Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread
Yay, the long-awaited Passover post has finally arrived!
Part 1
I've written studies on all of the holidays except for Pesach (Passover), at this point. So this past week, I've been reading passages from the Bible and learning more about how Pesach is to be kept.
One major thing that I learned is that there's a difference between Pesach (Passover) and Chag HaMatzot (Feast of Unleavened Bread). Pesach only refers to the day on which the lamb is sacrificed, or that lamb itself. So when Jews say they're keeping Passover, that's a misnomer, because with the exception of a few ultra-orthodox in Israel, and maybe a couple others around the world, nobody sacrifices a lamb anymore. Technically speaking, they ought to say they're keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread, or Chag HaMatzot.
Now, Chag HaMatzot basics:
Exodus 12:16 - And in the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.
Exodus 12:17 - And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance forever.
Incidentally, this is the first time I've noticed that food preparation is okay on the no-work days. That's neat. There's no exception like that for any of the other holidays, or for Shabbat. Though the only thing that (I think) would be technically forbidden about food preparation would be kindling a fire for cooking purposes anyway.
Exodus 12:15 - Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.
So another thing I learned that I didn't know before was that leaven should be taken out of the house on the first day. I'd always been told that leaven should be gotten rid of *before* the first day. Well, next year we'll do that right.
[Note: After I wrote this, I discovered that the orthodox Jews have a practice where they get everything out of the house beforehand, and clean everything thoroughly, *except* for 10 small pieces of bread, which they pretend to "find" on the first day, and then they burn that... Hmm... it occurs to me that they're ignoring the kindling the fire thing. Oh well, nothing new.]
Now about keeping the Passover.
Exodus 12:21 - Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb.
Exodus 12:22 - Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning.
Exodus 12:23 - For Yahweh will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, Yahweh will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.
Exodus 12:24 - You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever.
Frankly, it makes me nervous when it says something about animal sacrifice being a statute to be kept "forever"... For the everyday sacrifices that are in the OT, it doesn't say "forever." A word search in the Torah for "forever" in relation to sacrifices brings up only this Passover sacrifice, a Shavuot (Pentecost) sacrifice, and one about a grain offering whenever Aaron's descendents are anointed to be priests. It also speaks of people making sacrifices in Zechariah 14:21 of people keeping the Feast of Tabernacles and making sacrifices in the Messianic era. So naturally, this prompted more searching...
Numbers 9:6 - And there were certain men, who were defiled by the dead body of a man, that they could not keep the Passover on that day: and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day:
Numbers 9:7 - And those men said unto him, We are defiled by the dead body of a man: wherefore are we kept back, that we may not offer an offering of Yahweh in his appointed season among the children of Israel?
Numbers 9:8 - And Moses said unto them, Stand still, and I will hear what Yahweh will command concerning you.
Numbers 9:9 - And Yahweh spake unto Moses, saying,
Numbers 9:10 - Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the Passover unto Yahweh.
Numbers 9:11 - The fourteenth day of the second month at even they shall keep it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Numbers 9:12 - They shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break any bone of it: according to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it.
Numbers 9:13 - But the man that is clean, and not in a journey, and forbeareth to keep the Passover, even the same soul shall be cut off from among his people: because he brought not the offering of Yahweh in his appointed season, that man shall bear his iniquity.
In the sense that it's using, most people are unclean nowadays… For some uncleannesses, bathing in regular water is good enough. But for others, it's not, and the ashes of the red heifer are needed (which does not exist at the present time). Not everybody's touched a dead body, but almost everyone, including me, has touched a human bone or a grave.
Num 19:16 - Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
Num 19:17 - For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt sin offering, and fresh water shall be added in a vessel.
Num 19:18 - Then a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on whoever touched the bone, or the slain or the dead or the grave.
Num 19:19 - And the clean person shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. Thus on the seventh day he shall cleanse him, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening he shall be clean.
Therefore, I don't think most people would be able to make a Passover sacrifice nowadays, simply due to uncleanness. But they can still keep Chag HaMatzot.
Exodus 12:25 - And when you come to the land that Yahweh will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service.
Exodus 12:26 - And when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this service?'
Exodus 12:27 - you shall say, 'It is the sacrifice of Yahweh's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.'" And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.
Part 2
Probably for most Christians, it should come as no surprise that Yahshua is called "the Passover lamb" in a sense, because several parallels are pretty much immediately obvious from just reading the story of the Exodus and any one of the Gospels. But there are some interesting tidbits that I've learned that *aren't* so immediately obvious, so I think it'll be worth it for me to share some of the things that I've been thinking about.
