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<< Leviticus 23:4   Leviticus 23:6 >>


Leviticus 23:4-5

Passover is a feast of the LORD, not a feast of Israel or the Jews! He instituted it and commands us to keep it.

Earl L. Henn
Holy Days: Passover



Leviticus 23:4-5

Leviticus 23:4-5, Numbers 9:2-5, and Joshua 5:10 all show that Passover is on the fourteenth day. Many say Nisan 15 is the right day to keep Passover. Not only do these verses tell us what day to observe Passover, but also what part of the day—at "twilight" (NKJV) or "even" (KVJ). (Some versions may also use a variation of the more literal "between the evenings." This changes nothing because in all of the Old Testament verses thus far quoted, it is the same Hebrew word, ben ha arbayim.) Which part of the day, then, is "even"?

Rather than look to human explanations, notice what the One who created it says: "God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day" (Genesis 1:5). God reveals that His days begin with the evening (the night portion) followed by the morning (the daylight portion).

The same Hebrew word translated "at twilight" in Leviticus 23:5; Numbers 9:3; and Joshua 5:10 appears for the first time in Genesis 1:5, where it is translated as "the evening." So Genesis proves that the "at twilight" in the three Passover verses is the time that begins Nisan 14 and comes before the daylight portion. But when does evening start?

. . . but at the place where the LORD your God chooses to make His name abide, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at twilight, at the going down of the sun. . . . (Deuteronomy 16:6; see also Mark 1:32)

So it was, at the gates of Jerusalem, as it began to be dark before the Sabbath, that I commanded the gates to be shut, and charged that they must not be opened till after the Sabbath. (Nehemiah 13:19)

These verses establish that sunset starts the evening, the start of a day in God's eyes. For anyone who observes the Sabbath, these facts should be clear, yet some who observe the Sabbath—believing their complex and convoluted explanations, and in other cases, preferring tradition over Scripture—reject the Bible's clear teaching.

Additionally, Numbers 28:16-17 requires Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread to be on separate days: "On the fourteenth day of the first month is the Passover of the LORD. And on the fifteenth day of this month is the feast: unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days" (see also Leviticus 23:5-6). Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are distinct observances; God assigns each a separate day. One spilling over into the other, the result of a Nisan 15 Passover observance, contradicts this verse.

There is one final nail to hammer into the coffin of a Nisan 15 Passover, found in Exodus 12:5-6: "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." According to Gesenius' Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, the Hebrew word translated "until" is ad, which means, "up to a specific point in time"—not through, nor beyond. It signifies "the limit of time itself."

This means that the Passover lamb was to be kept up to Nisan 14, which, we say, begins at sunset. This creates a line not to be crossed. What always immediately follows sunset? The twilight or evening—the time between sunset and the dark. This is when the Israelites killed the lamb: in the evening of Nisan 14.

Exodus 12:8 identifies when we are to partake of the Passover: "They shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it." Verse 10 then pins down when the observance should be complete: "You shall let none of it remain until morning; and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire."

Exodus 12:6, 8, and 10 lay out a timeline for Passover observance. It begins at the sunset that begins Nisan 14 with the lamb killed in the evening or twilight that immediately follows (verse 6). The Passover is eaten that night (verse 8), and all is to be completed by the morning, the daylight portion of Nisan 14 (verse 10). All this happens on Nisan 14, just as the Bible requires.

Pat Higgins
When Is Passover?



Leviticus 23:5-8

The original Passover instructions clearly stipulate that Passover is a single day—Abib 14—followed by the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread, beginning on Abib 15 (Exodus 12:6-20; Leviticus 23:5-8; Numbers 9:2-5). These original instructions also direct the Israelites to keep the Passover in individual homes rather than at the Tabernacle or Temple—to catch the blood of the lamb in a basin and smear it on the doorposts and lintel of the house (Exodus 12:22).

Over time, though, the children of Israel moved farther from God and His instructions. During the reigns of the kings, Israel and Judah, now separate nations, adopted many practices from the pagan cultures surrounding them, with the kings often leading the way. However, a few kings of Judah, such as Hezekiah and Josiah, stand out for their dedication to God. Under these zealous monarchs, various religious reforms were instituted to try to bring Judah back to God's way. Among other reforms, they reinstated the commanded observance of the Passover, which the people were not keeping to any significant degree, if at all.

However, these well-meaning reforms also contained a subtle change: Under both Hezekiah and Josiah—at the king's command rather than God's—the people observed the Passover at the Temple rather than in individual homes (II Chronicles 30 and 35). The kings may have done this to ensure that the people actually kept the Passover, and did so without mixing in the Baalism that was so prevalent in the land. These kings' examples introduced a second way of observing the Passover. Now the Jews had both God's original Passover instructions as well as the kings' reforms to draw on when determining how to observe the festival.

While God intended the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread to be separate (though adjacent) observances, the Jews ended up combining the two during the Babylonian exile, as the Encyclopaedia Judaica confirms: "The feast of Passover consists of two parts: The Passover ceremony and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Originally, both parts existed separately; but at the beginning of the [Babylonian] exile they were combined" (vol. 13, p. 169). This careless and unscriptural merging of festivals resulted in the Jews observing Passover late on Abib 14, just hours before the Feast of Unleavened Bread began. Thus, a third variation of Passover observance was added to the mix.

