When Should We Keep the Passover?
by Jamie McNab
home: www.t-cog.net
Do you remember just a
few short years ago, when the
One of the vital
truths that we all shared up until recently was the understanding of the Passover. We were confident we knew WHEN Passover fell,
and understood what it signified.
We were familiar with
Mr. Armstrong's teaching in Pagan
Holidays or God's Holy Days — Which?
showing that Passover was on 14th Abib. We knew Passover came on that date once a
year, as covered in Mr. Armstrong's booklet, How Often Should You Partake of the Lord's Supper.
But times have changed.
Over recent years
there has been an onslaught of false teaching, with endless questions and
challenges against the Truth we once knew.
Almost everything we have learned and once believed is under attack the
nature of God, the Sabbath, the Holy Days, the Calendar, the identity of
Israel, the name of God, and so on.
One teaching currently
the subject of much debate among the Churches of God is the Passover and, in particular, the date on which we should keep the Passover.
Does Passover fall on
14th Abib? Does it fall on 15th
Abib? Can you prove it? And does
it matter?
I have looked at many
of the articles attempting to show that we have been IN ERROR all these years,
and trying to show that Judaism is correct in placing Passover on the evening
of the 15th Abib (or Nisan).
For those who wish to
look into the matter further, I hope the following comments and explanations
will assist in showing why we can HOLD FAST with confidence to what God taught
us under Mr. Herbert Armstrong.
I will start by
discussing those Scriptures which make it plain, to my mind, that Passover
falls on 14th Abib. Then I will look in
some detail at those Scriptures which some people use to show that Passover
could be on 15th Abib. Hopefully, the truth will become clear as we
continue.
The Meaning of "Evening"
Ex 12:6 says that
One of the key areas
of the Passover dispute is the meaning and use of this term evening in the Bible.
Let us examine this
word by starting in Genesis, the book of origins. Gen 1:5 tells us, "God called the light
Day, and the darkness He called Night.
So the evening and the morning were the first day". (All scriptures are from the New King James version, unless otherwise
stated).
If we look closely at
Gen 1:5 we see that God inspires four
different words when describing a day.
I do not believe God is being vainly repetitive here. Each word has a different meaning in Hebrew,
and a different meaning in English.
"And God called the light Day,
and the darkness He called Night. And the evening
and the morning were the first
day".
Notice in this verse
we have: day, night, evening, morning—four different
terms. There is no reason here to equate
"day" with "morning", as though they were identical. Or "evening" with
"night", as though those two terms had the same meaning.
Mr. Roth brought out
in his June 1999 taped message on How God
Keeps Time, that Moffatt gives the latter part of this verse as
"evening came, and morning came, making one day". That is obviously true and common sense. In any day you will have a morning (around
sunrise), and an evening (around dusk)—but the morning and the evening don't
constitute the whole day—they are
simply stages we will pass through in
a 24 hour period.
My Oxford Wide-Margin
KJV has a marginal note against this verse, giving the original Hebrew reading
as "And the evening was, and the morning was", one day.
The RSV has: "And
there was evening, and there was morning, one day".
If we think about it,
we do not go instantaneously from the
bright light of day to the pitch black of night. The effect of the atmosphere, and our
latitude and longitude, mean that for most of us we have a transition period between day and night, which can be up to an
hour, or even longer. This is how it
looks:
i) At around sunset,
the light starts to diminish, and we enter a more or less short period known as
evening—or twilight. (Some Scots refer to it as the
"gloaming"; Harry Lauder made this period famous in one of his songs
years ago, when he referred to "roaming in the gloaming").
ii) When twilight
fades away and full darkness is upon us, we have night.
iii) At the end of
night, the sun makes its way back towards the eastern horizon, and the sky
starts to lighten again—we come to dawn, or twilight, or morning.
iv) The sun rises
fully, "rules" the day,
and gives us daylight.
So there are four
quite separate components to a full day—starting from sunset (which is how God
starts His day), we have: evening
then night then morning then day.
That fits in
empirically with what we observe, and is clearly stated in Gen 1:5 (and other
verses I'll come to later).
Where does this lead us? Very simply: if the Passover lamb is to be
killed on the 14th Abib IN THE EVENING—and it is according to Ex 12:6—then
there is only one period of time in
the 14th which can be called EVENING—and
that is just after sunset, and before night falls.
Biblically, the hours
after
The term "
In view of the
misunderstanding associated with the term
The term "
It can have
significant legal implications. Many
insurance policies, for example, expire at
At
After
The Roman calendar
divides the day into 24 hours. The
precise moment when the sun transits the overhead meridian—at its zenith—we
call
We are so familiar
with these details we rather take them for granted. However, when we come to deal with the Old
Testament Hebrew scriptures—which long antedate the Roman calendar—we need to
carefully avoid reading our "modern" ideas into the various texts.
The word
Ex 11:4, "Thus
says the LORD: About
Ex
This does not refer to the moment between
The Hebrew simply
means that these events happened in the
middle of the night.
Ex 11:4 uses the
Hebrew chatsoth layelah—two separate
words meaning "middle" and "night".
Ex
And note that the
expression is middle of the night—the
hours before are the early part of the night, the hours after are
the late hours of the night—but the
hours after are very definitely still the
NIGHT—NOT "the morning".
When the Israelites
heard that the Eternal would go through the
It will clear up so much if we can
remember that in the Hebrew reckoning we do not go from night to morning at
"
I will deal with the
topic of "morning" a little later, and show how, rightly understood,
the use of the term "morning" in Ex
Does God Have a Limited Vocabulary?
God does not need to
leave us in confusion through any lack of vocabulary on His part.
If He wants us to do
something in the early afternoon, or
in the late afternoon, He is well
able to tell us so. Consider:
"And the LORD
appeared unto [Abraham] in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day", Gen
18:1. The Hebrew here is chom ha-yom, and refers to early
afternoon, when the sun is high in the sky, and the suns rays are still very
powerful.
So, if God wants the
Passover lamb killed at that time of day, He need only inspire the expression chom ha-yom, and we will all understand.
Or God can use another
expression, "And he arose early in the morning on the fifth day to depart:
and the damsel's father said, Comfort thine heart, I pray thee. And they tarried until afternoon, and they did eat both of them", Judges 19:8. The term "afternoon" here comes
from the Hebrew netoth ha-yom. Netoth means to stretch out or decline (Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee
Lexicon).
Therefore, if God
wants the Passover lamb killed in late afternoon, as the day is declining, He need only use the
expression netoth ha-yom.
For even later in the
day, we have ruach ha-yom, as in
"And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his
wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the
garden", Gen 3:8.
But God did not choose
any of these expressions for the slaying of the Passover lamb. Rather He chose evening—Hebrew ereb—which we saw earlier comes at the
very beginning of the day, AFTER SUNSET.
Strong's gives as the
meaning of ereb (no. 6153): "dusk,
from 6150, to grow dusky at sundown:-
be darkened, (toward) evening".
Evening is not afternoon. Teachers of Judaism would have us believe
that evening begins around noon (!)"as the sun starts to descend in the
sky". They would have us believe
that the Passover lamb could be slain from
This makes no sense in
terms of the meaning of the words, or their Biblical usage, or even common
sense. If I said I was going to pop
round to see you for a chat "tomorrow evening", you would be quite
nonplussed if I turned up at your door at
So, God has a wide and
appropriate vocabulary at His disposal.
