We’ve reached another tent-pole story in the Bible: The Passover. This event will be the reference point for the rest of the Old Testament and will continue to be important until its fulfillment in the Gospels.
If you have never participated in a Christian Passover Seder you are missing a wonderful experience. There’s time to prepare. You could do your research and celebrate this year.
Today I want to draw our attention to just a few little details that pack a lot of significance. This will be more like a Bible charcuterie board than a coordinated meal.
I’m going to drop in lines to separate topics- kind of like those divided plates at a potluck. Feel free to nibble here and there as it suits you.
Got something to drink? Here we go…
“This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year for you.” Exodus 12:2 NASB2020
This is a calendar update. Many (most?) ancient cultures celebrated the beginning of the year in the fall; corresponding to harvest time and quite possibly earth’s birthday, which may very well have been the Autumnal Equinox of the year 4004BC according to the much-ridiculed-but-well-reasoned calculations of Bishop Ussher. If you’re interested in Bible chronology and the connections of feasts to prophecy (we’re coming to that in Leviticus!), remember that Passover is the beginning.
“Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are, each one, to take a lamb for themselves, according to the fathers’ households, a lamb for each household. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to slaughter it at twilight.”
Exodus 12:3, 6 NASB2020
How on earth does an assembly of hundreds of thousands slaughter “it”? One. Singular. It.
Here is John Wycliffe’s translation- the first time these words were ever rendered in the English language in the late 1300s- over 2 centuries before the KJV:
“Speak ye to all the company of the sons of Israel, and say ye to them, In the tenth day of this month, each man take a lamb by his meines and houses; and ye shall keep him till to the fourteenth day of this month; and all the multitude of the sons of Israel shall offer him at eventide.” Exodus 12:3, 6 WBMS
The Passover Lamb was regarded as One, though there were many thousands of them slaughtered that night. This is a prophetic picture of Christ our Passover Lamb who was selected and examined, found spotless (Pilot: “I find no fault in him”) and killed by the collective nation just before dusk on the day of Passover.
K. This one is my favorite!! 😁 Eeeee!
“The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will come upon you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.”
Exodus 12:13 NASB2020
The Hebrew word for sign (“token” in KJV), is owth.
Let’s look at the 3 Hebrew letters in their paleo forms: Aleph, Vav, Tav.
First- let me just point out that Aleph and Tav are the first and the last letters of the Hebrew aleph-bet. The vav in the middle functions as a conjunction. The word for “sign” is the Hebrew equivalent of “The Alpha & Omega.”
🤓 But it gets even better! Look at this:
Aleph – pictograph of an ox head, meaning: Chief/leader, strong/strength
Vav – picture of a tent peg or hook, meaning: and, conjunction, joined
Tav – a mark that looked like this: ✝️, meaning: strong indicator
I’m just gonna give you a minute to work this out on your own. Put em together.
🤔
🧐
🤔
💡
😲
🤯
🥹
If you figured out that the Hebrew word for “sign” here is the strong chief pegged or joined to the cross, you’re getting the hang of this paleo Hebrew thing.
Is that not the most precious imagery?! Seriously. If that doesn’t just bless your heart and fill you with wonder, I don’t know what will!!
And not only that, remember how we talked about Messiah ben Joseph, the firstborn ox? The Aleph is the ox. The ox is pegged to the cross.
And this is the Hebrew word for “sign.” The crucifixion of Jesus is certainly the greatest sign of all. “Lord, please show me a sign.” If you look up “sign” in God’s dictionary, you get a picture of the strong chief pegged to the cross.
Wow.
You gotta share this with at least one other person today, ok? It’s too good to keep to yourself.
“You shall not eat anything with yeast; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’ ” Exodus 12:20 NASB2020
I won’t get into the weeds on the word s’or (leaven) other than to say that it’s root word means: to swell up, i.e. be (causatively, make) redundant:–leave, (be) left, let, remain, remnant, reserve, the rest.
Swelling or puffing up is a picture of pride, the original sin. If you’ve ever used a sourdough starter, you know that you always leave a little bit in the bowl in a warm protected place. You feed the invisible bacteria and they multiply and eventually there is enough to inflate the bread.
When dealing with sin in our own hearts we must be ruthless about getting every speck out. If even a little is left behind in a cozy little nook in our souls, and we protect it, and feed this invisible thing, it will grow until it inflates us with self-centered pride.
To quote the lyrics of a song by my friend and mentor Elizabeth Goodine:
Sin starts with a thought
That leads to an action
I dwell on the thought
I feel satisfaction
Then I find myself consumed by fire
That I cannot contain
And what started as a tiny spark
Is now a raging flame
> Purify My Thoughts (full song)
The crime of eating leaven is so serious that it comes with a penalty of excommunication.
“For seven days there shall be no dough with yeast found in your houses; for whoever eats anything with yeast, that person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land.” Exodus 12:19 NASB2020
Here’s why:
“Then desire, after it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is brought to completion, gives birth to death.”
James 1:15 LEB
Desire (longing) must be kept in check. Just as there were times when eating leavened bread was fine, there are times when desire is fine. God Himself has desire. But, in us, it must ever be checked by the Holy Spirit and in regular seasons completely purged from our lives lest it lead us to death.
“And they baked the dough which they had brought out of Egypt into cakes of unleavened bread. For it had no yeast, since they were driven out of Egypt and could not delay, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.” Exodus 12:39 NASB2020
Ever had to eat & run? Or eat on the run? This is the very picture of taking that unexpected trip- that emergency trip for which you had nothing prepared. What do you do? You grab stuff to make some sandwiches on the road. Or, as I prefer to think of it, they made stacks and stacks of hot fresh tortillas. 😋
One of my favorite stories as a kid was when my mom would tell us about Grandpa spontaneously announcing to the family that they were going to take a trip to Florida. My grandparents owned and ran a drive-in restaurant. Mom would tell us how Grandma made up sacks and sacks of hamburgers for the trip. And how they all crammed in the car and took my Great Aunt Bessie along. And how they slept in the car, under the car or in the rear window. And heated up the hamburgers on the engine. They made it to Florida. Ate fresh oranges. Walked on the beach and collected shells for a few hours, then turned around and drove back home to Missouri.
☺️
That was an unexpected trip.
May you be blessed today wherever your travels take you. And maybe pack some emergency tortillas.
To The Reader 