The obvious part is that whereas in the Old Testament, the angel of (physical) death passed over the Israelites, Yahshua causes us to be passed over by spiritual death. The parallel does break down at a point though: Yahshua is the only sacrifice ever mentioned in the Bible for intentional, and thereby spiritual, sins. So to complete the parallel, the Passover sacrifice in the OT should be for physical sins (those committed out of ignorance), or bodily uncleannesses. It's not.
But despite the fact that the analogy breaks down fairly quickly, there are some really interesting parallels before that. You might have heard someone talk about how Yahshua died at the time that the Passover lambs were being killed, and you might remember how no bone was broken, in accord with Psalm 34:20, but that also fulfilled the law for the Passover:
Exodus 12:46 - In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof.
Numbers 9:12 - They shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break any bone of it: according to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it.
Yahshua was killed at Jerusalem, "in the place which Yahweh shall choose to place His name there." That's a requirement for the Passover. Deuteronomy 16:2
Yahshua was killed outside of Jerusalem's gates.
Deuteronomy 16:5 - Thou mayest not sacrifice the Passover within any of thy gates, which Yahweh thy Elohim giveth you
The thing I found most interesting was that apparently during the Passover time in the days of Yahshua, a name plate was around each lamb's neck, with the name of the owner on it.
John 19:19 - And Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the cross. And having been written, it was: JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
I was reading a website that claimed that part of the reason the Jews were so angry about this sign was because if you abbreviate the above by taking the first Hebrew letter of each word, it spells out YHVH, the tetragrammaton, God's name. It says, furthermore, that it was a very common practice to just take the first letter of everything and write it like that, so YHVH may have been written on there along with everything else. What they meant by this really intrigued me, and I thought about it.
Time for a short Hebrew grammar lesson... Of course, you read from right to left. Yahshua the Nazarene is pretty straightforward. Then for the last two Hebrew words, Hebrew has no word for "of," so instead it has a grammatical practice that you do if you want to convey that meaning. The product is something like the compound words we have in English, and it results in that thing I circled.
I'm slightly skeptical of the whole thing, but I thought it was very interesting. My only problem is, I don't know what the practice was for abbreviating things in that day, but if *I* were abbreviating the Hebrew thing I wrote above, I probably wouldn't include the "the"s or the "and." So that would yield:
But again, I don't know anything else about the practice, so I can't really speak about their custom for abbreviating stuff. I just thought this was very interesting.
Part 1
I've written studies on all of the holidays except for Pesach (Passover), at this point. So this past week, I've been reading passages from the Bible and learning more about how Pesach is to be kept.
One major thing that I learned is that there's a difference between Pesach (Passover) and Chag HaMatzot (Feast of Unleavened Bread). Pesach only refers to the day on which the lamb is sacrificed, or that lamb itself. So when Jews say they're keeping Passover, that's a misnomer, because with the exception of a few ultra-orthodox in Israel, and maybe a couple others around the world, nobody sacrifices a lamb anymore. Technically speaking, they ought to say they're keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread, or Chag HaMatzot.
Now, Chag HaMatzot basics:
Exodus 12:16 - And in the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.
Exodus 12:17 - And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance forever.
Incidentally, this is the first time I've noticed that food preparation is okay on the no-work days. That's neat. There's no exception like that for any of the other holidays, or for Shabbat. Though the only thing that (I think) would be technically forbidden about food preparation would be kindling a fire for cooking purposes anyway.
Exodus 12:15 - Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.
So another thing I learned that I didn't know before was that leaven should be taken out of the house on the first day. I'd always been told that leaven should be gotten rid of *before* the first day. Well, next year we'll do that right.
[Note: After I wrote this, I discovered that the orthodox Jews have a practice where they get everything out of the house beforehand, and clean everything thoroughly, *except* for 10 small pieces of bread, which they pretend to "find" on the first day, and then they burn that... Hmm... it occurs to me that they're ignoring the kindling the fire thing. Oh well, nothing new.]
Now about keeping the Passover.
Exodus 12:21 - Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb.
Exodus 12:22 - Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning.
Exodus 12:23 - For Yahweh will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, Yahweh will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.
Exodus 12:24 - You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever.
Frankly, it makes me nervous when it says something about animal sacrifice being a statute to be kept "forever"... For the everyday sacrifices that are in the OT, it doesn't say "forever." A word search in the Torah for "forever" in relation to sacrifices brings up only this Passover sacrifice, a Shavuot (Pentecost) sacrifice, and one about a grain offering whenever Aaron's descendents are anointed to be priests. It also speaks of people making sacrifices in Zechariah 14:21 of people keeping the Feast of Tabernacles and making sacrifices in the Messianic era. So naturally, this prompted more searching...
