Pharaoh, Firstborns, and Fragrance: A Meditation on Passover
“Death of the Firstborn” by Lawrence Alma Tadema.
This article is part of a series on the holidays and calendar of the Hebrew Scriptures. You can read our other articles about biblical Jewish feasts here.
The Biblical calendar year begins in the spring, with the month of Nisan, and just two weeks later, on the 15th day of Nisan, the Passover festival is celebrated. Passover, which lasts for seven days[1] in combination with the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits,[2] is one of the three great “pilgrimage feasts” [3] of the year, where all of the nation of Israel is commanded to come up to Jerusalem to observe the holiday.
After the destruction of the Second Temple, it is no longer obligatory for Jews to journey to Jerusalem and offer the sacrifices laid out in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The central celebration of Passover has returned to its original setting: the family table. Passover is now perhaps the most widely celebrated and quintessential Jewish feast. Today, weeks before the actual holiday, homes are scoured for bits of “leaven,” [4] that is, food with rising agents in them, most typically bread, as the Law strictly forbids the eating of leavened food during the festival. On the first night of Passover, families gather for a celebratory dinner called a Seder and recount the story of the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt as commanded in Deuteronomy 6:20-23: “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the LORD our God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the LORD showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers.”
An Everlasting Covenant
When telling the story of God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt, it is difficult to know where to begin. Indeed, the Haggadah, a book that guides the Seder teaching, starts much further back in history than the enslavement of Israel, to before Abraham: “Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.” [5] Even the book of Exodus, when setting the scene for Israel’s emancipation, says, “During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.” [6]
Israel’s slavery and Israel’s deliverance were inextricably bound in covenants. But how? Back in Genesis 12, when the LORD called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan, away from his father’s house that served other gods, God promised him that his offspring would possess the land which he was wandering. Such a promise implied two things: that Abram would have offspring (he was childless at the time) and that that offspring would have a divine-bestowed right to the promised land and eventually permanently settle there. This family of Abraham that possessed this land would be a source of blessing for the entire world. [7]
Many years later, the LORD again appeared to Abram with an encouraging greeting, “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” [8] Surprisingly, Abram’s response is a somewhat reproachful reminder of the promises made in their first meeting: “‘Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.’ And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: ‘This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.’ And He brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then He said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ And he believed the LORD, and He counted it to him as righteousness.”
Abram had enough faith to believe the word of the LORD regarding his son. But what of the other part of the pledge regarding the promised land? God doesn’t let the matter go unmentioned.
And He said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” [9]
God cuts a solemn covenant to confirm His promises made to Abraham—a covenant of pieces. Blood was spilled and animals sacrificed, and the LORD Himself walked between the torn flesh as if to say, “So may it be to me if I am unfaithful to my word.” But strangely, even as the LORD confirms the terms of His original promise, He foretells a four-generation period of wandering and slavery and a subsequent judgment on the nation that oppresses them, deliverance from enslavement, and a return to the land of Canaan.
Many years again passed, and Abram had a son through his wife’s servant Hagar, but not the promised offspring through his wife, Sarai. When Abram was 99 years old, the LORD again appeared to him.[10] Abram fell on his face in worship. God then says to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham,[11] for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations… I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you thoughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your offspring after you. And I will give to you and your offspring after you the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
The LORD then clarified that the son of promise would be Sarai’s (now renamed Sarah[12]) natural son. Though Hagar’s son Ishmael would be the father of twelve princes, he was not the son who would inherit the covenant promises.
There is a covenant cut at this third iteration of the divine pledge delivered to the newly-named Abraham. However, this time, the covenant sign was not in animals’ blood but from the male members of Abraham’s household with the mark of circumcision.
Bridegroom of Blood
These are the covenants remembered by the LORD as the Israelite cries rose before him in Egypt. God saw—and God knew. He knew that the time had come to redeem the covenants’ people out of slavery and bring them into the promised land. So the LORD raised a leader for the people, to confront Pharaoh and shepherd Israel into their new land—a man named Moses. A Hebrew born to slaves in Egypt but raised as a royal household member, Moses had fled to the wilderness after killing an Egyptian taskmaster abusing Hebrew slaves. He ended up settling in the region of Midian as a shepherd, where he married and started a family.
