"But at the place which Yahweh thy Elohim shall
choose to place his name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the passover
at even [ba-ereb], at the going down
of the sun , at the season that thou
camest forth out of Egypt."
It is important to understand what this phrase means. Notice the
phrase does not say "sunset" or
"sundown," but "at the going down."
That means the sun was on its way down, but had not reached that
point yet. It was "going" down, but not gone.
The verse says to sacrifice the Passover as the sun is going down. It
does not say to sacrifice the Passover after the sun has set. The
sun is only "going down" at the end of a day, not the
beginning.
Proof that this phrase can mean "prior to sunset" is found by
studying two verses in the book of Joshua wherein the same Hebrew
phrase occurs.
Josh.8:29 , "And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until eventide
[ereb]: and as soon
as the sun was down , Joshua commanded
that they should take his carcase down from the tree, and cast it at
the entering of the gate of the city, and raise thereon a great heap
of stones, that remaineth unto this day."
Josh.10:26,27 , "... and they were hanging upon the trees until the
evening [ereb]. And it came to pass at the time of the
going down of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them down
off the trees, and cast them into the cave wherein they had been hid,
and laid great stones in the cave's mouth, which remain until this
very day."
The underlined words in both verses are the equivalent Hebrew of "at
the going down" in Deut.16:6. Notice one verse says the sun was
already down and the other verse says it was going down. To
understand what the status of the sun really was, we must look at the
commandment that led Joshua to order the king's body taken down. It
is found in Deut.21:22,23;
"And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be
put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain
all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise
bury him that
day ; (for he that is hanged is
accursed of Elohim;) that thy land be not defiled, which Yahweh thy
Elohim giveth thee for an inheritance."
Yahweh commanded the body to be
removed and buried the same day
. To accomplish that, the body had to be removed before sunset . After
sunset would have been a new day. Josh.8:29 should have been
translated "at the going down of the sun" just as Deut.16:6 and
Josh.10:27 were. This also shows that the word "ereb" in Josh.8:29
and 10:27 has the meaning of "before sunset" in these cases.