It was also eaten with bitter herbs, the vegetable condiments of the supper suggesting the bitterness of that bondage in Egypt out of which they came (Ex. 12: 8).——Yet another suggestive memorial usage was to eat with loins girt, shoes on, staff in hand (Ex. 12: 11), and in haste, as men ready to start a journey at a moment’s warning.
The feast continued seven days (Ex. 12: 14–20), beginning with the evening of the paschal supper. The first day and the last were specially sacred, all labor being prohibited except that which was necessary in preparing their food (Ex. 12: 16).——The object in allowing so much time was to provide for extended religious ceremonial services and for wholesome social communion, not to say also for cultivating nationalsympathy and patriotism. As all the males from every tribe in the whole land were required to come together on this great feast to the one place which God should appoint, the convocation was vast, and its social and religious influences were naturally both wholesome and great.
In the original institution it was specially enjoined that the history and purpose of this great festival should be made known to their children. “And thou shalt show thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt” (Ex. 13: 7). “And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage,” etc. (Ex. 13: 14, 15.) How naturally would this wonderful story thrill the young hearts around the paschal board! How swiftly would the hours fly away while fathers rehearsed to sons the great national traditions, or read from the book of the law the narrative, and sung again and again the song of triumph over Pharaoh fallen with which this story closes! Jewish history has it that in ancient times it became the custom, after the paschal table was fully spread and the family had taken their places about it, for the servant suddenly to remove the prepared food away. Then when the hungry children opened their eyes wide and eager lips cried out—What does this mean? the head of the household rehearsed slowly and solemnly the meaning and purpose of the feast, with the history of its original institution; then when the curiosity of the little ones had been both aroused and enlightened, the provisions were replaced and partaken with a freshened sense of the grand significance of the Passover.
Closely associated with this festival and fraught with solemn significance as a memorial institution was the consecration to God of all first-born males, both the first-born of man and the first-born of beast (Ex. 13: 11–16). Of the lower animals the first-born males, if without blemish and if suitable for sacrifice, were to be offered in sacrifice to the Lord. If not suitable (e. g. the ass), it must be redeemed with a lamb—in which case the lamb became the sacrifice, and the ass might be used at the pleasure of its owner.
In the family, the first-born son was consecrated to God. In carrying out this principle, a substitution was made by which the entire tribe of Levi were put in the place of all the first-born males of Israel and held to be specially consecrated to God. The language (Num. 8: 14–18) is—“Thou shalt separate the Levites from among the children of Israel, and the Levites shall be mine. They are wholly given unto me from among the children of Israel, instead of such as open every womb, even instead of the first-born of all the children of Israel, have I taken them unto me. For all the first-born of Israel are mine both man and beast: on the day that I smote every first-born in the land of Egypt, I sanctified them for myself. And I have taken the Levites for [in the place of] all the first-born of the children of Israel.”——The law prescribed the rites by which the Levites were set apart (Num. 8: 5–15).
The original institution of the Passover is rehearsed quite fully in Ex. 12 and 13; is referred to again briefly Ex. 23: 15, and 34: 18–20—this last giving emphasis to the consecration of the first-born. A brief notice of it appears Lev. 23: 5–8; the accompanying ritual services and offerings may be seen in Num. 28: 16–25; and a brief resume of the institution as given in Exodus 12 and 13 stands in Deut. 16: 1–8.
The Paschal Lamb with its sprinkled blood became a pertinent and impressive illustration of the central idea of the atonement by the blood of Christ, the elements common to both being—the shedding of blood—the blood of an innocent one—and especially the passing over the sprinkled souls by the destroying angel, while the unsprinkled were smitten by God’s angel of death.——It is under the force of these and similar analogies that Paul speaks of Christ as being “our Passover”—[rather our Paschal Lamb], and as “sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5: 6–8). Pushing the analogies of the Passover feast one step further, he thinks of the exclusion of all leaven; then of leaven as naturally diffusive, and so as representing the pernicious influence of bad men in the Christian church; and therefore exhorts the Corinthian church to cast out the man guilty of incest lest his influence work like leaven.——These remoter analogies were forcible to persons familiar withthe feast and its usages; yet we can not say they were properly involved in the typical significance of the Passover. The easy and natural manner in which Paul speaks of Christ as our Paschal Lamb shows that so far the resemblance was a well recognized fact, wrought into the current views of inspired men, not to say, of the church of that age. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission; with it and by means of it remission comes to the guilty, accepting it with penitence and with faith.
The long route to Canaan.
Scarcely had the Hebrew hosts set forth for Goshen before the question of the route to Canaan must be determined. That Canaan was their destination was settled long before. The first call of Abram designated the land of Canaan as the home of his posterity. Every renewal of that original promise specified the country which was given them. Now, for the course of their journey, the route along the south-eastern shore of the Mediterranean through the land of the Philistines was short and direct; but it must have brought them into contact inevitably with those powerful tribes from whom their descendants suffered so much during all the centuries intervening between Joshua and David. Just emerging from a bondage which spanned several generations and which had emasculated them of all national courage and spirit—but slightly trained moreover yet into the moral heroism which comes of living faith in God—they were in no condition to encounter such enemies. The record puts these points briefly: “God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines although that was near, for God said—Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war and they return to Egypt;but God led the people about through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea”[32] (Ex. 13: 17, 18). The long circuitous route is therefore chosen.——Wheeling suddenly to theright they put their faces squarely toward the Red Sea, beyond which lay the vast Arabian desert. Ultimately they entered Canaan on its Eastern and not its Western side—the quarter most remote from the Philistines.——In this wilderness route there were great purposes to be accomplished in the moral training and culture of the nation and in the manifestations of the God of their fathers before their eyes. That way lay the passage of the Red Sea which God provided as the burial-place for the proud hosts of Pharaoh: that way lay Sinai—those grand mountain cliffs which God was to shake with his thunders and invest with the smoke and the flame of his glorious presence that the law might be written in letters of fire upon the souls of the whole people: that way lay the long, breadless, waterless route of almost forty years wandering and sojourning in which the Lord fed the people with angels’ food—bread from the lower heavens—the manna of the desert, and with water once and again from smitten rocks, flowing in dry places as a river—that they might learn the power and the love of their God:—that way lay also their long tuition and training into their religious system—a wonderful arrangement of sacrifices and ordinances for which the life-time of a generation was scarcely too long. All these great results and yet others were contemplated and provided for in this choice of the wilderness route as their way to the land of Canaan.