Passover

—Biblical Data:

The Biblical account connects the term with the root

The festival commemorates the deliverance of Israel's first-born from the judgment wrought on those of the Egyptians (Exodus 12:12-13; comp. Exodus 13:2,12 et seq.), and the wondrous liberation of the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage (Exodus 12:14-17). As such, it is identical with the Maẓẓot (

Paschal Lamb.

The setting aside, slaughtering, and eating of the paschal lamb was introductory to the celebration of the festival. According to Exodus 12 this rite was instituted by Moses in Egypt, in anticipation of the judgment about to be visited on Pharaoh and his people. On the tenth of the month—ever thereafter to be the first month of the year—the Hebrews were to take a lamb for each household, "without blemish, a male of the first year," "from the sheep or from the goats." Kept until the fourteenth day, this lamb was killed "at eve" ("at the going down of the sun"; Deuteronomy 16:6), the blood being sprinkled by means of a "bunch of hyssop" (Exodus 12:22) on the two door-posts and on the lintels of the houses wherein the Hebrews assembled to eat the lamb during this night, denominated the

The details of this rite as observed in Egypt are summarized in "the ordinance of the Passover" (Exodus 12:43 et seq.). No bone was to be broken; the meal was to be eaten in one house; no alien could participate; circumcision was a prerequisite in the case of servants bought for money and of the stranger desiring to participate (Exodus 12:44-48). According to Numbers 9:6, Levitical purity was another prerequisite. To enable such as happened to be in an unclean state through contact with the dead, or were away from home at the appointed season, to "offer the oblation of Yhwh," a second Passover was instituted on the fourteenth day of the second month (Numbers 9:9 et seq.). In Deuteronomy 16:2,5 the slaughtering and eating of the lamb appear to be restricted to the central sanctuary.