Their FESTIVALS, FASTS, and RELIGIOUS RITES, have also a great resemblance to those of the Hebrews. It will be necessary here to take a short view of the principal Jewish feasts, &c. They kept every year, a sacred feast called the Passover, in memory of their deliverance from Egyptian {94} bondage. Seven days were appointed, _Lev._ xxiii.—To these they added an eighth, through a religious principle, as preparatory, to clear their houses of all leaven, and to fix their minds before they entered on that religious duty. The name of this festival is derived from a word which signifies to “pass over;” because, when the destroying angel flew through the Egyptian houses, and killed their first-born, he passed over those of the Israelites, the tops of whose doors were stained with the blood of the lamb, which they were ordered to kill. This solemnity was instituted with the strongest injunctions, to let their children know the cause of that observance, and to mark that night through all their generations. Three days before this sacred festival, they chose a lamb, without spot or blemish, and killed it on the evening of the fourteenth day of Abib, which was the first moon of the ecclesiastical, and the seventh of the civil year; and they ate it with bitter herbs, without breaking any of the bones of it, thus prefiguring the death of Messiah. This was the reason that this was the chief of the days of unleavened bread, and they were strictly forbidden all manner of work on that day; besides, no uncircumcised, or unclean persons ate of the paschal lamb. Those of the people, whom diseases or long journies prevented from observing the passover on that day, were obliged to keep it in the next moon. On the fifteenth day, which was the second of the passover, they offered up to God a sheaf of the new barley-harvest, because it was the earliest grain. The priest carried it into the temple, and having cleaned and parched it, he grinded or pounded it into flower, dipt it in oil, and then waved it before the Lord, throwing some into the fire. The Jews were forbidden to eat any of their new harvest, till they had offered up a sheaf, the grain of which filled an omer, a small measure of about five pints. All was impure and unholy till this oblation was made, but afterwards it became hallowed, and every one was at liberty to reap and get in his harvest.