Key Verses: Exodus 12:13, 12:23, 12:14
The LORD establishes a new calendar for Israel, marking this month as the first, and institutes the Passover. Each household is to take a lamb without blemish on the tenth day, keep it until the fourteenth, and kill it at twilight, applying its blood to the doorposts and lintel of the house. They are to eat the lamb roasted with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, dressed and ready to travel in haste. When the LORD passes through Egypt to strike the firstborn, He will see the blood and pass over that house, so no plague of destruction falls upon them. God also commands the Feast of Unleavened Bread as a perpetual memorial. At midnight the LORD strikes down all the firstborn of Egypt, and a great cry arises; Pharaoh summons Moses by night and drives Israel out. The people leave in haste, having plundered the Egyptians of silver, gold, and clothing; about 600,000 men on foot, besides women, children, and a mixed multitude, depart after 430 years in Egypt, and the LORD gives the statutes of the Passover.
The Passover stands at the theological center of the Old Testament, and its meaning bursts into full light in the New. The blood of the lamb does not merely mark a house; it substitutes for the life within, so that judgment passes over the guilty because a spotless victim has died in their place. Paul declares plainly, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed,” and John the Baptist points to Jesus as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” The requirement that the lamb be without blemish and that not a bone be broken finds exact fulfillment at the cross, where none of Jesus’ bones were broken. The unleavened bread, purged of the corruption of leaven, calls the redeemed to lives of sincerity and truth. Just as Israel could only be saved by sheltering under the applied blood, so sinners are saved only when the blood of Christ is applied to them by faith.
Key Terms & Words:
- פֶּסַח (pesach) - Exodus 12:11 - “Passover”; the LORD’s passing over the blood-marked houses, fulfilled in Christ our Passover
- דָּם (dam) - Exodus 12:13 - “Blood”; the substitutionary life that shields from judgment, pointing to Christ’s atoning blood
- מַצּוֹת (matzot) - Exodus 12:15 - “Unleavened bread”; symbolizing haste and purity, a call to sincerity and truth
Cross-References:
- 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 - Christ our Passover lamb sacrificed; keep the feast with sincerity and truth
- John 1:29 - Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world
- John 19:36 - Not one of His bones was broken, fulfilling the Passover requirement
- 1 Peter 1:18-19 - Redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish
- Hebrews 9:22 - Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness
Discussion Questions:
- Why was the blood, rather than the family’s worthiness, the basis of their deliverance?
- How does the requirement that the blood be applied to each doorpost speak to the personal nature of saving faith?
- In what specific ways does Jesus fulfill the picture of the Passover lamb?