Chapter Ten - Changes in the Old Testament Passover Observance

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There is no question that the Passover commands in Exodus 12 have been misinterpreted and given different meanings than the true scriptural meaning of God’s ordinances and statutes delivered to Moses. False interpretations of key Hebrew terms that are used in the Scriptural commands have caused great confusion as to which day God designated for the Passover observance, the 14th or the 15th. As we have seen, the time for slaying the lambs—Hebrew ben ha arbayim, “between the two evenings”—was shifted from the beginning of the 14th day of the first month to the last few hours of the day. This misleading traditional interpretation eliminates nearly a full day from the Scriptural account of the Passover.

In order to understand the true meaning of God’s commands, we have thoroughly examined every element pertaining to the Passover. We have studied the account of Israel’s first Passover in great detail and have exposed the errors in the arguments for a 15th Passover. We have also studied the observance of Israel’s second Passover after the tabernacle was set up, and have found no Scriptural evidence of any changes in the Passover at that time. To the contrary, our study showed that the Passover commands in Exodus 12 were established as perpetual ordinances for the children of Israel throughout their generations (Num. 9:3).

Comparison of 14th Passover and 15th Passover

Over the centuries, most of the descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel forsook the observance of the Passover. The Jews, who are primarily of the tribe of Judah, still profess to observe the Passover, but they do not observe it according to the ordinances of God. Contrary to God’s commands in Exodus 12, the traditional Jewish Passover combines the Passover meal with the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, dropping an entire day from the Scriptural chronology. This deviation from the commands of God completely overlooks the separate meanings of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The following comparison of the 14th and 15th Passover observances shows the sharp differences between the ordinances of God and the traditions of men.

This comparison enables us to clearly see how human misinterpretations and alterations of God’s commands have significantly changed the observance of God’s original commands for the Old Testament Passover. In this chapter, we will read historical evidence of changes in the Jewish observance of the Passover which led to the elimination of the 14th as the Passover day. We will also see what a leading Biblical dictionary reveals about these changes in the Passover observance.

Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread Originally Were Two Separate Feasts—Not One Combined Feast

The commands of God in Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23 make it undeniably clear that the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were to be observed as two separate feasts, one following the other. But today the Jewish practice is to keep the Passover on the 15th day of the first month, combined with the first night of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The modern Jewish calendar designates the 15th as the Passover day, and the Jewish Passover meal, called the Seder, is eaten on the 15th. This practice clearly conflicts with the Scriptural commands to observe the Passover on the 14th day of the month.

As we have learned, this change in the observance of the Passover was justified by misinterpreting the term ben ha arbayim as the afternoon of the 14th, rather than the beginning of the day, as the Scriptures define it. Choosing to follow their own interpretation of ben ha arbayim, the Jews killed their Passover lambs late on the 14th and ate the Passover meal on the night of the 15th.

The Jews admit that their practice of combining the Passover with the Feast of Unleavened Bread deviates from the original observance of the two feasts. The Jewish Encyclopedia states, “Comparison of the successive strata of the Pentateuchal laws bearing on the festival makes it plain that the institution, as developed, is really of composite character. TWO FESTIVALS ORIGINALLY DISTINCT HAVE BECOME MERGED...” (Vol. IX, “Passover,” emphasis added).

Jewish authorities understand and acknowledge that originally there were two distinct and separate feasts: 1) the Passover, commemorating the passing over in Egypt; and 2) the Feast of Unleavened Bread, commemorating the Exodus. The Passover day preceded the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was observed for seven days. The entire spring festival lasted a total of eight days—not seven days, as the Jews now celebrate.

Josephus Records Eight Day
Festivals in His Time

As Josephus shows, the transition from eight days to seven days was not yet complete in New Testament times. In the late first century, Josephus recorded his understanding of the number of days included in the observance of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread: “...We keep a feast for eight days, which is called the Feast of Unleavened Bread” (Antiquities of the Jews, Bk. II, Ch. 15, Sec. 1, emphasis added).

