Approaching Easter - Pesach

The word pesach means Passover, and it commemorates God's mercy toward the Jewish people on the night of the Passover in Egypt, for He took the lives of the Egyptian firstborn, but He passed over the homes where Jews were eating their pesach offering because they had placed lamb's blood on their door frames.

This just preceded their exodus from Egypt and slavery, led by Moses, and their journey toward the Promised Land.

From Exodus 12:1-7

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 'This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.

'Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.

'If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are...

'The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.

'Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.

'Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs...'


Notes:

1. The Hebrew word for lamb and kid (baby goat) are the same. There is no one-word translation in English.

2.  The Hebrew word we translate "community" or "assembly" refers to a society united by their common calling. This is the first time the word is found in the Torah, implying that the commandment of the pesach-offering ushered in a new era. The Jewish people were now a nation, united by its common calling as God's Chosen People.

3. The animals were to be chosen on the tenth day of the month and then brought for sacrifice on the late afternoon of the fourteenth day.

4. The animals were to be inspected for blemishes.

5. Lambs and kids were worshipped by the Egyptians as part of their religion. When God chose these animals as acceptable sacrifices, He was showing the Egyptians that He, the LORD God Almighty, was in control of world events.

6. The four-day interval was part of the miracle of redemption, according to Hebrew rabbinical scholars.

     The Egyptians would see their gods -- the lambs and goats -- tethered to the beds of the Jews and would ask, "What is the purpose of this?" The Jews would explain that the animals were being prepared as sacrifices and offerings for God. The Egyptians would be furious, but at least would know what was happening.

7. Because this happened on the tenth day of Nissan, which was the Sabboth that year, the Sabbath before Passover is called Shabbos HaGadol (The Great Sabboth), in commemoration of that great miracle.


8. The household would be the extended family: grandparents and their families.

Those participating in the meal must be counted and designated in advance and the appropriate amount of meat provided for each. (The minimum required for each person eating the meal was the volume of an olive, according to Hebrew commentaries.)

"Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world," John the Baptist declared of Christ.

(John 1:29)

"For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed."

(1 Corinthians 5:7)

Christ was crucified at the time of the Passover celebration.