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SECT. V. The burning of Incense, and the rest of their Prayers.

COncerning the time of the burning of Incense, they have this Tradition 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 That the Incense of the morning was offered between the sprinkling of the blood, and the laying of the pieces upon the Altar: and of the Evening, between the laying on of the pieces on the Altar, and the drink offering. Now for this employment of offering the Incense, they go to lotting again, to be resolved who should do it; and so there was another lot likewise cast, to determine who should bring the pieces from the rise of the Altar and lay them on.

He that was allotted to burn the Incense, took a silver dish in which there was a Censer full of Frankincense; another took another dish and went to the top of the Altar, and thence took some burning coals and came down. These two must go into the Temple; now as they go, there was a great vessel or instrument, or what shall I call it? (they call it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Migrephah ) which being rung or struck upon, made an exceeding great sound; and so great, that they set it out by this hyperbole 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 One man could not hear another in Jerusalem, when the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Migrephah sounded: It was as a Bell that they rung to give notice of what was now in hand. And the ringing of it, as saith the Treatise Tamid, served for these three purposes. 1. Any Priest that heard the sound of it, knew that his brethren were now ready to go in and worship, and he made haste and came. 2. Any Levite that heard it, knew that his brethren the Levites were going in to sing, and he made haste and came. And 3. the head or chief of the Station hearing the sound of it, brought up those that had been unclean and had not yet their atonement made, into the gate of Nicanor to have them there atoned for.

The two men then, that are going into the Temple to burn Incense, ring upon this Migrephah as they go by it, (for it lay between the Altar and the porch) to give notice to all who were to attend, that now the service was in beginning, and to chime them in. As they go up the steps, they two that had been in before, to cleanse the Incense Altar, and to dress the Lamps, go up before them: He that had cleansed the Altar goeth in, and taketh up his dish Teni, and worshippeth, and cometh out. He that had dressed the five Lamps before, dresseth now the other two, and taketh up his dish Coz, and worshippeth, and cometh out. He that went in with the Censer of coals after a little office done towards the disposing of the Incense, leaves the other there, and he also comes out.

Now he that is left there alone for the burning of the Incense, he offers not to kindle it, till the president from without with a loud voice give him notice when he shall begin: yea though it were the High▪priest himself that offereth the Incense, yet he begins not to do it, till the President have called to him, Sir offer: and as soon as he hath given the signal to the Incense offerer that he shall begin and offer, all the company in the Court withdraws downward from the Temple, and fall to other of their Prayers.

SECT. VI. The rest of their Prayers.

BEsides the Prayers and Rehearsal of the Decalogue and of their Phylacteries mentioned before, they had three or four Prayers more which they used at the morning Service, and they were these; The first they called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Emeth and Jatsib, because it began with those two words, and it referred to their Phylacteries, and it was of this form. Truth and stability, and firm and sure, and upright and faithful, and beloved and lovely and delightful, and fair and terrible and glorious, and ordered and acceptable and good and beautiful is this word for us forever and ever. The truth of the everlasting God our King, the Rock of Jacob, the shield of our salvation forever and ever. He is sure and his Name sure, and his Throne settled, and his Kingdom and Truth established for evermore, &c.

The second is called by the Talmud Text 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Avodah, but by Maymony 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Retseh, yet they both agree in one as to the prayer itself, only the one names it after the first word in it, and the other after one of the chiefest words in it. The tenor of it was thus, Be pleased O Lord our God with thy people Israel, and with their prayer, and restore the service to the Oracle of thy house, and accept the burnt offering of Israel and their prayer in love, with well pleasedness; and let the service of Israel thy people, be continually well pleasing to thee. And they conclude thus, We praise thee who art the Lord our God, and the God of our Fathers, the God of all flesh, our Creator, and the maker of all the Creation, blessing and praise be to thy great and holy Name, because thou hast preserved and kept us; so preserve and keep us, and bring back our captivity to the Courts of thy holiness, &c.

A third prayer ran thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Appoint peace, goodness, and blessing, grace, mercy, and compassion for us, and for all Israel thy people: bless us O our Father, even all of us as one man, with the light of thy countenance, for in the light of thy countenance thou O Lord our God hast given us the Law of life, and loving mercy and righteousness and blessing and compassion and life and peace, let it please thee to bless thy people Israel at all times. In the book of life, with blessing and peace, and sustentation let us be remembered and written before thee, we and all thy people the house of Israel, &c.

And a fourth prayer was used on the Sabbath as a blessing, by the Course that went out, for a farewell, upon the Course that came in, in these words, He that caused his name to dwell in this house, cause to dwell among you love, and brotherhood, and peace, and friendship. Compare 2 Cor. 13. 11.

Now whereas there is some seeming doubtfulness among the Talmudical writers, about the time of these prayers, they leaving it somewhat uncertain whether they were uttered immediately before the offering of the Incense, or in the very time of its offering, the Evangelist Luke hath determined the question, and resolved us, that the multitude was praying at the very time of the Incense, Luke 1. 10. and even the Gloss upon the Talmud itself, doth tell us, that these prayers were the people's prayers, the last only excepted.

When those prayers were done, he whose lot it was to bring up and lay the pieces of the Sacrifice upon the Altar, did that business in that manner as hath been mentioned before, namely, first flinging them into the fire, and then taking them up again, and laying them in order.

After which things performed, the Priests, especially those that had been in the holy place, (with the holy vessels in their hands that they had used) standing upon the stairs that went up into the porch, lifted up their hands and blessed the people. Compare Luke 1. 22.

Not to insist upon the large disputes and discourses that are among the Jews about their lifting up their hands, the blessing they pronounced was that in Numb. 6. 24, 25, 26. The Lord bless thee and keep thee, the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. And the manner was thus, they lift up their hands above their heads, with their fingers spread, and one of them saith over this blessing word by word, and they say after him, and they make it all one blessing (but in the Synagogues they made it three) and when they have ended it, the people answered, Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.

After this blessing the meat offering was offered, and after that the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 meat offering of the High-priest, and last of all the drink offering; and then began the song and music, of which we have spoken before; and upon every stop of the song, the trumpets sounded and the people worshipped; and having done so at the last close they departed.

Thus was the ordinary and common service of the Temple Morning and Evening, save that at the Evening service there was some small difference from this Rubric, which was not very material: as that then they cast not lots for their several employments, but those that the lot had assigned them in the Morning, they retained in the Afternoon: only about the matter of burning the Incense they cast lots anew amongst those of the house of the Father that served that day, that had never burnt Incense in their lives: but if all of them had at one time or other been upon that employment, then he that had had it by lot at the Morning Service, did also perform it at the Evening: likewise at the Evening Sacrifice the burning of Incense was a little later than at the Morning, as was touched before; for it was between the laying on of the pieces of the beast upon the Altar, and the offering of the drink offering: so that then the burning of Incense and the public Prayers fell in just with the time of the Minchah or meat offering. The Priests also lifted not up their hands in blessing the people at the Evening Service on some days, as they did in the Morning, and the reason why they did not, is given, and the matter discussed in the beginning of the fourth chapter of the Treatise Taanith, but it may seem more tedious to the Reader than either useful or delightsome to insist upon it.

SECT. I. Their searching out for Leaven.

THE next care they were to have in reference to the Passover, was to refrain from the eating and use of Leaven at Passover time, and that at the time when the Passover was slain it should not be found within their houses. The Law in this point was exceeding strict. In the first month on the fourteenth day of the month at Even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the Month at Even. Seven days there shall be no leaven found in your houses, for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the Congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger or born in the land, Exod. 12. 18, 19. & 13. 7. and so in Lev. 23. 6. Numb. 28. 17.

Now what analogy there was between this Law and their redeeming out of Egypt, and what relation the one could have to the other, Abarbinel disputing, concludeth thus, that it lay in this, because it signified unto them the hastiness of their coming out of Egypt, insomuch that they had not time to leaven their bread, as Exod. 12. 39. and he addeth withal, that in those hot Countries, bread will not keep above a day, unless it be leavened: so that the command of unleavened bread might read unto them in that respect a Lecture of dependence upon Providence, when they were enjoined to forsake the common and known way of preserving their bread, and to betake themselves to a way extraordinary and unsafe, but only that they had the Command of God, and his Injunction for that way, and they must learn to live by the word of God.

The Jews to meet with this Command that was so exceeding strict, and to make sure to provide for its observance soon enough, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Did on the fourteenth day while yet there was some light; make search for leaven by the light of a Candle. Thus is the Tradition, in which by the light of the fourteenth day their Glossaries tell us that we must understand the thirteenth day at even, when it began to be duskish and candle-lighting. The rubrick of the Passover in the Hebrew and Spanish tongues renders it in Hebrew Letters, but in the Spanish Language thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 En entrada di quatorze del mez de Nisan, At the entrance of the fourteenth day of the Month Nisan, they searched for leaven in all the places where they were wont to use leaven, (in Barns, Stables, and such out houses they needed not to search) even in holes and crannies, and that not by light of Sun and Moon, or Torch, but by the light of a wax candle, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 i. e. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 con candela di cera. And the reason why they used a Candle rather than any other light, was because it is the fittest for searching holes and corners, and because the Scripture speaketh of searching Jerusalem with Candles.

After the evening of the fourteenth day was come in, (which was after Sun setting) they might not go about any work (no not to the study of the Law) till they had gone about this search; therefore there was not so much as Divinity Lectures that evening▪ lest they should hinder that work.

