Passover 2024

Passover, also known as Pesach, is a significant Hebrew feast that celebrates the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. It involves a ceremonial meal called the Seder and the removal of leavened bread from households. The word Pesach means Passover and refers to the lamb that was sacrificed and eaten on the 14th of Nisan. The Greek word Pascha also means Passover and is used in the New Testament. The week-long feast is called the Feast of Unleavened Bread, with Passover referring specifically to the meal on the 14th. The removal of leaven symbolizes removing sin from one's life. The institution of Passover is found in the book of Exodus, starting in Exodus chapter 11. So, what is Passover? Where did it come from and how do we celebrate it? That's the purpose of this teaching or drash. We'll be getting into all of that straight from the scripture, help you understand what it's all about, where it came from, and how you and your family can celebrate it even in today's day and age. So, stay tuned for this teaching on Passover. So, this teaching is going to be all about Passover or what we call in Hebrew Pesach. So, make sure to have your notebooks ready and your writing instruments sharpened and ready to go because we're going to be getting into a lot of information and it's going to be a whole lot of information that we do not include in this drash for the sake of time. If you would like to see the rest of the information that we took in our study on this, then please go to our website and click on the post for this episode for Pesach or Passover. And of course, the easiest way to do that is going to be going down below in the description area and clicking on the direct link right there and it'll take you directly to that article post for this drash. There you'll be able to see the on-demand video, you'll see the slides that you see on your screen right here, and you'll be able to go through those slides at your own pace. You'll also be able to see the notes that we took for this subject and after everything is processed, you'll also be able to see the transcript for this particular recorded teaching. So, before we get into the meat and potatoes, there are a few things I'd like to point out about Passover or Pesach just as foundational level kind of stuff to build upon what we're going to get into later on. First off is the actual Hebrew word Pesach and that comes from Strong's H6453, pronounced Pesach, Pesach or Pesach or Passover if you want to use the English version of it. But Passover means pretty much, or I'm sorry, Pesach means just what you think it means generally. It means Passover. It can also refer to the actual lamb that is killed and eaten on the 14th of Nisan. It can also mean something like being excused or avoiding something, being like passed over. So that's kind of the meaning of Pesach, but when we think about it, it's more in the terms of the actual feast itself. And usually in modern times, also the Haggadah and the Seder and the whole ceremony that goes along with that. There's a whole rich history that goes behind Pesach besides just the ceremony we do today. There are very important historical moments behind Pesach that we're going to learn about in tonight's Drash. The Greek word for that is going to be Strong's G3957 Pascha, Pascha, and that means same thing as Pesach. It means Passover. Now we covered this somewhat in our teaching on Easter, and we'll get into that more in just a little bit, but Pascha does not mean Easter. It means Passover. Easter was a much later addition to the faith and the way of doing things. When you look in the Greek New Testament and a lot of the early Greek writings, it will have Pascha there, not Easter, and Pascha is referring to Passover. This is very much like the Hebrew word. It generally means what we think of it as Passover, but it could also refer to the Passover sacrifice, the Paschal lamb, the Paschal supper, what we know as the Seder, or the Paschal festival. Because technically speaking, Passover is just that meal that's eaten on the 14th of Nisan. That's it. That's the technical version of Passover, but over time, it's come to refer to the entire week of unleavened bread, just under the umbrella term of Passover. When you look in Scripture, technically the week is called the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Passover is just that one meal on the 14th. Here's your Greek English lexicon of the New Testament for Pascha, and here it's telling you there's actually three different meanings that Passover or Pascha can mean, meaning the festival itself, the Passover meal, or the Passover lamb. It also has a very interesting thing going on down there that when literally rendered or translated, it could be rendered as something like a lamb that passes over, or a lamb that someone has passed over. Not entirely what we mean, but it could mean that if you take it in an extremely literal kind of way. The next word we're going to look at for our foundational building is the word matzah. This comes from Strong's H4682, and matzah refers to an unfermented cake or loaf, like a bread, unleavened bread, cake, meaning baked or cooked without leaven. That is matzah. Something else that you may not have ever heard