blood on the threshold of the door, and by staining the doorway itself with the blood of the covenant. The Passover sacrifice was, then, the threshold
* One 1s reminded in this connexion of the poem in the Bk. of Jubilees (49!5)—' And no plague shall come upon them
in this year (¢.¢. any year) to kill and destroy then, if they |
observe the Passover at its season according to its ordinance’ (οἵ. further, Ex 59). VOL. Ill. —44
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cross-over sacrifice which marked the welcome of J” to the household. The idea was familiar, and so needed no explanation when commanded for the night of the deliverance (Ex 12). He would translate ‘threshold’ (η0) rather than ‘basin’ in Ex 12*, as is done in the LXX and Vulg. (cf. op. citat. p. 206ff.). The sacrifice killed is one of welcome,* and J” honours this by covenanting with those who proffer it; where He is not so welcomed, His executioner enters. The firstborn of the Hepa are taken, since it was a common thought of primitive peoples ‘ that the first-fruits of life in any sphere belonged of right to God or the gods,’ and so His taking them is evidence that the gods of Egypt could not protect them. The Egyptian Passover was in the eyes of the people the rite of marriage between J” and Israel. The ‘stamp of the red hand of the bridegroom is the certifica- tion of the covenant union, at the doorway of the family.’ But since here Israel is the virgin, the hyssop (Ex 12”), i.e. the tree or bush as a feminine symbol, is used for this purpose. In his earlier work, The Blood Covenant, Trumbull suggests that in the rite of circumcision it was Abraham and his descendants who supplied the blood of the covenant, while in the Pasaaves sacrifice it was the Lord who commanded the substitute blood in token of His blood-covenanting (p. 351, ef. 230 11}.
6. Conclusion.—In the Passover we probably have one of Israel’s oldest feasts. It is the only one represented in the OT as established before the Exodus. The only other occasion that could at all be compared to it in the matter of age would be the feast at sheep-shearing (1 S 25%, 2S 13; cf. H. P. Smith’s Com. in loco). Both point to the nomad stage of development, and may well date from those early days. All expositors, whatever their lines of conjecture, agree in recog- nizing this. Many of the writers cited above Ὁ not advance their views to the exclusion of all others, although that is true of some, but rather as setting forth that which they think was of central significance in the primitive Passover. In valuing any of these theories we must always dis- tinguish between the facts at the foundation and the brilliant reconstruction that imagination has built upon them, and by so doing we shall prob- ably conclude that it is extremely hazardous to attempt anything like a complete picture of the primitive Passover. For the Passover of historic times this result will doubtless be ultimately so far attained that there will be general agreement ; but for the earlier age we must be content to note the separate features which the existing material reserves to us, and to recognize them as such. We shall probably in this way 3) erase more nearly to the truth. For it would not be strange if the Passover which we know, combined in itself features belonging to an original feast of much larger proportions, or rather if it had taken up into itself in the course of time various features from what were in reality different festivals. As within the period covered by our records we find modifications coming in from time to time, so it undoubtedly was earlier, although not with the same rapidity or to the same extent. In this way it is quite possible that certain particulars, which now receive little notice more than the mere mention, at one time had a much greater importance. Recalling what seem to _ the most important features of this primitive festival, we may note—(a) the time of its celebration, namely, the vernal equinox. This is not unim- portant or accidental. It suggests a connexion with the changing seasons, and affords a legitimate
} nant welcome given to a guest, or to a bride or | bridegroom in marriage, ‘by the mae iat of
* He cites the custom of modern Jews of opening the outer door at a certain stage of the feast, and placing ap extra cup * and chair.
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basis for those hypotheses cited above, which give especial recognition to this feature. The fact that so many other peoples celebrate this occasion lends credibility to such a view. Of course, however, we cannot be certain that we do not have here a feature of lesser antiquity than some one of the others. The further observance at the middle of the month and at night, indicates an almost certain connexion with the full moon. Later on, in Israel and outside, the new moon was apparently much more regarded, but not to the entire exclusion of the full moon (Dill.-Ryssel on Ly, p. 632 ff.).
(6) In the older days a feast seems always to have meant a sacrifice. And we have found both these conceptions embodied in the Passover, the festal side being very evident, and the sacri- ficial hardly less so. The fact that it does not conform in its details to any one of the later classes of Levitical sacrifices, cannot be made an objection to such a view. For here we go back to a time when all such requirements were as yet undeveloped. All the later treatment of the Passover, as well as most of the terms applied to it (cf. above), indicate throughout such a concep- tion of its significance.