1. A t the Exode. — In the first institution of the Pass- over 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. XV, IG), 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 Miizt'ZAH] — to roast (and not boil) the whole animal with its head, legs, and entrails, without break- ing a bone thereof, and when thoroughly done, he and his family were to eat it on the same evening together with unleavened bread and hitter 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 re- ceived into the community by the rite of circumcision. The whole of the Pesach was to be consimied 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, dur- ing which time unleavened bread was to be eaten, but cessation from all work and trade was only to be on the first and seventh day of the festival. Though insti- tuted to exempt them from the general destruction of
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Egypt's first-born, the Israelites were told to regard the Passover as an ordinance forever, to teach ils meaning to their children, and that the transgression of the enactments connected therewith was to be pun- ished with excision (I<]xod. xii, 1-28, 48-51).
The precise meaning of the phrase C^^l"?! 'p3, between the two evenings, which is used with reference to the time when the paschal animal is to be slain (Exod. xii, 6; Lev. xxiii, 5; Numb, ix, 3, 5), as well as in connection with the offering of the evening sacri- fice (Exod. xxix, 39, 41 ; Numb, xxviii, 4), and else- where (Exod. xvi, 12; xxx, 8), is greatly disputed. The Samaritans, the Karaites, and Aben-Ezra, who are followed by Michaelis, Kosenmlillcr, 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 hetween the two evenings as follows : " Behold we have two even- ings, 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 thera an interval of about one hour and twenty min- utes" {Comment, on Exod. xii, 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 vanish- ing out of sight, which is the reason why the daily sac- rifice might be killed at 12 30 P.M. on a Friday (Mishna, Pesachim, v, 1 ; Maimonides, llilchoth Korhan Pesach. i, 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. Win; vi, 9, 3). We should have deemed it su- perfluous to add that such faithful followers of Jewish tra- dition as Saadia, Rashi, Kimchi, Kalbag, etc., espouse this definition of the ancient Jewish canons, were it not for the assertion which is made in some of the best Chris- tian 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 (□''3"i"n 'pS), because the sun begins to set for the evening. Hence it appears to me that the phrase between the tiro 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 lengthen, while the evening of the night is at the beginning of the night" (Commentai-y on Exod. xii, G). Kimchi says almost literally the same thing : " C^mytl "p3 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 C'^3"jJ 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 tivo evenings''' (^Lexicon, s. V. 31"). 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 [StiXr] o^ia'), at the close of the day ; and the other the former evening {EtiXt] Trpwta), which commenced immediately after noon (sec Bochart, JJie- roz. pt. i, lib. ii, cap. 1 ; Opei: ii. 559, ed. 1712).