Holy Hormones Bible Study: Teaching — not Entertainment

What time of day was the Passover Lamb slain?

FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD #7

Disclosure: I’m not a Messianic. I’m an NT Saint who has been exposed to my OT Heritage.

This post continues the rag-tag series on the closer examination of some of the aspects of the Passover/Last Supper. If you have come in part-way through the series, there is some explanation in the earlier episodes to be found in FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD

Importance of definitions — is near-enough-good-enough?

Sometimes a little knowledge is dangerous. Sometimes just a little knowledge clears up a lot of misunderstanding. Now armed with just a little knowledge about the sun’s daily traverse of the sky, it is possible to investigate one of the major causes of confusion about the events of the Crucifixion — at what time of day did God command that the Passover Lamb be slain? [The passover sacrifice was to be a male of the flock, lamb or kid (Exodus 12:5). However, because of the Title given Christ several times, “lamb” will be used for this project.]

The instructions about the timing of the sacrifice

Yehovah gave Israel specific instructions about when to slay the Passover lamb. It is written in Exodus 12:6 || And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.(KJV)

והיה לכם למשמרת עד ארבעה עשר יום לחדש הזה ושחטו אתו כל קהל עדת־ישראל בין הערבים׃

(remembering Hebrew flows right-to-left)

Of the more than 60 Bible versions of the Bible translation site biblegateway.com,1 all except the Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB) translated these words into English along the lines of twilight, in the evening, at sundown, at dusk — all singular nouns, all commonly related to the last gasp of light rapidly fading at the end of the day. This brings a different picture to mind if you live in the tropical (10 minutes) or polar (10 weeks) regions. It seems of no consequence until investigating what type of meal was the Last Supper. A lot of preparation for a meal can be done in 10 weeks.

What idea is being conveyed to the Israelites on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea?

The Jewish translation for the exact same Hebrew text (chebad.org) of Exodus 12:6 is written || And you shall keep it for inspection until the fourteenth day of this month, and the entire congregation of the community of Israel shall slaughter it in the afternoon.

Why the difference? Which one is correct? Does it matter?

It may come as a surprise to Torahfied NT Saints but the Hebrew speakers get it correct because of something to which English speakers are blissfully ignorant — the Grammar of a Hebraism which is cumbersome, though not impossible, to translate into English (I can’t comment on other languages).

It is to do with the number of a noun. In English we have singular nouns (one object) and plural (more than one). Hebrew is similar but it adds dual nouns — two objects that are coupled together, not just two randomly chosen, mutually exclusive objects. The spelling is the same for two or more objects (ים). I have no idea how to tell the difference but Blue Letter Bible does (I hope).

If I do a good job, this will become clearer shortly.

Common parsing of the Hebrew phrase — theology and emotion unnecessary

This author does not pretend to have more than a superficial knowledge of Hebrew. However, the Hebrew in this case is so simple that a good reference, in this instance Blue Letter Bible,2 is more than adequate to chew it up syllable-by-syllable — Big Mac style.

Spelling of Hebrew transliterated to English is hit-and-miss but this phrase could go along the lines of bin e’orbim, ben ha arbayim, or something like that. The phrase can be sub-divided using Hebrew syntax into a preposition (בין) followed by a word construction of prefix (ה) root (ערב) suffix (ים); (Reading in the English direction, left-to-right. Confusing, I know, but it will soon make sense.)

Table 1 shows the parsing of בין which is a preposition having the flavour of between.

Table 1: Parsing of בין

Table 2 shows the parsing of הערבים, a noun which is not singular. It is that rascal dual, denoting two specific items which are the same type and have a connection, a coupling. In this case the connection is being successive evenings.

Table 2: Parsing of הערבים

Figure 1: Interlinear translation of Exodus 12:26

So בין הערבים should be translated, “Between the evenings,” and, being a dual, it describes a special relationship of events in succession. The translation is confirmed by Figure 1 which is provided by the website Scripture 4 All.3 As does the TS2009 translation.4 But, as can be seen, the examples are few and far between.

