Exodus 12:3

The feast of unleavened bread for seven days after; this points rather at what was to be done after in the observance of this ordinance, ver. 14-20. This institution is communicated to the people, and they instructed in the observance.

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Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel,....

It is observable that, amid all the hurry and bustle of such a departure, their serious attention was to be given to a solemn act of religion. a lamb for an house--a kid might be taken (Ex 12:5). The service was to be a domestic one, for the deliverance was to be from an evil threatened to every house in Egypt.

THE paschal lamb was not killed in order to be looked at only, but to be eaten. And our Lord Jesus Christ has not been slain merely that we may hear about Him and talk about Him, and think about Him, but that we may feed upon Him. Everything that has to do with Christ's work is of real, practical, vital consequence to Believers. He is to be the food for our souls. Faith is to receive Him. Love is to embrace Him. Hope is to rejoice in Him!

THE paschal lamb was not killed in order to be looked at only, but to be eaten. And our Lord Jesus Christ has not been slain merely that we may hear about Him and talk about Him, and think about Him, but that we may feed upon Him. Everything that has to do with Christ's work is of real, practical, vital consequence to Believers. He is to be the food for our souls. Faith is to receive Him. Love is to embrace Him. Hope is to rejoice in Him! The lamb of the Passover was not to be eaten in part, some of it to be left and some of it to be divided at the feast— the whole lamb was to be eaten. And, in like manner, the whole of Christ is to be spiritually received by us, whether He is made of God unto us wisdom, or righteous, or sanctification, or redemption. All that He is and all that He does should be received by us with an open and grateful heart. There must not be any picking and choosing among the good things of Christ but all must be accepted alike. We are all sinners and we all need a Savior—and we need the whole of that Savior. So, too, as the whole of the paschal lamb was to be eaten, I think I may say that all the power to save which is in Christ is meant be exercised. He is able to save to the uttermost all them that come unto God by Him—and that uttermost power of His was not intended to lie idle. He is able to save those who are at the very ends of the earth—and that power to save the outcasts and the offscourings was not intended to be left unused. It is our business to stir up the Divine strength and to pray the Lord to come and save even the vilest of the vile—and great multitudes of them! Further, the whole of the lamb was meant to be eaten at once. None of it was to be kept till morning. As with the manna, there was to be no laying of it up in store for future use.

In the tenth day of this month - In after times they began their preparation on the thirteenth day or day before the Passover, which was not celebrated till the fourteenth day, see Exo 12:6: but on the present occasion, as this was their first passover, they probably required more time to get ready in; as a state of very great confusion must have prevailed at this time. Mr. Ainsworth remarks that on this day the Israelites did afterwards go through Jordan into the land of Canaan; Jos 4:19. And Christ, our Paschal Lamb, on this day entered Jerusalem, riding on an ass; the people bearing palm branches, and crying, Hosanna, Joh 12:1, Joh 12:12, Joh 12:13, etc.: and in him this type was truly fulfilled. A lamb - The original word שה seh signifies the young of sheep and of goats, and may be indifferently translated either lamb or kid. See Exo 12:5. A lamb for a house - The whole host of Israel was divided into twelve tribes, these tribes into families, the families into houses, and the houses into particular persons; Numbers 1, Jos 7:14 - Ainsworth.