beginning of barley harvest is however generally associated with
it, while the wheat harvest is connected with Pentecost. The
“sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest,” mentioned in Lev.
xxiii. 10, is associated in Jewish tradition with the barley harvest
(Mishna, Menachoth x.). This, however, is not immediately
connected with the Passover, and is of more significance as
determining the exact date of Pentecost.
Considering however the two sections of the Passover separately, it is remarkable how many of the ceremonies associated either historically or ceremonially with the Passover have connexion with the idea of a covenant. The folk-etymology of the word Passover given in Exod. xii. 23 seems to connect the original of the feast with a threshold covenant (see Trumbull, Threshold Covenant, Philadelphia, 1902); the daubing of the side posts and lintel with blood at the original Passover, which finds its counterpart in Babylonian custom (Zimmern, Beit. z. Bab. Rel. ii. 126-7) and in Arabic usage (Wákidí, ed. Kremer, p. 28), implies a blood covenant. The communion meal would, according to the views of Robertson Smith, also involve the idea of a covenant; while the fact that no person joining in the meal should be uncircumcised connects the feast with the covenant of Abraham. Finally, the association of the first-born with the festival specially referred to in the texts, and carried out both in Samaritan tradition, which marks the forehead of the first-born with the blood of the lamb, and in Jewish custom, which obliged the first-born to fast on the day preceding Passover, also connects the idea of the feast with the sacro-sanctity of the first-born. The Hebrew tradition further connects the revelation of the sacred name of the God of the Hebrews with this festival, which thus combines, in itself, all the associations connecting the Hebrews with their God. It is not surprising therefore that Hebrew tradition connects it with the Exodus, the beginning of the theocratic life of the nation. It seems easiest to assume that the festival, so far as the Passover itself is concerned, was actually connected historically with the Exodus.
With regard to the abstention from leavened bread, the inquiry is somewhat more complicated. As before remarked, there seems no direct connexion between the paschal sacrifice and what appears to be essentially an agricultural festival; the Hebrew tradition, to some extent, dissociates them by making the sacrifice on the 14th of Nisan and beginning the Feast of Unleavened Bread on the 15th. This seeming casual connexion, to some extent, confirms the historic connexion suggested by the text, that the Jews at the Exodus had to use bread prepared in haste; but not even Hebrew tradition attempts to explain why the abstention should last for seven days. The attempt of modern critics to account for the period as that in which the barley harvest was gathered in, during which the workers in the field could not prepare leavened bread, is not satisfactory. The first-fruits of the barley harvest are to be gathered on the “morrow of the sabbath” (Lev. xxiii. 11). This expression has formed the subject of dispute between Samaritans and other sectaries and the Jews, the former of whom regard it as referring to the first Sunday during the festival, the latter as a special expression for the second day of the festival itself (see Hoffmann, Lev. ii. 159-215). But whichever interpretation is taken, the connexion of the festival with the harvest is only secondary.
The suggestion has been made by Wellhausen and Robertson Smith that the Passover was, in its original form, connected with the sacrifice of the first lings, and the latter points to the Arabic annual sacrifices called 'Atair, which some of the lexicographers interpret as first lings. These were presented in the month Rajab, corresponding to Nisan (Smith, Religion of Semites, p. 210). But the real Arabic sacrifice of firstlings was called Fara'; it might be sacrificed at any time, as was also the case with the Hebrews (Exod. xxii. 30). The paschal lamb was not necessarily a first ling, but only in the first year of its life (Exod. xii. 5). The suggestion of Wellhausen and Robertson Smith confuses the offering of first lings (Arabic Faraʽ) and that of the first yeanlings of the year in the spring (Arabic ʽAtair). It is possible that the Passover was originally connected with the latter (cf. Wellhausen, Reste arab. Heidentums, pp. 94 seq.). As regards the Feast of Unleavened Bread, now indissolubly connected with the paschal sacrifice, no satisfactory explanation has been given either of its original intention or of its connexion with the Passover. It has been suggested that it was originally a hag or pilgrimage feast to Jerusalem, of which there were three in the year connected with the agricultural festivals (Exod. xxxiv. 17, 18). But the real agricultural occasion was not the eating of unleavened bread but the offering of the first sheaf of the barley harvest on the “morrow of the sabbath” in the Passover week (Lev. xxiii. 10, n), and this occasion determined the second agricultural festival, the Feast of Weeks, fifty days later (Deut. xvi. 9; Lev. xxiii. 16; see Pentecost). The suggestion that the eating of cakes of unleavened bread, similar to the Australian “damper,” was due to the exigencies of the harvest does not meet the case, since it does not explain the seven days and is incongruous with the fact that the first sheaf of the harvest was put to the sickle not earlier than the third day of the feast. It still remains possible therefore that the seven days' eating of unleavened bread (and bitter herbs) is an historical reminiscence of the incidents of the Exodus, where the normal commissariat did not begin until a week after the first exit. On the other hand, the absence of leaven may recall primitive practice before its introduction as a domestic luxury; sacral rites generally keep alive primitive custom. There was also associated in the Hebrew mind a connexion of impurity and corruption with the notion of leaven which was tabu in all sacrifice (Exod. xxiii. 18; Lev. ii. 11).
According to Robertson Smith, the development of the various institutions connected with the Passover was as follows. In Egypt the Israelites, as a pastoral people, sacrificed the first lings of their flocks in the spring, and, according to tradition, it was a refusal to permit a general gathering for this purpose that caused the Exodus. When the Israelites settled in Canaan they found there an agricultural festival connected with the beginnings of the barley harvest, which coincided in point of date with the Passover and was accordingly associated with it. At the time of the reformation under Josiah, represented by Deuteronomy, the attempt was made to turn the family thank-offering of first lings into a sacrificial rite performed by the priests in the Temple with the aid of the males of each household, who had to come up to Jerusalem but left the next morning to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread in their homes. During the exile this was found impossible, and the old home ceremonial was revived and was kept up even after the return of the exile. This is a highly ingenious hypothesis to explain the discrepancies of the text, but is, after all, nothing but hypothesis.
There appears to have been originally considerable variety in the mode of keeping the Passover, but the earliest mention in the historical narratives (Josh. v. 11) connects the paschal sacrifice with the eating of unleavened bread. But it is unsafe to assume, from 2 Kings xxiii. 22, that the festival was not kept in the time of the early kings, since Solomon appears to have kept up the three great pilgrimage festivals, 2 Kings ix. 25, and it is possibly referred to in Isa. i. 9. The complex of observances connected with the Passover and the very want of systemization observed in the literary sources would seem to vindicate the primitive character of the feast, which indeed is recognized by all inquirers.
At any rate the Samaritans have, throughout their history, observed the Passover with all its Pentateuchal ceremonial and still observe it down to the present day. They sacrifice the paschal lamb, which is probably the oldest religious rite that has been continuously kept up. In two important points they differ from later Jewish interpretation. The term “between the evenings” (Lev. xxiii. 5) they take as the time between sunset and dark, and the “morrow of the sabbath” (v. 11) they take literally as the first Sunday in the Passover week; wherein they agree with the Sadducees, Boethusians, Karaites and other Jewish sectaries. This would seem to point to a time when the fixing of the sabbath was determined by the age of the moon, so that the first day of the Passover, which is on the 15th of Nisan, would always occur on a sabbath.
