That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped.
Ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, х zebach (H2077) pecach (H6453), opposed to minchaah (H4503), a bloodless offering]. According to Bahr, it was a thank offering; but Hengstenberg has shown that it is a sin offering in the fullest and most proper sense, the basis and central point of all sin-offerings (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:7; Hebrews 11:28; Numbers 9:13). But De Wette, von Bohlen, and other Rationalistic writers, assert that this feast was originally a simple observance in honour of the first-born-a festival of nature, celebrating the sun's entry into the sign of Aries (ram); whence an animal of that species was sacrificed as symbolical of the increasing power of the solar rays; and that the religious element engrafted upon it, with the account of its origin here described, belongs to the legendary traditions of subsequent ages, which, being collected, were committed to writing, and ascribed by the compiler of this book to the Mosaic period.
Havernick has clearly shown that the process is uniformly the reverse: that 'in all national ordinances of worship the ethical element of the religion has been the first in order of time, and that nature worship in general is the form, imprint, or reflection of a higher original. But if among the Hebrews every feast, and their whole system of worship, are penetrated by such an ethical and deeply religious element, what justifies the supposition that there is so great an irregularity in the case of the Passover? Further, how shall we explain the circumstance, that all the laws laid down for this feast, after the first celebration of it, by no means point out its origin, but presuppose it as instituted and well established. Further still, there is an essentially new idea in the first Passover which does not appear again afterward, and, indeed, according to the appointments recorded in Exodus itself, ought not to appear again. The first Passover is a sacrifice presented to Yahweh as an atonement, in consequence of which His favour is displayed toward Israel, while everything that comes in hostile collision with the Theocracy-here represented by Egypt's first-born-falls a victim to His justice. This first sacrifice is also quite of a special kind: it is the streaking of blood upon the houses that here very particularly represents the atonement. This sacrifice has a meal conjoined with it, likewise of a special kind, and it is only this meal that remains, and is celebrated as a memorial-sign in future' (cf. Deuteronomy 16:3) ('Introduction to the Pentateuch').
People bowed the head. All the preceding directions were communicated through the elders, and the Israelites being deeply solemnized by the influence of past and prospective events, gave prompt and faithful obedience.