In the post-exodus legislation on this festival several enactments were introduced at different times, which both supplement and modify the original institution. Thus it is ordained that all the male members of the congregation are to appear in the sanctuary before the Lord with the offering of firstlings (Exod. xxiii. 14-19, xxxiv. 18 26) ; that the first sheaf of the harvest is to be offered on ' the morrow after the Sabbath' (Lev. xxiii. 4-14), that those who, through de filement or absence from home, are prevented from keeping the Passover on the 14th of Nisan, are to celebrate it on the 14th of the following month (Num. ix. 1-14), that special sacrifices are to be offered on each day of the festival (Num. xxviii. 16-25), that the paschal animals are to be slain in the national sanctuary, and that the blood is to be sprinkled on the altar instead of the two door posts and lintel of the doors in the respective dwellings of the families (Dent. xvi. r-S). The ancient Jewish canons, therefore, rightly distin guished between the Egyptian Passover (MOD and the Permanent Passover (min and point out the following differences between them :—/. In the former the paschal animal was to be selected on the tenth of Nisan (Exod. xii. 3). ii. It was to be killed by the head of eacn family in his own dwelling, and its blood sprinkled on the two door-posts and the lintel of every house (Exod. xii. 6, 7, 22). iii. It was to be consumed in haste, and the eaters thereof were to be dressed in their journeying garments (Exod. xii. i t). iv. Unleavened bread was to be eaten with the paschal animal only on the first night, and not necessarily during the whole seven days, although the Israelites were almost compelled to eat un leavened bread, because they had no time to pre pare leaven (Exod. xii. 39). v. No one who partook of the Pesach was to go out of the house until the morning (Exod. xii. 22). vi. The women might partake of the paschal animal. vii. Those who were Levitically impure were not necessarily pre cluded from sharing the meal. viii. No firstlings were required to be offered. ix. No sacrifices were brought ; and x. The festival lasted only one day, as the Israelites commenced their march on the 15th of Nisan (illishna, Pesachim, ix. 5 ; Tosiftha, Pesachim,vii.; Maimonides, Ha-Chezaka, Nil Moth Korban Pesach., x. 15). Now, these regula tions were peculiar to the first Passover, and were afterwards modified and altered in the Permanent Passover.
Dr. Davidson, indeed (Introduction to the O. T., vol. i. p. 84, etc.), insists that the Deuteronomist (xvi. 1-7) gives other variations—that he, i. mentions both )KS:', small cattle, and ipz, oxen, as the pas chal sacrifice, and ii. states that the paschal victim is to be boiled (SVZ), whilst in the original institu tion in Exod. xii. it is enacted that the paschal sacrifice is to be a rie, only, and is to be roasted. But against this is to be urged that—i. The word ill= in Deut. xvi. 1, 2, as frequently, is used for the whole festival of unleavened bread, which com menced with the paschal sacrifice, and which indeed Dr. Davidson a little further on admits, and that the sacrifices of sheep and oxen in question do not refer to the paschal victim, but to all the sacrifices appointed to be offered during the seven days of this festival. This is evident from ver. 3, where it is distinctly said, Thou shalt eat no leavened bread (1+v) therewith [i.e., the 11 in ver. 2], seven days shalt thou eat therewith [i.e., the TAD]] unleavened bread,' thus showing that the sacrifice and eating of T1Dh is to last seven days, and that it is not the paschal victim which had to be slain on the 14th and be consumed on that very night (Exod. xii. to) ; ii. 9v„P3 simply denotes to cook, dress, or ripen for eating in any manner, and here unquestionably stands for vt.tm to roast uz fire, as in 2 Chron. xxxv. 13. This sense is not only given in the ancient versions (Sept., Vulg., Chaldee paraphrase of Jonathan b. Uzziel, etc.), and by the best commentators and lexicographers (Rashi, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Ibn Saruk, Kimchi, Furst, Keil, etc.), but is supported by Knobel (Comment. on Exod. and Levit., p. 98), who is quite as anxious as Dr. Davidson to establish the discrepancy between the two accounts ; and iii. We know from the non-canonical records that it has been the undeviating prance of the Jews dur ing the second Temple to offer a 7V.1 only as a paschal sacrifice, and to roast it, but not to boil it. Now the Deuteronomist, who, as we are assured by Dr. Davidson and others, lived at a very late period, would surely not contradict this prevailing practice of a later time. Besides, if the supposed variations recorded by the Deuteronomist describe practices which obtained in later times, how is it