before, but is important for the learning of Pesach or Passover is Strong's H7603, and that is the word seor, seor, and this means not yeast, but rather a barm or a yeast cake, leavening. And if you've never heard the word barm before, it's, if you'll look at the picture there on your screen, you see that mason jar with what we would refer to nowadays as a sourdough starter, like a, yeah, just a yeast starter. You let it sit there in the jar and you let all the yeast build up and activate and be this big mushy kind of thing. That's what a barm is. And back in the day, this is the kind of thing that they would use on a regular basis. They did not have a Walmart or a Costco or local grocery store to go to and buy packets or jars of yeast to use in their baking duties. They had to use yeast in this barm that they made themselves. They would let it sit there and they would use what they need, and a lot of times they would use the dough from the previous batch, like a small amount. That's what a barm is. In fact, even in Victorian times when they were making bread, a lot of the bakers, when they wanted to make bread, would first go to the breweries and get the yeast they skimmed off of their brews to bring back to the bakery to make their bread with. That's how they got their yeast. So this is what the word seor means. And keep this in mind, because this will be important when we get into the teaching on Pesach and learning about the preparation leading up to Pesach. The next word we're going to learn is Strong's H2557, chametz, chametz. This means something like leavened bread. Bread that is actually made with leavening agent, like that barm or that yeast cake. This is in direct contradiction and opposition to matzah, which means unleavened bread. So chametz is bread or any baked kind of good that uses that barm or that yeast starter. So now if we take all this that we learned and let's look at a passage from scripture itself. We look in Exodus chapter 12, verse 19. And it says here, for seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, that same bean shall be cut off from the congregation of Yisrael, whether sojourner or native of the land. And we can see here, if you're looking on the screen, where it says, for seven days no leaven, for seven days no seor is to be found in your houses. Now traditionally, we believe this to be referring to yeast. But as we just learned, it doesn't actually mean yeast, like those yeast packets or those yeast jars, things like that. It actually means an activated, active kind of yeast, like the barm or the sourdough starter. So that's what seor actually means. And then we see later on down, for if anyone eats what is leavened, what is hametz. That we've always taken to be a leavened product, like your standard bread, most crackers and stuff like that. But we can see, yeah, we were pretty spot on with our traditional understanding here. We're good on the hametz part, but we've got a little adjusting to do with the seor part. So when cleaning out your house and getting ready for Pesach or Passover, unactivated yeast we would say is okay to go with. But everything else, if you have a sourdough starter or a barm or a yeast cake, get rid of that. Clear out any hametz, anything that has been leavened with leaven, leavening agent. That could be something that has used things like, of course, a yeast to leaven it. Certain things that, I think baking soda would also leaven things, baking powder leavens things. So anything that's been leavened and cooked needs to be thrown out as well. Your regular bread, a lot of your crackers, a lot of cookies use this. So it really takes some diligence to go through. But you know what you and yours buy and eat on a regular basis. So it shouldn't be too, too hard unless you have a large family and you've got a large amount of things there to throw out. But look on the package. It should tell you fairly clearly in the ingredients whether or not it uses a leavening agent in that product. Just take it, throw it out, you're good. It's only a week and we're about two weeks out right now. So if you go ahead and start using that up and just not buying any more leaven products until after Pesach, then you'll also not be throwing out any money. But if you have to throw out money or have to throw out product and lose money, go ahead and throw it out. That's what scripture is telling us. It's pointing out the hametz and the leaven out of your home and in all your territory. So don't go store it in the garage. Don't go store it in some storage shed out back. No, completely get rid of it. And this is symbolic for the meaning of getting rid of sin in your life because a lot of times sin is compared to leaven. So getting rid of the leaven is symbolic of getting rid of the sin and that's something we should all do regardless of the cost. Get rid of the sin. So let's take a look at where Passover actually comes from and where it is instituted in scripture itself because like always, anything that we believe, any doctrines that we develop and want to believe in should always come from the foundation of scripture. We find the institution of Passover in the book of Exodus starting in Exodus chapter 11. Here we see the pronouncement of the death of the firstborn