Passover(21): Passover Exodus 2 -John Gill
John Gill's
Exodus 12:4Ver. 4. And if the household be too little for the lamb,.... That they cannot eat it up at once;let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; which Josephus {e} says were never fewer than ten, and were often twenty, but no man might feast alone; with which agrees the Jewish canon {f},"they do not kill the passover lamb for a single person, nor even for a society consisting of one hundred, that cannot eat the quantity of an olive:''every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb: that is, a man must reckon up how many he has in his own house to eat of the lamb, and what their appetites be, by which he will he able to judge whether he can dispense with a lamb himself, or whether he must take in some of his neighbours, and how many, so as to eat up the whole lamb, for, for such persons the lamb was to be slain. The rule is,"if a man slays it for those that do not eat of it, or for those that are not counted, for the uncircumcised, and the unclean, it was wrong, and not allowed of {g}.''The taking in his neighbours may respect the call of the Gentiles to partake of Christ with the Jews, see Eph 3:5.{e} De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 9. sect. 3. {f} Misn. Pesach. c. 8. sect. 7. {g} lbid. c. 5. sect. 3.
Exodus 12:5Ver. 5. Your lamb shall be without blemish,.... Without any spot or defect in it. Maimonides {h} reckons no less than fifty blemishes in a creature, anyone of which makes it unfit for sacrifice, see
Le 21:21. This lamb was a type of Christ, who is therefore said to be our passover sacrificed for us, 1Co 5:7 comparable to a lamb for his innocence and harmlessness, for his meekness, humility, and patience, for usefulness both for food and raiment, as well as for being fit for sacrifice; and who is a lamb without spot and blemish, either of original sin, or actual transgression, holy in his nature, harmless in his life:a male of the first year; anyone within that time, but not beyond it; denoting the strength and vigour of Christ, in the flower of his age, his short continuance among men, and his being tender and savoury food for the faith of his people:ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats; it might be either a lamb, or a kid of the goats; for the most part, or generally, it was a lamb that was taken; so the Jewish canon runs {i},"he that says to his servant, go and slay for me the passover, if he slays a kid he may eat it; if he slays a lamb he may eat of it; if he slays a kid and a lamb, he may eat of the first.''The goat being of an ill smell may denote Christ being made sin, and a sin offering for his people; and the taking of a lamb from these may signify the choice of Christ from among the people in the council and covenant of God; the preordination of him to be the lamb slain from the foundation of the world; the preservation of him from the infection of sin in his incarnation, and the separation of him from sinners in his conversation.{h} Hilchot Biath Hamikdash, c. 7. sect. 1. {i} Misn. Pesach. c. 8. sect. 2.
Exodus 12:6Ver. 6. And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month,.... In their houses; this may denote the preservation of Christ in his infancy, and to the appointed time of his sufferings and death; and it is remarkable, that on this very day, the tenth of Nisan, four days before the passover, and so as many days before his sufferings and death, he made his entry into Jerusalem, near to which he was to be offered up, Joh 12:1:and the whole assembly of the congregation shall kill it in the evening; that is, of the fourteenth of Nisan; not between the two suns, as the Targum of Jonathan, between the sun setting and the sun rising; nor between the setting of the sun, and the entire disappearance of its rays of light reflecting in the air and clouds after it, as Aben Ezra; so it is said in the Talmud {k}, after the sun is set, all the time that the face of the east is red; others say as long as a man can walk half a mile after sun setting; and others, the twinkling of an eye; but "between the two evening's" {l}, as it may be rendered; which respects that space of time after the sun begins to decline, and the entire setting of it; when the sun begins to decline, as it does after noon, that is the first evening, and when it is set, that is the second; and the middle space between the one and the other is about the nineth hour of the day, according to the Jewish computation, and, with us, about three o'clock in the afternoon, about which time the passover used to be killed; for they say {m},"the daily sacrifice was slain at eight and a half, and offered at the nineth; but on the evening of the passover it was slain at seven and a half, and offered at eight and a half, whether on a common day, or on a sabbath; and if the evening of the passover happened to be on the evening of the sabbath, it was slain at six and a half, and offered up at seven and a half, and after that the passover;''which was done, that there might be time before the last evening for the slaying of the passover lamb. Josephus {n} says, at the passover they slew the sacrifice from the nineth hour to the eleventh;
See Gill on "Mt 26:17", and it being at the nineth hour that our Lord was crucified, the agreement between him and the paschal lamb in this circumstance very manifestly appears, Mt 27:46though it may also in general denote Christ's appearing in the last days, in the end of the world, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself: the slaying of the paschal lamb is ascribed to the "whole assembly of the congregation", because it was to be slain by their order, and in their name, for their use, and they present; and thus the crucifixion of Christ, his sufferings and death, are attributed to the men of Israel, and all the house of Israel, Ac 2:22.{k} T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 34. 2. {l} Mybreh Nyb "inter duas vesperas", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Ainsworth. {m} Misn. Pesach. c. 5. sect. 1. {n} De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 9. sect. 3.
