Passover

The Passover is the founding feast of the redeemed nation. Instituted on the night of Israel's release from Egypt, it binds the killing of a lamb, the smearing of blood on the doorposts, and the eating of the meal in haste to a single saving act of Yahweh: he passes over the houses where the blood is seen and strikes the firstborn of Egypt. The fourteenth of the first month becomes its date, the seven days that follow become the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the rite is carried as a fixed memorial through the conquest, the divided monarchy, the exile, the second temple, and into the gospel narratives, where Jesus eats the Passover with his disciples on the night before his death and Paul names him "our Passover."

Institution at the Exodus

The institution is staged in detail in Exodus 12. Each household selects a lamb on the tenth, "without blemish, a male a year old" (Ex 12:5), and keeps it until the fourteenth, "and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel will kill it at evening" (Ex 12:6). The blood goes "on the two side-posts and on the lintel, on the houses in which they will eat it" (Ex 12:7), and the flesh is eaten "roast with fire, and unleavened bread; with bitter herbs they will eat it" (Ex 12:8). Posture itself testifies to the night: "with your⁺ loins girded, your⁺ sandals on your⁺ feet, and your⁺ staff in your⁺ hand; and you⁺ will eat it in a hurry: it is Yahweh's Passover" (Ex 12:11). The promise that names the rite follows immediately: "And the blood will be to you⁺ for a token on the houses where you⁺ are: and when I see the blood, [by my Speech] I will pass over you⁺, and there will be no plague on you⁺ to destroy you⁺, when I strike the land of Egypt" (Ex 12:13).

Moses then transmits the ordinance to the elders. Each family takes a bunch of hyssop, dips it in the blood "in the basin," and strikes "the lintel and the two side-posts" (Ex 12:22), and no one steps out of the door until morning. The catechesis is built into the meal itself: "And it will come to pass, when your⁺ sons will say to you⁺, What do you⁺ mean by this service? Then you⁺ will say, It is the sacrifice of Yahweh's Passover, who [by his Speech] passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians, and delivered our houses" (Ex 12:26-27). Hebrews reads that first night through the lens of trust: "By faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of the blood, that the destroyer of the firstborn should not touch them" (Heb 11:28). Numbers fixes the morning that follows in the itinerary: Israel "journeyed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the next day after the Passover the sons of Israel went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians" (Num 33:3).

The Lamb and Its Regulations

The ordinance of the lamb continues in Exodus 12:43-49. No foreigner eats of it; a slave bought for silver may eat once circumcised; a sojourner or hired worker may not eat. "In one house it will be eaten; you will not carry forth anything of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither will you⁺ break a bone of it" (Ex 12:46). Strangers who join Israel are bound by the same rule once their males are circumcised: "and he will be as one who is born in the land: but no uncircumcised person will eat of it. One law will be to him who is home-born, and to the stranger who sojourns among you⁺" (Ex 12:48-49).

Deuteronomy adds the rule of the central sanctuary. "You may not sacrifice the Passover inside any of your gates, which Yahweh your God gives you; but at the place which Yahweh your God will choose to make his name stay there, you will sacrifice the Passover at evening, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came forth out of Egypt" (Deut 16:5-6). The same chapter calls Israel to "Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to Yahweh your God; for in the month of Abib Yahweh your God brought you forth out of Egypt by night" (Deut 16:1) and reads the unleavened bread of the meal as "the bread of affliction; for you came forth out of the land of Egypt in a hurry: that you may remember the day when you came forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life" (Deut 16:3).

The festal calendar of Leviticus places the rite at the head of Israel's appointed seasons: "These are the set feasts of Yahweh, even holy convocations... In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, is Yahweh's Passover" (Lev 23:4-5). Ezekiel's restoration calendar reaffirms the same date and the same seven-day frame: "In the first [month], in the fourteenth day of the month, you⁺ will have the Passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread will be eaten" (Ezek 45:21).

The Feast of Unleavened Bread

Passover and Unleavened Bread are bound as one observance. "And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread to Yahweh: seven days you⁺ will eat unleavened bread. In the first day you⁺ will have a holy convocation: you⁺ will do no servile work" (Lev 23:6-7). Deuteronomy completes the symmetry: "Six days you will eat unleavened bread; and on the seventh day will be a solemn assembly to Yahweh your God; you will do no work [in it]" (Deut 16:8). The exclusion of leaven is total — "And there will be no leaven seen with you in all your borders seven days; neither will any of the flesh, which you sacrifice the first day at evening, remain all night until the morning" (Deut 16:4) — and the gospels still name the eight-day complex by either of the two titles: "Now the feast of unleavened bread drew near, which is called the Passover" (Luke 22:1).