Before he began to search he said this short ejaculation, Blessed be thou O Lord our God, the King everlasting, who hath sanctified us by his commandments, and hath enjoined us the putting away of leaven. And he might not speak a word betwixt this praying and searching, but must fall to work, and what leaven he found he must put it in some box, or hang it up in such a place as that no Mouse might come at it. And he was to give it up for nul in these words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . All the leaven that is within my Possession, which I have seen, or which I have not seen, be it null, be it as the dust of the earth.

SECT. II. The passages of the forenoon of the Passover day.

WHen the Passover day itself was now come (which the New Testament commonly called the first day of unleavened bread, from their custom newly mentioned, but the Jewish Writers do ordinarily call it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Passover eve ) some part of the People made it a Holiday by ceasing from bodily labor all the day long, and others made it but half holiday, by leaving work at noon; the Talmud relates that in Galilee they left work all the day long from morning till night, but in Judea that they wrought till noon, and then gave over: which may seem somewhat strange that those further off were so observant of the Passover, and those nearer hand were so much less; but the reason is this, because in Galilee those that were at home on that day, had nothing else to do towards the Passover, but only to meditate upon it, and rest from labor in honor of it; but those in Judea, it may be they travelled all forenoon to get up to Jerusalem, or had some work to do towards the forwarding of the Passover, or to dispatch, that they might follow their Passover work the better.

It is in dispute in the place cited immediately before, concerning resting from labor on this day that we have in hand, and it proves a controversy between the schools of Shammai and Hillel, whether they should not also rest from labor the night before: but at last the determination comes so low, as that it gives liberty to works that were begun on the thirteenth day to be finished on the fourteenth; nay yet lower, that where the custom was to leave off work for all day, there they should leave work; and where it was the Custom to work till Noon, there they should do according to the Custom.

But whatsoever they did in this case, cease from their labor in the forenoon, or cease not, one work they must not fail to do, and that was to cast out and put away leaven out of their houses, this day (as they had searched for it the night before) and that it might not be seen nor found amongst them. The Law indeed concerning this work, doth pitch upon the fifteenth day for the doing of it, as if it were soon enough to do it on the fourteenth day at Even, Exod. 12. 18, 19. but the Jews do not impertinently observe that the expelling of leaven was by the Law to be before the time wherein the eating of it was forbidden: For whereas it is said, on the first day you shall put leaven out of your houses, their tradition taught them, that by the first is meant the fourteenth day: And a proof for this there is from what is written in the Law. Thou shalt not kill the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, that is, Thou shalt not kill the Passover, whilst leaven is yet remaining; non the killing of the Passover was on the fourteenth day in the afternoon.

On this fourteenth day therefore, for a good part of the forenoon, they might eat leaven or leavened bread, and might give it to any Bird or Beast, or might sell it to a stranger, but the fixing of the certain time is not without some debate. Rabbi Mei • saith, they may eat it all the fifth hour, and were to burn it at the beginning of the sixth. Rabbi Judah saith, they may eat it all the fourth hour, and they were to suspend all the fifth, and at the sixth hour they were to burn it. Which dispute Maimonides fifteth into this resolution, It was lawful to eat leaven on the fourteenth day till the end of the fourth hour, but they might not eat it the fifth hour, yet they might use it; but he that eateth it the sixth hour, was beaten with the Rebels beating, and he that eat it from the beginning of the seventh, was to be whipt.

Twelve a clock or thereabouts, therefore being come, it had been a strange sight to have seen everyone of them either siring, or drowning, or scattering their leaven into the wind (for any of these ways served for the expelling of it, and this command and practice reached over all the Country) and you might have seen them do it with this Valediction. All the leaven that is within my possession, which I have seen, or which I have not seen, which I have cast out, or which I have not cast out, be it null, be it as the dust of the earth.

SECT. III. The time of killing the Passover.

ABout the day of celebrating the Passover, there needeth no discourse to fix it, it is so plainly pointed out to be the fourteenth day of the first Month that nothing can be plainer, therefore when we speak of the time of killing the Passover we speak not of the day of the month, which is so well known, but of the time of the day which is not so clearly pointed out.

The Tosaphta indeed upon the Treatise Pesachin, relateth that the Cuthaeans sometimes kept their Passover a day before the Israelites did, and sometimes a day after, (where the word Cuthaeans might breed some dispute, for in the Talmudicks language, it means sometimes Samaritans and sometimes Christians, but we shall not insist upon it.) And there have been some Christians that have held, that Christ and his Disciples kept their last Passover one day before the Jews kept theirs, conceiting this from that which is spoken in John. 18. 28. where it is related that when Christ was brought into Pilate 's Judgment Hall (which was when he had eaten the Passover, as all the other Evangelists declare abundantly) the Jews durst not go into Pilate's Hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. To which mistake I shall only give some words of Maymony at this present for answer, for the ground of the mistake we shall have occasion to look after in the ensuing discourse. It is an affirmative command (saith he) to kill the Passover on the fourteenth day of the Month Nisan in the afternoon, and they kill it not but only of Lambs or Kids, a male of the first year, and both men and women are alike liable to this command; and he that breaks this command presumptuously, and passeth the fourteenth day and offereth not, if he be not unclean or in a long journey, he is guilty of being cut off; but if he transgress the command ignorantly, he is quit. They kill not the Passover but in the Court even as the rest of the holy offerings, yea even in those times, when high places were permitted, they offered not the Passover in a private high place, but in the public, (that is, the Temple) and he that offered it in a private high place was to be whipt. From which words, it being observed what penalty lay upon him that passed the fourteenth day, and what the there was to slay the Paschal Lamb in the Court, it will appear extreme absurd to imagine that any Israelite should keep his Passover before the fixed day. What the Cuthaeans or Samaritans might do at their Mount Gerizim, it is no matter, but for any Jews to celebrate the Passover at Jerusalem, (for nowhere else it might be done) before the proper and fixed time, could not have been without evident danger to them that did it; it being so diametrically contrary both to the Law and to their Traditions, and yet we find not Christ was ever touched with the least accusation about his Passover as if he kept it on the wrong day.

But to let this pass, which indeed is too plain to be disputed (for the Evangelist most plainly tells us that on the day of unleavened bread when the Passover must be killed, Jesus sent Peter and John to prepare his Passover, Luke 22. 7, 8.) and now to come to look after the time of the day when the Passover was killed, we must take these two maxims with us. 1. That the Passover was not lawful if it were killed before noon; and the reason of this is easy to give, namely because the Law doth expressly appoint, that they should kill it between the two evenings, Exod. 12. 6. And 2. that the daily evening Sacrifice was to be killed before they began to kill the Passover; and the reason of this is also readily to be given, namely, because an extraordinary service must not prevent one ordinary and constant. After they had burnt the incense of the evening sacrifice, and after they had dressed the Lamps, then they began to kill the Passover, and so continued till the end of the day. The times they divided thus, they slew the daily Sacrifice at the eighth hour and an half, and they offered it up at the ninth hour and an half: but on the Eve of the Passover, they slew it at the seventh hour and an half, and offered it up at the eighth hour and an half, whether the day were a common day or the Sabbath: and if the Eve of the Passover fell on the Eve of the Sabbath, the daily Sacrifice was killed at the sixth hour and half an hour past, and offered it up at the seventh hour and half an hour past, and the Passover after it.

It was the command both for the Passover and for the daily Evening Sacrifice, that they should be slain and offered 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 between the two Evenings, Exod. 12. 6. & 29. 39. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 A very hard expression (saith Ibn Ezra ) and he gives as very hard an interpretation of it; for he judgeth the two Evenings to be these, the one when the Sun sets and goes out of sight, and the other when the day closes in and all the light is clean gone, which he saith is ordinarily about an hour and three quarters after Sun setting; and so he will have the daily Sacrifice to be offered up at this time, and though all the Passovers could not be killed in this space, yet he conceiveth that it is commanded they should be killed between the two Evenings, because most of them were slain in this space, though all could not. I shall not insist to show the improbability of this Tenet, he himself that holds it, is in a manner glad at last to betake himself to the general and common received Opinion, which was, that the two Evenings were these, the first from that time of the day that the Sun began to decline from his vertical or noon-tide point toward the West, and the other from his going down and out of sight. And according to this construction did they go in killing and offering up their Evening Sacrifice, taking up an hour for that business just in the middle of the afternoon (counting at Aequinox time) namely, from half an hour past two, to half an hour past three, and so there were two hours and an half from the Suns beginning to decline, to the time they killed, and two hours and an half from the time they offered it up, till the Sun went down.

Now occasional Sacrifices did sometimes cause an alteration of the time of the daily, for that being to be ever offered the first, as being the fixed and appointed service of the day, that the others might have room to be offered up in due time, that removed out of its place, to somewhat earlier in the day, sometimes an hour, and sometimes two, as in the Traditions alleged, and especially this was for the sake of the Passover, when Lambs were exceeding many: The common time therefore to begin to kill the Passover was, from about half an hour past two a clock, and little more, and so continued all afternoon: and if the Passover lighted on the Eve of the Sabbath, (that is, on the day preceeding the Sabbath) they began an hour sooner, that they might the better dispatch their business by the time that the Sabbath began.

SECT. IV. The Paschal Societies.

