Introduction

In a recent newsletter, we included an article about the timing of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and its intimate connection with The Passover Feast and The Feast of Unleavened Bread.

It included a quick look at the background of these feasts and God’s instructions about how Israel should keep them, so if you missed it, you can read it on the website: “Timing of Jesus’ crucifixion”.

God said they should keep the Passover not only on that first night to save their firstborn, but every year from then on.  Likewise, they were to eat unleavened bread for a week each year, not just because they didn’t have time to let it rise when hurrying out of Egypt, but to obey God’s command.

In this article, we’ll examine how dedicated Israel was to keeping these combined feasts as Biblical history progressed.

Silence…

We must first make the observation that the Bible is not an exhaustive history book.  Its goal is to bring people to salvation, not to satisfy history students!  As such, we can only work with what it does tell us rather than trying to guess why it doesn’t mention everything else.  Arguments from silence will often be wrong.[1]

Old Testament

So what do we know about how Israel kept the Passover after leaving Egypt?

In the wilderness

One year later, God reminded them to keep the Passover.[2]  They did so, and this Passover saw the introduction of a special delayed Passover for anyone who was unclean on the 14th day of the first month.  Some people who had become unclean through contact with a dead body, presumably through a death in the family, still wanted to keep the Passover and went to Moses and Aaron asking what they could do.  God gave them a special dispensation: they were to keep the Passover in the second month instead, once they were clean.  However, God still made it clear that everyone must keep the Passover in the first month unless they were unclean at that time (or on a long journey).

Joshua

From then on, there is no record of Israel keeping the Passover until after Moses died, when they entered the land of Canaan under Joshua’s leadership.

Did they keep the Passover during the intervening 39 years?  We don’t know, but there might be a hint to be found in Joshua chapter 5.

Males had to be circumcised to share the Passover,[3] and a mass circumcision may well have taken place in Egypt before the first Passover.[4]  Thus, when they left Egypt, they were all circumcised, but Joshua 5:5 explains that those born in the wilderness had not been circumcised.  One way or another, this means they were disobeying God’s commands: either the men were not keeping the Passover, or they were keeping it despite not being circumcised.  God chose this time of new beginning in a new land to get things back in order and told Joshua to make sure all the men of Israel were circumcised before keeping the Passover.  This would fix two problems at once as they entered the Promised Land.  Two requirements that tied them to God and their ancestors were pressed on them.  Circumcision connected them with Abraham and his covenant with God, and the Passover reminded them of the Exodus when God saved the nation.  God keeps trying to remind them that these commitments were not just human traditions or customs, but genuine and essential connections with him.

Of course, we immediately wonder whether they continued to keep the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread as they conquered the Land of Canaan and settled down in a land of their own.  Unfortunately, we don’t know.  Perhaps there is a hint in the comment made after the death of Joshua:

However, this is a general statement, and there are several details in the book of Joshua which show that the nation did not follow all of God’s commands despite worshipping him.

Through the hundreds of years in which God gave Israel judges and kings, there is no direct mention of the Passover until the time of King Hezekiah of Judah, about 700 years later.

Did they keep it often?  Did they not?  We simply don’t know.  There is one scrap of information from the time of Solomon where 1 Kings 9:25 reports that Solomon offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings three times a year.  “Three times a year” rings a bell because the Israelites were to go to the place God had chosen three times a year for the three major feasts, including the Passover.[5]  Perhaps they did keep the Passover consistently over the centuries.  I hope so.  Later in the article, we’ll look at another reference that tells us a little more.

Hezekiah

By the time of Hezekiah, the people of Israel were in a terrible state, both spiritually and nationally.  The Passover was not being kept as often as it should have been.[6]  Israel, the northern kingdom, was under constant threat from the north and would soon be sent into exile for their idolatry.  Judah was little better.  Yet Hezekiah, in the very first year of his reign, began an electrifying revival.[7]  The temple in Jerusalem, dedicated to the worship of God, had long sat unused.  It was filled instead with rubbish and foreign idols, its doors closed to true worshippers.  In the first month, Hezekiah ordered its doors be opened and its sacred areas cleared of rubbish.  In just over two weeks, it was ready once more for worship.[8]

