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Passover and
Unleavened Bread:
Let My People Go!
Go Down, Moses
[excerpt of tune
http://www.anointed-singers.com/Moses1.wav]
Go down,
Moses, way down in Egypt's land
Tell old Pharaoh, Let my people go
When Israel
was in
Egypt's land
Let my people go
Oppressed so hard they could not stand
Let my people go
15th century BC Egyptian wall painting
Go down,
Moses,
way down in Egypt's land
Tell old Pharaoh, Let my people go
So Moses went
to Egypt's land
Let my people go
To make old Pharaoh understand
Let my people go
Go down,
Moses, way down in Egypt's land
Tell old Pharaoh, Let my people go
Thus spake
the Lord, bold Moses said,
"Let my people go,
If not, I'll strike your first born dead
Let my people go"
Go down,
Moses, way down in Egypt's land
Tell old Pharaoh, Let my people go
The Egyptian wall painting above
seems to go very well indeed with this song! But the song was
not composed in the 15th century BC, by some ancient Israelite
slave to express the sorrow of his bondage in Egypt, and the
hope of freedom through the message of Moses.
It sprang up among the
black slaves in the United States in the 19th century AD. And
although it "seems" to be about a Bible story, it was actually
sung by those slaves to express in "code" their own plight, and
yearning for the kind of release from bondage that the
Israelites finally received. If they had openly sung songs about
plantation owners mistreating their slaves, and about wishing to
live as free men, there would have been reprisals. But by using
the biblical motif of ancient Israel, they were able to pour out
their hearts openly.
Although it's painful to realize
that American history includes such a depressing era, most 21st
century Americans are so relieved to now live in a time and
place where this kind of of bondage and slavery is a dim memory
in their own society, and can be relegated to specials on the
History Channel. Perhaps there are pockets in
other parts of the world where some types of slavery are still a
reality, but not in the towns and suburbs of this land.
Unless you believe Jesus...
John 8:31-36
To the Jews who had believed
him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really
my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth
will set you free."
They answered him, "We are Abraham's descendants
and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that
we shall be set free?"
Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins
is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in
the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son
sets you free, you will be free indeed.
The Bible also says:
Romans 3:23
... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God ...
Putting these two passages
together, the conclusion is that everyone is a slave to
sin ... unless they have "the truth [that] will set [them]
free."
And that would mean even the 21st
century Americans who live in middle class suburbs are slaves,
unless they know that truth. That truth is that Jesus holds the
key to open the chains of slavery. At the very beginning of His
active ministry on Earth, right after being tempted by the
Devil, He went to his home town of Nazareth.
Luke 4:13-19
... and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as
was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the
prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the
place where it is written:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the
prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
Christians who have accepted
Jesus as Savior and Lord, and have thus been brought into the
Family of God as sons and daughters who will be "heirs of eternity" with
Jesus, are no longer in bondage to their former sinful lives.
They are free to live the full life that is available in Christ.
In one way, they have already entered in to a taste of the ultimate
Promised Land.
So what does this have to do with
"Times of Refreshing"?
From Bondage to Freedom
Every year Americans spend a
considerable amount of time and energy and enthusiasm
celebrating the Fourth of July. For those who take the
holiday seriously (and not just as a time to set off fireworks
in their backyard) it is a time of reflection on the precious
freedom won by the War of Independence so long ago.
Many if not most towns and cities
have some sort of parade that features floats with historical
and patriotic themes, and bands playing inspiring patriotic
music about the "Land of the Free." It's hard not to be filled
with joyful emotions of gratitude and celebration when a dynamic
band marches by playing "You're a Grand Old Flag."
There is certainly nothing wrong
with this practice. The Bible doesn't condemn "national
holidays" that encourage citizens to remember their history and
honor those who bought and maintained the freedom of all, often
at the cost of their own lives.
But as the introductory article
Times of Refreshing elsewhere on this
website clarifies, the Bible is clear that God intended from the
very beginning of history for all people to have special times
of refreshment, rejoicing, and remembering that have even more
profound implications.
