As to _time_; it was on the fourteenth day of the month Abib, corresponding to our March or April――the night next following this day being that of the last plague on Egypt――the night which broke their yoke of bondage. Henceforth, this was made the first month in the Hebrew year. The paschal lambs were _taken by households_. If the family was large, it stood by itself; if too small to consume one lamb, then two or more were united, the aim being to have the flesh of the lamb eaten entire. If any thing remained, it was to be burned in the morning.――It was to be roasted with fire, not eaten raw, and not boiled in water. (Ex. 12: 8, 9.) The arrangement _by families_ looked toward the great fact of the original event――that Egypt was _smitten by families_――there being not a house in which there was not one dead. Its influence must have been precious through all the ages of Hebrew history in cementing family ties and sanctifying the family relation. It was eaten with _unleavened bread_――the rule on this point being most stringent. No leaven might be eaten or even seen in their households during the entire feast of seven days. So prominent was this fact that the feast was called interchangeably, “The Passover,” or “The feast of unleavened bread.”――――The original design of this prohibition seems to have been commemorative――the great haste of their departure precluding the preparation of leavened bread for their journey. The allusions to “leaven” in the New Testament (Matt. 16: 6, 11, 12, and Luke 12 and 1 Cor. 5: 7) indicate that leaven was associated with “pride that puffeth up,” and is quite the opposite of that simplicity and purity of heart which God loves. It was also eaten with bitter herbs, the vegetable condiments of the supper suggesting the bitterness of that bondage in Egypt out of which they came (Ex. 12: 8).――――Yet another suggestive memorial usage was to eat with loins girt, shoes on, staff in hand (Ex. 12: 11), and in haste, as men ready to start a journey at a moment’s warning. The feast continued seven days (Ex. 12: 14–20), beginning with the evening of the paschal supper. The first day and the last were specially sacred, all labor being prohibited except that which was necessary in preparing their food (Ex. 12: 16).――――The object in allowing so much time was to provide for extended religious ceremonial services and for wholesome social communion, not to say also for cultivating national sympathy and patriotism. As all the males from every tribe in the whole land were required to come together on this great feast to the one place which God should appoint, the convocation was vast, and its social and religious influences were naturally both wholesome and great.