There is no question that the Jews in Josephus’ lifetime observed a full eight days for the spring festival, exactly as they did for the fall festival, which includes the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days and the Last Great Day, making a total of eight days. Notice Josephus’ statement concerning the observance of this fall festival: “Upon the fifteenth day of the same month [the seventh month], when the season of the year is changing for winter, the law enjoins us to pitch tabernacles in every one of our houses, so that we preserve ourselves from the cold of that time of year....and keep a festival for eight days....on the eighth day all work was laid aside, and then as we said before, they sacrificed to God...” (Antiquities of the Jews, Bk. III, Ch. 10, Sec. 4, emphasis added).

Josephus’ statement shows that the Jews of the late first century were still observing the Scriptural commands to keep the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days and the Last Great Day which follows, making eight days (Lev. 23:33-44). They understood that these eight days were whole days, calculated from sunset to sunset. There can be no doubt that it was the same for the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Jews of Josephus’ day were observing the Passover day, the 14th day of the first month, in addition to the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which begins on the 15th and lasts for seven days, making a total of eight days (Lev. 23:4-8).

The Jews Later Combined the
Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
Making a Seven Day Feast

The combining of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which reduced the eight-day festival to a seven-day feast, has been well documented. The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible confirms this change in the observance of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread:

“In contemporary Judaism the word Pesh, or ‘Passover,’ is used to refer to a whole range of observances related to the season. This usage has been customary since ca. the second century of the Christian era....As the employment of the one title, Passover, indicates, the Mishna, like Josephus, treated all the observances as parts of a single integrated feast. This has not always been so.”

“This indicates a recollection that there were two separable units or feasts in the single complex of observances. But this distinction was not carefully kept....Amid all the uncertainty about the Passover and Unleavened Bread in Israel there is general agreement on two points: the feast contains two originally separate components” (Vol. III, s. v. “Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread,” emphasis added).

Much has been written concerning the history of the Passover and the changes that occurred in its observance. These historical records clearly attest to the fact that the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which were originally observed as two separate feasts, were combined by the Jews. The domestic sacrifice of the Passover lambs at the beginning of the 14th was replaced by the temple sacrifice of the lambs in the late afternoon of the 14th and a Passover meal on the night of the 15th, which begins the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Those who understand the Scriptural account in Exodus 12 can readily see the contrast between the original domestic observance of the Passover and the later temple practice of the Jews.

The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible points out this marked change in the observance of the Passover: “In many respects the observance [of the Passover at the beginning of the 14th by the Jewish Samaritans] corresponds more closely to the scriptural prescriptions, notably those of Exod. 12, than the true observance in Jerusalem in the days of Jesus—a reminder, among other things, that in its three thousand years or more of history as an Israelite observance, Passover has never ceased to change, however imperceptibly.

“The largest block of material in the OT dealing with Passover and Unleavened Bread is found in Exod. 12:1-13:16. It occurs as a part of the narrative of the slaying of the first-born of the Egyptians and of the ensuing departure of the Israelites. The object of the narrators is to associate both observances with the historical deliverance of Israel. They do this by stressing that both were established in Egypt....

“He [H.G. May] feels that [Exodus] 12:1-28 as a whole associates the feast with Jewish life in the Diaspora: ‘the representation,’ he says, ‘is consistently that of a simple, private home celebration with the sacrificial animal a sheep.’

“The fact that it [the account in Ex. 12:1-28] is given a wholly domestic setting and lacks a temple ceremony is its most important distinction in relation to all other accounts” (Ibid.).

Although the observance of the Passover shifted to a temple sacrifice, the domestic killing of the Passover lambs was not wholly supplanted by the temple practice. The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia reveals that many of the Sadducees—which included the high priests’ families—retained the practice of the domestic Passover at the beginning of the 14th. This fact is quite surprising. We would expect the high priests to observe the temple sacrifice of the Passover on the afternoon of the 14th, since they were in charge of the temple. But such was not the case. Notice: “This story of the first paschal lamb, as related in the Bible, became the pattern for the observance of the Passover during the period of the Temple, but with a few modifications. Thus the sacrifice took place in the sanctuary and the blood was sprinkled upon the altar.

“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 NIGHTFALL” (p. 406).