If He meant afternoon, He would have said so—using, for example, chom ha-yom, or netoth ha-yom, or ruach ha-yom, or some similar expression
dealing with daytime. If He meant
evening—dusk—He would say so—and He did.
"At evening"
One scripture which
Bill Dankenbring and others seek to use to "show" a late 14th killing
of the Passover lamb is Ex 12:18. This
verse states, "In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened
bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening". Since we
know that there are only seven days of
unleavened bread, we can see that these verses are referring to the very end of the fourteenth day, up to
the very end of the twenty-first day,
i.e. days 15 to 21, inclusive.
Mr. Dankenbring writes
in The Mystery of Ben Ha Arbayim - When
Was the Passover Killed, “Letting the Bible interpret the Bible, then, 'on
the fourteenth day AT EVEN' plainly means at the END of the fourteenth",
and "...logically, then, the same should be true in speaking of the
Passover (Exodus 12:6)". He states
elsewhere in his article, "[so]...we find proof positive that the term ba
ereb or "evening" refers to the time of late afternoon, before
sunset".
We are assured that
the expression "at evening" means late
in the afternoon, before sunset. And since the Passover is to be slain in the
"evening", it must mean late in the afternoon. (Although remember that the Jews and Mr.
Dankenbring believe it is acceptable to kill the lamb as early as
Further proof
(allegedly) is given in Lev 23:32, where we are told regarding the Day of
Atonement, "on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall celebrate your
Sabbath". Once again Mr.
Dankenbring claims that evening as used here "would be the afternoon, up
until sunset". Hence, the Jews would
be correct to kill the Passover in late afternoon "up until sunset".
However, if you look closely here you will see some "sleight of hand"
is being practised. Does "at evening"—Hebrew ba ereb—really mean "late afternoon up to sunset"?
Let's examine the
passage in Lev 23 about Atonement. When—EXACTLY—is the Day of
Atonement? We all know the answer—the tenth day of the seventh month. When
EXACTLY does the tenth day begin in God's calendar? Answer: at the precise moment of SUNSET. So when does Atonement run FROM and TO? It can only—and MUST ONLY—run from the
precise moment of sunset on the ninth
of Tishri to the moment of sunset on the tenth of Tishri.
It most certainly does not run from
"late afternoon" on the ninth to "late afternoon" of the
tenth!! This year in
The clear meaning of
Lev 23:32—the only meaning that fits all the facts—is "on the ninth day of
the month at sunset, from sunset to sunset, you shall celebrate your Sabbath".
Indeed Brown Driver
Briggs gives as the meaning of ereb:
" evening, originally sunset, and
hence perhaps at time of sunset".
As Mr. Armstrong says
in his booklet Pagan Holidays or God's
Holy Days, "Notice, too, in Lev
If we reconsider the
other passage, in Ex 12:18, Mr. Dankenbring would have us believe that
unleavened bread is to be eaten only from "late afternoon" on the
14th Abib, to "late afternoon" on the 21st Abib. On this basis, would I be entitled,
therefore, to start eating leavened products—perhaps some thick toast and marmalade—at,
say, five o'clock in the "afternoon" of the 21st—and with sunset not
due till around 7 p.m.?!
Well, I think we can
see that this makes no sense. The days
of unleavened bread are the 15th to 21st of Abib, inclusive (Lev 23:6), and
start at sunset at the end of the
14th till sunset on the 21st of Abib.
It is necessary to
carefully put all the scriptures together when looking at "evening"
or "sunset", because there is an obvious and well understood
ambiguity—in common with our English usage today of the term
"midnight". If I said I would
meet you at "
So, likewise, God
makes it clear that Atonement starts at the sunset (ereb, evening) that comes at
THE END of the 9th Tishri—and the Feast of Unleavened Bread begins at the
sunset that comes at THE END of 14th Abib.
Simple!
So we can safely
conclude that none of these scriptures that Mr. Dankenbring or others use shows
us that "evening" means late afternoon.
Mr. Dankenbring's
sleight of hand also includes a misleading cross-reference of verses. After trying to show that "at even"
in Ex
But hold on a
moment. Ex 12:6 does NOT say the
Passover lamb is to be killed "at even"! The Hebrew is NOT ba ereb as used in Ex
Ben Ha Arbayim
When giving what are very detailed instructions for the
keeping of Passover, God stated in Ex 12:6 " Now you shall keep [the lamb]
until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the
congregation of
The Hebrew here is ben ha arbayim.
The KJV margin says,
"between the two evenings".
This expression is
translated as "twilight" in
the NKJV, NIV, NASB, NRSV and New Jerusalem versions. The Revised English Bible and Moffatt have
"between dusk and dark". Even the Jewish Publication Society Holy
Scriptures translation gives "AT DUSK".
None of these
translations imply any period IN THE AFTERNOON. They all refer to that period
of time following sunset when the
light fades, and just before darkness falls.
The Jewish Soncino Commentary
defines ben ha arbayim as the
"period of approximately one-and-a-third hours between sunset and the
disappearance of the light which subsequently penetrates through the
clouds".
God has been very
specific here. When it comes to killing
the Passover lamb, don't start before sunset and don't wait till after
dark. Get it done between the two
evenings—between sunset and nightfall.
The Jewish Rabbinical
leaders would have us believe that the two evenings here are "
"Evening"
begins at sunset, as the new day starts.
Evening ends as the darkness of NIGHT takes over. Then, as mentioned earlier, we come to
morning at around sunrise, followed by the
day proper.
In fact, even
referring to the term "afternoon" can be rather misleading. "
But as with
"Until morning"
Having killed the
Passover lambs on the 14th Abib "between the two evenings", the
Israelites were told "And none of you shall go out of the door of his
house until morning", Ex
In the morning—after
the LORD had passed over them, and had slain the firstborn of the Egyptians—the
Israelites were able to leave their homes, burn the Passover-meal remains,
finish packing together all their belongings, further spoil the Egyptians,
congregate at Rameses toward the end of the day, and finally leave Egypt. Deut 16:1 tells us "...in the month of
Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt BY NIGHT".
Which night would this be? Obviously the night of the 15th Abib. This is confirmed in Num 33:3, "They
departed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month...".
This all seems
straightforward, and harmonises perfectly.
Yet the proponents of a 15th Passover want to dispute matters. Apparently all is not as it seems, they would
tell us. The important point that we
have missed, they say, is that morning doesn't mean morning. In fact, morning
really means night!
Their problem is this:
they teach that the lamb is slain in late afternoon of the fourteenth Abib,
that the Passover is then eaten in the evening hours of the 15th, and that God
went
through
How is this dilemma
overcome? Quite simple; just redefine morning to mean night! Or, more
specifically, redefine morning to be the "wee small hours" after midnight—thus
allowing the Israelites to leave their homes anytime after perhaps one or two a.m. Within an hour or two of
the killing of the firstborn, therefore, the Israelites were already heading
out and away from Rameses—whilst still
night—and obviously some hours before daybreak.