BEfore the Paschal Lamb was slain, they first agreed and concluded upon the Company that should eat him: for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , They might not slay the Passover but for persons numbered before, or a number agreed on before for his eating. And this caution was not unwarrantably taken up, from that command in Exod. 12. 4. Every man according to his eating: ye shall make your count for the Lamb: So that while the Lamb was yet alive, it was to be crtainly concluded, who, and how many would join together for his eating, and he might not be slain but for societies so agreed and numbered. If any of the society, after the number was agreed on, saw occasion to withdraw from that company, and to go to another, he must do it before the Lamb was slain, for after he might not. These societies were called everyone of them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and the number of the persons in them was not certain, but sometime more, sometime less, according to their proportionableness of eating, because of the command, Everyone according to his eating: were there among the company those that were sickly and aged, and little eaters, then they might take the more into the company, but if they were healthy and lively, and like to eat more freely, then was the number less: He that was to eat the least, was to eat as much of him, as came to the quantity of an olive, and if he could not eat so much, they counted not him in the number: And they might number so many in a society, as if there were the quantity of an olive for everyone to eat, it was enough.

1. Although Women were not directly bound to appear three times • year before the Lord, as the males were, yet were they bound to some particular services that attended the three appearances, and so that brought them in: but especially to the Passover, for to the observation of that they were obliged by those express words of the Commandment, The whole assembly of the Congregation of Israel shall kill it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 And men and women were bound to this command alike: Now in forming up these societies that were severally to eat the Lambs, they suffered not any companies to consist of servants and women only, nor of servants and children only, lest there should be some lightness among them, and not that gravity that became so great a solemnity: nor to consist of old or sickly persons only, lest they should leave any of them, and so transgress the command, Ye shall leave nothing of him till the morning: Nor to consist of Proselytes only, or of children only, because they were unlikely to speak of those memorable things that were to be spoken of at the Passover. But a society might be only of women, or only of servants, but ordinarily they were of whole families, one or more united, Husbands, Wives, Children, Servants, all together. Our Savior's society was himself and the twelve, Mat. 26. 20. Luk. 22. 14.

SECT. V. The killing of the Passover.

THE Passovers were slain in three companies : 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 And the ground of this practice and tradition they make to be those words of the institution, The whole assembly of the Congregation of Israel shall kill it: where because, there are three words, Assembly, Congregation, and Israel, applied to the killing of the Passover, they divided the killing of it into three companies according to that number.

There were not to be less than thirty men in every company: yet found they out a shift to make fifty men (if there were no more) to make thirty men three times over, for the three companies; and their way was this. Thirty of the fifty went into the Court, (for there only might the Passover be killed) and when they had killed their Lambs, ten of them went out, and ten of those, that stood without, came in and killed theirs, and then ten others went out, and the other ten that stood without came in and killed theirs, and so there were thirty in the Court continually, while the Lambs were killing.

But this was only a provision for a pinch; namely, if such an exigent should occur, as that there should be but fifty Lambs presented, or at least but fifty persons present, (for ordinarily everyone of the numbered Paschal societies that have been spoken of, sent their Lamb by one of their company only, and under fifty there was no Passover killing) but commonly everyone of these three companies we are speaking of, were as many as ever the Court could hold.

The first company came in, till the Court was filled, and then the doors were locked, and they fell to killing the Lambs, and while they were about this work, the Levites sang, and the trumpets sounded: It is a tradition, saith the Jerusalem Talmud, The daily sacrifice which hath a drink offering, they blew the trumpets at the time of the drink offering: but at the Passover which hath no drink offering, they blew the trumpets at the killing of it. Which the Gloss upon the Babylon Talmud doth utter more punctually, At the killing of the Passover there were seven and twenty soundings with the trumpets: for the Passover was killed in three companies one after another, &c.

Now the song that was sung at this time while they were killing the Passovers, was called the Hallel 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 so saith the same Gloss in the same place. Every company said over the Hallel three times: for their Paschals were many, and they were bound to the saying over of the Hallel at the slaying of them. And Maymony more largely. All the time that they were killing and offering the Levites said over the Hallel: if they had finished the Hallel, and the company had not yet done, they said it over again: And if they had finished saying it over again, and the company had not yet done neither, they set to it a third time. And both these speak this, from the Mishneh in the treatise Pesachin where it is said, They said over the Hallel, and when they had finished they said it over a second time, and when they had done that, they said it over a third time.

The Jews do make exceeding frequent mention in their writings of the Hallel or the Hymn; (for so we may translate it from Matth. 26. 30.) And they distinguish it into the common or lesser Hallel, and the greater: The lesser Hallel they also call the Egyptian Hallel, because it was sung more especially in remembrance of their delivery out of Egypt: and it was the 113, & 114, & 115, & 116, & 117, & 118, Psalms. Concerning the choice and use of which it may not be amiss to take up two or three of their traditions.

1. The Jerusalem Talmud in the Treatise Pesachin hath this relation. R. Jacob Bar Aha in the name of Rabbi Jasa saith, Strength was given to Moses his voice, and his voice went through all Egypt forty days journey: And what said he? One company from such a place to such a place, and another company from such a place, to such a place. And wonder not at it: for if of dust whose nature is not to go, it be said, it shall become dust through all the land of Egypt, (Exod. 9. 9.) much more might a voice go abroad, whose nature is to go. Rabbi Levi said, As strength was given to Moses his voice, so strength was given to Pharaohs voice; and his voice went throughout all Egypt forty days journey. And what said he? Arise, get ye out from among my people: For, as for the time past ye have been the servants of Pharaoh, but from henceforth ye must be the servants of the Lord. From that hour they said, Praise ye the Lord, praise him ye servants of the Lord, Psalm 113. and now no more the servants of Pharaoh.

2. Maymony in his Treatise of Megillah, and Chanuchah, or of the Feast of Purim and of Dedication, saith The custom of saying over the Hallel in the days of the former wisemen, was thus, The chief among them that was to read the Hallel after he had said a prayer, began thus, Hallelujah; and all the people answered Hallelujah. He goes on and says, Praise ye the servants of the Lord; and all the people answered Hallelujah. He proceeds and says, Praise the Name of the Lord; and all the people answered Hallelujah. He says further, Blessed be the Name of the Lord from this time forth, even for evermore; and all the people answered Hallelujah. And so at every passage, till they answered Hallelujah, an hundred and three and twenty times over, and of that number were the years of Aaron.

Now when he that read it, came to the beginning of any Psalm, as when he read, When Israel came out of Egypt, the people repeated and said, When Israel came out of Egypt; but when he said, And the House of Jacob from a strange people, then the people answered Hallelujah: and so forward, till he came to, I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice, and there the people repeated, I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice, And so when he said, Praise the Lord all ye Nations, they repeated, Praise the Lord all ye Nations: And when he came to, Save now Lord I beseech thee, the people repeated, Save now Lord I beseech thee; though it were not the beginning of a Psalm: And when he said, I beseech thee now send prosperity, they rehearsed and said, I beseech thee now send prosperity. And when he said, Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord, all the people answered, Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord.

3. This saying over of the Hallel, is acknowledged by the Jews to be an Institution of the Scribes; and the reason of the picking out of these Psalms for that purpose, was because of their beginning or ending with Hallelujah; and partly because they contain, not only so high and eminent memorials of God's goodness and deliverance unto Israel; as is intimated by that passage alleged in the Jerusalemy; From that time they said, Praise ye the Lord, ye servants of the Lord, and no more of Pharaoh; but also several other things of high and important matter and consideration; for the Hallel, say they, recordeth five things: the coming out of Egypt, the dividing of the Sea, the giving of the Law, the Resurrection of the dead, and the lot of Messias.

4. This Hallel was said over eighteen days in the year and one night; namely, at the killing of the Passover, at the Feast of Pentecost, on the eight days of the Feast of Tabernacles, and on the eight days of the Feast of Dedication, and on the Passover night. With the manner of its saying over, the people still answering Hallelujah: compare the redoubled Hallelujahs, in Rev. 19. 1, 3, 4. 6.

Besides this Hallel, which they called the Egyptian Hallel, there is frequent mention of the great Hallel 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 as the Treatise Taanith telleth a story that they appointed a Fast at Led (or Lyddo, Act. 9. 35. and this Fast was for rain, which they wanted exceedingly) And rain came down for them before midday. Rabbi Tarphon saith to them, Go eat, and drink, and keep holiday: They went and eat, and drank, and kept holiday, and came at Even, and said over the great Hallel: and we shall observe anon, that at the eating of the Passover, as they used constantly to say over the Hallel commonly so called, so did they sometimes add the great Hallel to it; and when we come to speak of the time when this was rehearsed, we will then observe what this great Hallel was.

So that (now to return where we were again) the first company being come into the Court, and having filled it, and the doors locked upon them, and they falling to kill the Passovers, this Hallel or these Psalms were begun to be sung, the people answering as hath been related. And when they had sung them over once, and the work not yet done, they set to them again, and a third time, and by that time they had gone over the third time, the work was commonly done, and they began not again. And therefore those words which are very usual with those Jews which treat upon this subject, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 are to be construed, that when they had sung it over a second time, they began a third, although they went not through a third time in all their days: for before they had gone through, the work was done, and then they had done also.

The first company being thus dispatched, went out of the Court with their slain and flayed Passovers (how they flayed them, was observed erewhile) and they stood in the mountain of the House: And now there comes in the second company, as many as the Court would hold, and while they are killing, sprinkling the blood, and burning the fat, the Hallel is begun again, and sung even as it was before, and when that company had done they went out, and the third came in, and they did as the others before, till all was finished.

They did not only slay the Passovers whilst they stood thus in the Court, but the blood was also sprinkled by the Priests, they standing in rows from the slaughter place to the Altar, conveying the blood from hand to hand, and so they crowded not, nor troubled not one another, which they would have done had they run singly from every slain Lamb to bring the blood to the Altar. The blood brought thither in such handing rows was poured at the foundation of the Altar. The owners flayed their Lambs, the most of them hanging him upon a staff on their shoulders, and he hanging between them, and they helping one another: They took out his entrails, cleansed away his ordure, separated his inwards, put them in a dish, salted them, and laid them on the fire on the Altar: and when the three companies were so dispatched, the Priests (as there was no small need) did wash the Court.

