The First Passover

The Passover story is found in Exodus chapters 12 and 13. However, to be able to understand what happened during that time, we must read its context. And to do that, it’s better if we start reading from Exodus chapter 1.

STORY OF THE EXODUS

The children of Israel were put into slavery by one of the Pharaohs in Egypt. After many years of slavery, they cried out to God to set them free from their “heavy burdens”.   

God answered, but He had an even better plan for them than just giving them what they were asking for. He not only was going to set them free from slavery, but he was also going to take them to the wilderness, turn them into His people and then take them into a land flowing with milk and honey.

Today: It is the same with us today… God not only “takes away” the problems which we cry out to him for, but he also gives us the opportunity to be His children. He not only offers us a better life, but an eternal life. Our prayers always fall short when we compare them to what He wants for us.

When the children of Israel cried out to God, He remembered the promises He made to the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). He then chose Moses as the leader of the people he would take out from Egypt and into the Promised Land.

(Exodus 3:7-10) Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, (8) and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. (9) And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. (10) Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

However, when Moses came up to Pharaoh and asked him to let the people go, Pharaoh refused. This did not come as a surprise to Moses, since God had already warned him that Pharaoh would refuse.

(Exodus 3:19-20) But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. (20) So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go.

If they didn’t let them leave Egypt the easy way, they would have to leave the hard way. Because of Pharaoh’s hardened heart, God had to send a series of plagues over all the land of Egypt. Every one of these judgments was a lesson for Pharaoh and the Egyptians, so they would finally recognize that God is sovereign over all the Earth.

The plague that made the difference was “the death of the firstborns”. Although Pharaoh had been warned, he did not agree to set them free. So God sent that last plague.

(Exodus 12:29-33) At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. (30) And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. (31) Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as you have said. (32) Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!” (33) The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We shall all be dead.” 

What was it that kept the Israelite’s firstborns from dying?

(Exodus 12:21-23) 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. (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. (23) For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.

Anyone who took refuge under the blood of the Passover Lamb was saved from death. But those who did not believe were not saved.

In the next entry we will see how the Messiah fulfilled the Passover.