12:1 Now Yãhweh said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt¹:

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:1): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:1a

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 1. There are multiple layers to the text here. First there is what Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron. Then there are the parts they were to repeat to the people aloud in Egypt. Then there are the sections of historical narrative reporting what actually was done, and what actually happened at the time. And of the legislation, there is that which was intended for Egypt only, that which was to be perpetual, and that which was later changed—namely who could act as a priest, and the requirement only to bring the passover to the place of the Name. In some cases, it is not clear how a text is to be regarded apart from later Scripture.

 

2 This month for you, is the head of months¹; first he is to you, for months of the year².

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:2): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:2

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 1. See note on “year” for definition of the year. Several commandments determine the fixing of the year in relation to the first month. The three pilgrim feasts were to be in one year (Exodus 23:14; 23:17; 34:23, 24; Deut. 16:16). This means that noon of the 15th of Nisan must come after the tequfah, lest there be only two feasts in one year, and four in the other. On the other hand, Lev. 19:18 requires the least possible delay of Passover, lest the poor neighbor expecting the new crop to feed his family sin by eating it before the wave sheaf is offered. These considerations amount to having Passover as soon as possible after the spring equinox.

 

 2. Of the sun, moon, and stars, G-d says, “Let them be for signs and for appointed times, and for days, and years” (Gen. 1:14). The moon does not determine the year, and neither do the stars, except to provide a reference background. Only the sun can determine the year, and only at one point in the spring does something change with regard to the sun and earth. The day turns from being shorter north of the equator than south of it to being longer. Night turns from longer north of the equator than south of it. This reversing of day-night is called, “the turn of the year” תְּקוּפַת הַשָּׁנָה Ex. 24:22; 2Chr. 24:23; and is equal to “turn of the days” תְקֻפוֹת הַיָּמִים First Sam. 1:20. See also 2Chron 36:10: לִתְשׁוּבַת הַשָּׁנָה Second Sam. 11:1; 1Ki. 20:22, 26; 1Chron. 20:1. The tequfah was anciently determined by sighting sunset points on the horizon and then finding the day of the equinox at the midpoint, or by counting a known number of days between the tequfot תְקֻפוֹת First Sam. 1:20. Exodus 13:10 refers to this as “from days to days” מִיָּמִים יָמִימָה, in which the “year” is referred to as a sum of days, which sum is known to be 365 according to the length of Enoch’s sojourn on earth. Observations have to be made to figure when to add a leap day, which is like a second Adar with the months.

 

3 “Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this mont they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:3): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:3

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 1. The consensus of Jewish interpretation for בֶּעָשׂר לַחדֶשׁ הַזֶּה states that “this month” refers specifically to the month of Aviv in Egypt pertaining to the historical Exodus, and that in the subsequent memorial Passover the lamb could be taken as late as the 13th, or even 14th of Aviv. The disciples came an asked Yeshua about Passover preparations well after the 10th day of the month which confirms the interpretation.

 

6 ‘And yo shall keep it till o the fourteenth day² of the same month; then the whole assembl of the congregation of Israel is to kill it between the settingsⁿ.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:6): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:6

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 a. The commandment pertained to keeping it from the 10th day onward in Egypt, but this was not part of the perpetual ordinance. It was allowed to acquire the lamb on the 13th or 14th.

 

 1. The Hebrew word often includes the endpoint or in certain cases is completely open ended, meaning at least “as far as” the point indicated, and onward, but like עוֹלָם only points in a direction without saying how far into, onto, or past it goes..

 

 2. A literal day begins at daybreak or dawn and lasts till the setting of the light at dusk. It lasts approximately 12 hours, and is the first definition of day in Genesis 1:5a, “And the Almĩghty is calling the light day.” It is opposed to “night” which is not called “day”. The definition of “one” 24hr calendar “day” is given in Gen. 1:5b as extending, the already created 12hr day to include the following night: “Then there was setting; then there was daybreak: one day”. Setting and daybreak mark off the start and end of night. In Israel the calendar day was daybreak to daybreak, but Sabbaths always included the night before. When the Jews were exiled they used the Mesopotamian standard setting to setting for ordinary days, but back in the land the daybreak to daybreak day continued to be used in matters relating to sacrificial offerings, and by the common people everywhere for ordinary days.

 

 3. The text says “whole assembly”, because it was allowed to the heads of household(s) to kill the Passover in Egypt. When the Torah commanded all offerings to be brought to the sanctuary (cf. Lev. 17:3-9), then a ritually clean head of house would still slay the offering, but the Priest would take the blood pour it out at the base of the altar. If the person was unclean, then the Priest would slay it for him (cf. 2Chron. 30:17).

 

 n. The setting of the light begins at noon and ends when it goes below the horizon. The settings, plural, mark two points, a. when the light begins to set at noon, and b. when the light disappears below the horizon. The time period corresponds to the afternoon, and between the delimiting points is midafternoon, when the Passover sacrifice was offered, from about 1-5 p.m.

