In the fourteenth day of the first month. — This month is called Abib in the Pentateuch (Exodus 13:4; Exodus 23:15; Deuteronomy 16:1), and Nisan in the later books of Scripture (Nehemiah 2:1; Esther 3:7). The fourteenth day of this month is about the beginning of April. On this day, which was called both “the preparation for the Passover” (John 19:14), and “the first day of Passover,” all handicraftsmen, with the exception of tailors, barbers, and laundresses, were obliged to relinquish work either from morning or from noon, according to the custom of the different places in Palestine. Leaven was only eaten till midday, and it had to be burned in the afternoon. The time for desisting from and burning the leaven was thus indicated: “Two desecrated cakes of thanksgiving offerings were placed on a bench in the Temple; as long as they were thus exposed all the people ate leaven. When one of them was removed they abstained from eating, but did not burn it; but when the other was taken away all the people began burning the leaven.” It was on this day that every Israelite who was not infirm, ceremonially defiled, uncircumcised, or beyond fifteen miles from the walls of Jerusalem, had to appear before the Lord in the holy city, with an offering in proportion to his means (Exodus 23:5; Deuteronomy 16:16-17). Those who came from the country were gratuitously accommodated by the inhabitants with the necessary apartments (Luke 22:10-12; Matthew 26:18), and the guests in acknowledgment of the hospitality they received left to their hosts the skins of the paschal lambs, and the vessels which they used in their religious ceremonies. Josephus, who was an eye-witness to the fact, tells us that at the Passover, in the reign of Nero, there were 2,700,000 people, when 256,500 lambs were sacrificed. Most of the Jews must therefore have encamped in tents without the walls of the city, as the Mohammedan pilgrims now do at Mecca. It was for this reason that the Romans took great precaution, using both force and conciliatory measures, during the festivals (Matthew 26:5; Luke 13:1).
At even. — Or, in the evening, as the Authorised version renders this phrase in the parallel passage (Exodus 12:6), literally, denotes between the two evenings. The interpretation of this expression constituted one of the differences between the Sadducees and the Pharisees during the second Temple, and seriously affected the time for offering up the paschal lamb and the evening sacrifices. According to the Sadducees it denotes the time between the setting of the sun and the moment when the stars become visible, or when darkness sets in, i.e., between six and seven o’clock, a space of about one hour and twenty minutes. According to the Pharisees, however, “between the two evenings” means from the afternoon to the disappearing of the sun. The first evening is from the time when the sun begins to decline towards the west, whilst the second is when it goes down and vanishes out of sight. This is the reason why the paschal lamb in the evening sacrifice began to be killed and the blood sprinkled at 12.30 p.m. This is more in harmony with the fact that the large number of sacrifices on this day could only be offered up in the longer period of time.
The Lord’s passover. — Also called “the feast of unleavened bread.” (See Leviticus 23:6.)