If the Passover killing did fall upon the Sabbath, yet did they not abate of any of this work, no not of washing the Court; for they had a traditional warrant which bare them out 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which was, that there was no prohibition concerning resting in the Sanctuary: and that which was prohibited elsewhere, and obliged others, about resting from work upon the Sabbath, did not oblige the Priests at the Temple: and to this our Savior speaketh, Matth. 12. 5. On the Sabbath days the Priests in the Temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless. Now although they killed, and flayed, and opened the Passovers on the Sabbath, yet did they not carry them home to their lodgings at Jerusalem till the Sabbath was out: But when the first company had dispatched in the Court, they went and stood in the mountain of the House, and the second being dispatched, went and stood in the chel, and the third continued in the Court till the Sabbath ended: and when it was done, they went away with their Lambs to their several companies. And the reason of this was, because the killing and offering of the Passover was by the express commandment of the Law, bound to its time, which they might not transgress, but must do it, though it were on the Sabbath, but the taking of the Lamb home, was not so bound but that it might very well be delayed till the Sabbath was ended.

SECT. I. Their searching out for Leaven.

THE next care they were to have in reference to the Passover, was to refrain from the eating and use of Leaven at Passover time, and that at the time when the Passover was slain it should not be found within their houses. The Law in this point was exceeding strict. In the first month on the fourteenth day of the month at Even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the Month at Even. Seven days there shall be no leaven found in your houses, for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the Congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger or born in the land, Exod. 12. 18, 19. & 13. 7. and so in Lev. 23. 6. Numb. 28. 17.

Now what analogy there was between this Law and their redeeming out of Egypt, and what relation the one could have to the other, Abarbinel disputing, concludeth thus, that it lay in this, because it signified unto them the hastiness of their coming out of Egypt, insomuch that they had not time to leaven their bread, as Exod. 12. 39. and he addeth withal, that in those hot Countries, bread will not keep above a day, unless it be leavened: so that the command of unleavened bread might read unto them in that respect a Lecture of dependence upon Providence, when they were enjoined to forsake the common and known way of preserving their bread, and to betake themselves to a way extraordinary and unsafe, but only that they had the Command of God, and his Injunction for that way, and they must learn to live by the word of God.

The Jews to meet with this Command that was so exceeding strict, and to make sure to provide for its observance soon enough, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Did on the fourteenth day while yet there was some light; make search for leaven by the light of a Candle. Thus is the Tradition, in which by the light of the fourteenth day their Glossaries tell us that we must understand the thirteenth day at even, when it began to be duskish and candle-lighting. The rubrick of the Passover in the Hebrew and Spanish tongues renders it in Hebrew Letters, but in the Spanish Language thus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 En entrada di quatorze del mez de Nisan, At the entrance of the fourteenth day of the Month Nisan, they searched for leaven in all the places where they were wont to use leaven, (in Barns, Stables, and such out houses they needed not to search) even in holes and crannies, and that not by light of Sun and Moon, or Torch, but by the light of a wax candle, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 i. e. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 con candela di cera. And the reason why they used a Candle rather than any other light, was because it is the fittest for searching holes and corners, and because the Scripture speaketh of searching Jerusalem with Candles.

After the evening of the fourteenth day was come in, (which was after Sun setting) they might not go about any work (no not to the study of the Law) till they had gone about this search; therefore there was not so much as Divinity Lectures that evening▪ lest they should hinder that work.

Before he began to search he said this short ejaculation, Blessed be thou O Lord our God, the King everlasting, who hath sanctified us by his commandments, and hath enjoined us the putting away of leaven. And he might not speak a word betwixt this praying and searching, but must fall to work, and what leaven he found he must put it in some box, or hang it up in such a place as that no Mouse might come at it. And he was to give it up for nul in these words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . All the leaven that is within my Possession, which I have seen, or which I have not seen, be it null, be it as the dust of the earth.

SECT. II. The passages of the forenoon of the Passover day.

WHen the Passover day itself was now come (which the New Testament commonly called the first day of unleavened bread, from their custom newly mentioned, but the Jewish Writers do ordinarily call it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Passover eve ) some part of the People made it a Holiday by ceasing from bodily labor all the day long, and others made it but half holiday, by leaving work at noon; the Talmud relates that in Galilee they left work all the day long from morning till night, but in Judea that they wrought till noon, and then gave over: which may seem somewhat strange that those further off were so observant of the Passover, and those nearer hand were so much less; but the reason is this, because in Galilee those that were at home on that day, had nothing else to do towards the Passover, but only to meditate upon it, and rest from labor in honor of it; but those in Judea, it may be they travelled all forenoon to get up to Jerusalem, or had some work to do towards the forwarding of the Passover, or to dispatch, that they might follow their Passover work the better.

It is in dispute in the place cited immediately before, concerning resting from labor on this day that we have in hand, and it proves a controversy between the schools of Shammai and Hillel, whether they should not also rest from labor the night before: but at last the determination comes so low, as that it gives liberty to works that were begun on the thirteenth day to be finished on the fourteenth; nay yet lower, that where the custom was to leave off work for all day, there they should leave work; and where it was the Custom to work till Noon, there they should do according to the Custom.

But whatsoever they did in this case, cease from their labor in the forenoon, or cease not, one work they must not fail to do, and that was to cast out and put away leaven out of their houses, this day (as they had searched for it the night before) and that it might not be seen nor found amongst them. The Law indeed concerning this work, doth pitch upon the fifteenth day for the doing of it, as if it were soon enough to do it on the fourteenth day at Even, Exod. 12. 18, 19. but the Jews do not impertinently observe that the expelling of leaven was by the Law to be before the time wherein the eating of it was forbidden: For whereas it is said, on the first day you shall put leaven out of your houses, their tradition taught them, that by the first is meant the fourteenth day: And a proof for this there is from what is written in the Law. Thou shalt not kill the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, that is, Thou shalt not kill the Passover, whilst leaven is yet remaining; non the killing of the Passover was on the fourteenth day in the afternoon.

On this fourteenth day therefore, for a good part of the forenoon, they might eat leaven or leavened bread, and might give it to any Bird or Beast, or might sell it to a stranger, but the fixing of the certain time is not without some debate. Rabbi Mei • saith, they may eat it all the fifth hour, and were to burn it at the beginning of the sixth. Rabbi Judah saith, they may eat it all the fourth hour, and they were to suspend all the fifth, and at the sixth hour they were to burn it. Which dispute Maimonides fifteth into this resolution, It was lawful to eat leaven on the fourteenth day till the end of the fourth hour, but they might not eat it the fifth hour, yet they might use it; but he that eateth it the sixth hour, was beaten with the Rebels beating, and he that eat it from the beginning of the seventh, was to be whipt.

Twelve a clock or thereabouts, therefore being come, it had been a strange sight to have seen everyone of them either siring, or drowning, or scattering their leaven into the wind (for any of these ways served for the expelling of it, and this command and practice reached over all the Country) and you might have seen them do it with this Valediction. All the leaven that is within my possession, which I have seen, or which I have not seen, which I have cast out, or which I have not cast out, be it null, be it as the dust of the earth.

SECT. III. The time of killing the Passover.

ABout the day of celebrating the Passover, there needeth no discourse to fix it, it is so plainly pointed out to be the fourteenth day of the first Month that nothing can be plainer, therefore when we speak of the time of killing the Passover we speak not of the day of the month, which is so well known, but of the time of the day which is not so clearly pointed out.

The Tosaphta indeed upon the Treatise Pesachin, relateth that the Cuthaeans sometimes kept their Passover a day before the Israelites did, and sometimes a day after, (where the word Cuthaeans might breed some dispute, for in the Talmudicks language, it means sometimes Samaritans and sometimes Christians, but we shall not insist upon it.) And there have been some Christians that have held, that Christ and his Disciples kept their last Passover one day before the Jews kept theirs, conceiting this from that which is spoken in John. 18. 28. where it is related that when Christ was brought into Pilate 's Judgment Hall (which was when he had eaten the Passover, as all the other Evangelists declare abundantly) the Jews durst not go into Pilate's Hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. To which mistake I shall only give some words of Maymony at this present for answer, for the ground of the mistake we shall have occasion to look after in the ensuing discourse. It is an affirmative command (saith he) to kill the Passover on the fourteenth day of the Month Nisan in the afternoon, and they kill it not but only of Lambs or Kids, a male of the first year, and both men and women are alike liable to this command; and he that breaks this command presumptuously, and passeth the fourteenth day and offereth not, if he be not unclean or in a long journey, he is guilty of being cut off; but if he transgress the command ignorantly, he is quit. They kill not the Passover but in the Court even as the rest of the holy offerings, yea even in those times, when high places were permitted, they offered not the Passover in a private high place, but in the public, (that is, the Temple) and he that offered it in a private high place was to be whipt. From which words, it being observed what penalty lay upon him that passed the fourteenth day, and what the there was to slay the Paschal Lamb in the Court, it will appear extreme absurd to imagine that any Israelite should keep his Passover before the fixed day. What the Cuthaeans or Samaritans might do at their Mount Gerizim, it is no matter, but for any Jews to celebrate the Passover at Jerusalem, (for nowhere else it might be done) before the proper and fixed time, could not have been without evident danger to them that did it; it being so diametrically contrary both to the Law and to their Traditions, and yet we find not Christ was ever touched with the least accusation about his Passover as if he kept it on the wrong day.

