And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb.
Beginning the year with spring, when the earth renews itself, was a fitting shadow of Christ's coming. Yet here is the deeper lesson: when our heads swim with care and our hands are full of urgent business, we must not let religion slip away or excuse ourselves from devotion. The sacred rite binds us to God even in our haste.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 12:1-20
And if the household be too little for the lamb,.... That they cannot eat it up at once: let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; which Josephus (e) says were never fewer than ten, and were often twenty, but no man might feast alone; with which agrees the Jewish canon (f),"they do not kill...
if the household be too little for the lamb, &c.--It appears from JOSEPHUS that ten persons were required to make up the proper paschal communion. every man according to his eating--It is said that the quantity eaten of the paschal lamb, by each individual, was about the size of an olive.