CHAPTER XXIII. ye shall b proclaim to be holy con AND the LORD spake unto Mo-vocations, even these are my feasts ses, saying, 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unro them, Concerning a the feasts of the LORD, which a ver. 4. 37. 3 c Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation: ye b Exod. 32. 5. 2 Kings 10. 20. Ps. 81. 3 © Exod. 20. 9, and 23. 12, and 31. 15, and 34 21. ch. 19. 3. Deut. 5. 13. Luke 13. 14. to) the feasts of Jehovah. moëd, from into money; and as several individuals assembly (ravnyvpis) and church of the first-born.' Perhaps a more suitable rendering of the term would be solemnities." -T Which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations. The Hebrew may be rendered more literally, ' which ye shall call (as) callings of holiness;' i. e. assemblages of the people which should be convened for holy or sacred purposes at set times by public procla mation, and generally by the sound of a trumpet, Num. 10. 8-10.—————¶ These are my feasts. Or, my assemblies, appointed in honor of my name, and to be observed in obedience to my command; viz. the sabbath, the passover, pente. cost, the beginning of the new year, the day of atonement, and the feast of tab. happy effects, political, social, and eco-ernacles; all which are embraced under nomical, of these festivals, see Mi- the general name 7 moëd, and none chaelis' Comment. on Laws of Moses, besides. vol. III § 197-201. For a more extended view of the General Introduction. The Sabbath. 3. Six days shall work be done; but 2. Concerning the feasts of the Lord. the seventh day is a sabbath of rest, &c. ,shabbath shabbathon שבת שבתון .mode Yehovah, (as | Heb מועדי יהוה .Heb shall do no work therein, it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings. 4 ¶d These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons. 5 e In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD's passover. d ver. 2. 37. Exod. 23. 14. 14, 18, and 13. 3, 10, and 23, Numb. 9. 2, 3, and 28. 16, 17. Josh. 5. 10. e Exod. 12. 6, 15, and 34. 18. Deut. 16. 1-8. 6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. 7 fIn the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. 8 But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days; in the seventh day is an holy convocation, ye shall do no servile work therein. f Exod. 12. 16. Numb. 28. 18. 25. all over the land wherever they dwelt, particularly in the synagogues in every city, Acts 15, 21. 1. The Passover. a sabbath of sabbatism; a highly emphatic phrase denoting the greatest degree of consecration to purposes of rest. Although the main scope of the chapter has relation to other sacred seasons, yet as the Sabbath was ever to be es 5-8. On the fourteenth day of the teemed the grand solemnity, which was first month at even is the Lord's Passnever to be supplanted or eclipsed by over. Although moons, which began any other, therefore it is introduced here with the new moon, cannot, with perby way of preface to the others. See fect accuracy, be accommodated to our Note on Gen. 2. 3.- An holy convo- months, the first month of the Hebrew cation. That is, a time of holy convo-year must always have fallen within cation; from which it appears that the month of April. meetings for public worship are an essential part of the due observance of the day, and that they cannot be neglected or omitted without going contrary to one main design of the institution.-¶ Ye shall do no work there in. On other holy days they were forbidden to do any servile work, v. 7, but on the sabbath, and the day of atonement, (which is also called a sabbath,) they were to do no work at all, not even the dressing of meat.-¶ In all your dwellings. Heb. ¬ a bekol meshubothekem, in all your dwellingplaces; by which is meant not so much in their private habitations as in the va rious places of their residence over the country. Gr. εν παση κατοικία ύμων, in all your inhabiting, i. e. in every place that you may inhabit. The great feasts were to be kept in one place where the sanctuary was established; but the sabbaths in this respect differed from them. They were to be observed | The Passover, it is well known, was kept in remembrance of the exodus from Egypt. The etymology of the term, and the occasion and circumstances of the institution have already been dwelt upon in our Notes on Ex. 12. We shall consequently be spared the necessity of any thing more than a general sketch of the observance of this feast. On the eve of the 14th day of the month (Abih or Nisan) all leaven was removed from their dwellings, so that nothing might be seen of it during the week; a circumstance respecting which the Jews are very scrupulous even at this day. Previously to the commencement of the feast, on the tenth, the master of a family set apart a ram or a goat of a year old, usually the former, which he slew on the fourteenth, between the two evenings,' before the altar; but in Egypt, where the event occurred which the Passover celebrated, the blood was sprinkled on the post 9 And the LORD spake unto | rael, and say unto them, s When Moses, saying, 10 Speak unto the children of Is g Exod. 23. 16. 19, and 34. 22, 26. Numb. Josh. 15. 2, 18, and 28. 26. Deut. 16. 9. 3. 15. of the door. The ram or kid was roast- each was at liberty to dip it, before eated whole, with two spits thrust throughing, into a vessel of sauce. There were it, the one lengthwise, the other trans- four cups of wine ordinarily drank at versely, crossing the longitudinal one this supper, two before and two after near the fore legs, so that the animal meat. With the second, the two first was, in a manner, crucified. The oven hymns of what was called the lesser in which it was roasted was the circular Hallel, being Psalms 113. and 114., were pit in the floor [ground], which is still sung or chanted. The third cup, being commonly used in the East. The re- the first after supper, was called the striction that it was to be roasted, not cup of blessing, because over it they boiled or eaten raw, is thought to be blessed God, or said grace after meat. levelled at some idolatrous forms of This was followed by a fourth and last sacrifice-feasting. Thus roasted, the cup, over which they completed the Paschal Lamb was served up with a hymn of praise, formed by the remainsalad of wild and bitter herbs, and with der of the lesser Hallel, and thus the the flesh of other sacrifices (peace- feast concluded. But it is said that a offerings), which are mentioned in fifth cup of wine might be drunk by Deut. 16. 