In the midst of our lives, sure meals have the flexibility to powerfully evoke reminiscences: the style of your favourite birthday dessert, the odor of a sizzling canine at a baseball recreation, or the mixture of turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy at Thanksgiving. A meal’s multi-sensory expertise can join the meals to previous occasions and the folks with whom we shared them.
It’s unsurprising, then, that because the Israelites stand on the precipice of their departure from Egypt within the guide of Exodus, the Lord instructions them to organize and eat a meal, a shared meal that can be about remembering what God has performed for his folks.
The primary a part of the guide of Exodus tells of the good redemptive occasion of the Previous Testomony, the Lord rescuing his folks from slavery in Egypt. God heard their cry for assist, enacted 10 plagues to show his sovereign would possibly over the powers of Egypt, led his folks out of slavery, and delivered them via the Crimson Sea. That is an occasion that Israel will rehearse in track (e.g. Psalms 78, 105, and 106) in the identical approach that we sing hymns concerning the loss of life and resurrection of Jesus.
One of many climactic moments on this dramatic rescue story is the tenth and ultimate plague, wherein the firstborn of Egypt was killed, however the Lord handed over the firstborn of Israel. This incident would precipitate an pressing exit from Egypt for the folks of Israel (Exodus 12:33–34), and the Lord ready them upfront with a sequence of directions in order that they might be prepared. A central factor of these directions is the Passover meal.
The Lord’s instructions for this primary Passover meal have been particular, each what was to be eaten and the way, all of it carrying significance. The three specified meals gadgets for the meal will be discovered described in Exodus 12:1–13: a lamb with out blemish, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs.
The Components of the Passover Meal
The lamb is on the very coronary heart of the meal, and it receives probably the most detailed directions for its preparation and consuming. Previous the meal itself, this lamb performed a crucial position within the occasions of the primary Passover. Its blood was to be positioned on the doorposts and lintels of the house wherein the animal was to be eaten. The Lord’s judgment would fall upon the firstborn of Egypt, however each home marked by the lamb’s blood can be handed over, such that not one of the youngsters in these homes would die (Exodus 12:13, 21–23).
Although the sacrificial system outlined in Leviticus had not but been established, this act of preservation by the use of the lamb’s blood is finest understood as being sacrificial in nature (see Exodus 12:27). The lifetime of the lamb had been given instead of Israel’s firstborn.
Seeing the lamb as sacrificial helps to raised perceive the preparation and consuming of the lamb. First, the lamb have to be “with out blemish” (Exodus 12:5), like lots of the sacrifices prescribed in Leviticus (Leviticus 1:3; 3:1; 22:19, 21). It could be inappropriate to supply one thing of compromised worth to the Lord (Malachi 1:8). Second, the lamb needed to be eaten in its entirety that evening, and any leftovers have been to be burned (Exodus 12:10). This too is akin to numerous sacrifices in Leviticus (Leviticus 7:15–16; 19:5–6), and signifies the sacred nature of the lamb, that it shouldn’t be handled irreverently.
Because of the lamb’s perform as a sacrifice, consuming its meat as part of the meal ought to remind Israel of the Lord’s provision of salvation. God had given the lamb in order that their homes can be handed over, and their firstborn spared. Because of this, New Testomony authors will make connections between the Passover lamb and Jesus (extra on this under).
Along with the lamb, the Passover meal was to incorporate unleavened bread. Why was the bread to be ready with out leaven? Following the loss of life of the Egyptian firstborn, we learn: “The Egyptians have been pressing with the folks to ship them out of the land in haste. For they mentioned, ‘We will all be useless’” (Exodus 12:33).
So nice and decisive was the Lord’s ultimate plague that the Egyptians glimpsed the ability of the Israelites’ God and couldn’t wait to get them out of city. As part of the hurried departure from the land, there was no time for bread to be leavened (Exodus 12:34, 39). The inclusion of unleavened bread within the Lord’s directions for the meal, then, is in anticipation of this nice and decisive act, wherein God would show the power of his mighty hand within the land of Egypt.
The lamb was additionally to be eaten with bitter herbs. For Israel, these have been probably supposed to remind the folks of the bitter servitude of their lives in Egypt. This notion is supported by the truth that the Hebrew phrase for bitter herbs is expounded to a phrase used earlier within the guide of Exodus, describing their state of affairs below Egyptian oppression: “So that they ruthlessly made the folks of Israel work as slaves and embittered (my translation) their lives with onerous service, in mortar and brick, and in all types of labor within the area. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves” (Exodus 1:13–14).
