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 16:7
thou shalt roast and eat it--(See on Exo 12:8; compare Ch2 35:13).
thou shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents--The sense of this passage, on the first glance of the words, seems to point to the morning after the first day--the passover eve. Perhaps, however, the divinely appointed duration of this feast, the solemn character and important object, the journey of the people from the distant parts of the land to be present, and the recorded examples of their continuing all the time (Ch2 30:21 Ch2 35:17), (though these may be considered extraordinary, and therefore exceptional occasions), may warrant the conclusion that the leave given to the people to return home was to be on the m…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Deuteronomy 16:8
Six days shalt thou eat unleavened bread,.... In other places it is ordered to be eaten seven days, Exodus 12:15 and here it is not said six only; it was to be eaten on the seventh as on the other, though that is here distinguished from the six, because of special and peculiar service assigned to it, but not because of an exemption from eating unleavened bread on it. The Jews seem to understand this of different corn of which the bread was made, and not of different sort of bread; the Targum of Jonathan is, on the first day ye shall offer the sheaf (the firstfruits of the barley harvest), and on the six days which remain ye shall begin to eat the unleavened bread of the new fruits, and so Ja…