This, however, is just
not credible.
As explained earlier,
going from before
It is in the Roman calendar that there a change at
When is
"morning" (Hebrew: boqer)? As I showed at the beginning of this study,
the day comprises four separate parts: evening, then night, then morning (boqer), then day (Gen 1:5). Morning is the transitional period when the
darkness of night fades away, the light gradually appears, and the sun finally
rises to bring in the daytime.
The Israelites were
not to leave their homes, therefore, until shortly before daybreak at the
earliest. They were to stay indoors all night—and night lasts until morning —until twilight.
So, how do the 15th
Abib proponents attempt to demonstrate that morning can occur at night?
One writer among the Churches
of God states, "There are a number of passages which show that boqer can be applied to the early hours
of the morning, between
The first passage
quoted in the article is Ruth 3:14, “So she (Ruth) lay at his feet until
morning, and she arose before one could recognise another. Then he (Boaz) said, Do not let it be known
that the woman came to the threshing floor".
Does this prove that
the term "morning" can mean two or
Boaz was clearly a
very noble and thoughtful individual. He
would not be likely to send the woman he loved home from the threshing floor
out in the fields in the middle of the night, when it was still dark! There were no street lights in those
days! It is obvious that the morning
light was strengthening enough for her to make her way home. Note also verse 15, "And he said, Bring
the shawl that is on you and hold it.
And when she held it, he measured six ephahs of barley, and laid it on
her. Then she went into the city".
It would be pretty tricky measuring out a specific quantity of barley
into a lady's shawl in an unlit barn in the pitch black of night, wouldn't it?
No—I think the only natural understanding of this passage is
that morning is the twilight period just before
daybreak—when there is enough light to move around, yet before full daylight,
and before it would be too easy to recognise someone from a distance. This fits in entirely with everything we have
said up to now.
The next scripture
quoted is Ex 14:24, "Now it came to pass, in the morning watch, that the LORD looked down upon the army of the
Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud, and He troubled the army of the
Egyptians". Here, we are assured,
is proof positive. The article
continues, "The last, or early morning watch, was from
Yes, the "morning
watch" took place from what we would
call about
Moffatt gives
"And in the watch before the dawn the
Eternal looked out from the column of fire ..."
The NIV translates as,
"During the last watch of the night
the LORD looked down ...".
The next example the
article gives us to prove that morning means night is, "As soon as morning
dawned, the men were sent away, they and their donkeys", Gen 44:3.
Hmmm. Seems to me that this could only be at early light?
From a practical point of view, these men are not likely to be leaving
on a journey in the middle of the night, are they? But it makes sense if it is the twilight period before full sunrise.
The article I have
been quoting from gives two more scriptures (even less useful to its cause than
the ones I have already quoted!), then rather astonishingly concludes “boqer is
a general term which could be applied to any time after
Well—bluntly—NO!!
The passages used in
the article surely show, if anything,
that morning is the end of night, and
the period around sunrise and leading
to full daylight!
So—back to Ex
12:22. The Israelites were not to leave
their homes "until morning (boqer)".
So they must have stayed indoors ALL NIGHT until morning light was
breaking.
And, since they left
Egypt at night—on the 15th Abib—then
the Passover slaying of the firstborn must have been around midnight on the previous night—the 14th Abib.
Indeed this is
confirmed if we read all of Num 33:3.
"They departed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth
day of the first month; on the DAY AFTER THE PASSOVER the children of
[Now remember, the
Passover these people had observed wasn't just the ceremonial killing of a
lamb! It was the fact that the LORD had
PASSED OVER them, whilst slaying hundreds of thousands of the firstborn of
So, if the 15th was
the DAY AFTER the Passover, then the
Passover must be THE 14TH of the month!
Remember, the Bible
starts the days at sunset. The 15th of Abib started at sunset—and the
15th of Abib is stated to be the DAY AFTER
Passover. So THE Passover—the
slaying of the firstborn of
Some misunderstand Num
33:3 in the KJV which reads, “... on the morrow after the Passover the
children of
However, the Hebrew in
Num 33:3 is not boqer—morning. It is mochorath—an
entirely different word, meaning the next
day, or the day after.
Num 33:3 in some other
translations reads:
"... the DAY
AFTER the Passover ...", NIV.
“...on the DAY AFTER
the Passover ...", Amplified
“...on the DAY AFTER
the Passover ...", RSV
Despite these clear
translations, a number of people insist that the KJV reference in Num 33:3 to
"on the morrow after the
Passover" means simply "the morning
after the night before". And, as we
saw earlier, "morning" to these people actually means around 2 a.m. or
One Bible Study, which
is currently circulating on the subject of Passover being on the 15th, purports
to show how Scripture uses the Hebrew word mochorath
in the sense of the "following
morning after the preceding night".
They give three illustrations of this alleged usage. Let's have a look at them.
The first example is
Gen 19:33-35. The study paper states,
"
[Mohorot and mochorath are
different ways of spelling the same Hebrew word, in English]
So, according to these
authors,
These authors are
failing to read the entire context. If we start reading, not at verse 33, but at verse 31, we can pick up all the details
of what took place, and when.
"Now the
firstborn SAID TO THE YOUNGER, 'Our father is old, and there is no man on the
earth to come into us as is the custom of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and
we will lie with him, that we preserve the lineage of our father'. (WHEN did this conversation take place? Surely sometime during the daylight hours. They
would need some time to talk it over, and make their plans for the evening
ahead. I suspect it may well have taken
quite a bit of time for the girls to work up the courage to take such a drastic step!). Continuing, "So they made their father
drink wine that night. And the firstborn
went in and lay with her father, and he did not know when she lay down or when
she arose. It happened on the NEXT DAY
(KJV: it came to pass on the morrow...)
that the firstborn SAID TO THE YOUNGER, 'Indeed I lay with my father last night
...” Gen
So what do we see
here? On one day, the girls discussed
the plan together. On the NEXT DAY—on the morrow—mochorath—they discussed
taking the plan one stage further, and having the second daughter also sleep
with her father. But these conversations
were on different calendar days. One may have been, for example, on a Tuesday
morning—and the next on the Wednesday morning.
In other words, mochorath
clearly means the day after—the next
calendar day. There is no evidence in
these Scriptures that "on the morrow" means just a few hours after
the previous evening.
The next example given
in the study paper is Judges 6:38. The
article states, "Gideon and fleece.
Gideon asks for a miracle, a sign, to fully know God's will. He placed a fleece of wool on the ground
overnight, then examined it in the following morning, here called mohorot =
morrow. For the fleece to remain to the
next calendar day before inspection would be illogical. Mohorot = morrow clearly means here the next
daylight period (the next morning) following the events of the previous
night".
The implication again
is that the fleece is put out at night, and in the morning—mochorath—it was
inspected. So obviously, it seems,
mochorath means the very next morning.
But once again, we
need to read the whole context. Let's
read verses 36 to 38. "Then Gideon said to God, 'If You will save Israel
by my hand as You have said — look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the
threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the
ground, then I shall know that You will save Israel by my hand, as You have
said'. And it was so. When he rose early next morning (on the
morrow, KJV) and squeezed the fleece together, he wrung the dew out of the
fleece, a bowl of water".
