Exodus 12:2

12:1-20 The Lord makes all things new to those whom he delivers from the bondage of Satan, and takes to himself to be his people. The time when he does this is to them the beginning of a new life. God appointed that, on the night wherein they were to go out of Egypt, each family should kill a lamb, or that two or three families, if small, should kill one lamb. This lamb was to be eaten in the manner here directed, and the blood to be sprinkled on the door-posts, to mark the houses of the Israelites from those of the Egyptians. The angel of the Lord, when destroying the first-born of the Egyptians, would pass over the houses marked by the blood of the lamb: hence the name of this holy feast or ordinance. The passover was to be kept every year, both as a remembrance of Israel's preservation and deliverance out of Egypt, and as a remarkable type of Christ. Their safety and deliverance were not a reward of their own righteousness, but the gift of mercy. Of this they were reminded, and by this ordinance they were taught, that all blessings came to them through the shedding and sprinkling of blood. Observe, 1. The paschal lamb was typical. Christ is our passover, 1Co 5:7. Christ is the Lamb of God, Joh 1:29; often in the Revelation he is called the Lamb. It was to be in its prime; Christ offered up himself in the midst of his days, not when a babe at Bethlehem. It was to be without blemish; the Lord Jesus was a Lamb without spot: the judge who condemned Christ declared him innocent

. It was to be set apart four days before, denoting the marking out of the Lord Jesus to be a Saviour, both in the purpose and in the promise. It was to be slain, and roasted with fire, denoting the painful sufferings of the Lord Jesus, even unto death, the death of the cross. The wrath of God is as fire, and Christ was made a curse for us. Not a bone of it must be broken, which was fulfilled in Christ, Joh 19:33, denoting the unbroken strength of the Lord Jesus. 2. The sprinkling of the blood was typical. The blood of the lamb must be sprinkled, denoting the applying of the merits of Christ's death to our souls; we must receive the atonement, Ro 5:11. Faith is the bunch of hyssop, by which we apply the promises, and the benefits of the blood of Christ laid up in them, to ourselves. It was to be sprinkled on the door-posts, denoting the open profession we are to make of faith in Christ. It was not to be sprinkled upon the threshold; which cautions us to take heed of trampling under foot the blood of the covenant. It is precious blood, and must be precious to us. The blood, thus sprinkled, was a means of preserving the Israelites from the destroying angel, who had nothing to do where the blood was. The blood of Christ is the believer's protection from the wrath of God, the curse of the law, and the damnation of hell, Ro 8:1. 3. The solemn eating of the lamb was typical of our gospel duty to Christ. The paschal lamb was not to be looked upon only, but to be fed upon.

(2) The beginning of months. —Hitherto the Hebrews had commenced the year with Tisri, at or near the autumnal equinox. (See Exodus 23:16 .) In thus doing, they followed neither the Egyptian nor the Babylonian custom. The Egyptians began the year in June, with the first rise of the Nile; the Babylonians in Nisannu, at the vernal equinox. It was this month which was now made, by God’s command, the first month of the Hebrew year; but as yet it had not the name Nisan: it was called Abib ( Exodus 13:4 ), the month of “greenness.” Henceforth the Hebrews had two years, a civil and a sacred one (Joseph., Ant. Jud., i. 3, § 3). The civil year began with Tisri, in the autumn, at the close of the harvest; the sacred year began with Abib (called afterwards Nisan), six months earlier. It followed that the first civil was the seventh sacred month, and vice versa.

This month was the first month after the vernal equinox, called Abib , Exodus 13:4 23:15 Deu 16:1 , and Nissan , Nehemiah 2:1 Esther 3:7 ; containing part of our March , and part of April . The beginning; Heb. the head ; which, I conceive, notes not so much the order, which is more plainly mentioned in the following words, as the eminency of it, that it shall be accounted the chief and principal of all months; as the sabbath hath been called by some the queen of days . And justly must they prefer this month before the rest, whether they looked back to their prodigious deliverance from Egypt therein, or forward to their spiritual redemption by Christ, and to the acceptable year of the Lord , Luke 4:19 ; for in this very month our Lord Jesus suffered, John 18:28 . It shall be the first month: heretofore your first month for all affairs hath been Tisri , which in part answers to our September , and is the first month after the autumnal equinox; and so it shall be to you still as to civil affairs, as it appears from Exodus 23:16 34:22 Leviticus 25:8-10 ; but as to sacred and ecclesiastical matters, this shall henceforth be your first month.

