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,

Six days thou shalt eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the LORD thy God: thou shalt do no work therein. No JFB commentary on this verse.

Six days, to wit, besides the first day, on which the passover was killed; or rather besides the seventh and the last day, which is here mentioned apart, not as if leavened bread might be eaten then, for the contrary was evident from many places, but because there was something more to be done, to wit, a solemn assembly to be kept. So in all there were seven days, as it is said, .

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.

8. See introd. note. The incompatibility of this v. with the preceding is obvious unless we are to explain tents as the shelters which pilgrims to the central sanctuary pitched during the feast. But (as we have seen) tents means the people’s homes. The numbering of the days is not clear. If the Passover day itself is included there is no contradiction of Deu 16:3, for that was the first day of unleavened bread, and this v. may be interpreted as also fixing seven days for the eating of such bread; but distinguishing them as six plus a seventh on which in addition the solemn assembly was to be held. But if the Passover day was meant to be included it is strange that it is not mentioned. On the whole, and particularly because of the two expressions characteristic of P, a solemn assembly and thou shalt do no work (the latter however also in Deuteronomy 5:13), it is probable that Deuteronomy 16:8 is an addition by the compiler of the two once separate laws on the Passover and the Maṣ ?ṣ ?ôth.