WHEN did Gideon discuss this "test" with
God? Presumably some time during the day. Then later in the day, or at night, he put out
the fleece. The next morning—the DAY AFTER he had discussed the test with
God—Gideon discovered that God had responded miraculously, and the fleece was
soaked in dew. This was the NEXT
calendar day after presenting God with his "experiment".
So here again, we see
that mochorath has the meaning of A DAY AFTER, not just the next morning
"after the night before".
Don't let anyone pull the wool over your eyes in this regard. (Or even pull the fleece over your eyes!!!).
The third example
which is given in the study paper is 1 Sam 5:3, 4. The article tells us, "In Ashdod the
priests of Dagon rose on "mohorot" = morrow, to find Dagon fallen on
his face over night. "Mohorot"
here again demands a contextual meaning of "the morning after" the
preceding night, when Dagon fell on his face before the captured ark".
Once again, let us
make sure we read the whole account in
context, starting in verse 2.
"When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the
house of Dagon and set it by Dagon. [When would this have been done? Almost certainly during daylight hours]. And when
the people of
Despite what is said
in the study paper, therefore, we can see that the meaning of mochorath is THE DAY AFTER—the next full day. So when it says in Num 33:3 that
Mr. Roth covered this
point at some length in his taped messages on How God Keeps Time.
So, if the Bible means
what it says—and it does—then the LORD must have passed over the Israelites on the day before the 15th—namely, the 14th
Abib! And if He passed over in the
middle of the night on the 14th Abib, the Passover lamb must have been killed
and eaten in the early part of the 14th—just
after the 14th began!
KEEPING the Passover
Num 28:16-17, "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".
Note that it is
clearly stated that one event occurs on
the fourteenth, and the other on the
fifteenth. The Passover is ON the
fourteenth—and as we'll see in a moment the Passover is not just "the
slaying of the lamb". Some would
say that the slaying of the lamb, late on the 14th (technically still afternoon!) IS the Passover. Then early on the 15th, they would class the
eating of the lamb as "keeping" the Feast. They would have us believe that on the first
Passover, the death angel then passed over the Israelites a few hours later, at
around
But we need to ask,
EXACTLY WHAT WAS IT that gave the name
PASSOVER to the events of that special night?
Was it the killing of a lamb? No—the Israelites would have killed many
lambs throughout the course of a year!
Was it the eating of a lamb? No—the Israelites would have eaten many lambs
in a year! Was it the sprinkling of
blood on their door posts? No—though
that might have given us the name of the
doorpost-blood-sprinkling ceremony!
Really, it is all very obvious, isn't it? The name
PASSOVER comes from the fact that the Eternal PASSED OVER the Israelites when
the firstborn of the Egyptians were being
killed! It is the actual PASS OVER
that gives us the name Passover, and
we've just read in Num 28:16 that the Passover is on the fourteenth of the month.
Why? Because that is the day when
the PASS OVER took place—the 14th!
Again we read in Lev
23:5-6, "ON the fourteenth day of
the first month at twilight IS the
LORD'S Passover. And on the fifteenth
day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; seven days
you must eat unleavened bread". Two
separate observances—on two separate days!
Consider now Num
9:2-5, "Let the children of Israel KEEP the Passover at its appointed
time. ON the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall KEEP IT at
its appointed time. According to ALL ITS RITES AND CEREMONIES you shall
KEEP IT. So Moses told the children of
This is very
clear. You do not KEEP the Passover just
by "killing a lamb"! The
Passover was KEPT by:
- choosing a young
male lamb, without blemish (Ex 12:5)
- keeping the lamb
till the 14th Abib (Ex 12:6)
- killing it on the
14th at twilight (Ex 12:6)
- roasting its body
(Ex 12:8)
- not breaking any
bones (Ex
- eating the lamb,
with unleavened bread and herbs (Ex 12:8)
- ensuring only
circumcised to eat (Ex
- burning any that
remained, in the morning (Ex
ALL of this is
required to KEEP THE PASSOVER. Note Num
9:3 quoted earlier, "According to all
its rites and ceremonies you shall KEEP it"! And it was KEPT on the 14th day! Simply "killing a lamb" is NOT
KEEPING the Passover!
We know that it was
possible for people to keep the Passover in the
second month, if they were ceremonially defiled in Abib, or were away on a
long journey. Moses continues in Num
9:11-12, "ON the fourteenth day of the second
month, at twilight, they may keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and
bitter herbs. They shall leave none of
it until morning, nor break one of its bones.
According to ALL THE ORDINANCES OF
THE PASSOVER they shall KEEP it".
So—when Scripture says
we are to KEEP the Passover ON or IN the fourteenth day of the month, it means
keeping ALL of it in the 14th—not just beginning
to keep it then, but with most of it
coming in the 15th!! The Passover is
not in the 15th it is IN the 14th!
And note in Num
9:11-12, these people were to KEEP the Passover—with all its ordinances—all its
rites and ceremonies—ON the 14th. Also
note that there is no reference here to anything taking place on the fifteenth of the month. They
didn't keep any "Feast" on the 15th.
There was no "second" period of Unleavened Bread, with a Holy
Day on the 15th of the second month! The
only observance which is mentioned for the second month is KEEPING THE
PASSOVER—with ALL its ordinances—ON the fourteenth
day!
Summary So Far
Let's just recap what
we have seen so far, before we look at some of the so-called
"difficult" scriptures that people use to "support" a 15th
Abib Passover.
1. Passover is the evening of 14th Abib.
2. A full day starts at sunset and comprises: evening, night,
morning, and day.
3. Evening is after sunset at THE BEGINNING of the new
day.
4.
5. If God wanted to have
the Passover killed in late afternoon,
He could have chosen various expressions, such as chom ha-yom, netoth ha-yom
or ruach ha-yom.
6. The term "at
evening"—ba ereb—does not mean "late afternoon", but means sunset.
7. The Passover lamb
was killed ben ha-arbayim—which means
twilight, between sunset and night.
8. The Israelites left
9. Morning means
around daybreak, NOT the middle of the
night.
10. The Israelites
left
11. The Passover and
the Feast of Unleavened Bread are on different days, and have different
meanings. They represent different phases of God's plan of
salvation.
12. The Passover
consists of ordinances, rites and ceremonies, not just the killing of a
lamb. ALL must be observed in order to
KEEP the Passover.
2,000 Year-old Dispute
I have tried thus far
to show WHY—from the plain instructions in Scripture—we accept Passover on 14th
Abib. It all seems to fit together very
naturally.
Yet some have disputed
the correct observance of the Passover for at least 2,000 years!
The Universal Jewish
Encyclopaedia states, under Paschal Lamb,
"The Pharisees and Sadducees had a DISPUTE as to the time when the
slaughtering should take place; the former held it should be in the last three
hours before sunset, the latter, BETWEEN SUNSET AND DARK" (Volume 8).
Since all agreed that
Passover was on the 14th of the month, that means that the Pharisees believed
the lamb should be killed around
So this dispute is NOT
something new! Those who claim to bring us NEW TRUTH—who
approach us with, "Don't you know Passover is actually on the 15th
Abib?"—are just rehashing old Jewish
arguments.
