Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
6. ye shall keep it up] Heb. it shall be to you for a keeping: cf. Exodus 16:23; Exodus 16:32-34, Numbers 17:10 [Heb. 25], Exodus 19:9.
the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel] Cf. for the pleonasm Numbers 14:5.
between the two evenings] one of P’s technical expressions: of the Passover, as here, Leviticus 23:5, Numbers 9:3; Numbers 9:5; Numbers 9:11; of the time for offering the evening burnt-offering, Exodus 29:39; Exodus 29:41, Numbers 28:4; Numbers 28:8; of the time for lighting the lamps in the Tabernacle, Exodus 30:8; and Exodus 16:12†. The meaning is disputed. (1) Onkelos renders בין שמשיא ‘between the two suns,’ which is explained in the Talm. to mean the time between sunset and the stars becoming visible; cf. Ibn Ezra (as cited by Kalisch), ‘We have two evenings; the first, sunset, the second, the ceasing of the light which is reflected in the clouds; and the interval between them is about an hour and 20 minutes’ (so Ges. Keil). The Italian astronomer, Schiaparelli (Astronomy in the O.T., 1905, p. 92 f.), arrives at nearly the same explanation. He supposes that the expression arose out of the custom of watching for the first appearance of the crescent moon to mark the beginning of the new month; and thinks that the ‘first’ evening would be the half-hour between sunset and the average time at which in the latitude of Palestine the crescent moon would appear, and that the ‘second’ evening would be the hour afterwards, from the appearance of the crescent to complete darkness: ‘between the two evenings’ would thus mark the time about half-an-hour after sunset. Cf. Deuteronomy 16:6, where the Passover is to be sacrificed ‘at the going down of the sun,’ i.e. at sunset. (2) Saadiah (d. a.d. 942), Rashi and Kimchi understand the ‘first’ evening to be the time when the sun first begins to decline to the west, and the shadows begin to lengthen, and the ‘second’ evening to be the beginning of night. But this interpretation gives a very forced sense to the ‘first’ evening. (3) The traditional explanation, adopted by the Pharisees and the Talmudists (Pesגḥim 61a) was that the ‘first’ evening was when the heat of the sun begins to decrease, about 3 p.m., and that the ‘second’ evening began with sunset. So Josephus (BJ. vi. 9. 3) says that in his day the Passover was sacrificed ‘from the 9th to the 11th hour’ (i.e. from 3 to 5 p.m.). The Mishna (Pesגḥim v. 1) seems to imply that the Passover was usually killed half-an-hour after the 8th hour, i.e. at 2.30 p.m.1[128]: the time however appears to have been variable; for ibid. § 3 it is merely said that if offered ‘before noon,’ it was not valid. (1) is the most natural explanation of the Heb. expression, and has also the support of Deuteronomy 16:6 : but (3) is certainly the sense that was traditionally attached to it.
[128] In Exodus 29:39; Exodus 29:41 ‘between the two evenings’ is also assigned as the time at which the daily burnt-offering was to be offered: when the two collided, the daily burnt-offering was offered an hour earlier (slaughtered, half-an-hour after the 7th hour, and sacrificed half-an-hour after the 8th hour). Pes. v. 1.
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