Charles Ellicott Commentary Leviticus 23

And the Lord spoke to Moses. —The regulations about the holiness of the sanctuary and the sacrifices, the holiness of the priests and the people, are now followed by statutes about holy seasons.

Speak to the children of Israel. — As the festivals here discussed were to be solemnly kept by them, Moses is ordered to address these regulations to the people or their representatives.

Concerning the feasts of the Lord ... Better, the festivals of the Lord which you shall proclaim as holy convocations, these are my festivals. That is, the following festivals God claims as His, on which solemn assemblies are to be held in the sanctuary.

Six days shall work be done. — Recurring every week, and being the most important as well as the oldest of all festivals, the Sabbath introduces the holy seasons. Hence, during the Second Temple it was declared that “the Sabbath is in importance equal to the whole law; he who profanes the Sabbath openly is like him who transgresses the whole law.” The hour at which it began and ended was announced by three blasts of the trumpets.

You shall do no work in it. — Better, you shall do no manner of work, as the Authorized Version renders this phrase in Leviticus 23:31 of this very chapter. (See Leviticus 16:29.) While on all other festivals servile work only was forbidden (Leviticus 23:21; Leviticus 23:25; Leviticus 23:35–36), and work connected with the preparation of the necessary food was permitted , the Sabbath and the Day of Atonement were the only days on which the Israelites were prohibited from engaging in any work whatsoever. (Leviticus 23:30; Leviticus 16:29).

Though manual labor on the Sabbath was punished with death by stoning (Exodus 35:2; Numbers 15:35–36), and though the authorities during the Second Temple multiplied and registered most minutely the things that constitute labor, yet these administrators of the Law enacted that in cases of illness and of any danger, work is permitted. They laid down the principle that “the Sabbath is delivered into your hand, but not you into the hand of the Sabbath.” Similar is the declaration of Christ (Matthew 12:8; Mark 2:27–28).

These are the feasts of the Lord. —Because the following are the festivals proper, as distinguished from the sabbath , and because they are now enumerated in their regular order, the introductory heading is here repeated.

Ye shall proclaim in their seasons. —By the blast of trumpets on the day of the month on which they are to be observed.

In the fourteenth day of the first month. — This month is called Abib in the Pentateuch (Exodus 13:4; Exodus 23:15; Deuteronomy 16:1), and Nisan in the later books of Scripture (Nehemiah 2:1; Esther 3:7). The fourteenth day of this month is about the beginning of April. On this day, which was called both the preparation for the Passover (John 19:14), and “the first day of Passover,” all artisans, with the exception of tailors, barbers, and laundresses, were obliged to relinquish work either from morning or from noon, according to the custom of the different places in Palestine.

Leaven was only eaten until midday, and it had to be burned in the afternoon. The time for ceasing from and burning the leaven was indicated as follows: “Two desecrated cakes of thanksgiving offerings were placed on a bench in the Temple; as long as they were thus exposed all the people ate leaven. When one of them was removed they abstained from eating, but did not burn it; but when the other was taken away all the people began burning the leaven.”

It was on this day that every Israelite who was not infirm, ceremonially defiled, uncircumcised, or beyond fifteen miles from the walls of Jerusalem, had to appear before the Lord in the holy city, with an offering in proportion to his means (Exodus 23:5; Deuteronomy 16:16–17). Those who came from the country were freely accommodated by the inhabitants with the necessary lodging (Luke 22:10–12; Matthew 26:18), and the guests in acknowledgment of the hospitality they received left to their hosts the skins of the paschal lambs, and the vessels which they used in their religious ceremonies.

Josephus, who was an eyewitness to the fact, tells us that at the Passover, in the reign of Nero, there were 2,700,000 people, when 256,500 lambs were sacrificed. Most of the Jews must therefore have encamped in tents outside the walls of the city, as Muslim pilgrims now do at Mecca. It was for this reason that the Romans took great precautions, using both force and conciliatory measures, during the festivals (Matthew 26:5; Luke 13:1).

At even. — Or, in the evening, as the Authorized Version renders this phrase in the parallel passage (Exodus 12:6), literally, denotes between the two evenings. The interpretation of this expression constituted one of the differences between the Sadducees and the Pharisees during the second Temple, and seriously affected the time for offering up the paschal lamb and the evening sacrifices.

According to the Sadducees it denotes the time between the setting of the sun and the moment when the stars become visible, or when darkness sets in, i.e., between six and seven o’clock, a space of about one hour and twenty minutes. According to the Pharisees, however, “between the two evenings” means from the afternoon to the disappearing of the sun. The first evening is from the time when the sun begins to decline towards the west, while the second is when it goes down and vanishes out of sight. This is the reason why the paschal lamb in the evening sacrifice began to be killed and the blood sprinkled at 12:30 p.m. This is more in harmony with the fact that the large number of sacrifices on this day could only be offered up in the longer period of time.

The Lord’s passover. — Also called the feast of unleavened bread .