Bible Study #12
The Final Plague and the Passover
Make the pure light of Your divine knowledge shine in our hearts, Loving Master, and open the eyes of our minds that we may understand the message of Your Gospel. Instill also in us reverence for Your blessed commandments, so that overcoming all worldly desires, we may pursue a spiritual life, both thinking and doing all things pleasing to You. For You, Christ our God, are the Light of our souls and bodies, and to You we give the glory, together with Your Father, without beginning, and Your All Holy, Good, and Life- Creating Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen. (2 Corinthians 6:6; Ephesians 1:18; 2 Peter 2:11)
Review. God sent Moses back to Egypt to liberate His people, but Pharaoh’s heart was “hardened” and he refused to let them go. The “Passover” is how the Jews were to be protected from the plague vs. the first born (and God’s victory in cosmic warfare).
The Final Plague and the Passover
The Announcement: Exodus 11:1; 4-7
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St. Isidore of Sevelle (7th Century; RC Saint): Finally the firstborn of the Egyptians are destroyed. They are the principalities and powers and the rulers of this world of darkness. Or they are the originators and inventors of the false religions that existed in this world. The truth of Christ put an end to these religions and wiped them out, along with their inventors … In what follows, “on their gods I shall pass judgment,” the Hebrews affirm that on the night on which the people departed, all the temples in Egypt were destroyed, either by an earthquake or by a bolt of lightning. But we say, spiritually, that when we depart from Egypt, the idols of error take flight and the whole culture of perverse dogmas is crushed.
The Institution of the Passover: Exodus 12 (all)
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Jewish Explanations
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Some Jewish sources in the Talmud say that the Israelites were worshipping idols in Egypt with the Egyptians and that Moses called them to come “away from the idols which you are worshipping with the Egyptians, the calves and lambs of stone and metal, and with one of these same animals through which you sin, prepare to fulfil the commandments of your God. The planet sign of the month Nisan (Aries: Ram) is a lamb; therefore that the Egyptians might not think that through the powers of the lamb they had thrown off the yoke of slavery, God commanded His people to take a lamb and eat it. They were commanded to roast it whole and to break no bone of it, so that the Egyptians might know that it was indeed a lamb which they had consumed.” (quoted in Hebraic Literature, Tudor, NY, 1943, p.373).
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At the Seder, every person should see himself as if he were going out of Egypt. Beginning with our Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we recount the Jewish people’s descent into Egypt and recall their suffering and persecution. We are with them as G d sends the Ten Plagues to punish Pharaoh and his nation, and follow along as they leave Egypt and cross the Sea of Reeds. We witness the miraculous hand of G d as the waters part to allow the Israelites to pass, then return to inundate the Egyptian legions. (http://www.chabad.org/)
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Scriptural Explanations
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1 Corinthians 5:6-8. Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
(but also see Luke 13:20-21; And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened). -
Mark 14:12. Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover lamb, His disciples said to Him, “Where do You want us to go and prepare, that You may eat the Passover?”
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Christ is the “Lamb of God” (and the host is called “The Lamb”), although this is not necessarily related to the Passover (He is an unblemished offering).
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Hymnographic Explanations
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ODE I IRMOI (Paschal Matins): This is the day of resurrection. Let us be illumined, O people. Pascha, the Pascha of the Lord. For from death to life and from earth to heaven has Christ our God led us, as we sing the song of victory.
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ODE 4 Verses (Paschal Matins):
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Christ our Pascha has appeared as a male child, the son that opens a virgin womb. He is called the lamb as one destined to be our food, unblemished for He has not tasted of defilement, and perfect for He is our true God.
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Christ, the crown with which we are blessed, has appeared as a yearling lamb. Freely He has given Himself as our cleansing paschal sacrifice. From the tomb He has shown forth once again, our radiant sun of righteousness.