And the Jews couldn't
agree among themselves even 2,000 years ago, so there is no point in our particularly
looking to them for any help, now!!
The Scriptures are
plain enough, as we've hopefully covered up till now.
Difficult Scriptures?
However, some point to
certain Scriptures which, they say, throw
doubt upon what we've said so far.
Usually the argument follows the form of "yes, but it doesn't mean that..."
For example:
- we say the Bible
shows that Passover is ON the 14th Abib, and meet the response "Yes, but
it doesn't mean that, it means the
15th"
- we say that evening
means after sunset, as darkness
falls, to be met with "Yes, but evening doesn't mean evening, it really means afternoon"
- we say that the
Israelites couldn't leave their houses till morning, to be met with "Yes,
but morning doesn't mean morning, it
actually means night"
- we say KEEPING the Passover on the 14th
means killing AND EATING the meal, to
be met with "Yes, but keeping doesn't
mean keeping in that sense, it really only means killing the lamb"
- in the New
Testament, when Jesus said "I WILL KEEP the Passover", we are told
"Yes, but Passover doesn't mean
Passover, it means a final going away dinner".
Well — it all seems
rather suspect to me. I get uneasy when
too many scriptures apparently don't mean
what they say!
Let's look at a number
of verses which are used to support several of these points.
Evening
One of the main
arguments you will come across is that EVENING doesn't mean the period after sunset and before dark. Those who teach a Passover on the 15th Abib
need to show that the lamb was killed in
late afternoon on the 14th—perhaps around
So—what scriptures
show that evening really means afternoon?
(Bearing in mind that Gen 1:5, 8, 13 etc. show that the days begin with evening).
Collecting Water
For our first example,
let's review what Mr. Dankenbring says in his article, The Mystery of Ben ha Arbayim:
"In Gen 24, Abraham sends his
faithful servant to find a wife for Isaac back in his own original country...
when the servant travels back to the land of Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor,
he stops. We read: 'And he made his
camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water at the time of the
EVENING, even the time that the women go out to draw water' (Gen 24:11)".
What does this tell us
about EVENING? Mr. Dankenbring continues, "This would refer to late afternoon, not
after sunset when it is getting dark outside.
Women would not wait until it is growing dark, or till dusk or twilight,
before getting their water form the well".
Well (no pun
intended!)—would the women of Mesopotamia, in the period 2,000 BC—wait till
after sunset to go out to collect the water?
I don't know. I wasn't around
then! I do not know what the customs of that time were.
Perhaps the ladies did wait
"until it is growing dark"—until the sun was down, and it was much
cooler—before going to draw water from the well. I don't suppose Mr. Dankenbring knows either.
I would certainly
consider it rather presumptuous to conclude—without knowing the culture and
mores of the day—that the women couldn't visit the wells during the evening,
after sunset.
However, other
translations of the Bible show us that Mr. Dankenbring is probably on the wrong
track entirely. Rather than the women
walking down to the well during the
evening, it seems they actually came out shortly before evening—shortly BEFORE
sunset, and as evening was
approaching. Consider:
"Towards evening, the time when the women
came out ..." Gen 24:11 (New English Bible)
"Near evening, at the time when the women
go out to draw water ..." (New American Bible)
"It was toward evening when the women came out
..." (Berkeley).
Certainly no PROOF
here that evening MUST include late
afternoon! To use this scripture to
"prove" that evening also means afternoon you need to (a) ignore the
translations quoted above, (b) assume that you know precisely how—and when—the
women of that day carried out their domestic responsibilities, and (c) ignore
the various other scriptures and references we looked at earlier showing the
evening falling after sunset!
Dark Shadows
Let's look another
scripture which is used to show that the afternoon can also be described
(allegedly) as evening.
After quoting this
next scripture, Mr. Dankenbring says in his article, "here we find proof positive that the term ba ereb or
"evening" refers to the time of late afternoon, before sunset".
The scripture in
question is Jeremiah 6:4, "Prepare war against her; arise, and let us go
up at noon. Woe to us, for the day goes
away, for the shadows of the evening are lengthening". Mr. Dankenbring explains, "... after sunset, there are no shadows cast at
all — for it is the sun which casts
shadows".
Well, it's certainly
true that the sun casts shadows.
However, so does the full moon,
even in the middle of the night. I've
read somewhere that the planet Venus can cast shadows if the conditions are
right!
But what are
shadows? Does it only mean: "dark areas cast by the light of the sun being blocked by some solid object"?
My Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary
includes among its definitions " ... darkness
... gloom". It explains that the word shadow comes from
the Old English sceadu, which comes
in turn from the Greek, skotos, which
simply means DARKNESS. My Collins Concise Dictionary gives one
meaning of shadow as "an area of
relative darkness".
As evening approaches,
the light starts to fade away, and the gloom descends. Shadows cast by the sun stretch out and
lengthen as the arrival of evening becomes imminent. In this sense, the lengthening shadows show
that evening—dusk—the gloom of twilight—is immediately at hand. The lengthening shadows lead up to—and introduce evening—which as we saw earlier begins at sunset.
The same Hebrew word
for shadows, used in Jer 6:4 (tsalal), is also used in Song of Solomon 2:17 and
4:6. It reads: "Until the day
breaks and the shadows flee away ...”
The Good News Bible
translates this as, "... until the morning breezes blow and the darkness disappears". The Living Bible gives "Before the dawn
comes and the shadows flee away...”
Both of these verses
in the Song of Solomon show that the term shadows
can be used to refer to the darkness, or gloom, of night. As day breaks, the light of the sun drives
away the darkness—drives away the shadows, or gloom, of the night.
So Jer 6:4, rather
than proving beyond doubt that evening must be afternoon, appears to be using
the lengthening shadows simply to show that the gloom and darkness of evening
and night was minutes away—that the best time for a military attack was
past. Those who would say that evening
begins at noon, and that the Passover
lamb could be killed at 3:00 p.m., would be hard pressed to explain why
Jeremiah would use the approach of evening as a sign of a military
problem. Soldiers can fight quite well
throughout the afternoon hours! It is
only as sunset looms—and the twilight period and darkness approaches—that fighting becomes difficult.
Ferrar Fenton's
translation of Jer 6:4 states, "Woe to us! — For the day turns! — for the dark shadows extend! ".
So this scripture is
hardly clear evidence—"proof positive"—that the evening can be
construed as the period prior to sunset (and which the Jews actually take as
commencing at noon, as we'll see later!).
David and Bathsheba.
Another rather obscure
scripture used to show that evening doesn't mean evening, but means afternoon,
is the account of David's adultery with Bathsheba, recorded in 2 Sam 11:2,
"Then it happened one evening
that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king's house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and
the woman was very beautiful to behold".
From this rather brief
account, all sorts of inferences seem to be drawn—for example, that David
wouldn't be walking on the roof of his house when it was dusk, so it must have
been late afternoon—or, that David wouldn't be actually sleeping in his bed on
the roof in the evening, so this must
relate to his simply having a siesta on a couch in the afternoon—or, well if it was twilight he wouldn't have been able to see whether the woman was
beautiful or not, so it must have been
daylight.
