between sunrise and sunset. Nevertheless there is no formal disagreement between the law and the rabbinical custom. The expression in Deu 16:6, “at (towards) sunset,” is sufficient to show that the boundary line between the two evenings is not to be fixed precisely at the moment of sunset, but only somewhere about that time. The daily evening sacrifice and the incense offering were also to be presented “between the two evenings” (Exo 29:39, Exo 29:41; Exo 30:8; Num 28:4). Now as this was not to take place exactly at the same time, but to precede it, they could not both occur at the time of sunset, but the former must have been offered before that. Moreover, in later times, when the paschal lamb was slain and offered at the sanctuary, it must have been slain and offered before sunset, if only to give sufficient time to prepare the paschal meal, which was to be over before midnight. It was from these circumstances that the rabbinical custom grew up in the course of time, and the lax use of the word evening, in Hebrew as well as in every other language, left space enough for this. For just as we do not confine the term morning to the time before sunset, but apply it generally to the early hours of the day, so the term evening is not restricted to the period after sunset. If the sacrifice prescribed for the morning could be offered after sunrise, the one appointed for the evening might in the same manner be offered before sunset.
Verse 7
Some of the blood was to be put (נתן as in Lev 4:18, where יתּן is distinguished from הזּה, to sprinkle, in Lev 4:17) upon the two posts and the lintel of the door of the house in which the lamb was eaten. This blood was to be to them a sign (Exo 12:13); for when Jehovah passed through Egypt to smite the first-born, He would see the blood, and would spare these houses, and not permit the destroyer to enter them (Exo 12:13, Exo 12:23). The two posts with the lintel represented the door (Exo 12:23), which they surrounded; and the doorway through which the house was entered stood for the house itself, as we may see from the frequent expression “in thy gates,” for in thy towns (Exo 20:10; Deu 5:14; Deu 12:17, etc.). The threshold, which belonged to the door quite as much as the lintel, was not to be smeared with blood, in order that the blood might not be trodden under foot. But the smearing of the door-posts and lintel with blood, the house was expiated and consecrated on an altar. That the