But to let this pass, which indeed is too plain to be disputed (for the Evangelist most plainly tells us that on the day of unleavened bread when the Passover must be killed, Jesus sent Peter and John to prepare his Passover, Luke 22. 7, 8.) and now to come to look after the time of the day when the Passover was killed, we must take these two maxims with us. 1. That the Passover was not lawful if it were killed before noon; and the reason of this is easy to give, namely because the Law doth expressly appoint, that they should kill it between the two evenings, Exod. 12. 6. And 2. that the daily evening Sacrifice was to be killed before they began to kill the Passover; and the reason of this is also readily to be given, namely, because an extraordinary service must not prevent one ordinary and constant. After they had burnt the incense of the evening sacrifice, and after they had dressed the Lamps, then they began to kill the Passover, and so continued till the end of the day. The times they divided thus, they slew the daily Sacrifice at the eighth hour and an half, and they offered it up at the ninth hour and an half: but on the Eve of the Passover, they slew it at the seventh hour and an half, and offered it up at the eighth hour and an half, whether the day were a common day or the Sabbath: and if the Eve of the Passover fell on the Eve of the Sabbath, the daily Sacrifice was killed at the sixth hour and half an hour past, and offered it up at the seventh hour and half an hour past, and the Passover after it.

It was the command both for the Passover and for the daily Evening Sacrifice, that they should be slain and offered 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 between the two Evenings, Exod. 12. 6. & 29. 39. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 A very hard expression (saith Ibn Ezra ) and he gives as very hard an interpretation of it; for he judgeth the two Evenings to be these, the one when the Sun sets and goes out of sight, and the other when the day closes in and all the light is clean gone, which he saith is ordinarily about an hour and three quarters after Sun setting; and so he will have the daily Sacrifice to be offered up at this time, and though all the Passovers could not be killed in this space, yet he conceiveth that it is commanded they should be killed between the two Evenings, because most of them were slain in this space, though all could not. I shall not insist to show the improbability of this Tenet, he himself that holds it, is in a manner glad at last to betake himself to the general and common received Opinion, which was, that the two Evenings were these, the first from that time of the day that the Sun began to decline from his vertical or noon-tide point toward the West, and the other from his going down and out of sight. And according to this construction did they go in killing and offering up their Evening Sacrifice, taking up an hour for that business just in the middle of the afternoon (counting at Aequinox time) namely, from half an hour past two, to half an hour past three, and so there were two hours and an half from the Suns beginning to decline, to the time they killed, and two hours and an half from the time they offered it up, till the Sun went down.

Now occasional Sacrifices did sometimes cause an alteration of the time of the daily, for that being to be ever offered the first, as being the fixed and appointed service of the day, that the others might have room to be offered up in due time, that removed out of its place, to somewhat earlier in the day, sometimes an hour, and sometimes two, as in the Traditions alleged, and especially this was for the sake of the Passover, when Lambs were exceeding many: The common time therefore to begin to kill the Passover was, from about half an hour past two a clock, and little more, and so continued all afternoon: and if the Passover lighted on the Eve of the Sabbath, (that is, on the day preceeding the Sabbath) they began an hour sooner, that they might the better dispatch their business by the time that the Sabbath began.

SECT. IV. The Paschal Societies.

BEfore the Paschal Lamb was slain, they first agreed and concluded upon the Company that should eat him: for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , They might not slay the Passover but for persons numbered before, or a number agreed on before for his eating. And this caution was not unwarrantably taken up, from that command in Exod. 12. 4. Every man according to his eating: ye shall make your count for the Lamb: So that while the Lamb was yet alive, it was to be crtainly concluded, who, and how many would join together for his eating, and he might not be slain but for societies so agreed and numbered. If any of the society, after the number was agreed on, saw occasion to withdraw from that company, and to go to another, he must do it before the Lamb was slain, for after he might not. These societies were called everyone of them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and the number of the persons in them was not certain, but sometime more, sometime less, according to their proportionableness of eating, because of the command, Everyone according to his eating: were there among the company those that were sickly and aged, and little eaters, then they might take the more into the company, but if they were healthy and lively, and like to eat more freely, then was the number less: He that was to eat the least, was to eat as much of him, as came to the quantity of an olive, and if he could not eat so much, they counted not him in the number: And they might number so many in a society, as if there were the quantity of an olive for everyone to eat, it was enough.

1. Although Women were not directly bound to appear three times • year before the Lord, as the males were, yet were they bound to some particular services that attended the three appearances, and so that brought them in: but especially to the Passover, for to the observation of that they were obliged by those express words of the Commandment, The whole assembly of the Congregation of Israel shall kill it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 And men and women were bound to this command alike: Now in forming up these societies that were severally to eat the Lambs, they suffered not any companies to consist of servants and women only, nor of servants and children only, lest there should be some lightness among them, and not that gravity that became so great a solemnity: nor to consist of old or sickly persons only, lest they should leave any of them, and so transgress the command, Ye shall leave nothing of him till the morning: Nor to consist of Proselytes only, or of children only, because they were unlikely to speak of those memorable things that were to be spoken of at the Passover. But a society might be only of women, or only of servants, but ordinarily they were of whole families, one or more united, Husbands, Wives, Children, Servants, all together. Our Savior's society was himself and the twelve, Mat. 26. 20. Luk. 22. 14.

SECT. V. The killing of the Passover.

THE Passovers were slain in three companies : 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 And the ground of this practice and tradition they make to be those words of the institution, The whole assembly of the Congregation of Israel shall kill it: where because, there are three words, Assembly, Congregation, and Israel, applied to the killing of the Passover, they divided the killing of it into three companies according to that number.

There were not to be less than thirty men in every company: yet found they out a shift to make fifty men (if there were no more) to make thirty men three times over, for the three companies; and their way was this. Thirty of the fifty went into the Court, (for there only might the Passover be killed) and when they had killed their Lambs, ten of them went out, and ten of those, that stood without, came in and killed theirs, and then ten others went out, and the other ten that stood without came in and killed theirs, and so there were thirty in the Court continually, while the Lambs were killing.

But this was only a provision for a pinch; namely, if such an exigent should occur, as that there should be but fifty Lambs presented, or at least but fifty persons present, (for ordinarily everyone of the numbered Paschal societies that have been spoken of, sent their Lamb by one of their company only, and under fifty there was no Passover killing) but commonly everyone of these three companies we are speaking of, were as many as ever the Court could hold.

The first company came in, till the Court was filled, and then the doors were locked, and they fell to killing the Lambs, and while they were about this work, the Levites sang, and the trumpets sounded: It is a tradition, saith the Jerusalem Talmud, The daily sacrifice which hath a drink offering, they blew the trumpets at the time of the drink offering: but at the Passover which hath no drink offering, they blew the trumpets at the killing of it. Which the Gloss upon the Babylon Talmud doth utter more punctually, At the killing of the Passover there were seven and twenty soundings with the trumpets: for the Passover was killed in three companies one after another, &c.

Now the song that was sung at this time while they were killing the Passovers, was called the Hallel 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 so saith the same Gloss in the same place. Every company said over the Hallel three times: for their Paschals were many, and they were bound to the saying over of the Hallel at the slaying of them. And Maymony more largely. All the time that they were killing and offering the Levites said over the Hallel: if they had finished the Hallel, and the company had not yet done, they said it over again: And if they had finished saying it over again, and the company had not yet done neither, they set to it a third time. And both these speak this, from the Mishneh in the treatise Pesachin where it is said, They said over the Hallel, and when they had finished they said it over a second time, and when they had done that, they said it over a third time.

The Jews do make exceeding frequent mention in their writings of the Hallel or the Hymn; (for so we may translate it from Matth. 26. 30.) And they distinguish it into the common or lesser Hallel, and the greater: The lesser Hallel they also call the Egyptian Hallel, because it was sung more especially in remembrance of their delivery out of Egypt: and it was the 113, & 114, & 115, & 116, & 117, & 118, Psalms. Concerning the choice and use of which it may not be amiss to take up two or three of their traditions.

1. The Jerusalem Talmud in the Treatise Pesachin hath this relation. R. Jacob Bar Aha in the name of Rabbi Jasa saith, Strength was given to Moses his voice, and his voice went through all Egypt forty days journey: And what said he? One company from such a place to such a place, and another company from such a place, to such a place. And wonder not at it: for if of dust whose nature is not to go, it be said, it shall become dust through all the land of Egypt, (Exod. 9. 9.) much more might a voice go abroad, whose nature is to go. Rabbi Levi said, As strength was given to Moses his voice, so strength was given to Pharaohs voice; and his voice went throughout all Egypt forty days journey. And what said he? Arise, get ye out from among my people: For, as for the time past ye have been the servants of Pharaoh, but from henceforth ye must be the servants of the Lord. From that hour they said, Praise ye the Lord, praise him ye servants of the Lord, Psalm 113. and now no more the servants of Pharaoh.

2. Maymony in his Treatise of Megillah, and Chanuchah, or of the Feast of Purim and of Dedication, saith The custom of saying over the Hallel in the days of the former wisemen, was thus, The chief among them that was to read the Hallel after he had said a prayer, began thus, Hallelujah; and all the people answered Hallelujah. He goes on and says, Praise ye the servants of the Lord; and all the people answered Hallelujah. He proceeds and says, Praise the Name of the Lord; and all the people answered Hallelujah. He says further, Blessed be the Name of the Lord from this time forth, even for evermore; and all the people answered Hallelujah. And so at every passage, till they answered Hallelujah, an hundred and three and twenty times over, and of that number were the years of Aaron.