The Fourth of July points to a
time when the people of one country got their freedom. But there
is a time of celebration introduced in the Bible that points far
beyond that, to a time when true freedom became available to all
of mankind. And that takes us back to the time spoken of in the
Go Down Moses song.
The Israelites as a group of
people had been in bondage in Egypt for much of the previous 400
years.
Exodus 1:11-14
[The Egyptians] ... put slave masters over them to oppress
them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as
store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed,
the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came
to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They
made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar
and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard
labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.
At one point, the Pharaoh was so
fearful of the possible rebellion of the Israelites that he
ordered all Israelite boy babies killed, The infant Moses
was perhaps one of the few of his generation who escaped, when
his mother put him in a little boat and left him in the river,
to be rescued by an Egyptian princess.
Years later ...
Exodus 2:23-25
... The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out,
and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to
God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant
with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on
the Israelites and was concerned about them.
And thus through the mouth of
Moses, He eventually promised the Israelites that He would set
them free:
Exodus 6:6
"Therefore, say to the Israelites: 'I am the LORD, and I
will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I
will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem
you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of
judgment.
And at the same time that He
made this promise, He also established an "Independence Day"
celebration that they were to observe from then on in
commemoration of the event. This was to be the first of God's
"appointment times." (For more details on these appointment
times and the calendar that establishes when they are to be
held, see the Times of Refreshing
article.)
Exodus
12:1-8, 11-18, 28-34
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, "This month is to
be for you the first month, the first month of your year.
Note: This month starts with a
new moon near the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere.
"Tell
the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this
month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each
household ... The animals you choose must be year-old males
without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the
goats. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the
month, when all the people of the community of Israel must
slaughter them at twilight.
"Then they
are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of
the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs.
"That
same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along
with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast [unleavened
bread] ... This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak
tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff
in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD's Passover.
"On
that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every
firstborn-both men and animals-and I will bring judgment on all
the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. 13 The blood will be a sign
for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood,
I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch
you when I strike Egypt.
"This is
a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you
shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD -a lasting
ordinance. For seven days you are to eat bread made
without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your
houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the
first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.
On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the
seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to
prepare food for everyone to eat-that is all you may do.
"Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on
this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt.
Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to
come. In the first month you
are to eat bread made without yeast,
from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the
twenty-first day."
The
Israelites did just what the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron.
At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,
from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the
firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the
firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his
officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and
there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house
without someone dead.
During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said,
"Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the
LORD as you have requested. Take your flocks and herds, as
you have said, and go. And also bless me."
The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the
country. "For otherwise," they said, "we will all die!" So
the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and
carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in
clothing.
It is easy to understand from
this description why the Israelites, and their physical descendants
(including the Jews of today), would want to observe this annual
celebration. It is also easy to see how comparable it is in some ways
to the United
States’ Fourth of July celebration. Here is what God told them
about how to celebrate this series of events for the future.
Exodus 13:3-16
Then Moses said to the
people, "Commemorate this day, the day you came out of
Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the LORD brought
you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing
yeast. Today, in the month of Abib, you are leaving. When
the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites,
Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites—the land he swore
to your forefathers to give you, a land flowing with milk
and honey—you are to observe this ceremony in this month:
For seven days eat bread made without yeast and on the
seventh day hold a festival to the LORD. Eat unleavened
bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast in it is
to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere
within your borders. On that day tell your son, 'I do this
because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of
Egypt.' This observance will be for you like a sign on your
hand and a reminder on your forehead that the law of the
LORD is to be on your lips. For the LORD brought you out of
Egypt with his mighty hand. You must keep this ordinance at
the appointed time year after year.
"After the LORD brings you
into the land of the Canaanites and gives it to you, as he
promised on oath to you and your forefathers, you are to
give over to the LORD the first offspring of every womb. All
the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the LORD.
Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not
redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your
sons.
"In days to come, when your
son asks you, 'What does this mean?' say to him, 'With a
mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the
land of slavery. When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let
us go, the LORD killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man
and animal. This is why I sacrifice to the LORD the first
male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn
sons.' And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol
on your forehead that the LORD brought us out of Egypt with
his mighty hand."
But what does any of this have to
do with non-Jewish Christians?
Far past 1000 years later, the
Apostle Paul was writing a letter to a Christian congregation in
the city of Corinth in Greece, a group likely made up almost
entirely of non-Jews. And he said:
I Corinthians 5:6-8
Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little
yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the
old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you
really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been
sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the
old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with
bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.
Just as the black slaves in America were to do
centuries later, Paul reached back into the history of ancient
Israel and pulled symbolism out of the story of the Passover and
the Exodus from Egypt to apply to the life of Christians. The
difference is, instead of applying the physical circumstances of
actual bondage, he built the symbolism around the sacrifice of
Jesus.
Jesus Himself clarified to His disciples after
His resurrection that there was much in the Old Testament that
had been "foreshadowing" His ministry.
Luke 24:27, 36, 44-49
And beginning with Moses
and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was
said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
...While
they were still talking about this, Jesus himself
stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with
you." ...
He said to them,
"This is what I told you while I was still with you:
Everything must be fulfilled that is written about
me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the
Psalms."
Then he opened their
minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He
told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will
suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and
repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached
in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things. I am going to
send you what my Father has promised; but stay in
the city until you have been clothed with power from
on high."
It is obvious, if Jesus had to
"open their minds" to understand the Old Testament scriptures
about Himself, that those OT scriptures are not all that
straight-forward and clear about some matters. The fourth
century writer Augustine seems to be the source of a common
saying that clarifies this:
"The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed. The New
Testament is the Old Testament revealed."
For more clarification on this
concept see the articles Concealing
and Revealing and What Are Shadows
and "Foreshadows"? elsewhere on this Times of Refreshing
website.
Paul made a specific reference to
the connection between the physical removal of leaven from one's
home, and the taking in of unleavened bread with spiritual
principles about malice, wickedness, sincerity, and truth. For
further clarification of this, see the article
What is Leaven?
Christ, Our Passover Lamb
To summarize
the description in Exodus 12 regarding the annual observance of
the Passover:
The Israelites
were to watch for a new moon near the time of the Spring
Equinox. That is the first month of the calendar year.
In ancient
Israel, on the tenth day of the month, each family was to choose
a lamb “without blemish,” and keep it in the home, almost as a
pet.
On the
fourteenth day of the month, they were to kill it.
That evening,
as the fifteenth day of the month was beginning, they were to
eat it, along with unleavened bread.
Then for the
next seven days they were to eat nothing made with leaven. They
were to get any leavening and any leavened baked goods out of
their homes before the first day began.
This was to
symbolically remind them of the how the Lord rescued them from
slavery in Egypt, and protected them while He destroyed the
firstborn of their enemies.
If this was a “shadow” of something to
come, just what was that Something?
Choosing the Lamb
Shortly before His crucifixion,
Jesus and His disciples were making the trip to Jerusalem just
before the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread were to be
celebrated.
Matthew
21:1-9
As they approached Jerusalem and came to
Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples,
saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you
will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them
and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him
that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away."
This took place to fulfill what was
spoken through the prophet:
"Say to the Daughter of Zion,
'See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.' "
The disciples went and did as
Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey
and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus
sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks
on the road, while others cut branches from the
trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that
went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
"Hosanna [a word of praise, a Hebrew word meaning
"Save!"] to the Son of David! Blessed is he who
comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the
highest!"
And a very
great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down
branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way.And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried,
saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in
the name of the Lord;
Hosanna in the highest.