Some of these views
seem, however, like wishful thinking
on the part of those who want to find evidence for the afternoon being also
classed as evening. David may well have
slept in a bed on the roof of his palace.
If the weather was warm, it was probably a very pleasant and refreshing
place to sleep (there is an example of Saul sleeping overnight on a roof in 1
Sam 9:25-26, "Samuel spoke with Saul on the top of the house. They
arose early; and it was about the dawning of the day that Samuel called to Saul
on the top of the house, saying, Get up, that I may send you on your way
...".).
Then again, why would
Bathsheba be bathing—in public view—in
broad daylight, at say
How could David see
well enough in the dusk to know that
she was beautiful? Well, there may be
more to this story than meets the eye.
We usually think that this was the
first time that David had set his eyes on Bathsheba, and was immediately
carried away with her beauty. This is
quite unlikely.
Bathsheba was almost
certainly not a stranger to
David. She was the wife of Uriah, the
Hittite. Her father was Eliam. Both
Uriah and Eliam were among the
thirty-seven men who were David's hand-picked personal bodyguard (2 Sam
We can perhaps only
speculate now, but it would seem very likely that Bathsheba would have attended
a number of court banquets and festivals in the king's palace, since she was so
closely related to David's right-hand men and prime minister, and lived only a
short distance away. Perhaps David had
already allowed his eyes and mind "to wander" over this attractive
young woman—and catching a glimpse of her bathing in the twilight was enough to
incite him to action.
Whatever the exact
circumstances, we can certainly find no proof that the evening here was anything other than the dusky period we would
associate with the arrival of sunset.
These seem to be three
of the more popular scriptures used to show that evening can be applied to the afternoon period, but hopefully we can
see that they are far from convincing, and easily support the more natural
understanding of evening being after
sunset?
The real meaning of "evening"
Compare the above
rather indirect and obscure references to the many, many scriptures where an
evening starting around sunset in the
only reasonable view.
The laws of
uncleanness all show that those who are unclean become clean again AT EVENING:
"...whoever
touches the carcass of them shall be unclean until evening", Lev 11:24
"...whoever
carries any such carcass shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening", Lev 11:28.
See also Lev
11:31,32,39,40,46, Lev 15:5,6,7,8,10,11, etc..
Is anyone seriously
suggesting that the unclean people referred to above would become ceremonially
clean at 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon—or at 3:30 p.m.—or at 4:55 p.m.?? I think not!
Surely we all understand that these people were unclean until the end of the day—and only when the next new day commenced—at EVENING—at
sunset—were they able to take their place back among the congregation.
We looked earlier at
Lev 23:32—the Day of Atonement—which runs "from evening to evening",
and saw that we do not start eating our sandwiches at 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon of the Day of
Atonement, but that we wait till the day
ends—at sunset—at EVENING—before we break our fasts.
Consider also Zech
14:7. This prophecy of Christ's return
notes that, "It shall be one day which is known to the LORD—neither day
nor night. But at evening time it shall happen that it will be LIGHT". This is a prophecy of dramatic events taking place in the Day of the Lord. Incredibly, the scripture tells us, it will
be bright at evening time—something
unheard of! Yet the Rabbis would tell us
that evening can mean any time after noon, and by killing the Passover at 3:00
p.m. they are killing it "at evening". If we follow their argument, Zech 14:7
becomes meaningless — it is hardly dramatic prophecy to state that "at 3
o'clock in the afternoon it shall be light"! That's not exactly a major demonstration of
God's power!
"Between the two evenings"
We know the Passover
lamb was to be killed "at evening" (Ex 12:6, KJV). The Hebrew expression in this verse, however,
is not simply ba ereb—at evening—but
is ben ha arbayim—BETWEEN THE
EVENINGS.
This is quite
specific. We looked at this expression
in some detail earlier. Most modern Bible translations use the term TWILIGHT to
translate ben ha arbayim—meaning the
period between sunset and full darkness (see NKJV, NIV, NASB, NRSV. Moffatt gives "between dusk and
dark"). The Rabbis would tell us,
however, that the "first evening" is at noon when the sun begins to
go down, and the "second evening" is at sunset—so between the two
evenings, they tell us, is between noon and sunset (even though their own
Jewish Publication Society Holy Scriptures translates the expression as at dusk!).
Does the Bible use
this expression elsewhere than Ex 12:6?
And does this other usage show whether the expression means late afternoon—or early evening, after
sunset?
Yes, say some people,
the expression can be shown to mean late
afternoon—BEFORE sunset—by looking at the time of the "evening
sacrifice". Let's look at the
relevant scripture.
In Num 28:3-4 we read,
"This is the offering made by fire which you shall offer to the LORD: two
male lambs in their first year without blemish, day by day, as a regular burnt
offering. The one lamb you shall offer
in the morning, the other lamb you shall offer in the evening (ben ha arbayim—between the two evenings)".
One writer states,
"Both these offerings were to be offered DAILY, "day by day",
"IN A DAY" — that is, WITHIN THE SAME DAY! The first one is the morning sacrifice, and
the second one is the EVENING sacrifice.
In order for the evening sacrifice to be offered the SAME DAY as the
morning sacrifice, it had to be offered BEFORE SUNSET! Otherwise it would have been the NEXT
day! What could be clearer? Thus, here we find incontrovertible,
inexorable, yet simple proof that between
the two evenings has to refer to the period of time BEFORE SUNSET, not
after sundown ...”
Well, no, I don't
think we find any such "proof".
A sacrifice after sunset, followed by one the next
morning, are both in the SAME DAY, as God keeps time (sunset to sunset)! They are not on one day, and the next day. The inference being drawn from Num 28:3-4 is
that—since it mentions the morning offering first,
and the evening offering second—they
must both come before that particular day
is over, at sunset.
That may appear to be a
"reasonable" inference, but falls short of constituting actual
PROOF. Especially when the following
scriptures which refer to ben ha arbayim
are considered.
Ex 30:1, 7-8,
"You shall make an altar to burn incense on; you shall make it of acacia
wood ... and Aaron shall burn on it sweet incense every morning; when he tends
the lamps, he shall burn incense on it.
And when Aaron LIGHTS THE LAMPS at twilight (ben ha arbayim), he shall
burn incense on it, a perpetual incense ...”
If it is considered logical to interpret Num 28:3-4 to mean that morning and evening (ben ha arbayim) must both come before sunset, then it becomes
completely ILLOGICAL to expect Aaron to light
the Tabernacle lamps in MID-AFTERNOON, before
sunset (remember that the Rabbis killed the Passover lamb at around 3 p.m., which they say is ben ha arbayim). Surely LOGIC—and common sense—tell us that the Tabernacle lamps are most likely to
be lit AT DUSK—at around sunset—at twilight. So the most likely meaning of ben ha arbayim, according to Ex 30:7-8,
is the period of dusk AFTER SUNSET.
[Don't be confused by
passages such as 1 Kings 18, where Elijah met the prophets of Baal at Mount
Carmel. The various translators seem to
have added all sorts of "helpful" words which are not in the original
Hebrew, and which create an entirely inaccurate impression. In the KJV the passage reads, "And it
came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was
neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded", 1 Ki 18:29 (and
see verse 36 also). Some have claimed,
"Well—look! Here it is, just a
little time after midday, and we come to the time of the evening
sacrifice. Thousands of people are up on
the hills of Mount Carmel. It is
obviously still daylight—around say 3
o'clock in the afternoon—and it is called the time of the evening sacrifice. So
afternoon IS evening!"
