4._These are the feasts of the Lord. _The other festivals which Moses here enumerates have an affinity to the Sabbath. In the first place the Passover is put, the mystery of which I have annexed, not without reason, to the First Commandment, for its institution was there explained, inasmuch as it ac... [ Continue Reading ]
10._When ye be come to the land. _Moses now lays down rules as to the second day of festival, which was dedicated to the offering of the first-fruits. The ceremony is described that they should deliver a handful into the hand of the priest; though some think that the measure is signified which was t... [ Continue Reading ]
24._In the seventh month, in the first day of the month. _I wonder how it ever entered the mind of the Jews (349) that in the feast of trumpets the deliverance of Isaac was commemorated, when a goat was substituted to be slain in his stead; (350) but they have invented this with their wonted audacit... [ Continue Reading ]
27._Also on the tenth day of this seventh month. _The word כפר, _caphar, _whence the noun כפרים, _cephurim, _signifies both to propitiate and to blot out guilt and accusation by means of expiation; כפרים, therefore, are atonements (_libationes_) for appeasing God; and the word is used in the plural... [ Continue Reading ]
29._For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted. _Hence let us learn how greatly the sacrifice of an afflicted and humbled heart pleases God; since He commands so severe a punishment to be inflicted for the contempt of this ceremony. And surely this would have been a proof of most gross in... [ Continue Reading ]
34._The fifteenth day of this seventh month. _It is shewn in the end of the chapter why God instituted the Feast of Tabernacles, viz, that the children of Israel might remember that they dwelt in tents in the desert, when they had no certain dwelling-place,but, as it were, passed a wandering life. T... [ Continue Reading ]
36._Seven days ye shall offer. _They only kept holiday on the first and eighth day, yet they dwelt in huts, and for seven successive days offered sacrifices, of which a fuller account was elsewhere given. What, therefore, Moses distinctly treats of in the book of Numbers, I have preferred to introdu... [ Continue Reading ]
40._And ye shall take you on the first day. _By this symbol the Jews were instructed that this day was to be celebrated with joy and gladness; for it was not only a memorial of the favor which He had graciously bestowed on their fathers in the desert, when they were exposed to all the vicissitudes o... [ Continue Reading ]