Although the New Testament
account here is obscure enough that it is not possible to pin
down the exact day that this occurred, it was on or very near
the day when the lambs were to be chosen. In this case, the
people of Jerusalem, without even understanding what they were
doing, were indicating by the honor that they were giving Jesus
that He was being chosen to be the Lamb of God for the ultimate
Passover sacrifice. And several days later, likely at the same
time as the Passover lambs were being slaughtered at the Temple
to prepare for the Passover meal, Jesus was killed.
The ancient Passover lambs “took
the place” of the firstborn of the Israelites. Any firstborn,
whether Egyptian or Israelite, not “under the blood of the lamb”
on the doorposts of the house was under a sentence of death.
Ultimately, all mankind is under that sentence of death. And,
metaphorically, all mankind thus needs a Lamb to provide the
blood to cover them, that God may Pass Over them and not impose
the penalty that all have earned by their sins. “For all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God.” “The wages of sin is
death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus.” (For
more about the role of Jesus as the Lamb of God, see the article
Steps to
Salvation.)
FOR THE CHRISTIAN:
The Passover and Days of
Unleavened Bread are an annual memorial of his or her
deliverance from the wages of sin by the blood of Jesus, the
True Passover Lamb. When that blood is applied “over the
doorposts of our heart,” we have a new life, free from the
bondage of our old sin nature. We are then headed for the True
Promised Land, eternal life in the Family of God.
And we then daily “take in”
unleavened bread, symbolizing Jesus, the Unleavened Bread that
came down from heaven, the embodiment of sincerity and truth.
For more commentary on this symbolism of unleavened bread, see
the article The Symbol of Leaven.
Taking time from the hectic pace
of our year every spring for seven days,
to rest, be refreshed,
and remember what Jesus did for us
that we might be set free
is
not a ritual,
but a true time of renewal and rejoicing!
Now that you
have an overview of the Biblical background, symbolism, and
Christian significance of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, you may wish
to explore some of the ways in which Christians observe this
Feast. The
Three Rs: Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread
article provides a variety of descriptions and suggestions for
such observance.
See the
Passover and Days of Unleavened
Bread Scripture Collection for a concise set of the
primary passages from the Old and New Testament related to
the observance of these days.
See Jewish Feast and Holy Day Customs: Pesach and Chag ha-Matzoth
for a description of how the Jews of the 1st Century and the
Jews of the 21st Century have observed these days.
Jesus: The Reason for These
Seasons
Many people who accept Jesus
Christ as Savior and Lord, whether they refer to themselves as "Christian" or
"Messianic," observe the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread as a time of worship,
fellowship, and celebration. They believe that these days, along with the other
Feasts and Holy Days described in Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16, are shadows pointing to the
reality of Jesus. And they believe that there are valuable spiritual lessons to
be learned year by year through actually physically setting aside these Times
of Refreshing as
"appointments with God."
For more about the biblical Feasts
in general, see the article Theme Times elsewhere on
this Times of Refreshing website.
For an
explanation of the Biblical background and Christian
significance of each of the Holy Days and Feasts as
they come in their seasons, explore the links below:
T.G.I.S.
The Weekly Sabbath
Let My People Go!
The Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread
On Fire!
The Feast of Pentecost
Reveille!
The Day of Trumpets
Together Again
The Day of Atonement
Roughing It
The Feast of Tabernacles
The Edge of Eternity
The Eighth Day Assembly
For sources of the Hebrew, Greek,
and English definitions in this and other articles on this website, see the
Information page.
For sources
of the Biblical quotations in this and other articles on this
website, see the Information page.
Email the Times of
Refreshing WebAuthor
All of the articles on this
Times
of Refreshing website were written by Pam Dewey, with
the support and sponsorship of Common Ground Christian
Ministries. For more of Pam's inspirational and educational
writings, visit The Oasis website at
www.youall.com/oasis
All website content
© 2006, Pam
Dewey and Common Ground Christian Ministries
All rights reserved. Material may
be copied for personal use of the site visitor. For permission
to copy for any other purposes, please contact the author at
oasis@chartermi.net
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