chiefly to the Passover. It was the feast of spring; the spring-time of nature, when, after

the death of winter, the scattered seeds were born into a new harvest, and the first ripe

sheaf could be presented to the Lord; the spring-time of Israel's history, too, when each

year the people celebrated anew their national birthday; and the spring-time of grace,

their grand national deliverance pointing forward to the birth of the true Israel, and the

Passover sacrifice to that 'Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.'

Accordingly, the month of the Passover, Abib, or, as it was called in later times,

and at the same time the seventh in the civil year.

Here we mark again the significance of seven as the sacred or covenant number. On the

other hand, the Feast of Tabernacles, which closed the festive cycle, took place on the

15th of the seventh month of the sacred, which was also the first in the civil, year. Nor is

it less significant that both the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles fell upon the 15th

day of the month; that is, at full moon, or when the month had, so to speak, attained its

full strength.

The name of the Passover, in Hebrew Pesach, and in Aramean and Greek Pascha, is

derived from a root which means to 'step over,' or to 'overleap,' and thus points back to

the historical origin of the festival (Exo 12). But the circumstances in which the people

were placed necessarily rendered its first celebration, in some particulars, different from

its later observance, which, so far as possible, was brought into harmony with the

general Temple practice. Accordingly, Jewish authorities rightly distinguish between

'the Egyptian' and the 'Permanent Passover.' On its first institution it was ordained that

the head of every house should, on the 10th of Nisan, select either a lamb or a kid of the

goats, of the first year, and without blemish. Later Jewish ordinances, dating after the

return from Babylon, limit it to a lamb; and it is explained that the four days previous to

the slaying of the lamb referred to the four generations that had passed after the

children of Israel went down into Egypt. The lamb was to be killed on the eve of the

14th, or rather, as the phrase, is, 'between the two evenings' (Exo 12:6; Lev 23:5; Num

9:3,5). According to the Samaritans, the Karaite Jews, and many modern interpreters, this

means between actual sunset and complete darkness (or, say, between six and seven

p.m.); but from the contemporary testimony of Josephus (Jew. Wars, vi. 9, 3), and from

Talmudical authorities, there cannot be a doubt that, at the time of our Lord, it was

regarded as the interval between the sun's commencing to decline and his actual

disappearance. This allows a sufficient period for the numerous lambs which had to be

killed, and agrees with the traditional account that on the eve of the Passover the daily

evening sacrifice was offered an hour, or, if it fell on a Friday, two hours, before the

usual time.

In the original institution the blood of the sacrifice was to be sprinkled with hyssop on

the lintel and the two doorposts of the house, probably as being the most prominent

place of entrance. Then the whole animal, without breaking a bone of it, was to be

roasted, and eaten by each family --or, if the number of its members were too small, by

two neighbouring families --along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, to symbolise

the bitterness of their bondage and the haste of their deliverance, and also to point

forward to the manner in which the true Israel were in all time to have fellowship in the

Paschal Lamb (1 Cor 5:7,8). All who were circumcised were to partake of this meal, and

that arrayed as for a journey; and whatsoever was not consumed was to be burnt on the

spot. These ordinances in regard to the Passover were afterwards modified during the

journey in the wilderness to the effect, that all males were to appear 'in the place which