“Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year
old...And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same
month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at
twilight. Moreover, they shall take
some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the
houses in which they eat it. And they
shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it
with unleavened bread and bitter herbs...and you shall eat it in haste–it is the
Lord’s Passover. For I will go through
the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the first-born in the
land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will
execute judgments–I am the Lord.
And the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and
when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to
destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt...
“Now it came about at midnight that the Lord
struck all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh
who sat on his throne to the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon,
and all the first-born of cattle. And
Pharaoh arose in the night...Then he called for Moses and Aaron at night and
said, ‘Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the sons of Israel;
and go, worship the Lord, as you have said.’” (Exodus 12:5-8, 11-13, 29-31)
“In the first month, on the fourteenth
day of the month at twilight is the Lord’s
Passover. Then on the fifteenth day of
the same month there is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; for seven
days you shall eat unleavened bread.”
(Leviticus 23:5-6)
The Diaspora or Jews
living outside of Israel celebrate an eight day Passover (Nisan15-22) while
Jews living in Israel hold a seven day Passover celebration (Nisan 15-21). The
Jewish month of Nisan roughly coincides with our contemporary month of
April. After reading the scriptural
passages above, one might ask, “What happened to Nisan 14? Surely it should be included in the Passover
celebration held by the Jews.”
Some have suggested that Christ’s Last Supper wasn’t a Passover meal because He was crucified on Nisan 14, the day before the Jews ate the Passover. Others have suggested that Jesus was indeed celebrating the Passover when He ate His Last Supper. Because Jews eat the Passover in the evening at the beginning of Nisan 15, they contend that Jesus died in the afternoon of Nisan 15.
ReplyDeleteThis four-part series will prove that Jesus ate the Passover on Nisan 14 and was crucified later that same day.