NOT SO. Notice that both the word time, and the word evening, are in italics in the King James Version. That means that those words are not to be
found in the original Hebrew. On most
occasions when the translators add a few words, it helps give a clearer
meaning. Here the translators manage only to confuse. This passage makes no reference WHATSOEVER to
any evening sacrifice in the
Hebrew. (And a bullock, moreover, is not permitted as an evening
sacrifice). Without the
"benefit" of the translators' additional words the passage reads,
"And it happened, as noon passed by, that they prophesied madly until the
offering up of the offering; and there was
no sound, and there was no one answering, and there was no one paying
attention", see A Literal
Translation of the Bible, by Jay P Green, Senior. The verse makes perfect sense without any additions. All of the activity on Mount Carmel led up to
the time of Elijah's sacrifice—that is the offering that is
being discussed, not some other sacrifice taking place elsewhere and which has
no relevance to the story. There is no
evidence here at all that evening sacrifices were offered in the afternoon!]
Returning to the
expression ben ha arbayim, this also appears in Exodus 16, in the
account of the miraculous arrival of the quail and the manna. This passage
should help to make things CLEAR.
Moses is giving a
Sabbath-day message to the Israelites (see Lesson
35 of the Bible Correspondence Course, on the subject of The Day of
Pentecost). The Israelites have been
murmuring and complaining about their food.
Moses says, "At EVENING (ereb)
you shall know that the LORD has brought you out of the land of Egypt. And in
the morning you shall see the glory of the LORD ... this shall be seen when
the LORD gives you meat to eat in the EVENING (ereb), and in the morning bread
to the full ...” Ex 16:6, 8. Moses is
saying that once the Sabbath is over—at EVENING—or sunset—God is going to
provide them with flesh to eat, and later in that day—first thing in the morning—a special bread to eat.
The story continues in
Ex
What can we deduce
from this passage of scripture? The
quails were to be eaten ben ha arbayim. But they didn't arrive in the camp till evening (ereb). So ben
ha arbayim must come AFTER evening—you can't eat the quail till they
arrive!
And when, precisely, would they arrive? Consider:
a) the quail—like most
birds—are most likely to settle down and roost when it starts to get dark around sunset
b) as we have seen
many times, the biblical reference to evening
means the beginning of a new day, following
sunset
c) Moses' message in
Ex 16 was delivered on a Sabbath, and it is unlikely that God would be inclined
to deliver the quail till after the
Sabbath was over, at sunset (after all it was not an urgent matter of life
and death starvation—the Israelites had been eating up to this date)
d) since this whole
passage was about the SABBATH TEST (Ex 16:4)—and
So, it is clear that
the quails arrived around sunset, and were eaten shortly afterwards ben ha arbayim. Ben ha arbayim therefore follows sunset—and hence when scripture tells us in Ex 12:6 to kill
the Passover lamb ben ha arbayim, it
means JUST AFTER SUNSET — at twilight or dusk—NOT in mid to late afternoon!
Going Down of the Sun
One other so-called "key
scripture" that is used to show that evening
can mean afternoon is Deut 16:6,
"But at the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to place His name
in, there thou shalt sacrifice the Passover at EVEN, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth
out of Egypt" (KJV).
We are told that the
sun starts to go down from noon, and that the phrase "going down of the
sun" relates to the entire period from noon
to sunset. Deut 16:6, we are told,
shows us that this is also called "even".
However, when most of
us talk about the sun going down we
mean the time around actual sunset—that
is the time the sun actually goes
DOWN—out of sight. We don't mean 2 or 3
o'clock in the afternoon. The NKJV
translates verse 6 as "at twilight, at the going down of the
sun". The Amplified and the Moffatt
say “... in the evening, at sunset".
Consider Amos 8:9,
"And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord GOD, that I will
make the SUN GO DOWN at noon, and I will darken
the earth in broad daylight". The
reference here is to the dramatic effect of the sun SETTING at noon—and
producing darkness over the earth. The going down of the sun is equated to
sunset—darkness. Any other
interpretation would mean we have the rather meaningless statement that "at
noon the sun starts to go down in the sky". That happens every day! Is that supposed
to be a dramatic end-time prophecy from the Lord GOD?!!
See also Lev 22:6-7,
"... the person who has touched any such thing shall be unclean until evening, and shall not eat the holy
offerings unless he washes his body with water.
And when the SUN GOES DOWN he shall be clean ...” As we saw earlier, ceremonial uncleanness
expires at the end of the day—at
evening—which we see here equates to the going down of the sun.
Or look at 2 Sam 3:35,
"And when all the people came to persuade David to eat food while it was still day, David took an oath, saying,
God do so to me, and more also, if I taste bread or anything till the SUN GOES
DOWN". David makes it clear here
that it is still daytime, up until the sun goes down. At that point, daytime is over—finished. And common sense alone should tell us it
doesn't finish at noon, or 3 p.m. in
the afternoon.
In Mal 1:11 we read,
"For from the rising of the sun,
even to its GOING DOWN, My name shall be great among the Gentiles". We see two opposites ends of the day
contrasted here—sunrise and sunset. All day long, from sun-up in the morning, till sun-down in the evening, God's name will
be praised. If the going down of the sun means anytime after noon, however, we have a meaningless prophecy which tells us that
God's name will be praised from sun-rise till about mid-afternoon!
I think it should be
very clear. When the Bible refers to the going down of the sun it means AT SUNSET—when
the sun goes DOWN.
Eat it in haste
Hopefully, we have
covered most of the verses that people use to support a 15th Abib Passover.
One last verse that is
sometimes puzzles people is Ex
The argument is,
"Well, they wouldn't be all dressed up, and told to eat the meal in haste, unless they were just about to
leave, would they?”
But let's remember,
the Israelites were commanded not to leave their homes until MORNING. So they clearly weren't going anywhere in a hurry! We looked in detail at this point earlier
(and also saw from Num 33:3 that it was a complete
day AFTER the Passover when Israel left Egypt).
So what did the
instructions in Ex 12:11 mean?
The Hebrew for
"in haste" in this verse is chippazown. It is a different
word from "in haste" as used, for example, in Ex
Chippazown has more the meaning of in fear or in trepidation. There was
about to be a major slaughter in the land of Egypt. The Israelites had been warned not to leave their homes.
Those responsible for selecting the right type of lamb, sacrificing it
at the correct time, splashing its blood properly on their homes, knew that if
they had failed to follow those very specific instructions, it could mean the
deaths of their firstborn—or even themselves. It was not a night of rejoicing. It was a very solemn, sobering
observance. On many occasions over the
next few weeks, the Israelites would demonstrate how much they distrusted their God and suspected He
had brought them out into the wilderness to destroy
them. Some probably feared God would
kill them along with the Egyptian
firstborn! The Passover meal was eaten
in an attitude of apprehension at
what was to happen in the next few hours.