 

7 ‘Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it¹.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:7): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:7

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 1. This commandment only applied one time in Egypt as there is no necessity to prevent the destroying Angel at the Passover memorial. Notice that the blood was put on the lintel as well as the doorposts. A mere enclosure with gateposts did not qualify, nor a courtyard with a gate. It had to be a house. Israel lived in tents after the Exodus, which had neither doorposts nor lintels.

 

11 ‘Now you shall eat it in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste— it is Yãhweh’s Passover¹.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:11): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:11

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 1. These commandments were one time commandments for Egypt, and not part of the perpetual ordinance. The reason for the commandment is given in the following verse, as well as the reason for putting the blood on the lintel and doorposts.

 

14 ‘Now this day will be a memoria to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to Yãhweh; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as an enduring ordinance².

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:14): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:14

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 1. This section of legislation pertains the Passover memorial. Israel did not have rest days in the first Passover at the Exodus from Egypt, because on the 15th of Aviv they were going out of Egypt during the day and night of the 15th.

 

 2. For the first time, the text uses the words “enduring ordinance”, because this section is dealing with the subsequent Passover “memorial”.

 

15 ‘Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but in the first day you make leaven to be having a Sabbath from your houses¹; for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day throug the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:15): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:15

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 1. The precise Hebrew is important: תַּשְׁבִּיתוּ. It means to cause or make the leaven to take a sabbath. The verb is in the hiphil stem. To accomplish this, the leaven must be removed before the first day of the feast. Then on the day of the feast, one is causing it to take a sabbath. It is often mistakenly thought that the 14th of Aviv is being here also called the “first day” because leaven was removed on that day. But the Hebrew is not saying “remove it” on the first day. It is saying to cause it to take a Sabbath, with the focus on the result for the 15th day. The cause has to be enacted on the 14th. It is also important in regard to the fact that the first day of the feast was called, “the Sabbath” (Lev. 23:11, 15) meaning “Rest Day”. It begins by being a day of resting from leaven.

 

 2. Once again our friendly Hebrew word עַד, which does not mean “until” in the strict English sense. It means to “pass by”, go “onward to/of” a point designated. That is why the same root also can have the sense of “perpetuity”. Many a person has mistakenly thought the text to teach that the obligation to abstain from leaven ended at the beginning of the seventh day.

 

18In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at the setting¹, you shall eat unleavened things, until the twenty-first day of the month at the setting³.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:18): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:18

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 1. At setting means sunset. This starting point equals the exact same time in three different systems of reckoning: [1] sunset beginning the 15th calendar day (using sunset to sunset reckoning for the calendar day as most Jews reckon after the destruction in AD 70), [2] the end of the 14th day using a literal day (dawn to dusk; cf. Gen. 1:5a), [3] sunset in the middle of the 14th calendar day (using sunrise to sunrise reckoning for the calendar day). Systems [1],[2], and [3] give the same results for the beginning of unleavened bread. System [1] is ambiguous, and has to be interpreted since it begins a day at setting and ends the day at setting. The setting at the end of the day is correct. At setting in system [2] is only at the end of the day. And in system [3] at setting only occurs at the end of the day part of the day, and exactly between the sunrise-sunrise limits of the calendar day, again giving only one result. Systems [2]-[3] do not need to be interpreted. System [2] (dawn to dusk) was first Genesis definition of day. System [3] (daybreak to daybreak) is the Genesis Calendar day, and was used for all non-Sabbaths, and sacrificial purposes. System [1] was only for Sabbaths and Rest days. After the Babylonian exile, this changes: System [1] began to be used more alongside [2] and [3]. After AD 70, only system [1] is in use. Keeping these three reckonings historically straight is absolutely essential to understanding Exodus and Scriptural feast day chronology. Israel did not think in terms of system [1] for non-sabbaths until a transition after the Babylonian exile. And even sabbaths were sometimes explained in terms of system [3] (cf. Lev. 23:32; system [3] setting on the ninth day to the next setting = the 10th day in system [1].

 

 3. At setting means the end of the 21st day. In the exilic reckoning of Jews after AD 70-135, the 21st day began with sunset and ended with sunset, and it had to be interpreted which sunset was meant. However, in temple reckoning for sacrificial offerings (cf. Lev. 7:15), and according to Genesis days, the setting only occured at the end of the literal day (dawn to dusk) or only in the middle of the Genesis calendar day, which was dawn-dusk-dawn, i.e. day-setting-night-daybreak. So the results are the same in all three systems. The Genesis calendar day is not applied to the Sabbath day in Genesis 1 or 2. That is because the sabbath was sanctified in the night before the day, and then the day. Being ignorant of these things, there are many sectarians promoting errant interpretations. Every heresy that can be invented has been invented to corrupt Torah by sects too many to count, and lies and errors too many to catalogue. All we can do is explain the correct way. Unleavened bread begins at setting at the end of the 14th, and lasts till setting at the end of the 21st day.

