Deuteronomy 16:7

And thou shalt roast and eat it in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose,.... The word for "roast" signifies to "boil", and is justly so used, and so Onkelos here renders it, and the

And thou shalt roast and eat it in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose: and thou shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents. Thou shalt roast - (see the note at Exodus 12:8 : cf.

Thou shalt roast; so that word is used also . In the morning; either, 1. The morning after the seventh day, as appears, partly, by the following verse, which is added to explain and limit this ambiguous word; partly, by the express command of God that the people should come to Jerusalem to keep this feast, which by God’ s appointment lasted for seven days; partly, from the examples of the people staying there the whole time of the feast, 35:17; and partly, from the nature and business of this feast, wherein there being so many extraordinary sacrifices to be offered, and feasts made by the people upon the sacrifices, and two days of solemn assemblies, it is not probable that they would absent themselves from these solemn services, for the performance whereof they came purposely to Jerusalem. Or, 2. The morning after the first day, and so they were permitted to go then, and possibly some that lived near Jerusalem might go and return again to the last day of the solemn assembly. But the former seems more probable. Thy tents, i.e. thy dwellings, which he calls tents, as respecting their present state, and withal to put them in mind afterwards when they were settled in better habitations, that there was a time when they dwelt in tents.

XVI. Deuteronomy 16:1-8. THE . (See on Exodus 12) (1) The month Abib was so called from the “ears of corn” which appeared in it. By night.—Pharaoh’s permission was given on the night of the death of the first-born, though Israel did not actually depart until the next day (Numbers 33:3-4). (2) Of the flock, and of the herd.—The Passover victim itself must be either lamb or kid. (See on Deuteronomy 14:4, and comp. Exodus 12:5.) But there were special sacrifices of bullocks appointed for the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which followed the Passover. (See Numbers 28:19.) (6) At even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou comest forth from Egypt.—The word “season” here is ambiguous in the English. Does it mean the time of year, or the time of day? The Hebrew word, which usually denotes a commemorative time, might seem to point to the hour of sunset as the time when the march actually began. If so, it was the evening of the fifteenth day of the month (See Numbers 33:3). But the word is also used generally of the time of year (Exodus 23:15; Numbers 9:2, &c.); and as the Passover was to be kept on the fourteenth, not the fifteenth day, the time actually commemorated is the time of the slaying of the lamb which saved Israel from the destroyer, rather than the time of the actual march. It is noticeable that, while the Passover commemorated the deliverance by the slain lamb in Egypt, the Feast of Tabernacles commemorated the encampment at Succoth, the first resting-place of the delivered nation after the exodus had actually begun. (8) A solemn assembly.—Literally, as in the Margin, a restraint—i.e., a day when work was forbidden. The word is applied to the eighth day of the feast of tabernacles in Leviticus 23:36, and Numbers 29:35, and does not occur elsewhere in the Pentateuch.

7. And thou shalt seethe] The Heb. bashal may be used in the general sense of cooking, but it usually means to boil (Deuteronomy 14:21; 1 Samuel 2:13; 1 Samuel 2:15). The R.V. roast is due to the effort to harmonise this law with that of P, Exodus 12:9, which directs that the sacrifice shall be roast with fire; but P expressly adds that it shall not be boiled in water, and uses for this the same vb bashal as D does. Clearly D and P enjoin different methods of preparing the paschal lamb. Boiling appears to have been the earlier preparation of the part of victims eaten by the worshippers (Judges 6:19 ff.; 1 Samuel 2:13 f.) and roasting was at first regarded as an innovation (1 Samuel 2:15). See however Driver’s note. thou shalt turn] See on Deuteronomy 3:1. and go unto thy tents] An interesting survival from the nomadic period of Israel’s history; cp. (also for the time after the settlement in towns) Judges 7:8; Judges 19:9 (EVV. home); 1 Samuel 13:2; 2 Samuel 19:8; 2 Samuel 20:22; 1 Kings 12:16. The people then are to return to their homes on the morning after the Passover feast.

7. Thou shalt roast — The Hebrew word áùׁ ?ì (bashal) may mean to boil, but it is also used in a general sense of preparing food for use by cooking. Go unto thy tents — Or, dwellings.