This month shall be to you the beginning of months: it shall be the first in the months of the year.

This month is to you the chief of months, it is the first to you of the months of the year;

Let this month be to you the first of months, the first month of the year.

Mensis iste principium vobis erit mensium, et primus idem vobis in mensibus anni.

This month - Abib Exodus 13:4. It was called "Nisan" by the later Hebrews, and nearly corresponds to our April. The Israelites are directed to take Abib henceforth as the beginning of the year; the year previously began with the month Tisri, when the harvest was gathered in; see Exodus 23:16. The injunction touching Abib or Nisan referred only to religious rites; in other affairs they retained the old arrangement, even in the beginning of the Sabbatic year; see Leviticus 25:9.

This month shall be unto you the beginning of months - It is supposed that God now changed the commencement of the Jewish year. The month to which this verse refers, the month Abib, answers to a part of our March and April; whereas it is supposed that previously to this the year began with Tisri, which answers to a part of our September; for in this month the Jews suppose God created the world, when the earth appeared at once with all its fruits in perfection. From this circumstance the Jews have formed a twofold commencement of the year, which has given rise to a twofold denomination of the year itself, to which they afterwards attended in all their reckonings: that which began with Tisri or September was called their civil year; that which began with Abib or March was called the sacred or ecclesiastical year.
As the exodus of the Israelites formed a particular era, which is referred to in Jewish reckonings down to the building of the temple, I have marked it as such in the chronology in the margin; and shall carry it down to the time in which it ceased to be acknowledged.
Some very eminently learned men dispute this; and especially Houbigant, who contends with great plausibility of argument that no new commencement of the year is noted in this place; for that the year had always begun in this month, and that the words shall be, which are inserted by different versions, have nothing answering to them in the Hebrew, which he renders literally thus. Hic mensis vobis est caput mensium; hic vobis primus est anni mensis. "This month is to you the head or chief of the months; it is to you the first month of the year." And he observes farther that God only marks it thus, as is evident from the context, to show the people that this month, which was the beginning of their year, should be so designated as to point out to their posterity on what month and on what day of the month they were to celebrate the passover and the fast of unleavened bread. His words are these: "Ergo superest, et Hebr. ipso ex contextu efficitur, non hic novi ordinis annum constitui, sed eum anni mensem, qui esset primus, ideo commemorari, ut posteris constaret, quo mense, et quo die mensis paseha et azyma celebranda essent."

This (a) month [shall be] unto you the beginning of months: it [shall be] the first (b) month of the year to you.
(a) Called Nisan, containing part of March and part of April.
(b) Concerning the observation of feasts: as for other policies, they reckoned from September.

This month shall be unto you the beginning of months,.... Not only the first, as after expressed, but the chief and principal of them, now famous for their coming out of Egypt in it, and would be more so for the sufferings and death of the Messiah, and redemption by him from sin, Satan, and the world, law, hell, and death, for he suffered at the time of the passover. This month was called Abib, Exodus 13:4, which signifies an ear of corn, and at this time we find that the barley was in ear, Exodus 9:31 which clearly shows in what month the above things were transacted; afterwards it was called Nisan, which seems to be the Chaldean name for it, Nehemiah 2:1, it shall be the first month of the year to you; which before was the seventh; while the Israelites were in Egypt they observed the same beginning of the year and course of months as the Egyptians, as Josephus (z) intimates; and with the Egyptians, the month Thot was the first month, which answered to Tisri with the Jews, and both to our September, or a part of it, so that the beginning of the year was then in the autumnal equinox, at which season it is thought the world was created; but now to the Israelites it was changed unto the vernal equinox, for this month of Abib or Nisan answers to part of our March and part of April; though indeed both beginnings of the year were observed by them, the one on ecclesiastic, the other on civil accounts; or, as Josephus (a) expresses it, the month of Nisan was the beginning with respect to things divine, but in buying and selling, and such like things, the ancient order was observed; and so the Targum of Jonathan here paraphrases it,"from hence ye shall begin to reckon the feasts, the times, and the revolutions.''Indeed the Jews had four beginnings of the year according to their Misnah (b); the first of Nisan (or March) was the beginning of the year for kings and for festivals; the first of Elul (or August) for the tithing of cattle; the first of Tisri (or September) for the sabbatical years, jubilees, and planting of trees and herbs; and the first of Shebet (or January) for the tithing the fruit of trees.
(z) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 3. sect. 3. (a) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 3. sect. 3. (b) Misn. Roshhashanah, c. 1. sect. 1.

this month shall be unto you the beginning of months--the first not only in order but in estimation. It had formerly been the seventh according to the reckoning of the civil year, which began in September, and continued unchanged, but it was thenceforth to stand first in the national religious year which began in March, April.

This shall be to you the beginning of months - They had hitherto begun their year from the middle of September, but hence - forward they were to begin it from the middle of March, at least in all their ecclesiastical computations. We may suppose that while Moses was bringing the ten plagues upon the Egyptians, he was directing the Israelites to prepare for their departure at an hour's warning. Probably he had, by degrees, brought them near together from their dispersions, for they are here called the congregation of Israel; and to them, as a congregation, orders are here sent.