As part of this meal, the Lord desires his folks to look backwards, whilst he’s rescuing them out of Egypt. Consuming the meal with bitter herbs, then, serves as a reminder of the horrible circumstances from which he delivered them.
The Lord supposed the weather of the Passover meal to have particular which means for the folks of Israel. The lamb, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs pointed to options of his redemptive work, the cruel servitude they’d skilled in Egypt, his nice energy to ship them, and the supply of a sacrifice given on their behalf.
When it comes to how the meal was to be eaten, the Lord directed every family to share a lamb. Exodus specifies every man taking a lamb in response to “their fathers’ homes,” a designation that will have included greater than what we consider as a nuclear household, however fairly a number of generations of a household dwelling collectively. If that proved to be an excessive amount of meals for a smaller family, a lamb ought to be shared with a neighboring family (Exodus 12:3–4). The important thing level right here is that the Passover meal is explicitly communal. God’s redemption was skilled within the context of the covenant neighborhood, and this meal additional strengthens the bonds of that neighborhood.
The Repetition of the Passover Meal
However this particular shared meal was not supposed as a one-time occasion for that first group popping out of Egypt. Relatively, it was to be repeated yearly, yearly commemorating the good redemption that Israel had obtained from the Lord: “Today shall be for you a memorial day, and also you shall hold it as a feast to the Lord; all through your generations, as a statute ceaselessly, you shall hold it as a feast” (Exodus 12:14). Annually, the folks of Israel have been to eat the meal once more (Exodus 12:25, 43–49), after which for seven days eat solely unleavened bread (Exodus 3:3–10).
From the biblical textual content, we will see a minimum of two capabilities for this ongoing commemoration. First, it supplied a chance for every new era of Israelites to recollect the Lord’s nice act of redemption in bringing them out from the land of Egypt. Within the directions for the continuing observance of the Passover, on a number of events the folks of Israel are explicitly informed how they need to talk the importance of the memorial to their youngsters (Exodus 12:26–27; 13:6–8). We will take into account it akin to a Christian celebration of Good Friday and Easter, and the way dad and mom converse to their youngsters on nowadays about Jesus’ loss of life and resurrection.
Second, this annual Passover celebration gave every new era of Israelites a chance to acknowledge their very own inclusion within the redeemed folks of God. Language used within the textual content makes clear that new generations should not merely to look again and mirror upon a neighborhood that lived way back, however to see that they themselves at the moment are a part of this redeemed neighborhood.
Within the guide of Deuteronomy, Moses speaks to the folks of Israel about Passover commemoration after 40 years of wandering within the wilderness. A lot of these in his viewers would have been born because the Exodus. As such, they themselves wouldn’t have skilled these occasions. And but, Moses says to your entire group: “You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you got here out of the land of Egypt in haste—that every one the times of your life chances are you’ll bear in mind the day when you got here out of the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 16:3, emphasis mine).
The Significance of the Passover Meal In the present day
For Christians right this moment, we will be taught from this meal and what it represents. God has delivered us from slavery to sin by an act of his nice energy, via the shed blood of his Son. We have now a fair better redemption in Christ, who delivers his chosen folks from the slavery of sin and loss of life!
It’s no marvel that the New Testomony usually makes connections between the Passover and Jesus’ saving work. To say just some examples, the Apostle Paul refers to Jesus as “Christ, our Passover lamb,” who “has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). In his Gospel, John writes that whereas being crucified, Jesus’ bones weren’t damaged (John 19:33–36), a attainable allusion to the unbroken bones of the Passover lamb (Exodus 12:46). Lastly, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all specify that the Final Supper was a Passover meal (Matthew 26:17–19; Mark 14:12–16; Luke 22:7–13).
As we mirror on that even-greater redemption we’ve got in Christ, we keep in mind that we too have now been included into the folks of God which spans historical past and geography, referred to as to stay our lives as Christians in our personal time and place. This is the reason within the New Testomony, the Apostle Peter can draw on language from Exodus 19:4–6, when he writes, “However you’re a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a folks for his personal possession, that you could be proclaim the excellencies of him who referred to as you out of darkness into his marvelous mild. As soon as you weren’t a folks, however now you might be God’s folks; when you had not obtained mercy, however now you’ve obtained mercy” (1 Peter 2:9–10). This provides a way of goal to our day by day actions, as we search to observe Jesus.
For we all know that as part of this redeemed folks, God is weaving our lives into his nice tapestry of redemption, as was true of our ancestors within the religion who ate that very first Passover meal.
Aaron Goldstein is assistant professor of Previous Testomony at Covenant Theological Seminary.
