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 im^Bosition 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 sutti- eient for the argument. It can hardly be doubted that the pasclial lamb was regarded as the great annual peace-offering of the family, a thank-offering for the existence and preservation of the nation (Exod. xiii, H-IG), tlie typical sacrifice of the elected and recon- ciled children of the promise. It was peculiarly the Lord's own sacrifice (Exod. xxiii, 18; xxxiv, 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 sa- credness 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, be- cause the father was the priest himself. The custom, handed on from age to age, thus guarded from super- stition the idea of a priesthood placed in the members of a single tribe, while it visibly set forth the promise wliich was connected with the deliverance of the peo- ple from Egypt, " Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exod. xix, G). In this way it became a testimony in favor of domestic worship. la the historical fact that the blood in later times sprinkled on the altar had at lirst had its divinely ap- pointed place on the lintels and door-posts, it was de- clared that the national altar itself represented the sanc- tity which belonged to the house of every Israelite, not that only which belonged to the nation as a whole. A^ regards the mere place of sprinkling in the lirst I'ass- over, on the reason of which there has been some spec- ulation, Biihr 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 dif- ferent kinds were often attached (comp. Deut. vi, 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 (especiallj^ Bochart and Biihr) suppose that it was merely a sign to confirm the faith of the Israelites in their safety and deliverance. Sureh' neither of these views can stand alone. The si>rinkliiig must have been an act of faith and obedience which (lod accepted with favor. "Through faith (we are told) Moses kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that de- stroyed tlie first-born should touch them" (Ileb. xi,28). Whatever else it may have been, it Avas 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 Cre- ator and the creature. That it also denoted the puri- fication of the children of Israel from the abominations of the Egyptians, and so had the accustomed signifi- cance of the sprinkling of blood under the law (Heb.
ix, 22), is evidently in entire consistency with this view.
No satisfactory reason has been assigned for the com- mand to ciioose the lamb four days before the paschal supper. Kurtz (following Hofmann) fancies that the four days signified the four centuries of Egyptian bond- age. As in later times the rule appears not to have been observed, the reason of it Avas probably of a tem- porary nature.
That the lamb was to be roasted and not boiled has been supposed to commemorate the haste of the depart- ure of the Israelites (so Biihr and most of the Jewish authorities). Spencer observes on the other hand 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 re- mind the people that they were now no longer to re- gard 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 lamb was to be roasted with fire, the purifying element, because the meat was thus left pure, without the mixt- ure even of the water, which would have entered into it in boiling. The meat in its purity would thus cor- respond in signification with the unleavened bread.
It is not difficult to determine the reason of the com- mand, " 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 peo- ple 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 Saviour, as the type of that still high- er unity of which he was himself to be the author and centre (John xix, 3G).