Which is the most useful translation?

Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB) || And it will be with you for mishmeret (examination, checking for blemishes) up until the fourteenth day of the same month; and kol Kehal Adat Yisroel shall slaughter (shachat) it in the afternoon [before dark].

But this was discovered only after some detailed investigation. Always open to correction, this once again demonstrates that the Holy Spirit always rewards diligence (2 Timothy 2:15) — sometimes in a surprising manner.

What the Sages say

Careful study of the Talmud and other Hebrew Sacred Texts5 show this phrase, “between the evenings,” to be a Hebrew colloquialism easily understood by them.

There are numerous attempts from venerated Hebrew Sages to give a time, the general idea is one of the sun has finished rising, the light is at its strongest, and is now beginning to wane. There is no strict consensus on the hour of the day but there seems to be a glimpse of afternoon tea time.

Probably the most venerated Jewish Sage of the Middle Ages, Rashi,6 gives a commentary in this link.7 Figure 2 shows the picture in terms of Geodesy.

Figure 2: Between the evenings

The Ultimate Authority

Fortunately for us, the Holy Spirit comes to the rescue. Matthew 27 provides the time to the precision available for the technology of that era. It is about the 9th hour on the Hebrew clock, as is written in Matthew 27:46–50 || And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” … And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.

Does the time of day matter?

Yes. It will be shown in the series, somewhere, that the specified size of the beast takes about 4½ hours to slay, dress, and cook. It is not a convenience take-away meal.

But why the fuss?

This little exercise shows that Yehovah gave precise instructions about the Passover. The slaying of the Passover Lamb is carried out long before the onset of darkness. This eliminates one of the confusing (to some people) aspects of the English translations.

The phrase, ben ha arbayim, occurs 11 times in the Tanakh, all in the Torah — Exodus 12:6, Exodus 16:12, Exodus 29:39, Exodus 29:41, Exodus 30:8, Leviticus 23:5, Numbers 9:3, Numbers 9:5, Numbers 9:11, Numbers 28:4, Numbers 28:8. In each case the NIV uses the singular, ‘twilight.’ The NKJV also uses the singular, ‘twilight,’ but intermittently places a footnote, literally between the evenings, the NASB does similarly. The ESV inserts the footnote only once, at Exodus 12:6. Other versions also have an intermittent scattering of the footnote or omit it altogether. The Christian translators demonstrate no importance being attached to the phrase. This leads to a deficient understanding of this extremely important event. THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT IN YOUR ETERNITY! Are there other deficiencies you should know about? The information is there to be found for those who are interested.

Discoveries so far in this series

• The phrase, first (G4413) day of Unleavened Bread, (Mark 14:12, Matthew 26:17, Luke 22:7) refers to the importance of the day and not a place in the queue.

• The Bread in Last Supper was not Matzah (unleavened) so the Last Supper was taken on the day of the Passover but was not a Passover Meal as instructed by Yehovah.

• The Passover sacrifice definitely happened at afternoon tea time. The major English Bible translators did not conduct rigorous exegesis.

• The Rabbis are also not strict with their definitions.

• The price of truth is eternal vigilance. (A variation on a wise saying.)

This has been interesting to me but perhaps not to you. (We all have different interests.)

The good news is that the foundations have been laid and the pace of discoveries is about to pick up.

The forgoing evidence has not been presented to convince any reader but to allow a personal decision to be made. There is much more to know about this subject. Perhaps you’ll pay another visit, sometime.

All Glory to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

(We all have a plank in our eye. It’s bigger than we think.)

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1 Exodus 12:6 https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Exodus%2012:6

2 Parsing of הערבים & בין https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/exo/12/1/t_concf_62006

3Scripture 4 All http://www.scripture4all.org/

4TS2009 translation https://www.bible.com/bible/316/EXO.12.TS2009

5Sacred Hebrew Texts https://www.sefaria.org/texts

6 Rashi https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/who-was-rashi/

7 “in the afternoon” https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9873/showrashi/true#lt=primary