Hezekiah and his advisers decided to invite everyone from Judah and Israel to attend a Passover feast in Jerusalem in the second month of the year.[9]  But wait, wasn’t the Passover meant to be held in the first month?  Indeed it was, and the only exception was for uncleanness (or extended travel), which allowed it to be kept in the second month.  Did the exception apply?  Hezekiah decided it must apply because the temple, the priests and the entire nation had still been unclean when the night of the 14th passed uncelebrated.  Of course, they could have decided to wait another year before keeping the feast, but why not strike while the iron was hot?  Why not work at reshaping the nation while the glow of a new king’s dedication to the God of Israel was still hot in the people’s minds?  Had he waited a year, the fire would have cooled, the chance been squandered.  Yet if taken at the flood, the tide of opportunity would see an altered, inspired nation when the next Passover came around.  Hezekiah couldn’t wait.

Everyone was invited.  Many dismissed the invitation and mocked the messengers, but some came.  The numbers continued to grow.

When the 14th day of the second month came, Jerusalem was filled with visitors[10] and they celebrated the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  Yet, despite the one-month delay, many of those gathered in Jerusalem were not consecrated, breaking God’s commandments.  Sickness began to spread among them and Hezekiah prayed that God would pardon everyone who had come to worship, even though they were breaking the rules of cleanness.  God heard his prayer and healed the people.[11]  When the seven days of the feast were completed, the people decided to continue it for another seven days, rejoicing in their celebration of worship.[12]

And when the extra seven days were complete, the throng showed their new commitment to God by spreading out and destroying the symbols and equipment of idol worship throughout Judah and Israel.[13]

Josiah

The next stop in our tour of Israel’s commitment to the Passover is some 80 years later.  Hezekiah had died and been replaced by Manasseh his son, the worst and longest-reigning of all the kings of Judah.  He was followed by his son Amon – assassinated after a two-year reign – and then by his eight-year-old grandson, Josiah.

Such a young king must initially be guided by advisers, but in the eighth year of his reign, when he was sixteen years old, he first began to seek the God of his father, David.  When he was twenty, he began to purge his kingdom of idolatry, and six years later, after finding the Book of the Law of the Lord in the temple, he decided to celebrate the Passover.

As with Hezekiah his ancestor, this celebration required complete commitment from him and was an astonishing success.  People came from all over Judah and Israel and kept the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  We are told that:

This passage is mixed news, isn’t it?  We wondered earlier whether they kept the Passover consistently over the centuries, and here at least we are reassured that it was kept in the days of Samuel.  Not only so, but the celebration of the Passover in Samuel’s time was up to the standard of Josiah’s Passover – whatever that may mean!  Unfortunately, we also now know that none of the other kings of Israel or Judah (including Hezekiah) kept such a Passover.

After returning from exile

When the people returned from exile, there was an initial enthusiastic flurry of activity in rebuilding the foundations and the altar of God’s house in Jerusalem, but apathy soon won out and the work stopped.  A decree from the king which forbade the building followed, salving their consciences and leaving them free to build their own beautiful houses while the temple stayed in ruins.  Finally, the prophets Haggai and Zechariah relayed God’s command that they must restart the building and the people obeyed.  With God’s blessing, the building progressed well, and some time later we read of them keeping the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.[14]

This is all we know of the people of Israel keeping the Passover in the Old Testament.

The New Testament

Surprisingly, we know much more about the keeping of the Passover in the New Testament, particularly in the gospels.

The Gospels

Luke tells us that Jesus’ family was in the habit of obeying God’s command by attending the Passover in Jerusalem.  He specifically tells of the events after the feast when Jesus was 12 years old.[15]

Jesus also visited Jerusalem several times during his ministry, and some of these visits were centred around feasts, particularly the Passover.  In fact, we read of at least three additional Passover feasts:

1. John 2:13; 23
2. John 6:4
3. John 11:55; 12:1; 13:1; 18:28, 39; 19:14 (also mentioned in Matthew, Mark and Luke)

There may be a fourth Passover between the first and second mentioned above where in John 5:1 we are told about “a feast of the Jews” which some translations have as “the feast of the Jews”, which could be interpreted to mean the Passover.

Acts

King Agrippa I killed the apostle James to please the Jews.  He then arrested Peter and put him in prison with the intention of killing him after the Passover.[16]  It didn’t work.  Peter was freed by an angel and escaped.[17]