The character of the Passover sacrifice—for it is called ze-vakh (sacrifice)—is pretty plain. There was nothing burnt to the Lord; the holy character of the lamb was preserved by anything remaining over to be burnt, no bone to be broken, nor any part carried out of the house; but there was no sweet savor to the Lord, it had not that character of sacrifice—no altar or place of approach, neither hik-riv (brought near) nor hik-tir (burnt in sweet savor). It was not in character nor effect, coming to God; it was keeping God, as a righteous Judge, out, so that they escaped—keeping Him righteously out (we can say by glorifying gloriously His righteousness), but still as a needed means meeting the case, and excluding the Judge as having now no ground for entering. Deliverance by God (that is, the Red Sea), drawing near to God, a sweet savor to Him, or coming to Him in any way of worship or communion, are not found here.
8, 10. The fact that the Passover was to be eaten at night, and nothing left till the morning or burned, seems, I think, to intimate that it was entirely apart from the whole course and scene in which nature and sense are conversant—a matter between God and the soul abstractedly, in the full undistracted claim and holiness of the divine nature. No circumstances entered into it—no question of compassionate apprehension of seen misery. It was sin and the holy judgment of God met, where nothing else was; so, as a sign of this deep and infinite truth, all was darkness for three hours with Christ on the cross—nature hidden—all between God and Him. Then all was to be burnt—there was no mixing it with anything common; Israel was sanctified by it, like the priests, so that they ate it, but it could not be mixed with other food.