Numbers 9:6 - And there were certain men, who were defiled by the dead body of a man, that they could not keep the Passover on that day: and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day:
Numbers 9:7 - And those men said unto him, We are defiled by the dead body of a man: wherefore are we kept back, that we may not offer an offering of Yahweh in his appointed season among the children of Israel?
Numbers 9:8 - And Moses said unto them, Stand still, and I will hear what Yahweh will command concerning you.
Numbers 9:9 - And Yahweh spake unto Moses, saying,
Numbers 9:10 - Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the Passover unto Yahweh.
Numbers 9:11 - The fourteenth day of the second month at even they shall keep it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Numbers 9:12 - They shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break any bone of it: according to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it.
Numbers 9:13 - But the man that is clean, and not in a journey, and forbeareth to keep the Passover, even the same soul shall be cut off from among his people: because he brought not the offering of Yahweh in his appointed season, that man shall bear his iniquity.
In the sense that it's using, most people are unclean nowadays… For some uncleannesses, bathing in regular water is good enough. But for others, it's not, and the ashes of the red heifer are needed (which does not exist at the present time). Not everybody's touched a dead body, but almost everyone, including me, has touched a human bone or a grave.
Num 19:16 - Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
Num 19:17 - For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt sin offering, and fresh water shall be added in a vessel.
Num 19:18 - Then a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on whoever touched the bone, or the slain or the dead or the grave.
Num 19:19 - And the clean person shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. Thus on the seventh day he shall cleanse him, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening he shall be clean.
Therefore, I don't think most people would be able to make a Passover sacrifice nowadays, simply due to uncleanness. But they can still keep Chag HaMatzot.
Exodus 12:25 - And when you come to the land that Yahweh will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service.
Exodus 12:26 - And when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this service?'
Exodus 12:27 - you shall say, 'It is the sacrifice of Yahweh's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.'" And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.
Part 2
Probably for most Christians, it should come as no surprise that Yahshua is called "the Passover lamb" in a sense, because several parallels are pretty much immediately obvious from just reading the story of the Exodus and any one of the Gospels. But there are some interesting tidbits that I've learned that *aren't* so immediately obvious, so I think it'll be worth it for me to share some of the things that I've been thinking about.
The obvious part is that whereas in the Old Testament, the angel of (physical) death passed over the Israelites, Yahshua causes us to be passed over by spiritual death. The parallel does break down at a point though: Yahshua is the only sacrifice ever mentioned in the Bible for intentional, and thereby spiritual, sins. So to complete the parallel, the Passover sacrifice in the OT should be for physical sins (those committed out of ignorance), or bodily uncleannesses. It's not.
But despite the fact that the analogy breaks down fairly quickly, there are some really interesting parallels before that. You might have heard someone talk about how Yahshua died at the time that the Passover lambs were being killed, and you might remember how no bone was broken, in accord with Psalm 34:20, but that also fulfilled the law for the Passover:
Exodus 12:46 - In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof.
Numbers 9:12 - They shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break any bone of it: according to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it.
Yahshua was killed at Jerusalem, "in the place which Yahweh shall choose to place His name there." That's a requirement for the Passover. Deuteronomy 16:2
Yahshua was killed outside of Jerusalem's gates.
Deuteronomy 16:5 - Thou mayest not sacrifice the Passover within any of thy gates, which Yahweh thy Elohim giveth you
The thing I found most interesting was that apparently during the Passover time in the days of Yahshua, a name plate was around each lamb's neck, with the name of the owner on it.
John 19:19 - And Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the cross. And having been written, it was: JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
I was reading a website that claimed that part of the reason the Jews were so angry about this sign was because if you abbreviate the above by taking the first Hebrew letter of each word, it spells out YHVH, the tetragrammaton, God's name. It says, furthermore, that it was a very common practice to just take the first letter of everything and write it like that, so YHVH may have been written on there along with everything else. What they meant by this really intrigued me, and I thought about it.
Time for a short Hebrew grammar lesson... Of course, you read from right to left. Yahshua the Nazarene is pretty straightforward. Then for the last two Hebrew words, Hebrew has no word for "of," so instead it has a grammatical practice that you do if you want to convey that meaning. The product is something like the compound words we have in English, and it results in that thing I circled.
I'm slightly skeptical of the whole thing, but I thought it was very interesting. My only problem is, I don't know what the practice was for abbreviating things in that day, but if *I* were abbreviating the Hebrew thing I wrote above, I probably wouldn't include the "the"s or the "and." So that would yield:
But again, I don't know anything else about the practice, so I can't really speak about their custom for abbreviating stuff. I just thought this was very interesting.