Seven days. — The division of time into periods of seven days each was unknown to the more ancient Egyptians, but is thought to have existed in Babylonia as early as B.C. 2000. That it was recognised in the family of Abraham appears from Genesis 29:27. According to some, God established the division by an express command to our first parents in Paradise that they should keep the seventh day holy (see Genesis 2:3); but this is greatly questioned by others, who regard Genesis 2:3 as anticipatory, and think the Sabbath was not instituted until the giving of the manna (Exodus 16:23). However this may have been, it is generally allowed that the Israelites had not observed the seventh day in Egypt. where, indeed, they were held to labour continually. and that the Sabbath as an actual observance dates from the Exodus. The injunction here given, if it belongs to the time of the tenth plague, would be the first preliminary note of warning with respect to the Sabbath, raising an expectation of it, and preparing the way for it, leading up to the subsequent revelations in the wilderness of Sin and at Sinai.
Ye shall put away leaven out of your houses. — There was to be no compromise, nothing resembling half measures. Leaven, taken as typical of corruption, was to be wholly put away, not allowed by any householder to lurk anywhere within his house — a solemn warning that we are to make no compromise with sin.
That soul shall be cut off from Israel. — See the Note on Genesis 17:14.