This record of the dispute between the Pharisees and the Sadducees shows that two separate Passover observances continued side by side. The Jews did not universally embrace the temple sacrifice of the Passover. As the historical documentation shows, the Pharisees changed from the domestic sacrifice of the lambs to a temple sacrifice late on the 14th and a Passover meal on the 15th. The Sadducees, including some high priests and their families, continued to practice the domestic killing of the Passover lambs at the beginning of the 14th. The following comparison shows the great difference between the domestic observance, as commanded in Exodus 12, and the temple practice of New Testament times:

“In relation to the Passover of the NT period this section disclosed both similarities and differences. There is the same concern for a family arrangement of the feast; though instead of stating that the minimum size of a ‘family’ is ten, it insists that a man must join with ‘his neighbor’ (Ex. 12:4) so that his group may be large enough to consume the lamb. The ordering seems to have been done more in terms of natural family units than by means of the ‘companies’ of the era of the Mishna. Moreover there is no hint here [in the account in Exodus 12] that Passover was a pilgrim feast, nor even of any common shrine for several families....There is no explicit reference to priestly or Levitical assistance at the slaughter; the Mishna obviously CHANGES THE ORIGINAL MEANING of the phrase ‘the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel’ (Exod. 12:6) by treating it as a warrant for the three courses needed to accommodate all the temple sacrifice (Pes. 5:5). The counsel [in Exodus 12] to kill the lambs ‘in the evening’ is more literally followed by the Samaritan rite; the Hebrew is PROPERLY INTERPRETED AS DUSK and cannot be fully reconciled with the later practice of making the sacrifice in the late afternoon.... The most striking difference between this priestly account and the later practice, however, is that the observance, though obviously sacrificial in character, was entirely a DOMESTIC affair. There is no clear reference to a shrine; and, instead of being dashed against an altar, there is the application of ‘some of the blood’ (Exod. 12:7; cf. vs. 22) to the door-posts and lintel of each house in which the celebration occurs....This is not just a simple domestic celebration; it is a most solemn observance” (Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. III, s.v. “Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread,” emphasis added).

This comparison of the Scriptural commands and the later practices of the Jews shows some of the misinterpretations that were applied to Exodus 12 to justify changing the Passover to a temple sacrifice. As The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible states, three courses of priests and Levites were needed for the temple sacrifice of the Passover, due to the large number of lambs. Each course was allotted one and a half hours, making a total of four and a half hours for the temple sacrifice of the lambs. It was impossible to fit all the sacrificing into ben ha arbayim— “between sunset and nightfall”—which lasts only one to one and a half hours. The problem was circumvented by moving the slaying of the lambs to the afternoon of the day. By the time the lambs were roasted and the Passover meal was ready, the sun had set, ending the Passover day and beginning the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Thus the Passover was combined with the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the original observance of eight days—composed of two separate feasts—became a combined feast of only seven days. For Talmudic records of the schedule for the temple sacrifice of the Passover, and the rabbinical interpretations which were used to justify the afternoon sacrifice, see Appendix S.

The Encyclopedia Judaica, a leading authority in the history of Jewish practices, acknowledges that the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were originally observed as two separate and distinct feasts: “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 beginning of the Exile [in Babylon 603-585 BC] they were combined.

“Passover was originally not a pilgrimage feast, but a domestic ceremony consisting of the slaughtering and eating of the paschal animal. This animal according to Exodus 12:21 was a sheep or goat, according to Deut. 16:2 [this verse does not refer to the sacrifice of the Passover] either a sheep or bovine animal....

“Originally the Passover was celebrated among the families (Ex. 12:21 [J]) in tents, after the territorial occupation, in houses. After the cultic centralization of King Josiah, the celebration of the Passover was transferred to the central Sanctuary in Jerusalem (Deut. 16:2, 7; II Kings 23:21-23). The requirement that the slaughtering, preparing, and eating of the paschal animals was to take place in the forecourts of the Temple was maintained after the Exile (II Chron. 30:1-5, 35:13-14; Jub. 49:12, 20). Later, because of the large numbers of participants, the paschal animal was killed at the Temple..., but boiled and eaten in the houses of Jerusalem (e.g., Pes. 5:10; 7:12). The transfer of the Passover feast to the Temple entailed the end of the rite of blood [which was sprinkled on the door posts and lintel]; the blood of the paschal animals was, like other sacrificial blood, now poured on the base of the altar (II Chron. 30:16; 35:11)” (Vol. 13, s.v. “Passover,” emphasis added).

