This is the Third and Final blog in our series, “Continuity of the Feast Days Examined – Passover”. We hope you have enjoyed the Biblical and Historical accounts that have led to this point. Otherwise, you will be wondering why we are going into such detail covering the Scriptural commandments and historical traditions.
We previously covered the evidence that every single apostle, and disciple, of the Messiah Yeshua (Jesus), was Jewish. Also, the belief that the ancient prophecy of the foretold Messiah had come to fruition (He had been born, lived among us, and died as the lamb of God). The concept let alone the faith of a savior sent by a single Creator God of Heaven, was still relatively new to Gentiles even as late as the winter of 57-58 AD, per the writings of Paul (Saul), the “Apostle to the Gentiles.”
Finally, we covered where the split between the believers of “The Way” (Converts to believing in the fulfillment of Torah AKA Christians), and the rest of Israel, occurred, and how it occurred. This was perpetrated by people who claimed to represent the God of the very Messiah that taught us to be of “one mind and one accord,” to unite all the people of God.
If you have not first read Parts 1 & 2, I suggest you read them, pray about them, and research the scriptures and historical data for yourself. Do not take our word, go directly to the Word of God for yourself. Below we will now cover Exodus chapter 12 where we have the first mention and instruction for:
Passover: Exodus 12: 1-42 Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)...
Adonai spoke to Moshe and Aharon in the land of Egypt; he said, 2 “You are to begin your calendar with this month; it will be the first month of the year for you. 3 Speak to all the assembly of Isra’el and say, ‘On the tenth day of this month, each man is to take a lamb or kid for his family, one per household — 4 except that if the household is too small for a whole lamb or kid, then he and his next-door neighbor should share one, dividing it in proportion to the number of people eating it. 5 Your animal must be without defect, a male in its first year, and you may choose it from either the sheep or the goats.
Note: Young lambs and goats are two of the most adorable, innocent animals a person can associate with.
6 “‘You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, and then the entire assembly of the community of Isra’el will slaughter it at dusk. 7 They are to take some of the blood and smear it on the two sides and top of the doorframe at the entrance of the house in which they eat it. 8 That night, they are to eat the meat, roasted in the fire; they are to eat it with matzah and maror. 9 Don’t eat it raw or boiled, but roasted in the fire, with its head, the lower parts of its legs and its inner organs. 10 Let nothing of it remain till morning; if any of it does remain, burn it up completely.
Note: These perfect little animals are to be taken into the home for a week prior to Passover, meaning this little affectionate creature would sleep with and bond with your children, your wife, and yourself during the days leading up to the Passover. Keep in mind the “people” were in tents, in a camp, where millions of people were huddled together. Even later when they resided in the cities, they were desert dwellings, in close or stacked proximity, and these animals would have been cared for in the home as pets. Imagine the sadness over having to slit the throat of your beloved family pet! We were being trained to love the Messiah even more than that the entire time because the lamb we served (serve), but the Lamb of God serves us in an even greater capacity, with a greater Love!
11 “‘Here is how you are to eat it: with your belt fastened, your shoes on your feet and your staff in your hand; and you are to eat it hurriedly. It is Adonai’s Pesach [Passover]. 12 For that night, I will pass through the land of Egypt and kill all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both men and animals; and I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt; I am Adonai. 13 The blood will serve you as a sign marking the houses where you are; when I see the blood, I will pass over [a] you — when I strike the land of Egypt, the death blow will not strike you.
Note: It is my belief after studying Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, the Gospels, the Letters, and Revelation for the last 25 years, that when we truly do away with all leavening (sin) in our dwellings (our bodies are the dwelling place of God’s Spirit per – 1 Corinthians 3:16 Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) - 16 Don’t you know that you people are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?) then his redemption will be swift and complete. When we are truly free of sin, He can come for us, but not before or we will be lost. That is why we are also told in Matthew 18:14; John 18:9; and 2 Peter 3:9 that God is suffering while waiting for us because to come before we are ready is to lose us. He would rather we sleep the sleep of death before He comes rather than to see us die in the glory of His presence because our sins will not allow us to exist near to Him.
Maybe we are so discordant with each other that some of us are cleansed way before the others, maybe it is easier on us to be changed while asleep in the grave than while awake, and maybe there is just no hope for most of us to abandon sin in exchange for eternal life as the children of the Creator God of heaven. Either way, it is heart-breaking that we are making Him wait.
14 “‘This will be a day for you to remember and celebrate as a festival to Adonai; from generation to generation you are to celebrate it by a perpetual regulation.
