Exodus 12:16

16 And on the first day there is to be a holy meeting and on the seventh day a holy meeting; no sort of work may be done on those days but only to make ready what is necessary for everyone's food.

Exodus 12:16 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 12:16

And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation
An holy day, in which the people be called to holy exercises, and wholly abstain from worldly business, done on other days:

and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation unto you;
observed in a festival way, and in the like religious manner the first day was, the day of their going out of Egypt; and the seventh was the day in which Pharaoh and his host were drowned in the Red sea, as Aben Ezra observes; for which reason those days are distinguished from the rest, and appointed to be holy convocations, and which appear from the journeying of the children of Israel, as computed by Junius: they came to Succoth on the fifteenth, to Etham the seventeenth, to Pihahiroth the eighteenth, where they were ordered to stay, and wait the coming of their enemies, on the twentieth the army of Pharaoh came up to them, and the night following the Israelites passed through the sea and the Egyptians were drowned:

no manner of work shall be done in them;
as used to be done on other days, and as were on the other five days of this festival: the Jewish canons are,

``it is forbidden to do any work on the evening of the passover, from the middle of the day and onward, and whoever does work from the middle of the day and onward, they excommunicate him; even though, he does it for nothing, it is forbidden ^F14: R. Meir says, whatever work anyone begins before the fourteenth (of Nisan) he may finish it on the fourteenth, but he may not begin it on the beginning of the fourteenth, though he could finish it: the wise men say, three workmen may work on the evening of the passover unto the middle of the day, and they are these, tailors, barbers, and fullers: R. Jose bar Judah says, also shoemakers ^F15,''

but in the text no exception is made but the following:

save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you;
so that kindling fire and preparing food might be done on those days, which might not be done on sabbath days; and the prohibition of work was not so strict on those days as on that.

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FOOTNOTES:

F14 Lebush, par. 1. No. 468. sect. 1. Schulcan Aruch, par. 1. No. 468. sect. 1.
F15 Misn. Pesach. c. 4. sect. 6.

Exodus 12:16 In-Context

14 And this day is to be kept in your memories: you are to keep it as a feast to the Lord through all your generations, as an order for ever.

15 For seven days let your food be unleavened bread; from the first day no leaven is to be seen in your houses: whoever takes bread with leaven in it, from the first till the seventh day, will be cut off from Israel.

16 And on the first day there is to be a holy meeting and on the seventh day a holy meeting; no sort of work may be done on those days but only to make ready what is necessary for everyone's food.

17 So keep the feast of unleavened bread; for on this very day I have taken your armies out of the land of Egypt: this day, then, is to be kept through all your generations by an order for ever.

18 In the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day, let your food be unleavened bread till the evening of the twenty-first day of the month.