01.26.2015 Old Testament: Exo 12.3–6

To read the Bible in a year, read Exodus 11–12 on January 26, In the year of our Lord 2015

By Don Ruhl

Israel needed to remember the tenth plague upon Egypt, for it was after the Egyptians suffered the ravages of the tenth and final plague, that Pharaoh let Israel go. Therefore, the Lord wanted Israel to remember that plague. The beginning of the instructions for keeping a feast commemorating are here,

“Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight’” (Exodus 12.3–6). 

He called this feast, the Passover, for the Lord passed over the homes of the Israelites. In their homes, they would eat this lamb.

Later we learn that this symbolized the true Lamb of God coming into the world, who would be our Passover, because He would pass over us Christians that we might not be cast into the lake of fire, but that we might have eternal rest with the Lord in heaven.