They were not to eat
the meal dressed casually in their pyjamas, or nightclothes! After centuries in Egypt, it was now about
time to leave. Dressing up in their
travelling clothes reinforced the
reality of their imminent departure, and mentally got them ready for a major
upheaval in their way of life. McLintock
and Strong, in their Encyclopaedia of
Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, comment " ...some
think, that, like the dress and posture in which the first Passover was to be
eaten, it was intended to remind the people that they were no longer to regard
themselves as settled down in a home, but as a host upon the march ...".
Does it MATTER?
The Jews of
today—modern Judaism—adhere to a Passover feast on 15th Abib. The ideas which have been introduced in
recent years into the Churches of God, by people such as Mr. Bill Dankenbring,
have their origins in the traditions of the Jews.
Does knowledge of the
correct day actually matter? As long as we are sincere, and have been honest in our studies, does God really care which day we keep?
Well, I think we all
know the answer if that question is asked about the Sabbath or Sunday
keeping! And would God accept it if we
kept Christmas "sincerely"?!
But apart from
accuracy over the correct day for the
Passover, there is a MAJOR PROBLEM with those who elect for a Passover on 15th
Abib.
Basically, they lose
much of the inspired TEACHING that God would have us understand. They merge together the separate meanings of
Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Those who keep a 15th
Abib Passover—in general—do nothing special on
the 14th, other than prepare for the feast meal on the evening of the
15th. On the evening of the 15th, they
have a meal of lamb, bitter herbs, unleavened bread, glasses of wine, and
celebrate Israel's deliverance from Egypt.
It is a time of rejoicing—of celebrating deliverance from ancient
Egypt—and, in our case, from sin and spiritual death. To a certain extent, that
is fine.
But Passover and the
Feast of Unleavened Bread actually have DIFFERENT MEANINGS.
Passover commemorates
the death penalty PASSING OVER the Israelites because they had accepted the
sacrifice of a lamb without blemish. Its
shed blood sprinkled on their dwelling places saved them from DEATH. It was a solemn evening. So, for us TODAY, the Passover is a solemn memorial of our being saved from
the PENALTY OF DEATH by the blood of our
Passover lamb, Jesus Christ.
And so we read in Ex
On the other hand, the
Feast of Unleavened Bread deals with our
escape from Satan and the POWER OF SIN—just as Israel escaped from their bondage to Pharaoh in the land of Egypt. Israel left Egypt on the night of 15th Abib
with a "high hand", rejoicing.
Their dreams of freedom had come true.
Egypt was apparently defeated.
The power of Pharaoh had been broken.
NOW they were free, to leave
Egypt and to follow God. So we REJOICE on the night of 15th ABIB, as
we commemorate this remarkable event, and remember our freedom from the power of sin, and the beginning of our walk
with God.
Ex 13: 3, 6, 8-9 tells
us, "And Moses said to the people: Remember this day in which you went OUT OF
We need to keep these
entirely SEPARATE meanings clearly in
mind. Most Protestants today
acknowledge the need to "accept Jesus". They talk of how Jesus DIED to "save us
from our sins". They talk a great
deal about "the CROSS of Christ".
They emphasise the blood of Christ as Passover lamb. But they STOP AT THE CROSS!! What you will rarely hear is that God
requires MORE of us. Not only must we
accept the Passover sacrifice, we must also MOVE ON to KEEP HIS LAW—to KEEP HIS
COMMANDMENTS—to keep the Sabbath, Holy Days, all of God's commandments.
Perhaps it is because
they do not observe the FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD—the putting of SIN out of
their lives—that Protestants as a whole do not understand the need to keep
God's laws today?
And perhaps
also—because they no longer keep the Passover on the 14th Abib, as a solemn
occasion picturing the death of an innocent lamb—the Jews have been unable to
recognise a Messiah who came to suffer
and DIE for them?
In his book Pagan Holidays—or God's Holy Days—Which?
Mr. Herbert Armstrong writes about the Feast of Unleavened Bread as follows:
"But let us learn
the full significance of this. WHY did
God ordain these feast days? What was
His great PURPOSE? [Mr. Armstrong then quotes Ex 13:3, 6 which we looked at a
few moments ago]
Oh, my friends, do you
see the wonderful meaning? Do you grasp
the true significance of it all? Do you
see God's PURPOSE? The PASSOVER pictures
the DEATH OF CHRIST for the remission of
sins that are past.
But shall we stop there with only past sins
forgiven? We are still flesh beings. We still shall suffer temptations. Sin has held us
in its clutch—we have been SLAVES to
sin, in its power... We have been in BONDAGE to sin.
The picture—the meaning—the symbolism, is not
complete with the Passover alone.
Passover pictures the acceptance of Christ's blood for the REMISSION of past sins. It pictures the CRUCIFIED—the
DEAD—Christ. Shall we leave Christ
symbolically hanging on the cross? The
seven days of UNLEAVENED BREAD following Passover, picture to us the COMPLETE putting away of sin, the KEEPING of the
Commandments—after past sins are forgiven.
To observe Passover
alone, and then fail to observe the seven days of unleavened bread, means, in
symbolism, to accept Christ's blood, and then to continue in sin—to say with
the Sunday churches the Law is done away ...”
So Mr. Armstrong takes
some considerable time and effort to make clear that Passover and Unleavened
Bread have DIFFERENT PURPOSES—different meanings. The Jews have largely lost this important lesson, even though they admit
themselves that the festivals were originally SEPARATE! The Encyclopaedia
Judaica, under the heading Passover
states:
"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 time of the exile they were
combined. Passover was originally not a pilgrimage FEAST, but a
domestic ceremony consisting of the slaughtering and eating of the paschal
animal".
So at least some
Jewish scholars are prepared to admit that originally
there were two separate observances (and
the original instructions are found
in the scriptures—the Books of
Moses!!).
Conclusion
Hopefully, the
foregoing discussion will help in making plain why I believe the 14th Abib
represents the true Passover.
Mr. Herbert Armstrong
went through many of these points in several of his writings, and as we know
held to the 14th Abib Passover to the very end of his life.
The scriptures we have
looked at so far relate to the Old Testament.
It was in the Old Testament
that the first Passover took place. The
very specific instructions for keeping Passover are to be found in the Old Testament. The information necessary for us to
understand the correct day for keeping Passover can be found in the Old Testament.
If we can come to
understand the truth from the Old Testament, then we can look also at the New Testament
references to the keeping of the Passover.
This would be a separate study.
However, this article is already long enough, and suffice it to say that
the New Testament—as we would expect—harmonises completely with the Old
Testament, and shows Christ Himself keeping Passover on 14th Abib.
Here, at the end of
the end-time, the churches of God are seeing a virtual non-stop attack on
everything we were once taught AND WHICH WE ONCE BELIEVED. We need to clearly recognise that so many of
these so-called New Truths are just
rehashed OLD FALSEHOODS!
In 2 Thess
Those with a
Philadelphia attitude are commanded to "HOLD FAST what you have, that no
one may take your crown", Rev 3:11.
Let's hold fast to the truth we once
received—and remember always that, "On the FOURTEENTH DAY of the first
month at twilight is the LORD'S Passover", Lev 23:5!
Further Bible articles and audio messages
can be found at www.t-cog.net