The Passover (Exodus 12:1-20)

1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron [who were Levites and responsible for keeping and teaching the law] in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. [Why? Think liturgical calendar.] 3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household. 4 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. [The heart of Passover is a meal, a commemorative feast that requires special preparation. The principal regarding the number of people and the amount of meat to be eaten can be reduced to this: everyone had to eat the meat, and all the meat had to be eaten.] 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish [symbolic meaning not taste], a male a year old. [Lambs are born in the spring. It is now the spring. How could an animal provide perfection for those who consumed it so that they could become acceptable to God? “Jesus of Nazareth was to be young at the time of his death, male of course, and perfect—free from defect before God. His sinlessness qualified him and him alone to be the lamb of God, a human lamb rather than an animal of the flock, and yet a lamb in the sense of one meeting the criteria for the Passover meal.” (Stuart)] You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month [when the moon was full], when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight [eating them after sunset].

7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. [Why was this needed? Did God really need a sign or was this for the people? Like the sign of the cross, it demonstrates confidence in God’s power to kill as well as to rescue.] 8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. [The meal demonstrates the Israelites readiness to leave Egypt immediately.] 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. [Roasting is the fastest preparation.] 10 And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. [The Israelites might have been tempted to save some for breakfast. By burning the remains, they show faith in the provision of God.] 11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. [Why staff in hand?] And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. [There is actually only one God and faith in him is the only faith that accomplishes salvation and provides eternal life. The Egyptians were pantheists. Pantheism is a belief system in which all nature is thought to partake of the divine. Anything that exists is a manifestation of, or a part of, or an extension of, a god. What religions today follow this practice and why is it so wrong?] 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

14 “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. [This is not a one-time event. Each generation must renew for itself an awareness of the original Passover and its meaning.] 15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. [This is not a requirement of the first Passover but of the first memorial festival.] On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel [which could be paraphrased “God will see to it that this person is cut off,” meaning it is a divine curse rather than a legal guideline]. [Unleavened bread is the unique food of Passover. Keeping this requirement is the sign of faith that supersedes the sign of blood.] 16 On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly [days devoted to worship, a group enterprise outside the daily routine of labor]. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. 17 And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. [The Israelite are not merely leaving a place; they were also going to a place they would have to conquer militarily on God’s behalf.] Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. 18 In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. 19 For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. 20 You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”