Exodus 12

Exodus 12:2

The mouth Abib, which nearly corresponds to our March. was the seventh of the common year among the Egyptians and others, all along, I suppose, from the creation; but was made the first of the Jewish sacred year now established by God, according to which the ceremonial festivals were to be regulated: but they continued to reckon by the ancient year in their civil matters; and even the years of jubilee and release began in the ancient manner, about September, as then the crop was entirely off the ground

Exodus 12:3

The taking of the lamb four days before the time prevented their neglect, and stirred them up to the consideration of and faith in their approaching deliverance

Exodus 12:4

Every family of these, so joined together, paid their respective share of the lamb’s price

Exodus 12:6

The lamb was killed between three o’clock in the afternoon and sun-set

Exodus 12:8

The bitter herbs were eddive, succory, wild lettuce, thyme, or the like

Exodus 12:9

The word rendered raw signifies not thoroughly roasted. It was to be roasted all in one piece

Exodus 12:10

They were to leave none of it, lest the Egyptians should abuse it, or themselves make a superstitious use of it

Exodus 12:11

These circumstances imported their holding themselves in readiness to leave the country, and march off, as the Lord’s free-men; but these, as well as the taking of the lamb on the tenth day of the month, seem to have been required only with respect to the first celebration

Exodus 12:14

This feast was to be a joyful commemoration of their deliverance, observed every year, and during the whole period of the ceremonial dispensation until the death of Christ, thereby prengured

Exodus 12:15-21

The feast of unleavened bread immediately succeeded the passover. The holy convocation, on the fifteenth day of the month, commemorated their departure from Egypt; and that on the twenty-first commemorated their passage through the Red sea, by which their wonderful deliverance was completed

Exodus 12:27

As offered to God, and attended with the shedding and sprinkling of blood, the passover was a sacrifice; but, as received and eaten by men, it was also a sacrament.—The Israelites bowed their heads in token of their thankful acknowledgment of God’s favours, and cheerful submission to his laws and ordinances

Exodus 12:40

These four hundred and thirty years are to be reckoned from the call of Abraham to leave his native country; Gen. xi. 31. and xii. 1—5; during the first half of which, he and his promised seed sojourned in Canann, and the other half they dwelt in the land of Egypt; Gen. xv. 13. and xlvi. Ver. 43, 45. No heathen, or uncircumcised person, was allowed to partake thereof. 4

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XII.—Come near, my soul, and behold what the and hath wrought for Israel! He had multiplied them amidst cruel bondage of murder: he had protected them amidst ruinous plagues; and now, after a brown feast, he brings them forth with wealth, with honour, in health, in peace, & order, and in due time! Behold what things he, who sitteth on the throne, & now! A new year; new festivals; new liberties; a new nation to himself! Behold how their enemies push them into liberty; how they enrich them; and but a mixed multitude take part with them in their journey! Behold the care in which God distinguishes his people from the rest of the world! But chiefly hold God’s great work of the redemption of mankind, through the blood of action! O the strong hand! the stretched-out arm! the grace! the mercy, the intriguity, the wisdom, the justice, the exact fidelity to his promise, which occurs in this! How are violated commandments, enraged devils, and mighty men made to let the ransomed of the Lord depart into liberty! With what ethical wealth, what spoils of principalities and powers, nay, unsearchable men and righteousness, they come forth! In what high honour, spiritual soundness, grace, and order, they are brought from Heathenism or Popery; nay, from the natural state of bondage and death in trespasses and sins; and all in the whole time of love, the day of espousals, the hour of grace, appointed of the sister! And how marvellously JEHOVAH here makes all things new! A new way is created on the earth—a virgin brings forth a child, whose name is JEROMEI, God with us! a new testament is ratified in his blood! a new corement is confirmed with many! a new gospel-period, a year of God’s redeemed, is replaced! new festivals on the flesh and blood of his Son! new liberties!— I am indeed, for those who are made heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ! new church of Jews and Gentiles, purified, by his oblation, a peculiar people to itself, zealous of good works!—But what a mixed multitude of empty programs attend and plague the church in every reformation on earth! What a multude of remaining lusts and infirmities attend the choicest saints till they get to the human above! In this passover-feast let me behold how Jesus, the all-excellent, the mighty, the unblemished, Son of God, who was set up from everlasting, and promised and typified four thousand years, in the fulness of time assumes our nature, partakes of flesh and blood, obeys the law, and suffers the most flaming and tremendous vengeance of God, without being crushed, broken, or ruined;—and all this that he might be our all-sufficient and everlasting covert from the wrath of God;—might be the means of destruction to sin, Satan, and death, for us;—and might, with unfeigned faith, sincere love, and bitter grief for sin, be fed upon by us, in holy fellowship, as the sweet, the heart-cheering, supporting, and strengthening, food of our soul, by which we are enabled to go up from this evil world towards our everlasting inheritance in the Canaan above! And, blessed be the Lord, we, strangers and foreigners, sinners of the Gentiles, are admitted to feast on him, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God, while the Jewish children of the kingdom are cast out! In their feast of unleavened bread may I not discern Jesus’ state of debasement on earth! his week fulfilled in holiness, in sorrows, and in sufferings; on the first day of which he assumed his holy manhood, was gathered with sinners, but without sin; and on the last of which he made his life a ransom for many? May I not discern the pure but afflicted state of the gospel-church, in her apostolical and millennial periods, noted for holy convocations of men to the Lord? May I not discern the festival-week of the Christian life, spent in purity and pressures, and noted for its first day of conversion to Christ, and its last of departure, to be with him for evermore? Let me in it feed upon him as the incorrupted nourishment of my soul, carefully avoiding and detesting the leaven of malice, hypocrisy, error, or corrupt practices! Let me in it improve Jesus, as the blessed first-fruit unto God which sanctifieth all my enjoyments, the cause and token of my deliverance into the glorious liberty of the gospel! T