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ODE 9 Verses (Paschal Matins):
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Christ, the new pascha, the living sacrifice, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
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O Christ, great and most holy Pascha, O Wisdom, Word, and Power of God: grant that we may more perfectly partake of You in the never-ending day of Your Kingdom.
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Patristic Explanations
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Exodus 12 is read at the Vigil (why?) for Pascha so there is a rich history of interpretation.
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St. Martin of Braga (6th Century): Moses said, “This month shall stand at the head of your calendar, the first month of the year.” With these words he consecrated a whole month for the day of the world’s birth. Thus our elders, who had found that March 22 was the birthday of the world, defined April 21 as a limit in determining the first month. So it will be permitted to celebrate Easter neither before March 22 nor after April 21. But when during this month both the moon and the day coincide, that is, the fourteenth day of the moon (i.e. Nisan) and Sunday, then Easter is to be celebrated. Now again, since the fourteenth day of the moon frequently does not fall on Sunday, they preferred to have the moon extended for seven days, provided they observed Sunday in the joy of the resurrection. So when the day falls thus, we always postpone Easter as far as the twenty-first day of the moon for the sake of Sunday, so that Easter is celebrated neither before March 22 nor after April 21. In this way it is found that the month and the day and the moon are retained in the observance of Easter.
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St. Augustine (on the Passover). And isn’t it the same sort of thing (as at the Birth of Christ), when people have their doubts about the prophetic testimonies in which Christ was foretold and wonder if they haven’t perhaps been compiled by Christians after the event, not before? We appeal to the codices in the possession of the Jews to set the minds of doubters at rest. Don’t the Jews on such occasions too show the Gentiles the Christ whom they decline to worship with the Gentiles?
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St. Augustine. For why would the Lord instruct them to kill a sheep on this very feast day except that it was he about whom it was prophesied: “As a sheep is led to the slaughter.” The doorposts of the Jews were marked with the blood of a slaughtered animal. Our foreheads are marked with the blood of Christ. And that sign, because it was a sign, was said to keep the destroyer away from the houses marked with the sign. The sign of Christ drives the destroyer away from us insofar as our heart receives the Savior. (See Ezekiel 9:4 and Revelation 7:3, 9:4 and 14:1
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St. Cyril of Alexandria: And let us know that the law also of the most wise Moses is found to have commanded something of this kind to the Israelites. For a lamb was sacrificed on the fourteenth day of the first month, as a type of Christ. For our Passover, Christ is sacrificed, according to the testimony of most sacred Paul. The hierophant Moses, then, or rather God by his means, commanded them, when eating its flesh, saying, “Let your loins be girt, and your shoes on your feet, and your staves in your hands.” For I affirm that it is the duty of those who are partakers of Christ to beware of a barren indolence. Yet it is a further duty not to have as it were their loins ungirt and loose but to be ready cheerfully to undertake whatever labors become the saints; and to hasten besides with alacrity wherever the law of God leads them. And for this reason he very appropriately made them wear the garb of travelers [at the Passover].
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St. Augustine. [The word] pascha is not, as some think, a Greek word, but a Hebrew one; yet most conveniently there occurs in this name a certain congruity between the two languages. Because in Greek [the word for] “to suffer” is paschein. For this reason “pascha” has been thought of as a passion, as though this name has been derived from [a Greek word for] “suffering.” But in its own language, that is, in Hebrew, “pascha” means “a passing over.” For this reason the people of God celebrated the pascha for the first time when, fleeing from Egypt, they “passed over” the Red Sea. So now that prophetic figure has been fulfilled in truth when Christ is led as a sheep to the slaughter. By his blood, after our doorposts have been smeared [with it], that is, by the sign of his cross, after our foreheads have been marked [with it], we are freed from the ruin of this world as though from the captivity or destruction in Egypt. And we effect a most salutary passing over when we pass over from the devil to Christ and from this tottering world to his most solidly established kingdom. And therefore we pass over to God who endures so that we may not pass over with the passing world.
