Here is an invitation to travel, a journey in time and space to discover the many facets of Passover. You will be able to discover the changes that this holiday has known and will experience during the past and future according to the Bible.
The first Passover celebrated by the Hebrews while still in slavery in the land of Egypt under the cruel rulership of Pharaoh.
The very first Passover is celebrated while the Hebrews are slaves in Egypt. The ruling Pharaoh and his son submit them to very harsh living conditions asking his people to even kill all male babies at their birth. This first Passover takes place under dramatic conditions because during the night that follows, all the firstborns of Egypt from the youngest babies to the old men will die as well as the firstborns of the cattle. This is what is described in Exodus 11 to 13.
At that time, Elohim is only asking to sacrifice a flawless male lamb of one year, and this sacrifice is made in the home of everyone and not in a common place as,for instance, in the Temple at the time of the kings of Judah.
Only circumcised people are allowed to eat this Passover during the night following the sacrifice.
Yehoah is taking possession of all the firstborn of the Hebrews who have escaped the death of Egypt.
The second Passover is celebrated by the children of Israel released from Egyptian slavery. At that time, the Children of Israel are travelers who are migrating in a desert that does not belong to them.
The second Passover is celebrated by a free Hebrews but with difficult living conditions in the Sinai desert.
For this second Passover, Yehoah ordered to have the Tabernacle of the Tent of the Congregation set up, as it is written in Exodus 40.
This second Passover takes place after the disgusting event of the golden calf and few months before the refusal of the Children of Israel to enter and take possession of the promised land. This is described in Numbers 9. This Passover is therefore celebrated during the journey that leads the Children of Israel to the land of Canaan.
It is also an opportunity for Yehoah to introduce the option to have Passover also celebrated during the 2nd month of the year if for special circumstances it cannot be celebrated on the 1st month.
During the next 38 years spent by the Children of Israel in the desert, there is no mention of any Passover celebration. In any case, if any Passover was celebrated, it was by fewer and fewer people because the number of circumcised ones decreases until their complete disappearance, Joshua and Caleb being excepted.
Then followed a period of 38 years during which there was no mention of Passover. This period is covering the stay of the Children of Israel in the desert necessary to remove the entire generation of those who came out of Egypt and refused to take possession of the Promised Land, Joshua and Caleb being excepted.
It should be noted that all the children born in the desert, even adults, could not eat the lamb of Passover because none of them is circumcised as written in Joshua 5.
At the end of the 40 years in the desert, the first Passover of the free people of Israel occurs in their own country, the Land Promised by Yehoah.
In the law written by Moses just before his death, especially in Deuteronomy 16 and Numbers 28: 16-25 (see below), at the end of the 40 years of stay in the desert, Yehoah introduces some novelties for this first feast which takes place on the territory whose Children of Israel will receive:
· First of all, the festival will not take place anymore in the dwellings of everyone but in the place chosen by Yehoah to place his name! The next day at dawn, after having shared the meal of Passover, everyone is allowed to go back home.
· It is also asked to make sacrifices on the 15th day and the seven following days that had never been mentioned before:
" 16 On the fourteenth day of the first month is the Passover of Yehoah. 17 And on the fifteenth day of this month is the feast; unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days. 18 On the first day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work. 19 And you shall present an offering made by fire as a burnt offering to Yehoah: two young bulls, one ram, and seven lambs in their first year. Be sure they are without blemish. 20 Their grain offering shall be of fine flour mixed with oil: three-tenths of an ephah you shall offer for a bull, and two-tenths for a ram; 21 you shall offer one-tenth of an ephah for each of the seven lambs;
22 also one goat as a sin offering, to make atonement for you. 23 You shall offer these besides the burnt offering of the morning, which is for a regular burnt offering. 24 In this manner you shall offer the food of the offering made by fire daily for seven days, as a sweet aroma to Yehoah; it shall be offered besides the regular burnt offering and its drink offering. 25 And on the seventh day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work. "
This is the first time that the Children of Israel have a land of their own! It should also be noted that at that time, their king is Yehoah Elohim.
The number of males and adults population who celebrated this Passover is 601,730 people, the Levites are not part of this number. Before the Passover meal, all the people were circumcised after the crossing of the Jordan the flow of which was stopped by Yehoah for the occasion.
