The First Passover

A new beginning. “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you” (12:2). God was about to rescue His people, so He started their calendar over. A lamb for each family. “On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb… a lamb for a household” (12:3). If a family was too small, they shared with a neighbor (12:4). Without blemish. “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year” (12:5). Without blemish means perfect, with nothing wrong. Kept and watched. “You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight” (12:6). For four days each family watched over its lamb. Then the lamb died so the family could live. The lamb took the family's place.

A new calendar (12:2). God marks the exodus as the start of Israel's year. Their identity as a nation would be counted from the night of their rescue. Later Israel called this month Abib (13:4), and after the exile it was known as Nisan. The household (12:3-4). The Passover was centered in the home. Each household took a lamb, and smaller households joined with neighbors “according to the number of the persons.” God's salvation is personal, and it is also shared with family and neighbors. “Without blemish” (12:5). The Hebrew tamim (say: tah-MEEM) means whole or complete. The same word describes sacrifices throughout the law, and Noah, who was “perfect in his generations” (Genesis 6:9). Peter later writes that believers were redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19). At twilight (12:6). The Hebrew phrase is literally “between the two evenings.” Every household killed its lamb at the same time. The whole nation acted together, under one command. The family lamb became, in a sense, the nation's lamb.

God gave His people a new start. He said this month would be the first month of their year. Then God gave them directions. Each family had to choose a lamb. Small families could share a lamb with neighbors. The lamb had to be a young male. It had to be one year old. It could not be sick or hurt. It had to be perfect. The families took care of their lambs for four days. They kept the lambs close to home. Then the lamb would die in their place. God was getting ready to set His people free.

Each family needed a lamb. It had to be perfect. God was getting His people ready. Something big was about to happen.

Blood on the door. “They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it” (12:7). The lintel is the beam across the top of a door. Judgment coming. “For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn… and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord” (12:12). The promise. “Now 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” (12:13). That is where the name Passover comes from. Stay inside. Moses told the elders, “take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood… And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning” (12:22). Safety was inside the house marked by the blood. The Lord protects. “The Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you” (12:23). God Himself stood guard over every house that trusted Him.

“Pass over” (12:13). The Hebrew pesach (say: PEH-sakh) gives the feast its name. The word also carries the idea of standing over something to protect it, as in Isaiah 31:5: “Passing over, He will preserve it.” God Himself is the one who spares the household. A sign for you (12:13). God says the blood is “a sign for you.” God did not need a mark to know His people. The sign was for Israel, so that they would act on His word and know they were protected. Hyssop (12:22). Hyssop was a small bushy plant used like a brush. It appears later in cleansing rituals (Leviticus 14:4) and in David's prayer: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean” (Psalm 51:7). At the cross, a sponge of sour wine was lifted to Jesus on hyssop (John 19:29). No exemption by birth. Israel was not spared because they were better than Egypt. A Hebrew house without the blood would have had no promise. Protection came through God's provision, received by faith. Hebrews says, “By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood” (Hebrews 11:28).

Each family put the lamb's blood on its doorframe. They used a branch from a plant called hyssop. Hyssop is a small bushy plant. They wiped the blood on the sides and the top. Then God gave them a promise. “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” That night the last plague would come to Egypt. But every house with the blood would be safe. The families had to stay inside until morning. They had to trust God's promise. Being an Israelite was not enough. They needed the blood on the door. God kept His promise to every family that obeyed.

The blood was a sign on the door. God passed over every house with the blood. The families inside were safe. God kept His promise.

The meal. “Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it” (12:8). Unleavened bread is flat bread made without yeast. Ready to go. “And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover” (12:11). They ate like people who believed God was about to set them free. Bitter herbs. God's people have long seen the bitter herbs as a reminder of how the Egyptians “made their lives bitter with hard bondage” (1:14). Remember forever. “So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations” (12:14). For seven days they would eat bread without yeast (12:15), remembering how quickly God brought them out. A feast is a special celebration meal.

Eating in faith (12:11). Israel ate the meal before the deliverance came, dressed for a journey they had not yet begun. The meal itself was an act of trust in God's word. Unleavened bread (12:8, 15). The Hebrew matsot (say: mah-TSOHT) means flat bread without yeast. Exodus later explains that the people left in such a hurry that the dough had no time to rise (12:39). Paul later uses leaven as a picture of sin: “let us keep the feast, not with old leaven… but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:8). Just as Israel cleared the yeast out of their homes, believers are to put sin away. A lasting ordinance (12:14-20). The Passover is joined to a seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread. Anyone who ate leaven during the feast was to be “cut off from Israel” (12:15), removed from the community. God took this command seriously because this memory was at the heart of who Israel was. “Your armies” (12:17). God again calls Israel His armies. The meal eaten in haste is the meal of a people about to march out under God's command.

That night the families ate the lamb. They roasted it over a fire. They ate bitter plants with it. They ate flat bread made without yeast. Yeast makes bread puff up, but that takes time. They did not have time to wait! They ate with their sandals on. They held their walking sticks. They were ready to leave at any moment. God said they should remember this meal every year. It would help them never forget what God did. God wants us to remember His goodness too.

They ate with their sandals on. They were ready to leave fast! God was about to set them free.

A promise of a land. “It will come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service” (12:25). They were still slaves, but God was already talking about their new home. Children's questions. “When your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’” (12:26). God expected children to be curious, and He wanted parents to answer. The answer. “It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households” (12:27). Worship and obedience. “So the people bowed their heads and worshiped. Then the children of Israel went away and did so; just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did” (12:27-28). They worshiped first, and then they obeyed. That is a good pattern for us too: first we thank God, then we do what He says.

Faith that looks ahead (12:25). God gives instructions for keeping the Passover “when you come to the land.” God spoke as if the rescue had already happened, because He knew He would keep His promise to Abraham. Teaching the next generation (12:26-27). God gave the Passover strange foods and actions so that children would ask about it. Then parents would tell the story in the first person: “delivered our households.” Psalm 78:4 echoes the duty: “telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord.” A remembrance meal. Centuries later Jesus ate a Passover meal with His disciples on the night He was betrayed (Luke 22:15). He took bread and said, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19). The New Testament presents the Lord's Supper as the fulfillment of what the Passover pointed to. Worship then obedience (12:27-28). The response to God's word is first worship and then action. The words “just as the Lord had commanded… so they did” show a people who took God at His word. Pharaoh had refused God again and again, but Israel simply obeyed.

Moses told the people something important. “Keep this meal every year,” he said. “Keep it when you get to your new land.” “Your children will ask about this meal.” “They will ask why we do this.” “Tell them what God did for us.” “Say that God passed over our houses.” “Explain that God saved our families.” God wanted parents to teach their children about Him. Then the people bowed down and worshiped God. They did exactly what God said. We can tell others what God has done too. Our families can remember God's goodness together.

Moses said, “Tell your children what God did.” The people worshiped God. Then they obeyed Him.