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St. John Chrysostom. What then did Moses do? “Sacrifice an unblemished lamb,” he said, “and smear your doors with its blood.” What do you mean? Can the blood of an irrational animal save one who expresses reason? “Yes,” he says. “Not because it is blood but because it prefigures the Master’s blood.” Although statues of the emperor have neither life nor perception, they can save the men endowed with perception and life who flee to them for refuge, not because they are bronze but because they are images of the emperor. So too that blood which lacked life and perception saved the men who had life, not because it was blood but because it was an anticipatory type of the Master’s blood.
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St. Gregory Nanzanius. Be it so, some will say, in the case of those who ask for baptism; what have you to say about those who are still children and conscious neither of the loss nor of the grace? Are we to baptize them too? Certainly, if any danger presses. For it is better that they should be unconsciously sanctified than that they should depart unsealed and uninitiated. A proof of this is found in the circumcision on the eighth day, which was a sort of typical seal. It was conferred on children before they had use of reason. And so is the anointing of the doorposts, which preserved the firstborn, though applied to things which had no consciousness.
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St. Augustine (on the use of pagan knowledge). The Egyptians not only had idols and crushing burdens which the people of Israel detested and from which they fled. They also had vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, and clothing, which the Israelites leaving Egypt secretly claimed for themselves as if for a better use. Not on their own authority did they make this appropriation, but by the command of God. Meanwhile, the Egyptians themselves, without realizing it, were supplying the things which they were not using properly. In the same way, all the teachings of the pagans have counterfeit and superstitious notions and oppressive burdens of useless labor. Any one of us, leaving the association of pagans with Christ as our leader, ought to abominate and shun them [i.e. take the good and leave the bad].
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St. Athanasius (On Communion). But the deceitful, and he that is not pure of heart and possesses nothing that is pure (as Proverbs says, “To a deceitful man there is nothing good”) shall assuredly, being a stranger and of a different race from the saints, be accounted unworthy to eat the Passover, for “a foreigner shall not eat of it.” Thus Judas, when he thought he kept the Passover, because he plotted deceit against the Savior, was estranged from the city which is above and from the apostolic company. For the law commanded the Passover to be eaten with due observance. But he, while eating it, was sifted of the devil, who had entered his soul.
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St. Cyprian (On Communion). God says, “In one house shall it be eaten; you shall not cast the flesh abroad out of the house.” The flesh of Christ and the holy thing of the Lord cannot be cast out. The faithful have no home but the one church. This home, this house of unanimity, the Holy Spirit announces unmistakably in the Psalms: “God who makes men to dwell together of one mind as in a house.” … The faith of the divine Scripture manifests that the church is not outside and that it cannot be rent in two or divided against itself, but that it holds the unity of an inseparable and invisible house. It is written concerning the rite of the Passover and of the lamb, which lamb signifies Christ: “It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of its flesh outside the house.”
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St. John Chrysostom (on Christ as the Lamb). That well-known prophecy likewise was fulfilled: “Not a bone of him shall you break.” For even if this was spoken with reference to the lamb among the Jews, the type preceded for the sake of truth and was, rather, fulfilled in this event. Moreover, that is why the Evangelist cited the prophet. Since he might not seem to be worthy of credence because he was repeatedly making reference to his own testimony, he summoned Moses to testify that this not only did not take place by accident but that it had been foretold in writing from of old. This is the meaning of that famous prophecy: “Not a bone of him shall be broken.” HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 85.
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St. Augustine (on Christ as the Lamb). Now next, that the legs of those two were broken, while his [Christ’s] were not. He was already dead. Why this happened was stated in the Gospel itself. It was fitting, you see, to demonstrate by this sign as well that the true point and purpose of the Jewish Passover, which contained this instruction, not to break the lamb’s bones, was to be a prophetic preenactment of his death. SERMON 218.13.14
NOTE: Pastristic qutoes are from Lienhard, J. T., & Rombs, R. J. (Eds.). (2001). Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
NEXT WEEK: The Crossing of the Red Sea.
