or in the wider sense of nationality. Keil approves Leclerc’s interpretation: quia oriundi erant ex Isaaco et Jacobo, [“because they were to take their origin from Isaac and Jacob.”]
Exo_12:20. Eat nothing leavened. Again and again is this most sacred symbolic ceremony enjoined, for it symbolizes the consecration of God’s people, a consecration based on their redemption.
Footnotes:
[Exo_12:11. áְּçִôָּæåֹï . Lange translates: in Flucht-bereitschaft, “in readiness for flight,” condemning De Wette’s rendering, Eilfertigkeit, “haste,” “precipitation.” But in the only other two passages where the word occurs, Lange’s translation is hardly admissible. Deu_16:3, “Thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste, áְּçִôָּæåֹï .” It could not be said, “Thou camest forth in readiness for flight.” So Isa_52:12, “Ye shall not go out with haste ( áְּçִôָּæåֹï ), nor go by flight.” Here the word also denotes anxious haste. The verb çָôַæ likewise everywhere conveys the notion of hurriedness, or anxiety connected with haste.—Tr.].
[The age of the lamb is expressed in Hebrew by the phrase: “son of a year.” The Rabbinical interpretation is that this means a year old or less, and in practice it has been applied to lambs from the age of eight days to that of one year. Apparently our translators had that interpretation in mind in rendering: “of the first year.” But notwithstanding the wide currency of this view (adopted even by Rosenmüller, Baumgarten, Murphy and other modern commeutators), it seems to be almost stupidly incorrect, as Knobel very clearly shows. Murphy says: “The phrase ‘son of a year’ means of any age from a month to a full year,” and refers to Gen_7:6; Gen_7:11. But why “from a month?” Why not “eight days” as well? Why not one day, or one second, from the time of birth? Isaac, we are told in Gen_21:4, was circumcised when he was the “son of eight days.” How old was he? In Lev_27:6 we read: “If it be from the son of a month unto the son of five years,” where the A. V. reads correctly “a month old,” and “five years old.” It would be a singular way of fixing two limits, if both expressions are so indeterminate as the Rabbinical interpretation would make them. If the “son of a year” may be as young as eight days, and the “son of a month” may be twenty-nine days old, what is the use of the phrase “son of a month” at all? Or what is the sense of using the latter phrase as the early limit? Why not say simply: “If it be the son of five years?” which, according to the Rabbinical interpretation, ought to cover the whole period.—Tr.]
[Ginsburg in Alexander’s Kitto’s Cyclopædia, Art. Passover, has shown that the second of the three views about “the two evenings” was not held by Kimchi and Raschi (otherwise called Jarchi), but that they agreed with the great mass of Jewish commentators in adopting the third view. The phrase itself is so vague that from it alone the meaning cannot with certainty be gathered. Most modern Christian commentators, it should be said, adopt the first view. Deu_16:6, where the time for sacrificing the Passover is fixed “at the going down of the sun,” is quoted as favoring that view, while Lange quotes it on the other side. Whatever may have been the exact meaning of the phrase originally, it is probable that the very early Jewish practice corresponded with the Rabbinical interpretation. The transactions recorded in 1 Kings 18 indicate this. There we read (Exo_12:26) that the prophets of Baal called on Baal from morning till noon, and afterwards (Exo_12:29) from mid-day “until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice” (more exactly, “until towards the time”). According to Exo_29:39 the evening sacrifice also was offered “between the two evenings.” If the meaning were “from mid-day till sunset,” there would seem to be no reason why it should not have been so expressed. Besides, it is intrinsically improbable that the howlings of the false prophets continued through the whole day. Especially is it difficult, if not impossible, to find time enough in the evening of that day for the events which are narrated to have followed, viz. Elijah’s prayer, the consumption of the burnt-offering, the slaying of the false prophets, the return from the Kishon, the prayer for rain, the servant’s going seven times to look, Elijah’s going to Jezreel.—Tr.]
[This sentence is marked as a quotation by Lange, but the source, as very often in the German original, is not indicated; and in this case I have not been able to trace it out.—Tr.].
[Bähr, l. c. says on this point: “This had no other object than that all who received a part of that one intact Iamb, i.e., who ate of it, should regard themselves as a unit and a whole, as a community, just like those who eat the New Testament Passover, the body of Christ (1Co_5:7), of which the Apostle, in 1Co_10:17, says, ‘For we being many are one bread and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread.’ ”—Tr.].
[The hypothesis is that the remains of the paschal lamb, if there were any, were burnt up the same night, and therefore were not allowed to remain till the next day. But this seems to conflict with the plain language of the verse.—Tr.].
[Why not in “anxious haste?” A man can surely eat in haste as well as do anything else in haste. That there was to be a “readiness for flight” is sufficiently indicated by the precept concerning the girdles, sandals, and staves. Vid. under “Textual and Grammatical.”—Tr.].
[We have let the A. V. reading stand: nevertheless it is by no means so clear that Keil is not right. He certainly is supported not only by many of the best versions and commentators, but by the Hebrew, which literally rendered can read only, “It is a Passover to Jehovah,” or “It is a Passover of Jehovah.” The latter differs from Lange’s translation as making “Passover” indefinite, whereas “Jehovah’s Passover” is equivalent to “the Passover of Jehovah.” Furthermore, the subject of the sentence naturally, if not necessarily, refers to the lamb; but the lamb cannot be called Jehovah’s passing over. The last point made in opposition to Keil is not just, inasmuch as Keil does not render (as Lange makes him) “the Passover unto Jehovah,” but distinctly leaves the noun indefinite, so that there is no implication that it was an already existent institution.—Tr.].
[Hofmann takes æֶáַä in Exo_12:27 in the general sense of slaughter, instead of the ceremonial sense of sacrifice, and argues that, as the lamb was killed in order to be eaten, it was in no proper sense an offering to Jehovah, although the killing and eating of it was divinely commanded. He distinguishes also between the original ordinance and the later celebration of it. Keil, on the contrary, lays stress on the fact that æָáַä and æֶáַä everywhere, except Pro_17:1, and 1Sa_28:24, denote sacrifice in the narrow ceremonial sense, and that the Passover in Num_9:7 is called ÷ָøְáָּï ž , offering. Knobel likewise says, “Without doubt the Passover was a sort of offering.” But he contends that it was not (as Keil and others hold) a sin-offering, for the reasons: (1) that the O. T. gives no indication of such a character; (2) that the mode of observing the rite differed from that belonging to the sin-offering, particularly in that the lamb was eaten, whereas none of the animal constituting the sin-offering was eaten; and (3) that it was a joyous festival, whereas everything connected with the sin-offering was solemn. He classes it, therefore, rather with the burnt-offering. But the latter was not eaten, and had (though not exclusively, yet partially) an explatory character. Vid. Lev_1:4.—Tr.].