that the non-canonical records of the Jewish practices at a later period agree with the older description, and not with the supposed variations in Deuteronomy ? That the Israelites kept the Passover on the evening before they left Egypt, is distinctly de clared in Exod. xii. 28. Bishop Colenso, how ever, argues against the Mosaic institution of the Passover, and against the possibility of its having been celebrated ; because—i. Moses having received the command about the Passover on the very day at the close of which the paschal lambs were to be killed, could not possibly have communicated to every head of a family throughout the entire country the special and strict directions how to keep it ; The notice to start at once in hurried flight in the middle of the night could not suddenly and com pletely be circulated ; and iii. As the people were
2,000,000 in number, and if we take 15 persons for each lamb, there must have been slain 15o,00o paschal lambs, all males, one year old ; this premises that 200,00o 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 Yoshi/a critically examined, part i., cap. x.) But i., From Exod. xii. 2, 3, it is evident that, so far from receiving it on the t4th of Nisan, Moses received the command 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 instruction to the people, who were a well organized body, presided over by the heads of families and leaders (Exod. v. 6-23 ; Num. i. I, etc. ; Josh. vii. 14, etc.) The expres sions nm (xii. 12), and nlyro (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 com mand was to be executed. 71111 here, as frequently elsewhere, denotes the same, and expresses simul taneousness, whether past, present, or future, inas much as in historical narrative not only that which one can see, or, as it were, point his finger at, is regarded as present, but that which has just been mentioned (Gen. vii. I 13 ; Exod. xix. I ; Lev. xxiii. 6, 21 ; Job x. 13), and that which is imme diately to follow (Gen v. I ; vi. 15 ; xlv. t9; Is. lxvi. 2 ; Jer. v. 7 ; Ps. lxxiv. 18). ii. The notice to quit was not momentary, but was indicated by Moses long before the celebration of the Passover (Exod. xi. I-8), and was most unmistakably given in the order to eat the paschal meal in travelling attire, so as to be ready to start (Exod. xii. il) ; and iii. The average of fifteen or twenty persons for each lamb, based upon the remark of Josephus (de Bell. yud. vi. 9. 3), is inapplicable to the case in question, inasmuch as those who, according to later legislation, went up in after times to Jerusalem to offer the paschal 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 facility 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 wilder ness, there were myriads of women, children, invalids, 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, inasmuch as the paschal sacrifice was only to be commemora tive ; just as one loaf suffices for hundreds of per sons at the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. In stead, therefore, of 150,000 being required for this purpose, 15,00o animals would suffice. More over, Dr. Colenso, misled by the A. V., which renders by lamb, makes a mistake in restrict ing 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 Dent. xiv. 4, iltV1 U'VZ.n rIVI, one of the sheep and one of the goats (comp. Gesenius' and Fiirst's Lexicons, s. v. nu"). 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 invri Iv WV/ZVI . . . nty, 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 Babylonish captivity. Hence the Targumiin's rendering of ;iv nx or ttrinN, which is followed by the A. V. It is well known also that goats have always formed a large admixture in Oriental flocks, and in the pre sent which Jacob sent to Esau the proportion of sheep and goats is the same (Gen. xxxii. 14). Now, the fifteen thousand paschal-sacrifices divided between the lambs and the goats would not be such an impossible demand upon the flocks.
After the celebration of the Passover at its in stitution (Exod. xii. 28, 5o), we are told that the Israelites kept it again in the wilderness of Sinai in the second year after the exodus (Num. ix.) Between this and their arrival at Gilgal under Joshua, about thirty-nine years, the ordinance was entirely neglected, not because the people (lid not practise the rites of circumcision, and were there fore 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 circumcised, and these were not legally disqualified from celebrating the festival ; but because, as Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other Jewish commentators rightly remark, Exod. xii. 25, xiii. 5-10, plainly show that after the first 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 Babylonish 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 Chron. xxxv. 1-19).