15 “‘For seven days you are to eat matzah — on the first day remove the leaven from your houses. For whoever eats hametz [leavened bread] from the first to the seventh day is to be cut off from Isra’el. 16 On the first and seventh days, you are to have an assembly set aside for God. On these days no work is to be done, except what each must do to prepare his food; you may do only that. 17 You are to observe the festival of matzah, for on this very day I brought your divisions out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you are to observe this day from generation to generation by a perpetual regulation. 18 From the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month until the evening of the twenty-first day, you are to eat matzah. 19 During those seven days, no leaven is to be found in your houses. Whoever eats food with hametz in it is to be cut off from the community of Isra’el — it doesn’t matter whether he is a foreigner or a citizen of the land. 20 Eat nothing with hametz in it. Wherever you live, eat matzah.’”
(v) 21 Then Moshe called for all the leaders of Isra’el and said, “Select and take lambs for your families and slaughter the Pesach lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop leaves and dip it in the blood which is in the basin and smear it on the two sides and top of the doorframe. Then, none of you is to go out the door of his house until morning. 23 For Adonai will pass through to kill the Egyptians; but when he sees the blood on the top and on the two sides, Adonai will pass over the door and will not allow the Slaughterer to enter your houses and kill you. 24 You are to observe this as a law, you and your descendants forever.
25 “When you come to the land which Adonai will give you, as he has promised, you are to observe this ceremony. 26 When your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this ceremony?’ 27 say, ‘It is the sacrifice of Adonai’s Pesach [Passover], because [Adonai] passed over the houses of the people of Isra’el in Egypt, when he killed the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” The people of Isra’el bowed their heads and worshipped. 28 Then the people of Isra’el went and did as Adonai had ordered Moshe and Aharon — that is what they did.
(vi) 29 At midnight Adonai killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock. 30 Pharaoh got up in the night, he, all his servants and all the Egyptians; and there was horrendous wailing in Egypt; for there wasn’t a single house without someone dead in it. 31 He summoned Moshe and Aharon by night and said, “Up and leave my people, both you and the people of Isra’el; and go, serve Adonai as you said. 32 Take both your flocks and your herds, as you said; and get out of here! But bless me, too.” 33 The Egyptians pressed to send the people out of the land quickly, because they said, “Otherwise we’ll all be dead!”
34 The people took their dough before it had become leavened and wrapped their kneading bowls in their clothes on their shoulders. 35 The people of Isra’el had done what Moshe had said — they had asked the Egyptians to give them silver and gold jewelry and clothing; 36 and Adonai had made the Egyptians so favorably disposed toward the people that they had let them have whatever they requested. Thus, they plundered the Egyptians.
37 The people of Isra’el traveled from Ra‘amses to Sukkot, some six hundred thousand men on foot, not counting children. 38 A mixed crowd also went up with them, as well as livestock in large numbers, both flocks and herds. 39 They baked matzah loaves from the dough they had brought out of Egypt since it was unleavened; because they had been driven out of Egypt without time to prepare supplies for themselves.
40 The time the people of Isra’el lived in Egypt was 430 years. 41 At the end of 430 years to the day, all the divisions of Adonai left the land of Egypt. 42 This was a night when Adonai kept vigil to bring them out of the land of Egypt, and this same night continues to be a night when ADONAI keeps vigil for all the people of Isra’el through all their generations.
Note:
If you are not sure what leavening is, I am including a list of things that are, and are not, leavening, and why. If you have any scientific data to add to this, please leave it in the comments below…
Leavening Agents: Any agent that produces fermentation and causes the dough to rise, by causing the formation of carbon dioxide gas to bubble into and spread throughout the dough. This is accomplished either chemically (as with baking soda) or biologically (as with yeast).
Baking Soda: a crystalline alkaline salt that gives off the gas when an acid is added. The following are different types of baking soda:
Sodium bicarbonate (also known as Saleratus)
Potassium bicarbonate (also called potash)
Ammonium carbonate (baker’s ammonia)
Ammonium bicarbonate (hartshorn)
Baking Powder (baking soda + acid-forming ingredients + starch filler)
Yeast (a single-celled fungus used to leaven)
Sourdough Starter (a wild yeast colony maintained with flour and moisture)
Non-Leavening Agents (unless they are combined):
Autolyzed yeast (has self-destructed and is sterile/incapable of leavening)
Brewer’s Yeast (dead “nutritional” yeast
Torula Yeast/Hickory smoked Torula (dead “nutritional” yeast)
Yeast extract(s) (Derivatives of yeast, sterile and cannot leaven)
Cream of Tartar (potassium bitartrate or potassium hydrogen is an acid only)
Tartrate powder (phosphate or sulfate powder usually added to Cream of Tartar)
Alum (SAS, sulfate powder, potassium aluminum sulfate or potash alum is a salt)
Sorbitan Monostearate (a flavor and texture enhancer)
Sodium Caseinate (a milk protein)
Sodium Silicoaluminate (drying agent)
Polysorbate 60 (a preservative)
Egg Whites (do not spread or leaven)
Steam or Air (does not spread or leaven)
Now that we have covered that, there are many traditions surrounding Passover such as prayers, songs, stories, recipes, and drinking of wine, among others. These are not Biblical (Genesis to Revelation) so personally I tend to sometimes work them in and sometimes not. They can be researched online, or if I get enough requests, I may do a blog post with some of the traditions so you can get a feel for how it is celebrated in Israel and around the world by more traditionalists.
