And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.
This day shall be unto you for a memorial. The close analogy traceable in all points between the Jewish and Christian Passovers is seen also in the circumstance that both festivals were instituted before the events they were to commemorate had transpired. "This day" (see the note on "this night," Exodus 12:12), a "memorial," a season of national remembrance for their temporal deliverance from Egypt, and also for that greater redemption of which it was a type; because even Jewish writers came to understand and expect that Israel was to be redeemed, in the reign of Messiah, on the same day on which they were delivered from Egypt-namely, the fifteenth day of the month. On that day our Lord was crucified.
Ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever - i:e., observe it as a sacred festival. The phrase "an ordinance for ever" occurs repeatedly in the enactments of the Mosaic ritual (cf.27:21; 28:43; 30:31: cf. Genesis 13:15; Genesis 17:13), and of course is to interpreted in a restricted sense (cf. Proverbs 29:14; Daniel 3:9), as meaning only that the observance was to be of permanent obligation so long as the Jewish polity should exist.