Exodus 12:2

2 This month to you the beginning of months: it is the first to you among the months of the year.

Exodus 12:2 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 12:2

This month shall be unto you the beginning of months
Not only the first, as after expressed, but the chief and principal of them, now famous for their coming out of Egypt in it, and would be more so for the sufferings and death of the Messiah, and redemption by him from sin, Satan, and the world, law, hell, and death, for he suffered at the time of the passover. This month was called Abib, ( Exodus 13:4 ) ( 23:15 ) , which signifies an ear of corn, and at this time we find that the barley was in ear, ( Exodus 9:31 ) which clearly shows in what month the above things were transacted; afterwards it was called Nisan, which seems to be the Chaldean name for it, ( Nehemiah 2:1 ) ( Esther 3:7 ) : it shall be the first month of the year to you; which before was the seventh; while the Israelites were in Egypt they observed the same beginning of the year and course of months as the Egyptians, as Josephus ^F26 intimates; and with the Egyptians, the month Thot was the first month, which answered to Tisri with the Jews, and both to our September, or a part of it, so that the beginning of the year was then in the autumnal equinox, at which season it is thought the world was created; but now to the Israelites it was changed unto the vernal equinox, for this month of Abib or Nisan answers to part of our March and part of April; though indeed both beginnings of the year were observed by them, the one on ecclesiastic, the other on civil accounts; or, as Josephus ^F1 expresses it, the month of Nisan was the beginning with respect to things divine, but in buying and selling, and such like things, the ancient order was observed; and so the Targum of Jonathan here paraphrases it,

``from hence ye shall begin to reckon the feasts, the times, and the revolutions.''

Indeed the Jews had four beginnings of the year according to their Misnah ^F2; the first of Nisan (or March) was the beginning of the year for kings and for festivals; the first of Elul (or August) for the tithing of cattle; the first of Tisri (or September) for the sabbatical years, jubilees, and planting of trees and herbs; and the first of Shebet (or January) for the tithing the fruit of trees.

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FOOTNOTES:

F26 Antiqu. l. 1. c. 3. sect. 3.
F1 Antiqu. l. 1. c. 3. sect. 3.
F2 Misn. Roshhashanah, c. 1. sect. 1.

Exodus 12:2 In-Context

1 And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,

2 This month to you the beginning of months: it is the first to you among the months of the year.

3 Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, On the tenth of this month let them take each man a lamb according to the houses of their families, every man a lamb for his household.

4 And if they be few in a household, so that there are not enough for the lamb, he shall take with himself his neighbour that lives near to him, —as to the number of souls, every one according to that which suffices him shall make a reckoning for the lamb.

5 It shall be to you a lamb unblemished, a male of a year old: ye shall take it of the lambs and the kids.