The combining of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread reduced the observance of the two feasts from eight days to seven days: “To fix a common date for the Jews in Babylonia the mazzot [unleavened bread] feast after 587 B.C.E. was given a fixed date, the 15th to the 21st of the first month, and thus connected with the Passover...” (Ibid.). The entire sevenday festival was renamed “Passover: “Passover, a spring festival, beginning on the 15th day of Nisan, lasting seven days in Israel...” (Ibid.).

After discussing the findings of various authorities, the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible relates the following concerning the combining of the two feasts: “From all this Wellhausen concluded that the coalescence of Passover and Unleavened Bread did not occur until the time of Josiah. The agricultural festival of unleavened bread was kept as such as a national Israelite feast, he felt, until the days of Josiah. The section in Deut. 16:1-10 was interpreted as an attempt to abolish the private Passover celebrations [We will thoroughly study Deuteronomy 16 in Chapter Fourteen.] and to eliminate the apotropaic rites [the sprinkling of the blood on the door posts and lintel] characteristic of these [the domestic observance of the Passover]; therefore the Passover was combined with the national feast [of unleavened bread] in Jerusalem” (Vol. III, s.v. “Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread,” emphasis added).

In his book The Jewish Festivals—From Their Beginnings to Our Own Day, Hayyim Schauss explains the changes in the observance of the Passover that were instituted at the time of Josiah’s reform: “It was in this way that Pesach [Passover] and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were joined, and the two distinct spring festivals became one historical holiday, a symbol of the striving of the people toward national freedom. But, since the festival was still bound up with the family, or, at most, the village community, it could not yet become a great national holiday. It was only later, when Pesach was observed by all Jews in one place, in one great sanctuary, that it gained national importance.

“This happened in the last few decades before the destruction of the first Temple, in the time of Josiah, King of Judah. Israel, the great Jewish kingdom of the north, was no more. [It is incorrect to describe the northern ten-tribed kingdom of Israel as Jewish. The Jews dwelt only in the southern kingdom of Judah]. All that remained was Judah, the smaller kingdom of the south. In the reign of Josiah there was a strong progressive party, seeking to reconstruct Jewish national life and establish it on a new basis of justice and right. Sweeping reforms were instituted. One of the most outstanding was the elimination of all the ‘high places’ because Jerusalem was declared the only sanctuary for all Jews. Sacrifices were forbidden anywhere else and only Jerusalem was to be the goal of the pilgrimages made at holiday time. The Festivals, therefore, lost their local character and became national observances that united all Jews in the one holy place, the Temple in Jerusalem.

“Through this reform the Pesach ceremonial [observance] took on almost a new character. Since it was forbidden to make the Paschal sacrifice anywhere but in the Temple at Jerusalem, it was impossible to smear the blood of the sacrificial lamb upon the doorposts of the houses. In general, the observance lost its ancient weird character. The Book of Kings tells us truly that such a Pesach as [the temple-centered observance] was observed in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah, the year in which the reform was instituted, had not been celebrated [in that manner] since the Jews settled in Palestine.

“We cannot be certain how long a time passed before the Jews accepted these reforms in practice and ceased to offer the Pesach sacrifice in their homes. Nor can we be certain how long it took for Pesach and the Feast of Unleavened Bread to become as one festival. But we do know that the importance of the festival grew and that it became, in time, the greatest Jewish national holiday” (pp. 44-46, emphasis added).

There is ample evidence in both Scripture and history of the changes that occurred in the observance of the Passover during Old Testament times. None can deny that the temple sacrifice of the lambs differed greatly from the domestic Passover that is recorded in Exodus 12. It is impossible to reconcile the temple sacrifice of the lambs with the domestic sacrifice that God commanded. They are two different practices. The domestic Passover was instituted by God. The later temple practice was instituted by men. It was men who changed the Passover from a domestic sacrifice at the beginning of the 14th to a temple sacrifice on the afternoon of the 14th and a Passover meal on the night of the 15th. This man-made institution, which became a national tradition of the Jews, is the basis of many arguments for a 15th Passover.

As we have seen, the 14th/15th Passover controversy is a result of the attempts of men to distort the Scriptures in order to justify their chosen tradition. Instead of submitting to the commands of God, they claim that their tradition holds the same status as the commands of God. That can never be! No tradition of men can ever have the force of a commandment of God.