In Moses’ commissioning for the momentous task of bringing the Israelite slaves to freedom, God introduces Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God who covenanted with Moses’ forefathers. The LORD instructs Moses to return to Egypt, so Moses takes his wife and his sons and begins the journey westward. God then gives Moses a warning to pass along to Pharaoh: “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’” [13]
At a stop along the way to Egypt, there is a most bizarre turn of events. As Moses’ family rests for the night, the LORD seeks out Moses to take his life. We are not told why in the text, but the later events allow us to make educated guesses. In response to her husband’s imminent death, Moses’ wife Zipporah circumcises their son and angrily turns to Moses, calling him a “Bridegroom of Blood.” [14] In response to the circumcision, the LORD releases Moses.
So important was the Abrahamic covenant to God that even His hand-selected leader Moses would not be able to live, let alone lead the people of Israel should he have been guilty of allowing his son to be cut off from the covenant. Moses would need to disciple a set-apart people—a chosen people, a holy people, a people defined by covenant to their God—and ultimately reject the ways of Egypt or even Midian. With his life spared and the covenant kept, Moses continued Egypt-ward.
That My Name Will Be Proclaimed
After Moses reunited with his brother Aaron in Egypt, they related to Israel’s elders of all the LORD had spoken to Moses, backing up the testimony with signs and wonders. The people of Israel believed that God had heard their cries, and they worshipped Him.
With the Hebrew people persuaded, Moses and Aaron turned their attention to the king of Egypt: Pharaoh. As negotiations for the Israelites’ release began, Moses must have remembered what the LORD had foretold to him on the journey from Midian: one: that Pharaoh would not let the people go. Two: that God would harden Pharaoh’s heart. And three, that the final threat would be a sort of counterstroke: if Pharaoh insists on enslaving God’s firstborn Israel, then God will kill Pharaoh’s firstborn.
A logical approach with such information might be to jump to the trump card in the negotiation immediately: the God of the Israelites holds the life of Pharaoh’s son in His hands. Or perhaps trying to reason with someone so hard-hearted was a waste of time and effort—why not simply miraculously transport the Israelites out of Egypt? Isn’t the essential thing that the Hebrews be free and that Abraham’s covenant can be realized with the Israelites possessing the promised land? What was the purpose of escalating plagues that eventually peaked in the death of the firstborn?
God explains to Pharaoh what He could have done if freedom was His goal: “For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” [15] Pharaoh was raised as a leader and the plagues visited on Egypt, not primarily for the Israelites’ freedom but that the name of the LORD would be proclaimed throughout the earth.
However, Pharaoh hardened his own heart after this exchange. Before another plague could be set into motion, the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart as well.[16] The cycle continued just as the LORD had said until the completion of the ninth plague.
At this point, Moses no longer tried to bargain with Pharaoh, but merely stated what would happen in the tenth plague. “Thus says the LORD: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again. *But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’* And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, ‘Get out, you and all the people who follow you.’ And after that I will go out.” [17]
Now in several of the previous plagues, the LORD had made a distinction between Egypt and Israel. The scourge of flies did not enter the land of Goshen, where the Hebrews lived.[18] None of the livestock of Israel died during the fifth plague.[19] No fiery hail fell in Goshen.[20] All the people of Israel had light during the plague of darkness.[21] The LORD, it seems, could have easily targeted only Egyptian households again with the death of the firstborn.
Instead of this distinction occurring automatically as it had in the past, God gave Moses precise instructions on avoiding this plague of death. That process of setting the Israelites apart from the judgment of Egypt was the first Passover. Every family in Israel was to take a male, year-old lamb without blemish. This lamb was to be killed at twilight, and its blood put on the two doorposts and lintel of the family’s house. They were then to eat the lamb, roasted over the fire, with unleavened bread. The Israelites were to eat the meal quickly, with their belts fastened, with sandals on their feet, and staff in their hand—ready to leave. The LORD Himself would pass through the land of Egypt and strike down all the firstborns, both man and beast, and execute judgments on all the gods of Egypt. But the blood on the Israelites’ doorframes would be a sign, and God would not visit wrath on them but instead “pass over” the marked family.[22]
At midnight, the LORD struck down the firstborn of Egypt, as He said He would. Pharaoh finally released the Israelites and their livestock. On the day after the Passover, the people of Israel went out triumphantly in the sight of all the Egyptians, even as the Egyptians were burying their firstborns.[23] From there, they journeyed to Mount Sinai, again to covenant with the LORD when He gave them the Law and its associated curses and blessings.