This month - Abib Exodus 13:4 . It was called "Nisan" by the later Hebrews, and nearly corresponds to our April. The Israelites are directed to take Abib henceforth as the beginning of the year; the year previously began with the month Tisri, when the harvest was gathered in; see Exodus 23:16 . The injunction touching Abib or Nisan referred only to religious rites; in other affairs they retained the old arrangement, even in the beginning of the Sabbatic year; see Leviticus 25:9 .

Verse 2 - This month shall be unto you the beginning of months . The Israelite year would seem to have hitherto commenced with the autumnal equinox ( Exodus 23:16 ), or at any rate with the month Tisri (or Ethanim), which corresponded to our October. Henceforth two reckonings were employed, one for sacred, the other for civil purposes, the first month of each year, sacred or civil, being the seventh month of the other. Abib, "the month of ears" - our April, nearly - became now the first month of the ecclesiastical year, while Tisri became its seventh or sabbatical month. It is remarkable that neither the Egyptians nor the Babylonians agreed with the original Israelite practice, the Egyptians commencing their year with Thoth, or July; and the Babylonians and Assyrians theirs with Nisannu, or April. Exodus 12:2

2 . This month , &c.] The ‘month’ is the one corresponding to our Mar.–Apr., called in J and E ( Exodus 13:4 , Exodus 23:15 , Exodus 34:18 ) and Deuteronomy 16:1 ) ‘Abib,’ and in the later post-exilic writings ( Nehemiah 2:1 , Esther 3:7 ) by its Bab. name, Nisan . P never, like the older pre-exilic writers, calls the months by their Canaanitish or Phoenician names, Abib ( ll.cc. ), Ziv ( 1 Kings 6:1 ; 1 Kings 6:37 ), Ethanim ( ib. 1 Kings 8:2 ), Bul ( ib. 1 Kings 6:38 ); but, as do the late parts of Kings ( 1 Kings 12:32-33 [compiler], 2 Kings 25:1 ; 2 Kings 25:3 ; 2 Kings 25:8 ; 2 Kings 25:25 ; 2 Kings 25:27 ), Jer. ( Jeremiah 1:3 , Jeremiah 28:1 ; Jeremiah 28:17 , Jeremiah 36:22 al. ), Ezek. ( Ezekiel 1:1 , Ezekiel 8:1 al. ), Hag. ( Haggai 1:1 ; Haggai 1:15 , Haggai 2:1 ), Zech. ( Zechariah 1:1 ; Zechariah 1:7 , Zechariah 7:1 ; Zechariah 7:3 ), and Chron., denotes them by numbers ( 1 Chronicles 16:1 ; 1 Chronicles 19:1 ; Leviticus 16:29 , &c.). The old Hebrew year began in autumn ( Exodus 23:16 ; cf. Exodus 34:22 , 1 Samuel 1:20 ); and P here refers the later custom of beginning it in spring (see Jeremiah 36:22 ) to the time of the institution of the Passover in Egypt. The Bab. year began in spring; but whether the Hebrew custom was due to Bab. influence is uncertain. The earliest clear cases of the Heb. year beginning in spring are in the dates quoted above from Kings and Jer.; but 2 Kings 19:29 (= Isaiah 37:30 ) perhaps pre-supposes it.

As the passages from Kings and Jer. shew, the reckoning from spring was more than a merely ecclesiastical calendar, it was used also for dating civil events. See further Nowack, Arch. i. 217 ff. DB. iv. 764; EB. iv. 5365 f.; König, ZDMG. lvi. (1906), p. 624 ff. There is a survival in P of the old mode of reckoning in the first day of the seventh month being celebrated as New Year’s day ( Leviticus 23:24 ).

2. this month shall be unto you the beginning of months—the first not only in order but in estimation. It had formerly been the seventh according to the reckoning of the civil year, which began in September, and continued unchanged, but it was thenceforth to stand first in the national religious year which began in March, April.