 

19 ‘Seven days there shall be no leaven foun in your houses; for whoever eats what is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is an alien or a native of the land.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:19): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:19

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 1. The letter of the commandment does not say that all leaven has to be destroyed. It only says it may not be “found” in your houses. Therefore, it would be permitted to put it elsewhere out of sight, such as an unattached garage or outbuilding for storage facility. Leaven is not to be “seen” in your land. If no one will see it, then the commandment is kept (Exodus 13:7). The Rabbis save their leaven too, but only by rationalizing that it is o.k. to burden a non-Jew with it and assert that the non-Jew’s domain is not Jewish land.

 

22 “And you shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning¹.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:22): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:22

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 1. This commandment only pertained to the Exodus in Egypt. The reason for staying in the house behind the blood was to remain safe from the destroying Angel. Notice vs. 24. It does not say that putting the blood on the doorposts is a perpetual commandment. The perpetual commandment is to keep the word, i.e. the saying, and to teach it to the children.

 

¹24 “And you shall keep this wor as a ordinance for you and your children onward of time immemorial.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:24): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:24

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 1. This legislation pertains to the perpetual celebration of the Passover me­morial.

 

 2. The Hebrew says, “word”, which also means “saying” or “speech”. Yahweh is not saying repeat the blood on the door posts, but to keep the word, which is the story, and tell it to our children.

 

29 Now it came about at midnigh that Yãhweh struck all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of cattle.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:29): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:29

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 1. The night between the 14th and 15th day. According to the calendar day that Israel used, still the 14th.

 

34 S the people took their dough before it was leavened, with their kneading bowls bound up in the clothes on their shoulders.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:34): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:34

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 1. But they did not go out of the house till the morning of the 15th.

 

35 An the sons of Israel did according to the word of Moses, and they requested from the Egyptians articles of silver and articles of gold, and clothing;

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:35): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:35

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 1. During the day part of the 15th, between sunrise and sunset, while the Egyptians were burying their dead.

 

37 The the sons of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, aside from children.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:37): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:37

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 1. Between sunset on the 15th and sunrise on the 16th, during the night.

 

39 An they baked the dough which they had brought out of Egypt into cakes of unleavened bread. For it had not become leavened, since they were driven out of Egypt and could not delay, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:39): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:39

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 1. After daybreak on the 16th day of the month, after an all night march from Rameses.

 

¹42 It is a night to keep watch for Yãhweh for having brought them out from the land of Egypt; this nigh is for Yãhweh, to keep watch by all the sons of Israel throughout their generations.

 

(MISB: Ex. 12:42): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#12:42

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 1. This legislation is for the perpetual celebration of the Passover memorial.

 

 2. The night between the 15th and 16th day is the night they marched from Rameses.

 

10 and they sa the Almĩghty of Israel; and under his feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself. 11 Yet he did not stretch out his hand against the nobles of the sons of Israel²; and they beheld the Almĩghty, and they ate and drank.

 

(MISB: Ex. 24:10): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#24:10

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 1. And they saw! Who is this that they saw? It was the Almighty Son who expresses the image of the Almighty Father, whom no one has ever seen (cf. John 1:18). Yahweh commands us to make no images of Him. However, he presents himself in the image of the Son. For he did not say He could not use an image, but that we could not make one. So, when the Scripture says none sees the Almighty, it speaks of the Almighty Father Yahweh, but when it tells us that he spoke with Moses face to face, it is the Almighty Son, Yahweh condescending to limit himself into the form of a man.

 

 2. Is not this remarkable? When Yahweh would not let Moses see anything of Him save his backside, here he is in a beholdable form showing himself to the sons of Israel, and in the seeing they are not destroyed, and they relaxed and ate in his presence. Is it too hard then to affirm that the Almighty One also appeared in Messiah Yeshua?

 

11 And Yãhweh spoke to Moses face to face¹, just as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tent.

 

(MISB: Ex. 33:11): http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/BasicBooks/exodus.html#33:11

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 1. No man has seen the Father except the one special Son (John 1:18). So who was Yahweh, who stood next to the altar of incense and spoke face to face with Moses? It was the Almighty Son, Yeshua, in whom Yah takes a physical form. The Rabbis are at a loss to explain this, and how no one can see Yah. At times Yahweh spoke with a voice from behind the curtain (cf. Num 7:89), but also “mouth to mouth” (Num. 12:8), and he “And he looks on the form of Yahweh”. See also Gen. 32:30. The one who does not enter into trust with the Son is not entered into trust with the Father, and does not know the Father. Yeshua told them if they supported Moses then they would support Messiah (cf. John 5:46).

 

 2. Joshua too beheld the form of the Angel of Yahweh, who is Yah in physical form. The Scripture says, “where I meet with you-all” אִוָּעֵד לָכֶם (Num. 17:4). The plural you is used because Yahweh met with Joshua also, and this text also implies that Yahweh and Joshua spoke also, but the text does not say. Who then is Yahweh that can be seen, and Yahweh that cannot be seen. The one is the Son, Yeshua, Messiah, and the other is the unseen Father. In the Son is hidden the glory of the Father, so that man may see and yet live.