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;

Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth thee: Thou mayest not sacrifice ... within any of thy gates , [ zebach (H2077), a sacrifice].

Within any of thy gates, i. e of thy cities, as that word is oft used, as 24:60 .

XVI. Deuteronomy 16:1-8. THE . (See on Exodus 12) (1) The month Abib was so called from the “ears of corn” which appeared in it. By night.—Pharaoh’s permission was given on the night of the death of the first-born, though Israel did not actually depart until the next day (Numbers 33:3-4). (2) Of the flock, and of the herd.—The Passover victim itself must be either lamb or kid. (See on Deuteronomy 14:4, and comp. Exodus 12:5.) But there were special sacrifices of bullocks appointed for the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which followed the Passover. (See Numbers 28:19.) (6) At even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou comest forth from Egypt.—The word “season” here is ambiguous in the English. Does it mean the time of year, or the time of day? The Hebrew word, which usually denotes a commemorative time, might seem to point to the hour of sunset as the time when the march actually began. If so, it was the evening of the fifteenth day of the month (See Numbers 33:3). But the word is also used generally of the time of year (Exodus 23:15; Numbers 9:2, &c.); and as the Passover was to be kept on the fourteenth, not the fifteenth day, the time actually commemorated is the time of the slaying of the lamb which saved Israel from the destroyer, rather than the time of the actual march. It is noticeable that, while the Passover commemorated the deliverance by the slain lamb in Egypt, the Feast of Tabernacles commemorated the encampment at Succoth, the first resting-place of the delivered nation after the exodus had actually begun. (8) A solemn assembly.—Literally, as in the Margin, a restraint—i.e., a day when work was forbidden. The word is applied to the eighth day of the feast of tabernacles in Leviticus 23:36, and Numbers 29:35, and does not occur elsewhere in the Pentateuch.

1–8. The Passover (with Maṣ ?ṣ ?τth) To be kept in Abib—for in that month Israel was brought out of Egypt—by the sacrifice of a victim from herd or flock at the One Altar (Deuteronomy 16:1 f.). For seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten—Israel’s food in the haste of quitting Egypt,—and no leaven shall be found in their borders, nor any of the Passover flesh after the first evening (Deuteronomy 16:3 f.). The Passover shall be boiled and eaten, the people returning next morning to their tents (Deuteronomy 16:5-7); for six days Israel shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh hold a convocation and do no work (Deuteronomy 16:8).—The integrity of the passage has been questioned (Steuern., Stȧ ?rk, Berth., Marti) and with reason. For not only do Deuteronomy 16:3 f. on Maṣ ?ṣ ?τth break the connection of Deu 16:1 f. with 5–7 on the Passover, while Deuteronomy 16:8 also on Maṣ ?ṣ ?τth reflects the style of P; but Deuteronomy 16:7, fixing the Feast for one day after which the people are to return home, is difficult to harmonise with the seven days of Deu 16:3 f. and Deuteronomy 16:8. Two explanations are possible;—(1) D’s law originally consisted of Deu 16:1 f., Deuteronomy 16:5-7, and dealt only with the Passover; and the vv. on Maṣ ?ṣ ?τth are from an editor. But there is no reason why the original code of D should ignore Maṣ ?ṣ ?τth—for which certainly E has a law, Exodus 23:15 a, and (Steuern. notwithstanding) J also, Exodus 34:18 a—unless Maṣ ?ṣ ?τth, a purely agricultural feast, had become too closely associated with the cults of the Baalim. (2) More probably we have here a compilation of two laws of D, originally separate, one on Passover and one on Maṣ ?ṣ ?τth. In either case the combination of Passover and Maṣ ?ṣ ?τth, which was not original and is not accepted even by H in Leviticus 23 (Leviticus 23:5; Leviticus 23:9 ff.; Leviticus 23:6-8 are added by P), took place between the date of the original code of D and that of the final composition of the Book of Deuteronomy.

5, 6. There thou shalt sacrifice the passover — Moses here presents a new feature in connexion with the keeping of the passover when they shall be permanently settled as a nation in the land promised