Exodus 12:7Ver. 7. And they shall take of the blood,.... Of the lamb, being received into a basin, Ex 12:22:and strike it on the two side posts; with a bunch of hyssop dipped into it:and on the upper doorpost of the houses, wherein they shall eat it; but not on the posts of those houses, the inhabitants of which joined with their neighbours in eating it; though Levi Ben Gersom thinks they were sprinkled as the rest; but to what purpose, when there were no Israelites, and no firstborn in them? the two side posts were the posts of a folding door, on which the two folds were hung, and the upper doorpost is what is afterwards called the lintel, Ex 12:23 and has its name in Hebrew from looking out; for, as Aben Ezra says, there was a window over the door, as is the custom throughout the whole country of the Ishmaelites or Arabians; and so Schindler says {o}, which perhaps he took from him, that the word signifies either a lintel, or a little window over the door, through which it might be seen who called or knocked at the door; and adds, in Egypt, as now in Arabia, there were windows over the doors of houses. The sprinkling the blood of the paschal lamb was typical of the sprinkling of the blood of Christ upon the hearts and consciences of his people, and of their peace, safety, and security by it from the wrath of God, and the vengeance of divine justice; of the further use of this rite, see
Ex 12:22, Aben Ezra mentions it as the opinion of some, that the sprinkling of the blood on those places was to show that they slew the abomination of the Egyptians openly; but he himself gives a much better reason for this rite, namely, that it was to be a propitiation for everyone that ate in the house, and was a sign to the destroyer, that he might look upon it in like manner, as it is saidEze 9:4, "set a mark, &c." this seems to be peculiar to the passover in Egypt, and was not used in later times.{o} Lex. Pentaglott. col. 1938.
Exodus 12:8Ver. 8. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire,.... The night of the fourteenth of Nisan; and as the Jews reckoned their days from the evening preceding, this must be the beginning of the fifteenth day, which being observed, will serve to reconcile some passages relating to this ordinance. The lamb was to be roasted, not only because its flesh thereby would be more palatable and savoury, but because soonest dressed that way, their present circumstances requiring haste; but chiefly to denote the sufferings of Christ, the antitype of it, when he endured the wrath of God, poured out as fire upon him; and also to show, that he is to be fed upon by faith, which works by love, or to be received with hearts inflamed with love to him:and unleavened bread; this also was to be eaten at the same time, and for seven days running, even to the twenty first day of the month,
Ex 12:15, where see more concerning this: the reason of this also was, because they were then in haste, and could not stay to leaven the dough that was in their troughs; and was significative of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, with which the true passover lamb is to be eaten, in opposition to the leaven of error, hypocrisy, and malice, 1Co 5:7:and with bitter herbs they shall eat it; the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "with wild lettuces", which are very bitter; and the worst sort of which, for bitterness, Pliny says {p}, is what they call "picris", which has its name from the bitterness of it, and is the same by which the Septuagint render the word here: the Targum of Jonathan is,"with horehound and endive they shall eat it;''and so the Targum on So 2:9. Wild endive; of which Pliny says {q}, there is a wild endive, which in Egypt they call cichory, and bids fair to be one of these herbs; according to the Misnah {r} and Maimonides {s}, there were five sorts of them, and anyone, or all of them, might be eaten; their names with both are these, Chazoreth, Ulshin, Thamcah, Charcabinah, and Maror; the four first of which may be the wild lettuce, endive, horehound, or perhaps "tansie"; and cichory the last. Maror has its name from bitterness, and is by the Misnic commentators {t} said to be a sort of the most bitter coriander; it seems to be the same with "picris": but whatever they were, for it is uncertain what they were, they were expressive of the bitter afflictions of the children of Israel in Egypt, with which their lives were made bitter; and of those bitter afflictions and persecutions in the world, which they that will live godly in Christ Jesus must expect to endure; as well as they may signify that as a crucified Christ must be looked upon, and lived upon by faith, so with mourning and humiliation for sin, and with true repentance for it as an evil and bitter thing, see
Zec 12:10.{p} Nat. Hist. l. 19. c. 8. & 21. 17. & 32. 22. {q} Ibid. {r} Misn. Pesach. c. 2. sect. 6. {s} Hilchot, Chametz Umetzah, c. 7. sect. 13. {t} Maimon. & Bartenora in Misn. Pesach. ut supra. (c. 2. sect. 6.)
