Exodus 12:16

16 It will be for you on the first day a holy assembly and on the seventh day a holy assembly; no work will be done on them; only what is eaten by every person, it alone will be prepared for you.

Exodus 12:16 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 12:16

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

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

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

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

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

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

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Exodus 12:16 In-Context

14 "And this day will become a memorial for you, and you will celebrate it as a religious feast for Yahweh throughout your generations; you will celebrate it as a lasting statute.

15 You will eat unleavened bread for seven days. Surely on the first day you shall remove yeast from your houses, because anyone [who] eats [food with] yeast from the first day until the seventh day--that person will be cut off from Israel.

16 It will be for you on the first day a holy assembly and on the seventh day a holy assembly; no work will be done on them; only what is eaten by every person, it alone will be prepared for you.

17 "And you will keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because on this very day I brought out your divisions from the land of Egypt, and you will keep this day for your generations as a lasting statute.

18 On the first [day], on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, you will eat unleavened bread until the evening of the twenty-first day of the month.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "summons," "convocation"
• [b]. Or "summons," "convocation"