Some people though don’t even eat lamb because of the sacrificial system being mute because of the Messiah’s first Advent. However, even when I was vegan for 364 days out of the year, I still ate lamb on Passover. This is because, as you can see above, the system itself was intended to have a strong emotional impact on us, evoking love for the lamb and therefore compounding the feeling of loss when, because of our sin, we had to commit such a horrible act.
Below I have listed other Bible texts that mention leaven so you can get a more well-rounded image of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread by taking into account what leaven represents in relation to the evil that separates us from God.
Exodus 13:7 - Matzah is to be eaten throughout the seven days; neither hametz nor leavening agents are to be seen with you throughout your territory.
Exodus 23:18 - “You are not to offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, nor is the fat of my festival to remain all night until morning.
Exodus 34:25 - You are not to offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, and the sacrifice of the feast of Pesach is not to be left until morning.
Leviticus 2:11 - “‘No grain offering that you bring to Adonai is to be made with leaven because you are not to cause any leaven or honey to go up in smoke as an offering made by fire to Adonai.
Leviticus 6:9 - The rest of it Aharon and his sons are to eat; it is to be eaten without leaven in a holy place — they are to eat it in the courtyard of the tent of meeting.
Leviticus 6:10 - It is not to be baked with leaven. I have given it as their portion of my offerings made by fire; like the sin offering and the guilt offering, it is especially holy.
Leviticus 10:12 - (iv) Moshe said to Aharon and to El‘azar and Itamar, his remaining sons, “Take the grain offering left from the offerings for Adonai made by fire, and eat it without leaven next to the altar because it is especially holy.
Deuteronomy 16:4 - No leaven is to be seen with you anywhere in your territory for seven days. None of the meat from your sacrifice on the first day in the evening is to remain all night until morning.
1 Corinthians 5:6 - Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know the saying, “It takes only a little hametz to leaven a whole batch of dough?”
Galatians 5:9 - “It takes only a little hametz to leaven the whole batch of dough.”
Only peace offerings and first-fruits offerings were to contain leavening:
If we consider that leaven represents sin, then this is good news indeed!
1. It is because of our past sins that we can relate, have empathy, and connect with (peace) the people who are still lost in their sins. This is so we can break bread with them, minister to them, and make disciples of them. Se how important peace is…
Matthew 5:9 Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) - Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Mark 9:50 (KJV) - Salt is excellent, but if it loses its saltiness, how will you season it? So have salt in yourselves — that is, be at peace with each other.”
Matthew 5:23-24 Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) - 23 So if you are offering your gift at the Temple altar and you remember there that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift where it is by the altar, and go, make peace with your brother. Then come back and offer your gift.
Galatians 5:22-23 Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) - 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 humility, self-control. Nothing in the Torah stands against such things.
James 3:17 Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) - 17 But the wisdom from above is, first of all, pure, then peaceful, kind, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.
James 3:18 Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) - 18 And peacemakers who sow seed in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.
2. All those who have lived and/or died converted in heart, mind, and body to the one, living, God of heaven, are represented by the firstfruits offering. We live in a world that is filled with sin (leaven) and God is telling us He understands how it spreads and the struggle we have endured.
Romans 8:22-24 Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) - 22 We know that until now, the whole creation has been groaning as with the pains of childbirth; 23 and not only it, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we continue waiting eagerly to be made sons — that is, to have our whole bodies redeemed and set free. 24 It was in this hope that we were saved. But if we see what we hope for, it isn’t hope — after all, who hopes for what he already sees?
1 Corinthians 15:20 Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) - 20 But the fact is that the Messiah has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have died.
James 1:18 Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) - 18 Having made his decision, he gave birth to us through a Word that can be relied upon, in order that we should be a kind of firstfruits of all that he created.
Leviticus 23:17 - You must bring bread from your homes for waving — two loaves made with one gallon of fine flour, baked with leaven — as firstfruits for Adonai.
Leviticus 7:13 - With cakes of leavened bread, he is to present his offering together with the sacrifice of his peace offerings for giving thanks.
I look forward to eating the Passover with Yeshua (Jesus), and all of you, in the Kingdom of our Father in Heaven, Creator of Heaven, Earth, the waters, and all that dwell in them, when we finally overcome the father of lies, Satan.
Dispose of and reject all leavening, praise the God of Heaven and Live!
Shalom, shalom, blessings, peace, and Life to you all!
Tamara Ruckdeschel,
Managing Director
3 Angels Message Ministry
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