The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 266

guests, cor,sidorntion should be had of the by Kalisch). The UBe of the phrase in eh. amount which they would be likely to eat. xvi. 12, and the commnnd in Deut. xvi. 6--- Children nud the very aged were not to be "Thou shalt sacrifice the pBBsover at even, nl reckoned as if they were men in the vigour of the going dawn of the sun," seem to be deci- life. Translate-" Each man according to sive in favour of the second explanation. The his eating shnll ye count towards the lamb." first arose out of the later practice. Wbcn Vor 5-Your lamb ahall be without the lambs were sacrificed in the temple by a blemlah, Natura.I pioty would teach that continual succession of offecers, it became " tho blind, the lame, and the sick" should impossible to complete the sacrifices in the not be selected for sacrifice (M.e.l. i. 8). short time origine.lly allowed. Of necessity The Lnw afterwards expressly lorbede any the work of killing the victims was corn blemished animals--" blind, or broken, or menced pretty early in the afternoon, anc, maimed, or having o. weu, or scurvy, or continued till after sunset. The interpreta- scabbed "-to be offered for any of the stated tion of the direction WBB then altered, io bring sacrifices, though they might be given as it into accord with the altered practice. free-will offerings (Lev. xxii. 20-25). The Ver. 7.-They shall take of the blood. Tho absence of blemish was especially important blood, which, according to Hebrew ideas, "is in a victim which was to typify One "holy, the life," and so the very essence of the sacri- harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." fice, was always regarded as the special A male. As standing in place of and redeem- symbol of that expiation and atonement, with ing the first-born of the males in each family. a view to which sacrifice was instituted. As Of the first year. Perhaps as then more by the Paschal sacrifice atonement was made approaching to the ideal of perfect innocence. for the hOUBc, which was therefore to escape The requirement was not a usual one. Or unscathed, the sign of atonement was to be con- from the goats. Theodoret says the proviso spicnously placed npon it. And strike. The was ma.de for the relief of the poorer class of " striking " was to be by means of a bunch of persons; but practically it seems not to have hyssop dipped in the blood (ver. 22). The taken effect. When people were poor, their selection of the doorway as the part of the richer neighbours supplied them with lambs honse to receive the stains of blood is pro- (Kalisch). bably to be connected with the idea that the Ver. 6.-Ye _shall keep it up until the secondary agency producing death, whatever fourteenth day. The interval of four days it was, would enter by the door-and if the (see ver. 3) was probably intended to give door showed the honse to have been atoned ample time for the thorough inspection of the for, would not enter. The upper door-post Jamb, and for obtaining another, if any defect The word nsed is elsewhere translated was discovered. The precept is not observed "lintel" (eh. :xii. 22, 23); but it seems pro- by the modem Jews; and the later Targum perly to mean the latticed window which ( which belongs to the sixth century after was commonly placed over a doorway in Christ) teaches that it was only intended to Egyptian houses, and which is often repre- apply to the first institution ; but the text sented in the fac,ades of tombs. (See Lepsius, of Exodus is wholly against this. The whole Denkmiile:r, pt. ii. pls. 16, 17, 147, etc.) It is assembly of the congregation of Israel shall derived from a root signifying "to look out." kill it. One of the main peculiarities of the Ver. 8.-Roast with fire. The meat of Paschal sacrifice was this-that the head of sacrificial meals was commonly boiled by the each family was entitled-in the early times Hebrews (1 Sam. ii. 14, 15). The command was required-to offer the sacrifice for him- to roast the Paschal lamb is accounted for : self. In itno one intervened between the indi- 1. By its being a simpler and quicker process vidual and God. Thus it was recognised that than boiling ; 2. By a special sanctity being the whole nation was a nation of priests, as are regarded as attaching to fire ; 3. By the dilii- Christians also, according to St.John (Rev. i. 6) culty of cooking the animal whole unless it and St. Peter (1 Pet. ii. 5). The interven- were roasted. Justin Martyr's statement tion of Levites at a late date (2 Chron. xxx. that for roasting two wooden spits were 17 ; xxxv. 5, &c.) was contrary to the original required, placed at right angles the one to institntion. In the evening. Literally, "be- the other, and thus extending the victim on tween the two evenings." This phrase has a cross, will seem to many a better ground been explained in two ways. Some regard for the clirection than any of these. And the first evening as commencing when the unleavened bread. See below, ver. 18 sun begins visibly to decline from the zenith, With bitter herbs, Literally, "with bitter- i.e. about two or three o'clock; and the second nesses." That herbs, or vegetables of some as following the sunset. Others say, that the kind, are intended, there is no reasonable sunset introduces the first evening, and that doubt. The Mishna enumerates endive, the second begins when the twilight ends, chicory, wild lettuce, o.nd nettles among tha which they consider to have been " an hour herbs that might be eaten. It is a strange and twenty minutes later " (Ehn Ezra, quoted notion of Kurtz's, that the bitter herbs were s ~  260 THE BOOK OF EXODUS, ,CH, XII, 9-12,