2-6. Not fewer than ten, nor those who wished to repeat the great more than twenty persons were admit- Hallel, which is generally understood ted to these sacred feasts, which were, to be Psalm 136. The wine was red, at first, eaten in Egypt with loins girt mixed with water. about, with sandals on the feet, and The Passover was immediately folwith all the preparations for an imme-lowed by the Feast of Unleavened diate journey. But this does not appear to have been the case at any subsequent period. The command, how ever, not to break a bone of the offering, which was given in consequence of the people going in such haste (as they might otherwise have been delayed), was ever after observed among the Jews, In later times the celebration became encumbered with a number of involved ceremonies, very different from the simplicity and haste of the original institution. As these derive no authority from the law, we shall only state such of them as serve to illustrate the account of that celebration of the Passover by Jesus Christ, which to the Christian is not less interesting than the original institution was to the Jew. The master of the family, after the Paschal supper was prepared, broke the bread, having first blessed it, and distributed it to all who were seated around him, so that each one might receive a part; and Bread, which lasted seven days, so that the two together seemed to make one feast of eight days, and were, in fact, popularly so considered, the names being often interchanged, so that the Passover day was sometimes considered as the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, and, on the other hand, the whole was often called the Passover Feast. The first and last days of these seven were to be kept as Sabbaths, save that only servile labor was interdicted, which allowed food to be cooked. But no suspension of labor was required on the intermediate five days, which were distinguished chiefly by the abstinence from leavened bread, and by the unusual number of offerings at the tabernacle or temple, and of sacrifices for sin. The sixteenth of Abib, or the second day of Unleavened Bread, was distinguished by the offering of a barley sheaf, as an introduction to the barley-harvest which was ripe about this time, accom ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of h the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest: 11 And he shall i wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. -12 And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf, an helamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt-offering unto the LORD. 13k And the meat-offering thereof shall be two tenth-deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering h Rom. 11. 16. 1 Cor. 15. 20. Jam. 1. 18. Rev. 14. 4. i Exod. 29. 24. k ch. 2. 14-16. made by fire unto the LORD for a sweet savour: and the drink-offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin. 14 And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the self-same day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. 15 ¶ And lye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete: 1 ch. 25. 8. Exod. 34. 22. Deut, 16: 9. panied by a particular sacrifice, de- source from whence the crowning blessscribed in v. 9-14. The Sheaf of First Fruits. 10. When ye be come into the land, &c. The actual observance of this law was to be deferred till they had arrived in the land of Canaan, and had become permanently fixed in their settlements, for during their sojourn in the wilderness they could neither sow nor reap. T Ye shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits. A sheaf of the new corn was brought to the priest who was to heave it up, in token of his presenting it to the God of heaven, and to wave it to and fro before the Lord, as the Lord of the whole earth, and the bountiful giver of all its fruits and favors. This offering of the sheaf of the first fruits did as it were sanctify to him all the rest of the harvest. Besides, it served as a type of Christ, who, as risen from the dead, is the 'first fruits of them that slept.' 1 Cor. 15. 20. ings of life proceeded. As God was the 2. Feast of Pentecost. 15. Ye shall count unto you, &c. From the day of waving the sheaf they were to count seven sabbaths or weeks complete, or forty-nine days, and then was to be celebrated the second or great harvest-festival, called Pentecost, from 14. Ye shall eat neither bread, &c. | the Gr. Tevrnkoorn, fifty, from its beginThis is a precept which would naturallyning fifty days after the waving of the commend itself to the better feelings sheaf of the first fruits. of every pious and reflecting mind. Nothing could be more appropriate than thus to testify a grateful sense of the The Feast of Pentecost, here instituted, is called by various names in the sacred writings, as 'the feast of weeks,' o Exod. 23. and their drink-offerings, even an offering made by fire of sweet savour unto the LORD. 19 Then ye shall sacrifice pone kid of the goats for a sin-offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of a peace-offerings. 20 And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the first-fruits for a wave-offering before the LORD, with the two lambs: r they shall be holy to the LORD for the priest. 21 And ye shall proclaim on the self-same day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all which was fifty days after the depart ure from Egypt, and consequently after the first Passover. Hence, by degrees, instead of resting on the ground on which Moses placed it, the festival was turned into a commemoration of that great event. Ex. 34. 22; Deut. 16. 10, 16, because of 17. Ye shall bring out of your habitaations. That is, not out of their houses, but out of some one or more of the several places or regions where they abode, as explained above, in the Note on v. 3. It cannot be supposed to mean that each locality where Israelites resided furnished two wave loaves, for there were to be but two for the whole nation; but the leading idea is, that the flour was to be supplied from some place in the country, and was then of fered in the name of the whole congregation, together with the seven lambs, the young bullock, the two rams, the kid, and the two lambs; all which were no doubt furnished at the common charges of the whole people. As the loaves were not to be burnt on the altar, they were allowed to be made of leaven, without contradicting ch. 2. 11, 12. 21. Ye shall do no servile work thereThis the Jews understood of every |