Just as Abraham had cut the covenant of the pieces and the covenant of circumcision in blood, so this blood of the Passover lamb would be a sign of the distinction of Israel, spared from the plague of death. Just as failure to observe the circumcision would result in being cut off from the people of Israel, so would failure to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread mean ex-communication. Just as Moses had been sentenced to death for failing to observe the covenant sign given to his fathers, only through covenantal blood was his life spared. Just as God made an everlasting covenant with Abraham, so the Passover would be a feast to the LORD forever.
RELATED // Read “When Death Did Not Pass Over” by Stephanie Quick.
Gospel of Christ Crucified
Indeed, a dozen or so centuries later, in the city of Jerusalem, the first day of Passover was being observed by a young teacher and his disciples in a large upper room. As they reclined around the table, the teacher, named Jesus, told his companions how earnestly He desired to eat the Passover with them before He suffered. For, He said, He would not eat the Passover meal again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. Then, “He took a cup, and when He had given thanks He said, ‘Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’ And He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.’ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.’” [24]
Of course, in the process of celebrating the Passover, the subject of the covenants would be central. But what were Jesus’ disciples to make of this teaching? To which new covenant could Jesus be referring?
The most obvious connection for them would be this passage from the prophet Jeremiah: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” [25]
This concept of the new covenant directly connected with the Passover and the Exodus from Egypt that the disciples were commemorating. This covenant would not be like the covenant at Sinai, where the Law was given, and the curses for its breaking pronounced. Israel was unable to keep the Law, and therefore subject to exile after exile. But this covenant would bring forgiveness of sin, and an internalizing of the Law, empowering the partakers of the covenant to know the LORD and follow His ways. This covenant would also be everlasting, just as the covenant with Abraham had been.[26]
After connecting the broken, unleavened bread to His body, and the wine as the His blood spilled for the new covenant, Jesus ended the meal with a prayer. At the end of the prayer, He said, “I made known to them Your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” [27] Just as the plagues were a means of proclaiming the name of the LORD throughout the earth, so would the suffering and death of Jesus the Messiah be the means of making God’s name known.
Shortly after the prayer concluded, Jesus brought His disciples to a garden, where He was betrayed, arrested, and handed over to for execution. As the Passover lamb had been sacrificed, and its blood smeared on the doorframes of Israel so that death might pass over them, so the blood of Jesus, the blood of the new covenant, was spilled for the forgiveness of sin, and sin’s deathly consequences. The Roman soldiers did not break Jesus’ legs in keeping with the Passover sacrifice regulations.[28] As the Passover lamb was sacrificed at twilight before the plague of death at midnight, so the Messiah was offered up before the Day of the Lord and the final judgment. As Egypt’s firstborns bore the wrath of the final plague, the firstborn of creation[29] bore the judgment of sin on Himself and died. God Himself had provided the lamb.
But the firstborn of creation is also the firstborn from the dead.[30] After being buried, Jesus rose from the grave in glorious vindication of His Sonship and Messiahship. He commissioned those same disciples to whom He made known His name to proclaim the gospel of Christ crucified (and resurrected!) to the ends of the earth.
Paul, years after Jesus ascended to heaven with a promise of His soon return, summarized the reception of this gospel in such a way: “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.” [31]
To some, this message of the slain and resurrected Messiah would be the fragrance of life and freedom from sin and death. To others, the news would smell like death itself, just as the Hebrews’ liberation meant death for the Egyptians, as the dramatic triumphal procession of the Israelites through Egypt’s graveyards so dramatically portrays in Numbers.
RELATED // Watch FAI’s “Sheep Among Wolves: Volume II” for more first-hand testimony of Iranian followers of Jesus.
Egypt my People
But what of Egypt? Are they a people doomed forever to smell death at the proclamation of the freedom of the Israelites? Or could they, too, smell the fragrance of life in the gospel? Was God’s proclamation of His name to Egypt in vain?
