The Feast Of Passover (Pessach)
by PJ
THE FEAST OF PESSACH (PASSOVER)
(AMP) V'yakra/Leviticus 23
1THE LORD said to Moses,
2Say to the Israelites, The set feasts or appointed seasons of the Lord which you shall proclaim as holy convocations, even My set feasts, are these:
3Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, a holy convocation or assembly by summons. You shall do no work on that day; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.
4These are the set feasts or appointed seasons of the Lord, holy convocations you shall proclaim at their stated times:
5On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord's Passover.
On the 14th day of the first month, Nisan, comes the first feast of Israel. It is the beginning of the year, as Nisan is the head of months. It is the time of nature starting over, and the 14th is the first full moon of Spring. This is the time in Jewish families of spring cleaning, the changing of plates, the seder, the re-telling of the story of the exodus from Egypt and the blood of the lamb.
During the Pessach seder, the Passover meal, a place is set for Elijah and the seder is divided into halves, 1/2 of the seder being about Redemption past and 1/2 about Redemption to come.
The Messianic fulfilment of this feast by Moshiach Yeshua is through the crucifixion. Yeshua is recorded in Yochanan/John 1:29 as being the lamb, "The next day John saw Jesus coming to him and said, Look! There is the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world!"
Yeshua was crucified at the same time the Pessach lamb would have been crucified for the priests. It has always been a raging argument among Jews that there is no way Yeshua could or would have been crucified during Pessach. He would have been crucified at the same time as the traditional Pessach lamb.
The Passover lamb was to be kept from Nisan 10 until the 14th (Shemot/Exodus 12:1-6). It was then to be killed on the 14th. It was to be killed in the evening. How do we know for sure which evening is being discussed? Because G-d the Father set us a PERFECT EXAMPLE!
When did G-d decree that Yeshua could declare "it is finished" and die on the stake? Why at the very same time that THE JEWS were sacrificing their Pessach lambs at the Temple! The Jews had always killed the Pessach lambs during the final hours of the 14th. It was towards the end of the 14th, not at the beginning of the 14th, that the Pessach lambs were killed.
After the lambs were killed they were prepared (which took some time) to be eaten, naturally, that evening - which began the 15th and the FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD. Nothing of the Pessach lamb was to be left over until the morning (Shemot/Exodus 12:8-10).
Zachar'yah/Zechariah 12:10, "10And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace or unmerited favor and supplication. And they shall look [earnestly] upon Me Whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him as one who is in bitterness for his firstborn"
T'hillim/Psalm 22 and Yesha'yah/Isaiah 53 both prophetically relate to the crucifixion of the Moshiach/Messiah. Yeshua/Jesus came for the purpose of being the lamb of sacrifice to make eternal atonement for sin. Just as in the deliverance from Egypt of the ancient Hebrews, Yeshua became the deliverer for the entire world from the bondage of sin and the enslavement to sin and to ha'satan.
Ur/Luke 23:45
45for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.
The temple curtain was torn and there was no longer separation between G-d and man.
Many have questioned why Yeshua died so quickly on the cross. He died within six (6) hours. There's a great explanation for this other than His bones were not to be broken. He had another Feast of Israel to keep and it began at sundown!
“Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified Bible."