It has been well observed by Kurtz (on Exod. xii, 38), that at the very crisis when the distinction between Israel and the nations of the world was most clearly brought out (Exod. xi, 7), a " mixed multitude" went out from Egypt with them (Exod. xii, 38), and that provision was then made for all who were Avilling to join the chosen seed and participate with them in their spiritual advantages (Exod. xii, 44). Thus, at the very starting-point of national separation, was foreshadowed the calling in of the Gentiles to that covenant in which all nations of the earth were to be blessed.
The offering of the omer, in its higher signification as a symbol of the first-born, has already been noticetL But its meaning found full expression only in that First- born of all creation, who, having died and risen again, became the first-fruits of them that slept" (1 Cor. xv, 20). As the first of the first-fruits, no other offering of the sort seems so likely as the omer to have immediate- ly suggested the expressions used in Rom. viii, 23 ; xi, 16 ; James i, 18 ; Rev. xiv, 4.
The crowning application of the paschal rites to the truths of which they were the shadowy promises ap- pears to be that which is afforded by the fact that our Lord's death occurred during the festival. According to the divine purpose, the true Lamb of God was slain at nearly the same time as " the Lord's Passover," in obedience to the letter of the law. It does not seem needful that, in order to give point to this coincidence, we should (as some have done) draw from it an a priori argument in favor of our Lord's crucifixion having taken place on the 14th of Nisan. It is enough to know that our own Holy Week and Easter stand as the anni- versary of the same great facts as were foreshown in those events of which the yearly Passover was a com- memoration.
As compared with the other festivals, the Passover was remarkably distinguished by a single victim essen- tially its own, sacrificed in a very peculiar manner. (The only parallel case to this, in the whole range of the public religious observances of the law, seems to be that of the scapegoat of the day of atonement.) In this re- spect, as well as in the place it held in the ecclesiastical year, it liad a formal dignity and character of its own. It was the representative festival of the year, and in this unique position it stood in a certain relation to circumcision as the second sacrament of the Hebrew Church (Exod. xii, 44). We may see this in what oc- curred at Gilgal, when .Joshua, in renewing the divine covenant, celebrated the Passover immediately after the circumcision of the people. But the nature of the rela- tion in which these two rites stood to each other did not become fully developed until its types were fulfilled, and the Lord's Supper took its place as the sacramental feast of the elect people of (iod. (It is worthy of remark that the modern Jews distinguish these two rites above all others, as being immediately connected with the grand fulfilment of the promises made to their fathers. Though they refer to the coming of Elijah in their or- dinary grace at meals, it is only on these occasions that their expectation of the harbinger of the Messiah is ex- pressed by formal observances. When a child is cir- cumcised, an empty chair is placed at hand for the prophet to occupy. At the paschal meal a cup of wine is poured out for him ; and at an appointed moment the door of the room is solemnly set open for him to enter.) Hupfeld well observes: "En pulcherrima mysteriorum nostrorum exempla: circumcisio quidem baptismatis, scilicet signum gratia; divinaj et foederis cum Deo pacti, quo ad sanctitatem populi sacri vocamur ; Pas-
chalis vero agnus et ritus, continuata? quippe gratife divinae et servati fa-deris cum Deo signum et pignus, quo sacra et cum Deo et cum ca^teris populi sacri mem- bris communio usque renovatur et alitur, coenae Christi sacriB typus aptissimus!"
VII. Literature. — The Mishna, Pesachim (with the notes by Surenhusius), Ckar/ifja, and Moed Katon ; and the Talmud or (Jeraara on these Tractates; Maimoni- des, lad Ila-Chezaka, Uilchotlt Chamez U-Maza ; Ilil- choth Korhan Pesach., and IJilchoth Ckagiga ; Light- foot, The Temple Service, cap. xii-xiv, p. 951, 961, vol. i, fol. ed. ; Hupfeld, De Fest. Hehr.; Bochart, De Afjno Paschali (vol. i of the Hierozoicoii) ; Ugolini, De Ritibus in Can. Dom. ex Pasch. illustr. (vol. xvii of the The- saurus); Mairaonides, Z^e Fermentato etAzymo; Rosen- mliller, Scholia in Fxod. xii, etc. ; Otho, Lex. Rah. s. v. Pascha; Carpzov, yl/)/). CnV. ,- Vitringa, 06s. aSac. lib. ii, 3, 10 ; Reland, A ntiq. iv, 3 ; Spencer, De Leg. llehr. ii, 4 ; Kurtz, Hist, of the Old Covenant, ii, 288 sq. (Clark's ed.) ; Hottinger, De Ritu dimittendi Reum in Fest. Pasch. ( Thes. Nov. Theologico-Philolog. vol. ii) ; Buxtorf, Synag. Jud. xviii ; Cudworth, True Notion of the Lm-d's Sup- per; Meyer, De tempj). saci-is Ilehrmorum, p. 278 sq. ; Bahr, Symbolik des Mosuischen Culius, ii, 613 sq., 627 sq. ; Saalschutz, Das Mosaische Recht (Berlin, 1853), p. 406 sq. ; Ewald, Die A Iterthiimer des Volkes Israel (Got- tingen, 1854), p. 390 sq. ; Kalisch, Historical and Crit- ical Commentary on Exodus, p. 178, etc. ; Keil, I/andhnck der biblischen A rchdologie, p. 380 sq. ; Knobel, Die Bii- cher Exodus und I^eviticus, p. 91 sq., 532 sq. ; The Jew- ish Ritual, entitled Derech I/a-Chajim (Vienna, 1859), p. 233 .sq.; Landshuth, Ilagada, Vortrag fiir die beiden Pessachabende, which contains a masterlj^ dissertation on the respective ages of the different portions consti- tuting the Passover service, written in Hebrew by the editor, and a valuable treatise on the bibliography of the Passover service, written in German by the erudite Steinschneider; also the monographs cited by Volbe- ding, Index Progrummatum, p. 50, 52, 69, 60, 62, 121, and by Hase, Leben Jesu, p. 138, 174. See Eastkh.