This Passover recounted in Joshua 5 takes place in Gilgal, near Jericho. Another detail about this holiday: one can understand that this first Passover in the Holy Land took place a weekly Sabbath since the Children of Israel could eat roasted grains of the productions of the country. At the Passover, it is barley that is harvest and it can only be consumed after offering the sheaf of first-fruits the day after the Sabbath occurring during the seven days of unleavened bread. The next day, first day of the week is also marked by the end of the manna.
This first Passover in the Land of Israel will be the first of a series that will occur for about 800 years but with ups and downs.
The fourth mention of Passover in the Bible takes place after the schism of the Kingdom of Israel into two kingdoms, that of Samaria in the north which will disappear a few years later, and that of Judah under the reign of King Hezekiah. This Passover takes place in Jerusalem, in the Temple, and in the second month of the year.
After the monarchy of Solomon, we observe a carelessness in the manner Passover was celebrated.
It was not until the time of Hezekiah, king of Judah, that, under his impulse, an awakening for a return to a respectful celebration of the Passover is occurring. A few years later, it is the destruction and disappearance of the kingdom of Samaria by the all-powerful Assyria and its deportation from their territories to Babylonia, At that time, the Children of Israel, both in the kingdom of Samaria and in the kingdom of Judah, were living in complete insecurity under the threat of invasion by the king of Assyria.
The account of this Passover and its preparations is given in II Chronicles 30.
Hezekiah invited his people to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem, where Yehoah placed his name forever. Hezekiah also tried to involve the people of the kingdom of Samaria but this idea mostly meets the mockery of the tribes of the kingdom of Israel! Only a minority will join the festivals celebrated by the kingdom of Judah where the people celebrated it as one man.
Since all the purification conditions were not met to celebrate Passover in the first month, the king made the decision to follow the procedure introduced by Yehoah during the first Passover in the Sinai desert and postponed this Passover to the second month of the year.
Hezekiah asked for forgiveness to Yehoah because many of the participants in the feast had not purified themselves by ignorance, and Yehoah acceded to the king's request.
The atmosphere that reigned during this holiday was so good that the whole assembly decided to celebrate another 7 days. This feast was as beautiful as those of the time of the kings David and Solomon.
When the feast of Passover is mentioned for the fifth time in the Bible, the kingdom of Samaria, i. e. Kingdom of Israel, was completely destroyed and its people went into slavery under the rulership of the Assyrian kings in Babylonia.
After the destruction of the kingdom of Samaria by the Assyrians, there were in the kingdom of Juda two kings, Manasseh and his son Amon, who had scandalous behavior in the face of Elohim. Manasseh put false deities in the Temple of Elohim. Amon acted in the same way. The horrible behaviour of these two kings are at the origin of the condemnation by Elohim of the kingdom of Judah to disappear. But as with King Josiah, there was a sincere return to Elohim, He decided to delay the end of the kingdom of the Jewish people.
In II Chronicles 35, it is written that the Passover held under the reign of Josiah was the most beautiful of all those that existed during the kingdom of Israel. It is compared to those that took place during the time of Judge Samuel. This Passover is also the last mentioned in the Bible as a feast celebrated by the Jewish tribes of Israel still free on their territory with the first Temple of Elohim as a meeting place.
An important change took place during this feast: the king himself, anointed by Yehoah, provided the people with Passover lambs. It is a sign announcing the sacrifice of Yeshuah who also offered his body and life as a lamb for all the people on earth, we are not anymore the ones who are offering a lamb at Passover but our King of kings is the one who has offered His body for us!
We have to wait the 70 years of Babylonian captivity and the fall of Babylon to find the next mention of a Passover celebrated in Jerusalem in a Temple much less beautiful than the one built by Solomon. Moreover the Jewish people who are celebrating it are no longer free people on their land but slaves dominated by the Persian Empire.
This feast of Passover and the following seven days of unleavened bread take place a month after the dedication during the winter of the Temple rebuilt according to the orders and plans of Cyrus himself inspired by Elohim. It is described in Ezra 6: 19-22.
We have now to jump about 500 years to find the next four feast of Passover mentioned in the New Testament with the participation of our Messiah.
· First of all, we have the Passover of his twelve years when he had to explain to his mother that he must also take care of the “business” of his true Father, his Elohim!
This Passover is described in Luke 2: 41-52. It reminds us of one of the traditions of Passover that is to go to Jerusalem for the whole feast. The family of Yeshuah came from Nazareth where they were living at that time.
