One of the questions I get asked all the time is when to celebrate the Pessach? This issue arises because of the wording of Exo 12:6
וְהָיָה לָכֶם לְמִשְׁמֶרֶת עַד אַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר יוֹם לַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה וְשָׁחֲטוּ אֹתוֹ כֹּל קְהַל עֲדַת יִשְׂרָאֵל בֵּין הָעַרְבָּיִם
“You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, and then the entire assembly of the community of Isra’el will slaughter it at dusk” (CJB)
The term בין הערביים –Beyin Ha’Arbayim is temporal construct form used to describe a specific time of day, and found in several places in the Bible. One of the most important places it is used is in connection to the time of the Pesach sacrifice as prescribed in Exodus 12:6. This term has created many arguments over when to do things, and in fact has raised the question of how does the Torah understand time in overall.
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Take a detailed stroll through the opening verses of Exodus 12 as Yoel teaches this Passover text to the weekly group Hebrew Bible Class. You will hear the Hebrew text read, translated and explained according to the ancient culture.
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Yoel explains the three Hebrew words for leaven used in Exodus 12:15 in this fun and informative debut broadcast with Jono Vandor at Truth2U.org.
In Deuteronomy 16 we find the words:
“Observe the month Aviv and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in that month he brought you out of Egypt by night. You must sacrifice the Passover animal from the flock or the herd to the Lord your God in the place where he chooses to locate his name. You must not eat any yeast with it; for seven days you must eat with it (the English omits this while the Aleppo, Samaritan, and the dead sea scrolls have the words “with it”) unleavened bread, bread of affliction, for you came out of Egypt hurriedly. You must do this so you will remember for the rest of your life the day you came out of the land of Egypt. There must not be a scrap of yeast within your land for seven days, nor can any of the meat you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain until the next morning. You may not sacrifice the Passover in just any of your villages that the Lord your God is giving you.” Deut 16:1-5
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