Exodus 12:9Ver. 9. Eat not of it raw,.... Not roasted enough; and so Jarchi says, that what is not sufficiently roasted, or is not thoroughly and down roasted, is in the Arabic language called an {u}, the word here used; and so Maimonides {w} says it signifies flesh, on which the fire begins to operate, and is roasted a little, but not enough for eating. And indeed there seems to be no necessity of a prohibition of eating the flesh quite raw: some {x} derive the word from a root which signifies to break, and suppose that this rule forbids the breaking or cutting it in pieces; that as it was to be roasted whole, and not a bone of it to be broken, so it was to be brought to table whole, and the whole to be eaten; but then it could not be eaten without being cut to pieces. Abarbinel {y} takes the word in the usual signification of it, "now", as if the sense was, ye shall not eat of it now, not before the evening of the fourteenth day; but whereas Moses had told them,
Ex 12:6, that the lamb was to be kept up until the fourteenth day, it was needless to tell them that they should not eat it now or immediately; the first sense is best, and this shows that Christ, the antitype of this lamb, is not to be eaten in a carnal but spiritual manner, of which our Lord treats in Joh 6:31, nor sodden at all with water; the Targum of Jonathan is,"neither boiled in wine, nor in oil, nor in other liquor, nor boiled in water.''This, with respect to the antitype, shows, that Christ is not to be received in a cold lukewarm manner, and with indifference; and that nothing is to be mixed, added, and joined unto him, but he alone is to be regarded in the business of our acceptance, justification, and salvation:but roast with fire; for the reasons before given: the manner of roasting it, according to the Jewish canons {z}, was this, they bring a spit made of the wood of pomegranate, and thrust it into its mouth quite through it, and put the thighs and entrails within it; they do not roast the passover lamb on an iron spit, nor on an iron grate. Maimonides {a} is a little more particular and exact in his account; to the question, how do they roast it? he replies,"they transfix it through the middle of the mouth to its posteriors, with a wooden spit, and they hang it in the midst of a furnace, and the fire below:''so that it was not turned upon a spit, according to our manner of roasting, but was suspended on a hook, and roasted by the fire underneath, and so was a more exact figure of Christ suspended on the cross, and enduring the fire of divine wrath. And Justin Martyr {b} is still more particular, who was by birth a Samaritan, and was well versed in Jewish affairs; he, even in conversing with Trypho the Jew, who could have contradicted him had he said what was wrong, says, the lamb was roasted in the form of a cross; one spit, he says, went through from the lower parts to the head, and again another across the shoulders, to which the hands (or rather the legs) of the lamb were fastened and hung; and so was a very lively emblem of Christ crucified:his head, with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof; or with its inwards {c}, these were all to be roasted together, the whole lamb with all that belonged to it, with which the above canon of the Jews agrees.{u} "cruda fuit caro", Golius, col. 2476. Semicocta, "cruda fuit caro", Castell. Lex. col. 2296. Vid. Hottinger. Smegma Oriental. p. 169, 170. {w} Hilchot Korban Pesach. c. 8. sect. 6. {x} Oleaster apud Rivet in loc. Gusset. Comment. Ebr. p. 487, 488; so some in Aben Ezra. {y} So Marinus Brixianus in Arca Noe. {z} Misn. Pesach. c. 7. sect. 1, 2. {a} Hilchot Korban Pesach. c. 8. sect. 10. {b} Dialog. cum Trypho Jud. p. 259. {c} wbrq lew "et cum interioribus ejus", Pagninus, Tigurine version, so Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
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