Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 16:1-17
Much of the communion between God and his people Israel was kept up, and a face of religion preserved in the nation, by the three yearly feasts, the institution of which, and the laws concerning them, we have several times met with already; and here they are repeated.
I. The law of the passover, so great a solemnity that it made the whole month, in the midst of which it was placed, considerable: Observe the month Abib, Deu 16:1. Though one week only of this month was to be kept as a festival, yet their preparations before must be so solemn, and their reflections upon it and improvements of it afterwards so serious, as to amount to an observance of the whole month. The month of Abib, or of ne…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Deuteronomy 16:5
Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates--The passover was to be observed nowhere but in the court of the tabernacle or temple, as it was not a religious feast or sacramental occasion merely, but an actual sacrifice (Exo 12:27; Exo 23:18; Exo 34:25). The blood had to be sprinkled on the altar and in the place where the true Passover was afterwards to be sacrificed for us "at even, at the going down of the sun"--literally, "between the evenings."
John Gill on Deuteronomy 16:5
Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates,.... Or cities, as the Targum of Jonathan, so called because they usually had gates to them, in which public affairs were transacted; but in none of these, only in the city of Jerusalem, the place the Lord chose, might they kill the passover and eat it, and other passover offerings:
which the Lord thy God giveth thee; in the land of Canaan, and which land was given them of God.
John Calvin on Deuteronomy 16:3-17
Deuteronomy 16:3, 4
3. Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it: seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; (for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste;) that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life.
3. Non comedas cum illo fermentatum: septem diebus comedes cum illo infermentata, panem afflictionis: quia festinanter egressus es e terra Aegypti: ut memineris diei quo egressus es e terra Aegypti, omnibus diebus vitae tuae.
4. And there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coasts seven days; neither shall there any thing of the flesh, which thou sacrificedst t…