Of the dozens of papers written on the Passover that the author has read and studied, all supporting a 15th Passover, not one addresses the Scriptural and historical evidence that is presented in this chapter. Some scholars who have published papers and books about the Passover have completely ignored the historical records of the original observance of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This glaring oversight raises questions about the motives of those who present their “final solutions for the 15th Passover.” Such negligence must be attributed either to a lack of thorough research or to deliberate censorship by these biased scholars, who appear to hold their personal beliefs in higher esteem than the true facts of history, as many Jews hold their tradition in higher esteem than the Word of God.

These scholars may refuse to acknowledge the truth, but the evidence is undeniable. The records of history conclusively show that the Passover changed from a domestic observance at the beginning of the 14th day of the first month to a temple sacrifice in the afternoon of the 14th and a Passover meal on the 15th, merging the Passover with the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As Schauss described, “...the observance lost its ancient weird [in his opinion—not God’s] character...” and “...took on almost a new character.” This “new character” was the later practice of sacrificing the lambs at the temple toward the end of the 14th day, which is the basis of the traditional 15th Passover that the Jews observe today. Before we study the introduction of the temple sacrifice, and the reasons for this change, let’s look at a leading rabbi’s thoughts about the Passover issue.

Some Rabbis Are Rethinking the 14th-15th Problems

As the Jews anticipate the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, some rabbis are reexamining their traditional beliefs concerning the Passover. While it does not appear likely that they will return to the original Passover as established by God in Exodus 12, they are nevertheless rethinking their traditional views concerning the sacrificing of the lamb and the meaning of the Passover day. Some rabbis are beginning to realize that the 14th, the Passover day, differs in meaning from the 15th, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. They are beginning to recognize that the Passover was instituted to commemorate God’s passing over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt— not the Exodus from Egypt.

The following excerpts show that this Scriptural fact is being discussed among Jewish rabbis today. These statements were made by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, chief rabbi of the city of Efrat and dean of Ohr Torah Institution of Israel, in an article in his “Shabbat Shalom” column under the pen name “Bo,” as published in Canada in the Jewish Western Bulletin. (Please note: In this article Rabbi Riskin writes the word God as G-d, which reflects the Jewish prohibition against pronouncing the name of God lest one take God’s name in vain.)

Rabbi Riskin writes, “And it’s not just the obvious fact that in the Diaspora, they celebrate an extra day at the end [of the seven-day Passover week], but surprisingly enough, an extra day at the beginning of the festival for us here in Israel.

“In Bo, the Passover sequence begins with the command for the Israelites to sacrifice the paschal lamb that must be eaten in haste, and we are told how G-d will pass through Egypt and kill every first born, and that the blood of the slaughtered lamb is to be placed on the door posts as a sign for G-d” (emphasis added).

He then discusses the difference of opinion about which day was to be remembered, the 14th or the 15th, or the entire seven-day festival. Next, he writes, “The consequence of this difference of opinion leads to the speculation that we’re really talking about two festivals whose distinct characteristics contain a subtle difference for the Israeli and the Diaspora Jewries. The 14th day of Nisan is the one-day festival of the Passover sacrifice, the paschal lamb; the 15th day commences a seven-day festival of Matzot and redemption....In fact, when the paschal lamb sacrifice will eventually be revived on the 14th of Nisan, it will only take place here in Israel. In the Diaspora, there is no possibility of a paschal lamb sacrifice, and there never will be. The closest we’ll ever come to [it] there, is a shank bone on a Seder plate. And in Israel, may the paschal lamb take the place of so many of our best and brightest for the eventuality of ultimate sacrifice, so that they may truly taste the matzot of redemption and peace” (emphasis added).

These statements by Rabbi Riskin show that rabbis today are aware of the separate and distinct meanings of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, although the two feasts have for centuries been observed as a single festival. While some rabbis may be opening their eyes to the meaning of the Passover, they still do not recognize the true Paschal Lamb—Jesus Christ, Whose blood alone can bring redemption to the world.

In this chapter we have read statements from both Christian and Jewish sources which acknowledge that the Passover observance was changed from the ordinances and statutes that were instituted by God. In the next chapter, we will examine the Scriptures to learn the circumstances that led to this change in the observance of the Passover.

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