Now when he that read it, came to the beginning of any Psalm, as when he read, When Israel came out of Egypt, the people repeated and said, When Israel came out of Egypt; but when he said, And the House of Jacob from a strange people, then the people answered Hallelujah: and so forward, till he came to, I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice, and there the people repeated, I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice, And so when he said, Praise the Lord all ye Nations, they repeated, Praise the Lord all ye Nations: And when he came to, Save now Lord I beseech thee, the people repeated, Save now Lord I beseech thee; though it were not the beginning of a Psalm: And when he said, I beseech thee now send prosperity, they rehearsed and said, I beseech thee now send prosperity. And when he said, Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord, all the people answered, Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord.

3. This saying over of the Hallel, is acknowledged by the Jews to be an Institution of the Scribes; and the reason of the picking out of these Psalms for that purpose, was because of their beginning or ending with Hallelujah; and partly because they contain, not only so high and eminent memorials of God's goodness and deliverance unto Israel; as is intimated by that passage alleged in the Jerusalemy; From that time they said, Praise ye the Lord, ye servants of the Lord, and no more of Pharaoh; but also several other things of high and important matter and consideration; for the Hallel, say they, recordeth five things: the coming out of Egypt, the dividing of the Sea, the giving of the Law, the Resurrection of the dead, and the lot of Messias.

4. This Hallel was said over eighteen days in the year and one night; namely, at the killing of the Passover, at the Feast of Pentecost, on the eight days of the Feast of Tabernacles, and on the eight days of the Feast of Dedication, and on the Passover night. With the manner of its saying over, the people still answering Hallelujah: compare the redoubled Hallelujahs, in Rev. 19. 1, 3, 4. 6.

Besides this Hallel, which they called the Egyptian Hallel, there is frequent mention of the great Hallel 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 as the Treatise Taanith telleth a story that they appointed a Fast at Led (or Lyddo, Act. 9. 35. and this Fast was for rain, which they wanted exceedingly) And rain came down for them before midday. Rabbi Tarphon saith to them, Go eat, and drink, and keep holiday: They went and eat, and drank, and kept holiday, and came at Even, and said over the great Hallel: and we shall observe anon, that at the eating of the Passover, as they used constantly to say over the Hallel commonly so called, so did they sometimes add the great Hallel to it; and when we come to speak of the time when this was rehearsed, we will then observe what this great Hallel was.

So that (now to return where we were again) the first company being come into the Court, and having filled it, and the doors locked upon them, and they falling to kill the Passovers, this Hallel or these Psalms were begun to be sung, the people answering as hath been related. And when they had sung them over once, and the work not yet done, they set to them again, and a third time, and by that time they had gone over the third time, the work was commonly done, and they began not again. And therefore those words which are very usual with those Jews which treat upon this subject, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 are to be construed, that when they had sung it over a second time, they began a third, although they went not through a third time in all their days: for before they had gone through, the work was done, and then they had done also.

The first company being thus dispatched, went out of the Court with their slain and flayed Passovers (how they flayed them, was observed erewhile) and they stood in the mountain of the House: And now there comes in the second company, as many as the Court would hold, and while they are killing, sprinkling the blood, and burning the fat, the Hallel is begun again, and sung even as it was before, and when that company had done they went out, and the third came in, and they did as the others before, till all was finished.

They did not only slay the Passovers whilst they stood thus in the Court, but the blood was also sprinkled by the Priests, they standing in rows from the slaughter place to the Altar, conveying the blood from hand to hand, and so they crowded not, nor troubled not one another, which they would have done had they run singly from every slain Lamb to bring the blood to the Altar. The blood brought thither in such handing rows was poured at the foundation of the Altar. The owners flayed their Lambs, the most of them hanging him upon a staff on their shoulders, and he hanging between them, and they helping one another: They took out his entrails, cleansed away his ordure, separated his inwards, put them in a dish, salted them, and laid them on the fire on the Altar: and when the three companies were so dispatched, the Priests (as there was no small need) did wash the Court.

If the Passover killing did fall upon the Sabbath, yet did they not abate of any of this work, no not of washing the Court; for they had a traditional warrant which bare them out 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which was, that there was no prohibition concerning resting in the Sanctuary: and that which was prohibited elsewhere, and obliged others, about resting from work upon the Sabbath, did not oblige the Priests at the Temple: and to this our Savior speaketh, Matth. 12. 5. On the Sabbath days the Priests in the Temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless. Now although they killed, and flayed, and opened the Passovers on the Sabbath, yet did they not carry them home to their lodgings at Jerusalem till the Sabbath was out: But when the first company had dispatched in the Court, they went and stood in the mountain of the House, and the second being dispatched, went and stood in the chel, and the third continued in the Court till the Sabbath ended: and when it was done, they went away with their Lambs to their several companies. And the reason of this was, because the killing and offering of the Passover was by the express commandment of the Law, bound to its time, which they might not transgress, but must do it, though it were on the Sabbath, but the taking of the Lamb home, was not so bound but that it might very well be delayed till the Sabbath was ended.

SECT. I. Of the Solemnity and Rites of the first day in the Passover Week of the Hagigah, and Peace Offering of rejoicing.

THE next day after the Passover was eaten was holy, and no servile work to be done in it, but it was accounted and kept as a Sabbath, and so it is called, Lev. 23. 6, 7, 15. On this day all the Males were to appear in the Court of the Temple, and to bring with them a burnt offering for their appearance, and a double peace offering, one for the solemnity, and another for the joy of the times The offering for their appearance was called Corban Raajah, and they conclude it due from these words, None of you shall appear before me empty, Exod. 23. 15. Yet if any one failed of bringing such a gift, his shame and his conscience go with it, but there was no penalty upon him, because though he had broken a Negative Precept, yet there was no work nor action done by him in it.

The peace offerings for the solemnity of the time were called the Hagigah, and they were to be of some Beast, Bullock or Sheep. Hereupon in 2 Chron. 30. 24. & 35. 7. 8. there is mention of Bullocks and Oxen for the Passover; and in Deut. 16. 2. there is speech of sacrificing the Passover of the herd; which cannot be understood of the Passover that was to be eaten on the fourteenth day at Even, for that was punctually, and determinately appointed to be of Lambs or Kids, Exod. 12. 5. but it is to be construed of these peace offerings which were for the solemnity of the time. And this is that which the Evangelist John calleth the Passover, when he saith, The Jews went not into Pilate's judgment Hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover, Joh. 18. 28. For they had eaten the Paschal Lamb the night before.

They held themselves obliged by the Law, as to appear at the three solemn festivals, and to pay their offerings and their services then due, so to make merry and to rejoice, and cheer up one another, because it is said, Thou shalt rejoice before the Lord, Deut. 16. 11, 14, &c. And hereupon they took up the use of Wine at the Passover Supper, as was observed before; and hereupon they took up other peace offerings besides the Hagigah at the Passover solemnity, and called them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The peace offerings of rejoicing And by the offering of these two sorts of peace offerings, it is like they thought themselves the better discharged though they brought not the offering of their appearance; for if they brought these, they might the better think they appeared not empty. And so Levi Gershom construeth that passage concerning Elkanah, that he went up yearly from his City to Shiloh, to sacrifice to the Lord, in application to these sorts of peace offerings, rather than any other offering, for it meaneth (saith he) that he sacrificed his peace offerings of rejoicing, and his peace offerings for the Hagigah.

The time for the offering of these they accounted the first day of the Festival to be most proper, and they strove to dispatch upon it that they might return home the sooner, but if these Sacrifices were offered in any day of the Festival, it served the turn.

On this first day of the Feast, when these great matters were to be in hand, namely their appearing in the Court and offering these their Sacrifices of solemnity and rejoicing at the last Passover of our Savior, they shown themselves otherwise employed, for on this day they crucified the Lord of Life.

In reference to whose judging, condemning, and executing, though it be somewhat beside the bent of the present discourse, let the Reader scan two or three of their Traditions.

• 1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 They might begin no judgments in the night, nor received they any witness in the night, but the judgments were to be in the day only: yet were they in the examination and judgment of our Savior all night long.
• 2. The judging of a false Prophet was only to be by the great Sanhedrin of seventy and one: Under this notion they blasphemously accused and arraigned our Savior, Joh. 18. 19. Luke 23. 2. and unto this, those words of his refer, Luke 13. 33. It cannot be that a Prophet perish out of Jerusalem.
• 3. They put not an Elder that transgresseth against the determination of the great Sanhedrin to death, neither at the Sanhedrin that was in his own City, nor at the Sanhedrin that was at Jabneh, but they bring him up to the great Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, and keep him till a solemn festival, and execute him at the Feast; according to what is said, That all the People may hear and fear, &c.

SECT. II. The second day in the Passover Week. The gathering and offering of the first fruits Omer.

THE first and last days of the solemn festival Weeks were called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Holy days, or good days; and the observation of them differed little in strictness from the observation of the Sabbath. See Lev. 23. 7, 8, &c. Now the days between them were called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Moed Katon, or the lesser solemnity; in which, although there were not the like strictness of observance that there was of the Holy days, yet was there a distinction made betwixt them and other ordinary times: and divers things were prohibited, especially by their Traditions, to be done in them, which were permitted to be done on other days. And as for the service and employment in the Temple, there was commonly more work and sacrificing on these days than on other ordinary days, because the peace offerings due or reserved to that time, could not all be dispatched on the other days, but did take up much of these days, and did find the Priests more than ordinary attendance and employment about the Altar.