At the time of Jesus Christ, this mixture was on full display. Philo of Alexandria, in De Vita Mosis, notes that in the early first century, the Passover was not strictly a Temple-kept event, but one in which people also killed their own lambs without help from the priests. In his Wars of the Jews, Flavius Josephus records that in 4 BC over 250,000 lambs were sacrificed for Passover. However, given the limited space of the Temple environs and the fact that Jewish tradition (not the Word of God) held that the lambs were to be slain within a two-hour time slot (from the ninth to the eleventh hour, or 3:00-5:00 pm), it is readily apparent that not all of those lambs could have been sacrificed at the Temple. In fact, Joachim Jeremias, in Jerusalem in the Times of Jesus, calculates that the three courses of priests on duty could slay only 18,000 lambs during those two hours. Josephus records that the rest of the lambs—a far greater number—were slain by individuals at their own homes.

Another critical point is that, despite Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread being distinct festivals, they were commonly grouped together and simply called "Passover." Thus, when the gospel writers mention "Passover," it can sometimes refer to the Passover sacrifice itself (Matthew 26:17; Mark 14:12), the day when the sacrifice was made (Mark 14:1), or the whole eight-day period of Abib 14-21 (Passover plus Unleavened Bread; Luke 22:1).

In actuality, then, there were really two Passover observances happening at the time of Jesus: one led by the priests at the Temple and the other observed by the people in their homes. These separate observances were also at different times: The Temple-kept Passover was observed late in the afternoon of Abib 14, while the home-kept Passover was kept at the beginning of Abib 14. As the gospels show, Jesus and His disciples ate the Passover in a home rather than at the Temple, observing it the evening before the priests did at the Temple. In other words, Jesus kept it as Abib 14 began, while the priests kept it as Abib 14 ended.

David C. Grabbe



Leviticus 23:5

While the Passover is one of God's appointed times, it is not listed in Scripture as one of the annual Sabbaths. It is a regular day of work—in fact, it is the preparation day for the first day of Unleavened Bread—but the first few hours, the evening portion of the day, is a significant memorial of two great events in God's plan for mankind: the death of the firstborn in Egypt and the sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

The bulk of the instruction about the Passover is written in Exodus 12, and a great deal of it concerns the Old Testament ritual meal that was eaten on that evening. These details are types that were fulfilled in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, so the New Testament church is no longer required to slay a lamb, since, as the apostle Paul writes, "For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us" (I Corinthians 5:7).

The New Testament Passover is modeled after the events that occurred during what is commonly known as the Last Supper, the Passover meal that Jesus ate with His disciples just before His arrest, trial, and crucifixion. Jesus began His instruction that evening with a command to wash one another's feet: "For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you" (see John 13:1-17), and so we do.

The apostle Paul summarizes what happens next:

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." (I Corinthians 11:23-25)

So, to commemorate His sacrifice by which He paid the penalty for human sin and consecrated the New Covenant (see Hebrews 9:11-28), Christians eat a little unleavened bread and drink a small amount of wine. In doing so, they acknowledge His sacrifice and rededicate themselves to their covenant with Him. It is clear from both the Old Testament and New Testament examples that only those who have made the covenant—Christ's disciples—are allowed to partake of the bread and wine, thus only baptized members should participate in this part of the service (see the principle in Exodus 12:43-49; also I Corinthians 11:27-29).

As Christ did after changing the Passover symbols, members of the church then listen to the words of Jesus' discourse to His disciples, which is found in John 13-17. Then, to close the service, they sing a hymn before concluding the solemn service (see Matthew 26:30; Mark 14:26).

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
How Do We Keep God's Festivals?



Leviticus 23:4-5

Historically, the church of God has observed the Passover just after sunset as the 14th day of Abib begins, as commanded in Exodus 12:1-14 (see also Leviticus 23:4-5; Numbers 9:2-5). However, it is also plain from Scripture that Jesus Christ was not sacrificed at that time—His trial and crucifixion took place during the daylight portion of the 14th, and He died around 3:00 pm on the preparation day for the first day of Unleavened Bread (Matthew 27:45-50; Mark 15:33-37; Luke 23:44-46; John 19:30-31). Since He is our Passover (I Corinthians 5:7), why did His death not occur at the time the Passover lambs were to be slain—at the beginning of the 14th day? Or should His death set the standard for understanding the instructions given to Israel?

To add to the complexity, the gospel accounts show Jesus observing the Passover with His disciples at the beginning of the 14th. Which of His actions should we use as our guide for observing Passover: the time when He observed it or when He died? And why are those events at different times?

When the time of Jesus' death is chosen above all else, the typical result is a change in the observance of Passover from the beginning of the 14th day of Abib, just after sunset, to the afternoon of the 14th or even into the 15th. Further, those who make this change must then find a different explanation for when the Israelites killed the lambs and later left Egypt, which frequently involves leaning on Jewish tradition for support—for those Jewish sects that follow Talmudic traditions promote this divergent perspective.

David C. Grabbe
Why Was Jesus Not Crucified as Passover Began? (Part One)




Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Leviticus 23:5:

Genesis 1:14
Exodus 12:1-14
Exodus 12:6-20
Leviticus 23:4-5
Leviticus 23:4-5
Leviticus 23:4-5
Leviticus 23:10-16
Leviticus 23:10-16
Ezekiel 45:21-22
Matthew 26:17-19

 

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