This Passover is the first of our Messiah and it highlights the fact that Yeshuah knew who his true Father is and that He should take care of Him while being respectful of his parents.
· The second time Passover is mentioned in the New Testament is when Yeshuah has started his mission of teaching and announcing the good news of the Kingdom of Elohim.
He will still celebrate Passover in Jerusalem but before the feast, he will cleanse the House of his Father by hunting with a whip sellers and money changers symbolized by the leaven we are expected to remove from our homes.
In John 2:13 to John 3:21 we read that many Jews believed in him because of the miracles he was doing. But it is also during this feast that twice Yeshuah announces that he did not come to judge or rule the world but that he is the gift of his Father to save the world. After having been executed and put in a tomb for three days and three nights, his body will be resurrected. This is what he tries to explain to Nicodemus, a Pharisee also leader of the Jews who believes in him and who despite his knowledge has great difficulty in grasping this teaching of the Messiah.
· Before the third mention of Passover in the New Testament, he is at the lake of Tiberias where he will make the miracle of the multiplication of barley breads and fish to feed approximately 5000 people.
As mentioned in John 6: 1-71, Yeshuah will reveal an extraordinary information in addition to that made especially to Nicodemus. It is here that he explains to the Jews for the first time that he is the lamb without blemish that must be consumed symbolically at Passover. His body was symbolized by the manna distributed by Yehoah during the long stay of the Children of Israel in the desert, a manna that did not prevent the death of the people who ate it. But Yeshuah explains that now his body, with the flesh and blood symbolized respectively by unleavened bread and wine that baptized believers will eat and drink during the night following Passover will give them eternal life.
· With the last Passover of Yeshuah on earth, all his mission is accomplished in every detail. This last Passover is repeated in the four Gospels.
This last Passover is coming with the marvelous gift of Yehoah, I mean the very first spiritual resurrection of a human being, Yeshuah! But this resurrection is also a birth in the spiritual Kingdom of Yehoah! The last Passover at which Yeshuah participated is the fulfilment of many teachings explained step by step during his short life on earth.
It is not yet the end: There is also two more mention of a Passover feast in the period following the ascension of our Lord to heaven.
· The first time in Acts 12:
Herod, after having killed James, also wanted to kill Peter. Peter was apprehended but, apparently during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Yeshuah sent an angel to miraculously free Peter. It was also at that time that Herod was struck to death by an angel because of his pride.
· A second time is when Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5: 6-8 is reminding severely believers that Yeshuah is our Passover and that we must celebrate the feast after having purged the old leaven and by consuming unleavened bread so that we ourselves are unleavened!
But this is not the last chronological mention of Passover
in biblical scriptures!
Indeed, Ezekiel 45: 21-24 shows us how Passover will be kept in the new Temple to be built during the millennial reign of our Messiah:
" 21 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall observe the Passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten. 22 And on that day the prince shall prepare for himself and for all the people of the land a bull for a sin offering. 23 On the seven days of the feast he shall prepare a burnt offering to Elohim, seven bulls and seven rams without blemish, daily for seven days, and a kid of the goats daily for a sin offering. 24 And he shall prepare a grain offering of one ephah for each bull and one ephah for each ram, together with a hin of oil for each ephah. "
The end of the story.
Here we are at the end of this long journey whose different stages show the evolution of the Passover feast from the time of slavery in Egypt to the millennium to come during which the Messiah will reign with his saints on this earth .
What will happen at the end of the thousand years of the reign of Yeshuah Christ and after the short period that follows and during which Satan will be released and prior to the appearance of the new heavens and the new earth with his new Jerusalem coming down from heaven? Will there still be a Passover feast as it is described in the Bible?
It will certainly not be the same feast, simply because in the new Jerusalem described in Revelation 21, there will be no more Temple; indeed Yehoah and His son, the Lamb, will be the Temple. Moreover, at that time, there will be no more night like the night that we spent awake at the beginning of this festival! Let's read that in Revelation 21: 22-27:
" 22 But I saw no temple in it, for Yehoah Elohim Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of Elohim illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 24 And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). 26 And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. 27 But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life."
It's time to remember that Yehoah is an Elohim with life in Him. He is an endless Creator and those who win will have the privilege of discovering what He has in store for them in this new world to come!