On this day that we have in hand, namely, the second day of the Passover week, whatsoever else of extraordinary offering was on it, there never failed to be the offering and waving of the first fruit sheaf before the Lord: The Law for this is given in Lev. 23. 10, 11. When ye be come into the Land which I give unto you, you shall reap the Harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your Harvest unto the Priest; and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: the morrow after the Sabbath the Priest shall wave it: Where by the word Sabbath is to be understood, not the Sabbath day in the proper sense, but the first day in the Passover Week, of which we have spoken, which was so solemn an holy day: And so the Chaldee Paraphrast, and several other Jews do well interpret it.

The Rites about gathering and offering this first fruits sheaf are largely described by Tosaphta ad Menachoth to be after this manner : Rabbi Ishmael saith, The Omer or first fruits sheaf, if it came on the Sabbath day, (properly so called, as it did that very day that our Savior rested in the grave) it came in three Seahs, but if on another day it came in five: but the wisemen say, whether Sabbath or other day all was one, it came in three Seahs: Abba Saul said, On the Sabbath it was reaped by one man, and with one sickle, and in one Basket: but on another day it was reaped by three men, and in three baskets, and with three sickles: But the wise men said, Sabbath or other day it was all one, it was by three men, and in three baskets, and with three sickles: The first fruits sheaf came out of the vale of the ashes by the brook Kidron, &c. The day of waving it lighting on the Sabbath, the Sabbath was dispensed with for the reaping of it: And how was it done? Those that the Sanhedrin sent about it, went out, at the Evening of the holy day, (the first day of the Passover Week) they took baskets and sickles, &c. They went out on the holy day when it began to be dark, and a great company went out with them: when it was now dark one said to them, On this Sabbath, on this Sabbath, on this Sabbath; In this Basket, in this Basket, in this Basket; R. Eliezer the son of Zadok saith, With this Sickle, with this Sickle, with this Sickle, every particular three times over. And they answer him, well, well, well, I will reap, and he bids them reap. And why do they thus? Because of the Baithusaeans (the Sadducees) who said that the reaping of the first fruit sheaf is not on the end of the holy day. They reap it and put it into the basket, and bring it into the Court: and pass it through the fire; that they might answer the command about parched corn. The words of Rabbi Meir, But the wise men say, That is not to be meant so, but there was a hollow vessel full of holes, so that the fire might go quite through it in the Court, and the wind blew on it, (in which they put the Corn suddenly to dry it that it might grind) and they put it on a Mill to get out a tenth deal, &c. One takes the tenth deal and puts its oil and frankincense on it, and mingles them, and waves it, and takes out a handful and puts it on the Altar, and the rest is for the Priest to eat. As soon as the Omer is offered, they go out and find Jerusalem streets full of Meal and parched Corn: which was not according to the mind of the wise men. The words of R. Meir: But the wise men say; that it was according to the mind of the wise men, for as soon as the Omer was offered, new Corn was permitted.

SECT. IV. The Feast of Pentecost, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 .

FRom this day and occasion, namely from the offering of the first fruits Omer they began to count the Weeks to Pentecost, even seven Weeks forward. This day was the first of the number, and the next day after the expiring of seven Weeks, being the fiftiethday from hence, was Pentecost day, as is imported in the very word. It was dated from the offering of the first Corn, because that Solemnity and this Festival had some relation one to another: The presenting of the first sheaf, was an introduction to Harvest, and the Feast of Pentecost was a return or offering of their Harvest; by that they had liberty to begin to put the sickle into the Corn and to reap, and at this they offered an offering of their Corn now reaped and inned. Therefore this Solemnity is sometimes called in Scripture the Feast of Harvest, Exod. 23. 16. and sometimes the Feast of weeks, Deut. 16. 10. because of the reckoning of the seven Weeks from that day to it, and sometimes Pentecost, Act. 2. 1. because it was the fiftieth day from that: and so the Jews themselves call it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the fiftieth day, or Pentecost.

But the Jews in their Writings do most commonly call this Feast by the name 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Atsereth, and so do the Chaldee Paraephrasts use it in Numb. 28. 26. although Abarbonel doth observe that this Feast alone, of all the three, is not called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Atsereth in the Scripture. The word doth properly signify a resraining or a shutting up, and from that signification it is taken to signify a solemn holy day, or assembling, as being interdicted and restrained from work, 2 King 10. 20. Joel 1. 4. Amos 5. 21, &c. But whether this Feast were so called by them in so singular a manner, because that was the time of the restraining of rains, it being the very middle of Harvest, or because the offering of their first fruits was restrained till this time, or because the festival joy of Harvest was yet restrained, and not as yet full, or for what cause else, I shall not be much solicitous to determine; but certainly some of the Rabbins give such intimation as might seem to give some strength to the supposal upon one of the two latter. For Maymony relateth that they brought not any first fruits before 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Pentecost, because it is said, the Feast of Harvest, the first fruits of thy labors: And if they brought any, they received them not from them, but laid them by till Pentecost. And Baal Hatturim hath this saying, There is no rejoicing spoken of at the Passover, because the fruits were yet in the field: But at 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Pentecost, when Corn is now reaped, and Wine is now in the Grapes, there is one rejoicing spoken of, Deut. 16. 11. But at the Feast of Tabernacles, when all is inned, then rejoicing is twice mentioned, Deut. 16. 14, 15.

The solemnity of this day and feast was: 1. That all the Males were to appear at it, as at the Passover and Feast of Tabernacles. 2. They were to offer two cakes back'd with leaven, of the Corn of the Harvest now reaped, or of new Corn: and if it be questioned why with leaven now, seeing there was so express commands against leaven at the Passover, some of the Jews do give this pertinent reason: because these loaves or cakes were an offering in behalf of the bread which they were ordinarily to eat, (for these were first fruits of their Wheat) but their bread at the Passover was commemorative of their hasty departing out of Egypt, when they could not stay to have their bread leavened: Their Passover bread was for a memorial, their Pentecost cakes were not. At Passover they could only say, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Here is unleavened bread 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . But at Pentecost, Here is unleavened bread (for the meat offering) and leavened too (for the two cakes) as the Gentarists descant upon this matter. These cakes were made square, each cake seven hand-breadth long, four broad, and four high.

3. With these cakes were also offered seven Lambs, and one Bullock, and two Rams for a burnt offering, a Kid for a sin offering, and two Lambs for a peace offering. And these two Lambs were the only peace offerings that the Congregation offered: and these peace offerings only were reckoned in the rank of the most holy offerings.

Now these Lambs being Peace offerings, were to be waved up and down with the two cakes, for so is the command express, Lev. 23. 20. and the manner of that action was thus: The Priest first waved the Lambs up and down whilst they were yet alive, and then slew them: and having flayed them, he took out the breast and shoulder of either of them, and laid them close besides the two cakes, and putting his hand under them he waved them all together, upwards and downwards, and this way and that way, and all towards the East; and afterwards burnt their inwards, and the Priest ate the rest of the flesh. And as for the Cakes the High Priest took the one, and the other was divided among all the Courses who were then present.

It was not so much the solemnity or multitude of the Sacrifices of this day that challenged the appearance of all the People in the whole Land, though the offerings were many and solemn, but it was the Memorial which the Feast carried with it, namely of the Law, being given to Israel, at that time of the year from Mount Sinai.

On this day was the Hallel sung, as was intimated before, and on this day was the great gift of tongues visibly bestowed upon the Disciples.

SECT. I. Of the Solemnity and Rites of the first day in the Passover Week of the Hagigah, and Peace Offering of rejoicing.

THE next day after the Passover was eaten was holy, and no servile work to be done in it, but it was accounted and kept as a Sabbath, and so it is called, Lev. 23. 6, 7, 15. On this day all the Males were to appear in the Court of the Temple, and to bring with them a burnt offering for their appearance, and a double peace offering, one for the solemnity, and another for the joy of the times The offering for their appearance was called Corban Raajah, and they conclude it due from these words, None of you shall appear before me empty, Exod. 23. 15. Yet if any one failed of bringing such a gift, his shame and his conscience go with it, but there was no penalty upon him, because though he had broken a Negative Precept, yet there was no work nor action done by him in it.

The peace offerings for the solemnity of the time were called the Hagigah, and they were to be of some Beast, Bullock or Sheep. Hereupon in 2 Chron. 30. 24. & 35. 7. 8. there is mention of Bullocks and Oxen for the Passover; and in Deut. 16. 2. there is speech of sacrificing the Passover of the herd; which cannot be understood of the Passover that was to be eaten on the fourteenth day at Even, for that was punctually, and determinately appointed to be of Lambs or Kids, Exod. 12. 5. but it is to be construed of these peace offerings which were for the solemnity of the time. And this is that which the Evangelist John calleth the Passover, when he saith, The Jews went not into Pilate's judgment Hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover, Joh. 18. 28. For they had eaten the Paschal Lamb the night before.

They held themselves obliged by the Law, as to appear at the three solemn festivals, and to pay their offerings and their services then due, so to make merry and to rejoice, and cheer up one another, because it is said, Thou shalt rejoice before the Lord, Deut. 16. 11, 14, &c. And hereupon they took up the use of Wine at the Passover Supper, as was observed before; and hereupon they took up other peace offerings besides the Hagigah at the Passover solemnity, and called them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The peace offerings of rejoicing And by the offering of these two sorts of peace offerings, it is like they thought themselves the better discharged though they brought not the offering of their appearance; for if they brought these, they might the better think they appeared not empty. And so Levi Gershom construeth that passage concerning Elkanah, that he went up yearly from his City to Shiloh, to sacrifice to the Lord, in application to these sorts of peace offerings, rather than any other offering, for it meaneth (saith he) that he sacrificed his peace offerings of rejoicing, and his peace offerings for the Hagigah.

