| “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months … it is the Lord’s passover” (Exodus 12:2, 11). |
| Probably all of you have heard of the Passover, which the Israelites first kept more than 3,500 years ago. But have you ever thought of where the term “passover” came from? The word teaches us something about how God works in both love and holiness. |
| The Israelites had been slaves in Egypt for about 200 years, and the Egyptians had made life very hard for them. They had been compelled to make bricks for Pharaoh, in order to build treasure cities. There were taskmasters over them who made them work hard, and sometimes those taskmasters beat them to make them work harder. |
| But the time came when God was going to deliver them, and bring them out of Egypt into the land of Canaan, where they would be a free nation. In the first few chapters of Exodus, you can read about all the plagues that the Lord brought upon Egypt, in order to persuade Pharaoh to let the people go. But sadly, Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and even though the land of Egypt was devastated by those plagues, yet Pharaoh would not let the people of Israel go. |
| Eventually the Lord said that He would bring one last judgment on Egypt. He said that “all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die” (Exodus 11:5). There would be a night when the Lord would pass through the land of Egypt, and in every house the firstborn would be killed. However, what about the Israelites? Could the Lord kill all the firstborn of the Egyptians, and simply leave the Israelites alone? No, for the Israelites were sinners too, and deserved the judgment of God. This is where the Passover comes in. |
| God told the Israelites that they were to take a lamb and keep it from the tenth to the fourteenth day of the month. Then, in the evening of that fourteenth day they were to kill that lamb, and put its blood on the two side posts and the upper door post of their houses. It was on that fourteenth night that the Lord was go through the land of Egypt, and kill all the firstborn. The Lord said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13). This is where the word “passover” comes from, for the Lord passed over those houses where the blood was on the door. Tomorrow we will see the significance of that blood. |