The Second-Month Exception

The first wilderness Passover is kept "in the wilderness of Sinai: according to all that Yahweh commanded Moses" (Num 9:5). But certain men are unclean by reason of a corpse and "could not keep the Passover on that day" (Num 9:6); Moses takes their case to Yahweh and the law of the second month is given. "If any man of you⁺ or of your⁺ generations will be unclean by reason of a soul, or be on a journey far off, yet he will keep the Passover to Yahweh. In the second month on the fourteenth day at evening they will keep it; they will eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs: they will leave none of it to the morning, nor break a bone of it" (Num 9:10-12). The provision is mercy, not laxity: "But the man who is clean, and is not on a journey, and forbears to keep the Passover, that soul will be cut off from his people; because he didn't offer the oblation of Yahweh in its appointed season" (Num 9:13).

Joshua, Hezekiah, Josiah, and the Return

The historic Passovers chart the nation's liturgical memory. Joshua keeps the first Passover in the land: "And the sons of Israel encamped in Gilgal; and they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening in the plains of Jericho. And they ate of the produce of the land on the next day after the Passover, unleavened cakes and parched grain, in the very same day" (Josh 5:10-11), and the manna ceases the day after (Josh 5:12).

Hezekiah's renewal invokes the second-month exception that Numbers had granted. The king "wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem, to keep the Passover" (2 Chr 30:1) "in the second month. For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves in sufficient number, neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem" (2 Chr 30:2-3). When the day comes, "they killed the Passover on the fourteenth [day] of the second month: and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought burnt-offerings into the house of Yahweh" (2 Chr 30:15). The seven-day sequel follows: "And the sons of Israel who were present at Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great gladness" (2 Chr 30:21).

Josiah's Passover is the standard against which every other is measured. "And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the Passover to Yahweh your⁺ God, as it is written in this book of the covenant. Surely there was not kept such a Passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah; but in the eighteenth year of King Josiah was this Passover kept to Yahweh in Jerusalem" (2 Kgs 23:21-23). The Chronicler names the date and divides the labor: "And Josiah kept a Passover to Yahweh in Jerusalem: and they killed the Passover on the fourteenth [day] of the first month" (2 Chr 35:1); "And they killed the Passover, and the priests sprinkled [the blood which they received] from their hand, and the Levites flayed them" (2 Chr 35:11). The verdict is identical: "And there was no Passover like that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did any of the kings of Israel keep such a Passover as Josiah kept" (2 Chr 35:18), with the seven-day sequel intact: "And the sons of Israel who were present kept the Passover at that time, and the feast of unleavened bread seven days" (2 Chr 35:17).

Under Zerubbabel and Ezra the post-exilic community recovers the rite. "And the sons of the captivity kept the Passover on the fourteenth [day] of the first month. For the priests and the Levites had purified themselves, all of them as one, but all the exiles had not purified themselves; for the Levites, all of them as one, were pure: and they killed the Passover for all the sons of the captivity, and for their brothers the priests, and for themselves" (Ezra 6:19-20). Then "the sons of Israel who had come again out of the captivity, and all such as had separated themselves to them from the filthiness of the nations of the land, to seek Yahweh, the God of Israel, ate, and kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy" (Ezra 6:21-22).

Jesus and His Disciples

The Passover frames the ministry of Jesus from beginning to end. John records his Jerusalem ascents at the feast: "And the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem" (John 2:13); "Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed on his name, watching his signs which he did" (John 2:23). The final week opens on the same calendar: "Now after two days it was going to be [the feast of] the Passover and the unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him with subtlety, and kill him" (Mark 14:1).

The disciples' question on the day of the meal anchors the Last Supper inside the Passover rite: "And on the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the Passover, his disciples say to him, Where do you want us to go and prepare that you may eat the Passover?" (Mark 14:12). Luke's parallel adds Peter and John as the preparers and the master's word at table: "And the day of unleavened bread came, on which the Passover must be sacrificed... With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you⁺ before I suffer" (Luke 22:7, 22:15). Inside that meal Jesus takes bread and cup: "Take⁺: this is my body... This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many" (Mark 14:22, 14:24). John reads the foot-washing through the same lens: "Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that his hour came that he should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end" (John 13:1).

The trial and the crucifixion are timed to the feast as well. The chief priests bring Jesus from Caiaphas "into the Praetorium: and it was early; and they themselves didn't enter into the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover" (John 18:28). Pilate invokes the prisoner custom — "Now at the feast he used to release to them one prisoner, whom they asked of him" (Mark 15:6); "But you⁺ have a custom, that I should release to you⁺ one at the Passover: do you⁺ want therefore that I release to you⁺ the King of the Jews?" (John 18:39) — and the sentence is pronounced on the same day: "Now it was the Preparation of the Passover: it was about the sixth hour. And he says to the Jews, Look, your⁺ King!" (John 19:14).

Christ Our Passover

Paul presses the lamb of Exodus 12 onto Christ. The Corinthian church's tolerance of incest is to be answered by a Passover purge: "Don't you⁺ know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Purge out the old leaven, that you⁺ may be a new lump, even as you⁺ are unleavened. For our Passover also has been sacrificed, [even] Christ: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Cor 5:6-8). The community itself is the unleavened lump; the slain Passover is the slain Christ; and the seven-day feast that followed the lamb in Exodus becomes the ongoing moral life of the church.