The time for the offering of these they accounted the first day of the Festival to be most proper, and they strove to dispatch upon it that they might return home the sooner, but if these Sacrifices were offered in any day of the Festival, it served the turn.

On this first day of the Feast, when these great matters were to be in hand, namely their appearing in the Court and offering these their Sacrifices of solemnity and rejoicing at the last Passover of our Savior, they shown themselves otherwise employed, for on this day they crucified the Lord of Life.

In reference to whose judging, condemning, and executing, though it be somewhat beside the bent of the present discourse, let the Reader scan two or three of their Traditions.

• 1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 They might begin no judgments in the night, nor received they any witness in the night, but the judgments were to be in the day only: yet were they in the examination and judgment of our Savior all night long.
• 2. The judging of a false Prophet was only to be by the great Sanhedrin of seventy and one: Under this notion they blasphemously accused and arraigned our Savior, Joh. 18. 19. Luke 23. 2. and unto this, those words of his refer, Luke 13. 33. It cannot be that a Prophet perish out of Jerusalem.
• 3. They put not an Elder that transgresseth against the determination of the great Sanhedrin to death, neither at the Sanhedrin that was in his own City, nor at the Sanhedrin that was at Jabneh, but they bring him up to the great Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, and keep him till a solemn festival, and execute him at the Feast; according to what is said, That all the People may hear and fear, &c.

SECT. II. The second day in the Passover Week. The gathering and offering of the first fruits Omer.

THE first and last days of the solemn festival Weeks were called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Holy days, or good days; and the observation of them differed little in strictness from the observation of the Sabbath. See Lev. 23. 7, 8, &c. Now the days between them were called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Moed Katon, or the lesser solemnity; in which, although there were not the like strictness of observance that there was of the Holy days, yet was there a distinction made betwixt them and other ordinary times: and divers things were prohibited, especially by their Traditions, to be done in them, which were permitted to be done on other days. And as for the service and employment in the Temple, there was commonly more work and sacrificing on these days than on other ordinary days, because the peace offerings due or reserved to that time, could not all be dispatched on the other days, but did take up much of these days, and did find the Priests more than ordinary attendance and employment about the Altar.

On this day that we have in hand, namely, the second day of the Passover week, whatsoever else of extraordinary offering was on it, there never failed to be the offering and waving of the first fruit sheaf before the Lord: The Law for this is given in Lev. 23. 10, 11. When ye be come into the Land which I give unto you, you shall reap the Harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your Harvest unto the Priest; and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: the morrow after the Sabbath the Priest shall wave it: Where by the word Sabbath is to be understood, not the Sabbath day in the proper sense, but the first day in the Passover Week, of which we have spoken, which was so solemn an holy day: And so the Chaldee Paraphrast, and several other Jews do well interpret it.

The Rites about gathering and offering this first fruits sheaf are largely described by Tosaphta ad Menachoth to be after this manner : Rabbi Ishmael saith, The Omer or first fruits sheaf, if it came on the Sabbath day, (properly so called, as it did that very day that our Savior rested in the grave) it came in three Seahs, but if on another day it came in five: but the wisemen say, whether Sabbath or other day all was one, it came in three Seahs: Abba Saul said, On the Sabbath it was reaped by one man, and with one sickle, and in one Basket: but on another day it was reaped by three men, and in three baskets, and with three sickles: But the wise men said, Sabbath or other day it was all one, it was by three men, and in three baskets, and with three sickles: The first fruits sheaf came out of the vale of the ashes by the brook Kidron, &c. The day of waving it lighting on the Sabbath, the Sabbath was dispensed with for the reaping of it: And how was it done? Those that the Sanhedrin sent about it, went out, at the Evening of the holy day, (the first day of the Passover Week) they took baskets and sickles, &c. They went out on the holy day when it began to be dark, and a great company went out with them: when it was now dark one said to them, On this Sabbath, on this Sabbath, on this Sabbath; In this Basket, in this Basket, in this Basket; R. Eliezer the son of Zadok saith, With this Sickle, with this Sickle, with this Sickle, every particular three times over. And they answer him, well, well, well, I will reap, and he bids them reap. And why do they thus? Because of the Baithusaeans (the Sadducees) who said that the reaping of the first fruit sheaf is not on the end of the holy day. They reap it and put it into the basket, and bring it into the Court: and pass it through the fire; that they might answer the command about parched corn. The words of Rabbi Meir, But the wise men say, That is not to be meant so, but there was a hollow vessel full of holes, so that the fire might go quite through it in the Court, and the wind blew on it, (in which they put the Corn suddenly to dry it that it might grind) and they put it on a Mill to get out a tenth deal, &c. One takes the tenth deal and puts its oil and frankincense on it, and mingles them, and waves it, and takes out a handful and puts it on the Altar, and the rest is for the Priest to eat. As soon as the Omer is offered, they go out and find Jerusalem streets full of Meal and parched Corn: which was not according to the mind of the wise men. The words of R. Meir: But the wise men say; that it was according to the mind of the wise men, for as soon as the Omer was offered, new Corn was permitted.

SECT. IV. The Feast of Pentecost, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 .

FRom this day and occasion, namely from the offering of the first fruits Omer they began to count the Weeks to Pentecost, even seven Weeks forward. This day was the first of the number, and the next day after the expiring of seven Weeks, being the fiftiethday from hence, was Pentecost day, as is imported in the very word. It was dated from the offering of the first Corn, because that Solemnity and this Festival had some relation one to another: The presenting of the first sheaf, was an introduction to Harvest, and the Feast of Pentecost was a return or offering of their Harvest; by that they had liberty to begin to put the sickle into the Corn and to reap, and at this they offered an offering of their Corn now reaped and inned. Therefore this Solemnity is sometimes called in Scripture the Feast of Harvest, Exod. 23. 16. and sometimes the Feast of weeks, Deut. 16. 10. because of the reckoning of the seven Weeks from that day to it, and sometimes Pentecost, Act. 2. 1. because it was the fiftieth day from that: and so the Jews themselves call it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the fiftieth day, or Pentecost.

But the Jews in their Writings do most commonly call this Feast by the name 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Atsereth, and so do the Chaldee Paraephrasts use it in Numb. 28. 26. although Abarbonel doth observe that this Feast alone, of all the three, is not called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Atsereth in the Scripture. The word doth properly signify a resraining or a shutting up, and from that signification it is taken to signify a solemn holy day, or assembling, as being interdicted and restrained from work, 2 King 10. 20. Joel 1. 4. Amos 5. 21, &c. But whether this Feast were so called by them in so singular a manner, because that was the time of the restraining of rains, it being the very middle of Harvest, or because the offering of their first fruits was restrained till this time, or because the festival joy of Harvest was yet restrained, and not as yet full, or for what cause else, I shall not be much solicitous to determine; but certainly some of the Rabbins give such intimation as might seem to give some strength to the supposal upon one of the two latter. For Maymony relateth that they brought not any first fruits before 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Pentecost, because it is said, the Feast of Harvest, the first fruits of thy labors: And if they brought any, they received them not from them, but laid them by till Pentecost. And Baal Hatturim hath this saying, There is no rejoicing spoken of at the Passover, because the fruits were yet in the field: But at 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Pentecost, when Corn is now reaped, and Wine is now in the Grapes, there is one rejoicing spoken of, Deut. 16. 11. But at the Feast of Tabernacles, when all is inned, then rejoicing is twice mentioned, Deut. 16. 14, 15.

The solemnity of this day and feast was: 1. That all the Males were to appear at it, as at the Passover and Feast of Tabernacles. 2. They were to offer two cakes back'd with leaven, of the Corn of the Harvest now reaped, or of new Corn: and if it be questioned why with leaven now, seeing there was so express commands against leaven at the Passover, some of the Jews do give this pertinent reason: because these loaves or cakes were an offering in behalf of the bread which they were ordinarily to eat, (for these were first fruits of their Wheat) but their bread at the Passover was commemorative of their hasty departing out of Egypt, when they could not stay to have their bread leavened: Their Passover bread was for a memorial, their Pentecost cakes were not. At Passover they could only say, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Here is unleavened bread 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . But at Pentecost, Here is unleavened bread (for the meat offering) and leavened too (for the two cakes) as the Gentarists descant upon this matter. These cakes were made square, each cake seven hand-breadth long, four broad, and four high.

3. With these cakes were also offered seven Lambs, and one Bullock, and two Rams for a burnt offering, a Kid for a sin offering, and two Lambs for a peace offering. And these two Lambs were the only peace offerings that the Congregation offered: and these peace offerings only were reckoned in the rank of the most holy offerings.

Now these Lambs being Peace offerings, were to be waved up and down with the two cakes, for so is the command express, Lev. 23. 20. and the manner of that action was thus: The Priest first waved the Lambs up and down whilst they were yet alive, and then slew them: and having flayed them, he took out the breast and shoulder of either of them, and laid them close besides the two cakes, and putting his hand under them he waved them all together, upwards and downwards, and this way and that way, and all towards the East; and afterwards burnt their inwards, and the Priest ate the rest of the flesh. And as for the Cakes the High Priest took the one, and the other was divided among all the Courses who were then present.

It was not so much the solemnity or multitude of the Sacrifices of this day that challenged the appearance of all the People in the whole Land, though the offerings were many and solemn, but it was the Memorial which the Feast carried with it, namely of the Law, being given to Israel, at that time of the year from Mount Sinai.

On this day was the Hallel sung, as was intimated before, and on this day was the great gift of tongues visibly bestowed upon the Disciples.