The prophet Isaiah delivered this oracle in seeming response to that question: “In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the LORD at its border. It will be a sign and a witness to the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt. When they cry to the LORD because of oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and deliver them. And the LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the LORD in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows to the LORD and perform them. And the LORD will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to the LORD, and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them.” [32]
Isaiah seems to be foretelling the Exodus story in reverse! The land of Judah will be terrifying the Egyptians. The Egyptians will be struck by the LORD, but not unto death but unto their redemption. When Egypt cries out because of oppression, the LORD will raise up a deliverer for the people of Egypt. God will have mercy on the Egyptians and heal them, because they called on His name, the name first proclaimed through Moses to Pharaoh so long ago. So complete will be Egypt’s redemption, that the LORD says at the end of Isaiah’s oracle: “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.” [33]
Gospel of the Kingdom
So we see that both Egypt and Israel have mighty promises to look forward to: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and He shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’ Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives Who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but ‘As the LORD lives Who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where He had driven them.’ Then they shall dwell in their own land.” [34]
Jesus came once for the redemption of sins, but He is coming again to save those eagerly awaiting Him.[35] He will rule and reign as a righteous King in Israel, and all the house of Judah and Israel washed in the blood of the new covenant will be saved. Israel will finally dwell securely in the land, and the LORD had promised Abraham so long ago. Israel’s people will not be primarily be defined as those delivered from slavery in Egypt, but a nation permanently delivered from sin and exile. Egypt, too, will be delivered and partakers of the promises when they call on the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
It will be in these days when Jesus comes into His kingdom that He will again partake of the Passover feast with us, and drink of the fruit of the vine, and celebrate the marriage supper of the Lamb.
In light of the hope we have in such great promises, we can say, “Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast. Hallelujah!” [36]
Amen. Maranatha.
Devon Phillips is just a pilgrim longing for the Day of the revealing of the sons of God and the redemption of our bodies. Meanwhile, she is privileged to serve in the Middle East with Frontier Alliance International and contributes regularly to THE WIRE. She can be reached at devon@faimission.org.
[1] Passover lasts for seven days within Israel, but eight days in the Diaspora. This is based on the concept of yom tov sheni shel galuyot (יום טוב שני של גלויות).
[2] The Passover is celebrated at twilight on the 14th of Nisan. The 15th of Nisan marks the beginning of a week of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The 16th of Nisan was to be the day where the Firstfruits of the barley harvest are waved.
[3] Three major festivals in Judaism require a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. These feasts, also known as shalosh regalim (שלוש רגלים) are Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Weeks or Pentecost), and Sukkot (Tabernacles, Tents or Booths).
[4] Leaven, in Hebrew chametz (חמץ) is made from one of five types of grains combined with water and left to stand for more than eighteen minutes. Leavening agents, such as yeast or baking soda, are not themselves chametz. Instead, it is the fermented grains. Thus yeast may be used in making wine.
[5] Joshua 24:2
[6] Exodus 2:23–25
[7] Genesis 12:3
[8] Genesis 15:1
[9] Genesis 15:7–21
[10] Genesis 17:1
[11] Abram (אַבְרָם) means “exalted father,” where Abraham (אַבְרָהָם) means “father of a multitude.”
[12] Sarai (שָׂרַי) means “princess,” where Sarah (שָׂרָה) means “noblewoman.”
[13] Exodus 4:21–23
[14] Exodus 4:24–26
[15] Exodus 9:14–16
[16] Two different Hebrew words are used for “hardening” of hearts in the plague narrative. One is kaved (כָּבֵד) which carries the connotation of a heart becoming heavy with pride. Such an understanding connects to the prohibition of leaven: beware of self-exalting pride that “puffs up.” The other word translated as “hardened” in English is chazaq (חָזַק) which means “to strengthen.”
[17] Exodus 11:4–8
[18] Exodus 8:22
[19] Exodus 9:4
[20] Exodus 9:26
[21] Exodus 10:23
[22] Exodus 12:1–13
[23] Numbers 33:3
[24] Luke 22:17–20
[25] Jeremiah 31:31–34
[26] Jeremiah 32:40, Ezekiel 36:26–27; 37:26.
[27] John 17:26
[28] John 19:33
[29] Colossians 1:15
[30] Colossians 1:18; Revelation 1:5
[31] 2 Corinthians 2:14–16
[32] Isaiah 19:16–22
[33] Isaiah 19:25
[34] Jeremiah 23:5–8
[35] Hebrews 9:28
[36] From the Eucharist service in the Book of Common Prayer, based on 1 Corinthians 5:7–8.