The Institution and First Observance of Passover

The Institution and First Observance of Passover begins as a set of instructions for the night of Egypt’s final plague and becomes a lasting rite of communal memory. A lamb, unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and blood on the doorway mark the Israelite households to be passed over; the ensuing deaths compel Pharaoh to release the people, while the ritual is prescribed for future generations as a remembrance of deliverance.

Background and Instructions

In Egypt, God tells Moses and Aaron that the current month is to become the first month of Israel’s year. On its tenth day, each household is to select a lamb; a small household may join with its nearest neighbor, with the animal apportioned according to the number of people and what they will eat. The animal must be an unblemished male in its first year, chosen from the sheep or goats, and kept until the fourteenth day.

At dusk on the fourteenth day, the assembly is to slaughter the lamb. Its blood is to be put on the two doorposts and lintel of the house where it will be eaten. That night the household is to eat the meat roasted over fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs; none may be eaten raw or boiled. Any portion left until morning must be burned. The meal is to be eaten in haste, with loins girded, shoes on, and staffs in hand, anticipating departure.

The Marked Houses and the Plague

The blood serves as a sign: when God strikes Egypt’s firstborn, the marked houses are passed over and spared from the plague. The instructions extend beyond the Israelite households’ survival, declaring judgment against Egypt’s gods as well. Moses calls Israel’s elders and adds a practical direction: use a bunch of hyssop to apply blood from a basin to the lintel and doorposts, and remain inside until morning. The LORD will pass over the doorway and not allow the destroyer to enter.

The people bow and worship, then carry out the instructions given through Moses and Aaron. At midnight the firstborn throughout Egypt die, from Pharaoh’s firstborn to the firstborn of the captive in the dungeon, as well as the firstborn of the cattle. A great cry rises across the land; Pharaoh summons Moses and Aaron during the night and orders them and the Israelites to leave and serve the LORD. The Egyptians press them to depart quickly, and the Israelites set out with their flocks and herds.

Commemoration and the Exodus

The event is made into an enduring ordinance rather than a meal confined to one night. Passover is to be kept as a feast to the LORD through the generations, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread is observed for seven days. Leaven is removed from the houses; eating leavened bread during the appointed period brings exclusion from the congregation, and the first and seventh days are holy convocations on which ordinary work is forbidden, apart from preparing food.

The rite also carries its own explanation forward. When children ask what the service means, they are to be told that it recalls how the LORD passed over Israel’s houses while striking Egypt and delivered those households. The command looks ahead to keeping the service in the land promised to Israel. Its repetition turns the departure from Egypt into an inherited account of rescue, joining household practice, collective identity, and covenant memory.

The Israelites leave in haste with dough not yet leavened, and bake unleavened cakes from it because they were driven out and had no time to prepare provisions. They journey from Raamses to Succoth, with about six hundred thousand men on foot besides children, accompanied by a mixed multitude and abundant livestock. The narrative places the first Passover immediately at the threshold of this departure: the marked doorway is both protection from the final plague and the point from which the journey out of Egypt begins.