Note 62 — II. OUR DUTIES. (continued 3)

1. The Passover-lamb.—A short time before their departure from Egypt the Israelites were commanded by the Almighty that on the tenth of the first month every family should procure a lamb, keep it four days,62 kill it in the afternoon of the fourteenth, sprinkle of its blood on the “lintel and the two door-posts,” and “eat in the evening the meat roast in fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, in haste, their loins girded, their shoes on their feet and their staff in their hand” (Exod. xii. 3–11). Whatever the material benefit was which the Israelites, in the moment of starting for a long and uncertain journey, derived from the meal prepared and partaken of in this manner, there was a higher purpose in the Divine commandment; it was demanded that the lamb should be “a passover sacrifice unto the Lord” (ibid.). The proceedings should be an expression of faith in God,63 and of gratitude to Him for His protection. Every house should thus form a place holy unto the Lord; an altar, as it were, on which the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled.