LESSON 44 _PASSOVER AND ISRAEL’S EXODUS

MEMORY VERSE: “It is a night to be much observed unto the LORD for bringing them out from the
land of Egypt: this is that night of the LORD to be observed of all the children of Israel in their
generations” (Exodus 12:42). TEXT: Exodus 12:1-51; 13:1-22

In this study, Moses communicated the message that would release the Israelites from their protracted
bondage in Egypt. The Lord instructed them to sprinkle the blood of slain lambs on the lintel of their
houses so that they could be identified for sparing while the human and animal firstborn of the
Egyptians would be slain. This unforgettable experience is called the Passover. “And the blood shall be
to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the
plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt” (Exodus 12:13). After this,
Egypt would be too painfully pressured to release them from their four hundred and thirty years
bondage. In gratitude to His faithfulness, the Lord required that all firstborn Israelites be set apart for
His sacred use. Also, He assured them of His protective presence through the pillar of cloud and the
pillar of fire.

INSTITUTION OF THE ORDINANCE OF PASSOVER (Exodus 12:1-20; John 1:29; 2 Corinthians 5:21)

“This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.
Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, the tenth day of this month they shall take to them
every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: And thus shall ye eat it;
with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it
is the LORD’S passover” (Exodus 12:2,3,11). In God’s programme, important spiritual achievements and
attainments are to be celebrated to express the excelling value assigned to them and our deep
appreciation unto God as the Author of such achievements. God instituted the ordinance of Passover as
an event to prepare the Israelites for their exodus from Egypt. Each household or a combination of
households was to choose a lamb or goat without blemish, a male of the first year, to be killed and to
make a mark on their house’s doorpost with its blood. This divinely appointed sacrifice was to be the
substitute for their firstborn that would have died in the plague. The lamb was to be roasted and eaten
with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, which foreshadowed the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ as a
paschal Lamb on the cross at Calvary. The Passover presaged His shed blood for the remission of our
sins, His sinless body, which provides life for believers and the bitter suffering and death that He
endured to bear our grief and sorrows (Isaiah 53:3-7). The feast of the Passover was to commemorate
the night that the Lord passed over the houses of the Israelites marked by the blood. “And the blood
shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and When I see the blood, I will pass over you,
and the Plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt”(Exodus 12:13).
Apart from its first observance that preceded the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt, the feast of unleavened
bread was ordained to be an annual event that would last for seven days. All through the period of this
feast, no leaven should be found anywhere in their houses. Leaven in their houses is now to be
spiritually interpreted as sin in the life of a Christian. “Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little
leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye
are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not
with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the Unleavened bread of
sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8).

INSTRUCTIONS ON THE OBSERVANCE AND THE PURPOSE OF THE PASSOVER (Exodus 12:21-51;
Leviticus 22:19-21; Deuteronomy 16: 1; 2 Corinthians 2:14-16; Romans 9:17,22; Exodus 12:43-49; Isaiah
56:6,7; Romans 10:4; Matthew 26:17-20,26-29; 1 Corinthians 11:17, 18,23-34)
As Moses was sent to Pharaoh with heavy tidings that would judge his disrespect for God’s command, so
also was he sent to the Israelites with divine counsels on what to do to enjoy the promised blessings of
God. Moses, like other faithful servants of God, “…are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that
are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other
the savour of life unto life…” (2 Corinthians 2:15, 16). Moses faithfully delivered God’s message to the
Israelites on how they were to observe the first Passover in Egypt. “Then Moses called for all the elders
of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the
passover. And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the
lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door
of his house until the morning” (Exodus 12:2 1, 22). He also instructed on how it was to be celebrated as
a perpetual ordinance. “And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever.
And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the LORD will give you, according as he
hath promised, that ye shall keep this service” (Exodus 12:24-27). Observe that while Pharaoh
continually showed contempt for the word of God, the response of the Israelites to His word was
commendable. “And the children of Israel went away, and did as the LORD had commanded Moses and
Aaron, so did they” (Exodus 12:28). This implicit obedience of the Israelites to God’s command on how
to observe the Passover brought them into favour with God (Exodus 12:50,51). If Pharaoh’s conscience
had not been hardened, his confession would have been: “For destruction from God was a terror to me,
and by reason of his highness I could not endure” (Job 31:23). But hardness of heart made him to turn
deaf ears to the frightening words of God’s judgment pronounced on Egypt until a final plague of the
death of all the firstborn in the land of Egypt was meted out. There are other people in the Scripture
that suffered similar judgment for showing disrespect to God’s warning. Eli’s indifference to God’s
warning brought untimely and shameful death to his children and himself. “And the messenger
answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also a great slaughter among
the people, and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken. And it
came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off the seat backward by the
side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy. And he had judged
Israel forty years” (1 Samuel 4: 17, 18). Nebuchadnezzar’s disregard of God’s warning led to his
debasement to the form of an animal (Daniel 4:27-33). The Scripture’s warning to those who are
unwilling to yield to God’s warning through His word and servants is, “He, that being often reproved
hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Proverbs 29:1). God
rewarded the obedience of the Israelites with the performance of the promised blessing. “And it came
to pass the selfsame day, that the LORD did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their
armies” (Exodus 12:51). God manifested Himself to Pharaoh and the Egyptians as the Judge through the
following acts: (a) the firstborn of the Egyptians were slain. (b) Pharaoh ordered the immediate release
of the Israelites in total submission to the supremacy of God’s power over His creatures. “And in very
deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be
declared throughout all the earth” (Exodus 9:16). (c) the exodus of Israel from Egypt eventually became
a reality. The following are the descriptive features of this glorious exodus from Egypt: one, they left
Egypt with all their personal effects (Exodus 12:34). Two, there was a notable expression of divine
favour to the Israelites. By divine intervention, they were enriched with the spoils of Egypt (Exodus
12:35,36). Three, the Israelites enjoyed complete salvation, deliverance and redemption since they were
divinely helped to go with all their young ones and their animals as a performance of what God had
ordered through Moses (Exodus 12:37,38; 10:9). Four, Pharaoh, under the strong hand of God, thrust
out the Israelites out of Egypt as God had previously assured Moses (Exodus 12:39; 6:1). Five, their
exodus was the final fulfilment of God’s long-awaited promise to Abraham (Genesis 15:13, 14). Six, it
was also an accomplishment of His current promise of divine response to their cry unto Him to put an
end to their bondage in Egypt (Exodus 3:7-10; 12:40,41). Seven, the permanence of this blessing is
expressed through God’s demand that the memory of this event be preserved all through their
generations (Deuteronomy 16:1-8). “And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of
the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof: But every man’s servant that is bought for money,
when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof’ (Exodus 12:43,44). All Israelites as well as
their servants, who were bought with money and were circumcised, must partake of the ordinance of
the Passover. Under the new covenant dispensation, only those who have been redeemed by the
precious blood of Jesus are to partake of the New Testament version of the Passover, which is the Lord’s
Supper. “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the
disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them,
saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the
remission of sins” (Matthew 26:26-28). The observance of the Lord’s Supper is to commemorate the
sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation and the glorious expectation of His return to
take all saints to heaven (1 Corinthians 11:26-29)

GRATITUDE FOR THE BLESSING OF THE PASSOVER (Exodus 13:1-22; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; Deuteronomy
6:20-25; John 10:4,5)

The Israelites were to show their gratitude to God in a practical way for the preservation of their
firstborn of both human and beast. Accordingly, God demanded that they set apart their firstborn
children for His sacred use. In the same manner, believers should sanctify themselves unto God, who
had saved them from eternal death that would have been their lot if Christ had not paid the penalty by
His substitutionary atonement. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us”. “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the
dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (Romans 5:8,15; 1 Corinthians
15:21,22; 2 Corinthians 5:15). The children of Israel were to celebrate the feast of the unleavened bread
in the Promised Land to perpetuate the remembrance of the blessing of the Passover. While observing
this feast, they were to exercise the greatest caution in ensuring that no leaven was found or eaten in
any part of their houses. Leaven in the New Testament dispensation stands for sin, which must no
longer characterise any area of a Christian’s life (1 Corinthians 5:6-8). “Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (1 John
3:9). The Israelites were also to make their children appreciate the purpose of the feast and to partake
in its observance with strict adherence to the prescribed rules as ordained by God. By so doing, they
would be as wise as Abraham, of whom God said, “For I know him, that he will command his children
and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that
the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him” (Genesis 18:19). Christian
parents and leaders should encourage their children to always be in a ready spiritual state for the
observance of the Lord’s Supper as well as the rapture. When the Israelites commenced their wilderness
journey, they did not know the right way to take and had to follow God’s leading. They were to walk by
faith with God as their only Guide. Their human understanding could not comprehend why He decided
not to lead them through a shorter distance to the Promised Land but rather chose to lead them
through the wilderness of the Red Sea. Having seen the end of God’s work all through Israel’s wilderness
journey, our confession of faith should be: “Man’s goings are of the LORD; how can a man then
understand his own way?” (Proverbs 20:24). God gave the children of Israel visible objects in form of a
pillar of cloud by daytime and a pillar of fire by night to signify His presence with them. Jesus Christ is
the most glorious Light of our dispensation who guides all His disciples through His Spirit in their earthly
pilgrimage to their final destination prepared for them (Psalm 119: 105; John 9:5).
Questions for review:
1.What sacrifice did God ask the Israelites to make before they left Egypt?
2.Relate the lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs used for the Passover with Christ.
3.Describe notable blessings that are associated with the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.
4.What are the similarities between the Old Testament Passover and the Lord’s Supper of the New
Testament?
5.How important is God’s leading to every pilgrim in the journey to Heaven
6.Why is it important for every believer to partake in the Lord’s Supper?
7.Why must we be grateful to God for delivering us from the enemy of our soul?