That the Israelites kept the Passover on the evening before they left Egypt is distinctly declared in Exod. xii, 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 Pass- over on the very day at the close of which the paschal lambs were to be killed, could not possibly have com- municated 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 per- sons 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 criti- cally exuniined, pt. i, chap. x). But (1) from Exod. xii, 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. Exod. xii, 1, 2 with ver. 21) to communicate the necessary in- struction to the people, who were a well -organized body, presided over b\' the heads of families and lead- ers (Exod. V, 6-23; Numb, i, 1, etc.; Josh, vii, 14, etc.). The expressions tltn nb^bs (xii, 12) and niUHD ilP''?n (xi, 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, ntn here, as fre- quently elsewhere, denotes the same, and expresses si- multaneousness, whether past, present, or future, inas- much as in historical narrative not only that which one can see, or, as it were, point his linger at, is re- garded as present, but that which has just been men- tioned ((ien. vii, 11, 13; Exod. xix, 1; Lev. xxiii, G, 21 ; Jobx, 13), and that which is immediatelj' to fol- low (Gen. V, 1 ; vi, 15; xlv, ID; Isa. Ixvi, 2; Jer. v, 7; Psa. Ixxiv, 18). (2) The notice to quit was not mo- mentary, but was indicated by ]Moses long before the celebration of the Passover (Exod. xi, 1-8), and was most unmistakably given in the order to cat the pas- chal meal in travelling attire, so as to be ready to start (Exod. xii, 11). (3) The average of fifteen or twenty persons for each lamb, based upon the remark of Josephus (Wai; vi, 9, 3), is inapplicable to the case in question, inasmuch as those who, acconling to later legislation, went up in after-times to Jerusalem to ofTer the pasclial 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 facilitj' 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 mjriads of women, children, in- valids, 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, in- asmuch as the paschal sacrifice was only to be com- memorative; just as one loaf suffices for hundreds of persons at the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. In- stead, therefore, of 150,000 being required for this pur- pose, 15,000 animals would suffice. Moreover, Dr. Co- lenso, misled by the A. V., which renders ITJ 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 Deut. xiv, 4, C^T" JlCI n'^ w~~ r.'l\ one of the sheep and one of the goats (comp. Gescnius's and FUrst's Lexicons, s. v. llT). 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 D'lT^'n -,^1 D^'::2:n •,?:... irU, one of the sheep or of the goats (Exod. xii, 5). It is well known to scholars that the Jewish canons fixed a lamb for this purpose long after the Babylonian captivity. Hence the Tar- gumist's rendering of fTJ by "I^N or NI^X, which is followed by the A. V. It is well known also that goats have always formed a large admixture in Oriental floclis. and in the present which Jacob sent to Esau the pro- portion of sheep and goats is the same (Gen. xxxii, 14). Now the fifteen thousand paschal-sacrifices divided be- tween the lambs and the goats would not be such an impossible demand upon the flocks.
3. Subsequent Xotices before the Exile. — After the cele- bration of the Passover at its institution (Exod. xii, 28, 50). we are told that the Israelites kept it again in the wilderness of Sinai in the second year after the exodus (Numb. ix). 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 (Josh. V, 10, with Exod. xii, 44-48), as many Christian expositors will have it, since there were many thousands of young people that had left Egypt who were circum- cised, and these were not legally disqualified from cele- brating the festival; but because, a^Pashi, Aben-Ezra, and other Jewish commentators rightly remark, Exod. xii, 25, and xiii, 5-10 plainly show that after the lirst 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 (2 Chron. viii, 13), under Hezekiah, when he restored the national worship (2 Chron. xxx, 15), and under Josiah (2 Kings xxiii, 21; 2 Cliron. xxxv, 1-19). Later Biblical instances are the one celebrated by Ezra after the return from Babylon (Ezra vi), and those occurring in the life of our Lord.