and this kind of gets the whole thing rolling with Passover and the institutions of Passover. Then we get into Exodus chapter 12 and we see the very first Passover that was instructed to be performed and this was the actual Passover that we commemorate today. Well one of those. We'll get into the other one here in just a little bit. But this was the first Passover and instead of reading the entire chapter and making this longer than it needs to be, we went through and summarized just the important parts in order of how it was first enacted. Anyways, we see in Exodus 12 verse 2 that the first month of the year is described and then they are to take a lamb on the tenth day of the first month and on the fourteenth day they are to slay the lamb between the evenings. This means later on in the day, somewhere around three o'clock our time. In verse 7, they're told to apply the blood on the doorpost of their house and this is so that the angel of death would pass over any of the houses which had the blood applied to their doorpost. Then in verse 8, they are told that they should eat the lamb roasted and they are to burn anything that remains. If they don't eat it all, they are to burn the rest of it with fire so that nothing is left till the morning. In verse 11, they are told that they should eat it as though they are ready to go because then at that first one, they really did have to be ready to go. They were told to have their shoes on, their cloaks on, their staff in their hand, their car keys in their other hand, you get the point, right? Ready to go. Then it's told that Pesach or Passover would be an everlasting observance. Not just that one time, not just while they were in the land of Israel, not just until Yeshua or the Messiah comes, but an everlasting observance. In verse 15 of chapter 12, they're told to eat unleavened bread for seven days after the Passover meal. Verse 16, that the first and seventh days are Shabbatons or no work days. And Shabbaton is different than a Shabbat in that a Shabbaton is not the regular weekly Shabbat. Instead, it's an extra Shabbat that is attached to feast days like the Feast of Unleavened Bread. During these Shabbatons, there is no servile work to be done, but you can do work like preparing your meals. So you get the distinction there? Verse 19 of chapter 12, they're told that no leaven is to be found in their homes. Then moving on in chapter 12, we get to verse 22. They are to use hyssop to apply the blood of the land that they just killed and are roasting. They're to take that blood and apply it to the doorpost of their homes and then not go outside of their homes all night. Verse 23, they're told that Yahweh shall pass over homes where the blood is applied to the doorpost. Verse 24, it states, and you shall guard this word as a law for you and your sons forever. Again, everlasting ordinance. Verse 28 of chapter 12, the Israelites did just as they were commanded. Verse 29 says that at midnight, the firstborn of Egypt were killed. All of those who did not have the blood of the lamb applied to their doorposts, their firstborns were killed. Then in verse 31, Pharaoh sends out the Israelites, tells them to get on out of here. He's finally done with them, and he sends them on their way. This is the last plague, this death of the firstborn, and this last plague is also the institution of Passover. Verse 33 of chapter 12, the Egyptians hurried the Israelites out, so it wasn't just Pharaoh, it was the rest of the Egyptians. Verse 36, the Israelites took the silver and the gold from the Egyptians. So they went out rich. They didn't have it so good when they were slaves, but when they left, they left in style. Or they left financially wealthy anyways, as we would put it. Verse 37, the Israelites left Egypt being about 600,000 men, and that's not counting the women, children, and the livestock. So that's just 600,000 men. Now when you take into account that the Hebrews at that time engaged in plural marriage, so probably more than a one-to-one ratio between the men and the women, and then you add the children on top of that, and the livestock, it's going to be well over the million mark. Then in verse 38, it says a mixed multitude went out with the Israelites. It wasn't just the Hebrews, not just the Israelites. It was a mixed multitude of different peoples. For those of you who know anything about Egypt back during that time, it was a large metropolis and it was a melting pot of a lot of different peoples that would come there. Not necessarily stay, but they would do their trading and then come in and go out and leave and things like that. You can kind of see this with the early story of Joseph, where his brothers would come down to Egypt for grain and then return back home, sort of that kind of idea. But in certain drawings from the tombs and stuff like that, you see even different colored people, light-skinned, dark-skinned, medium-skinned, on the very paintings that the Egyptians did. So we can see that there was a mixture of different peoples that were in Egypt at just about any point in time. But when the Hebrews left Egypt, left their bondage and slavery, there was a mixed multitude that went out with them. So it was not just the Jews, it was not just the Hebrews, it was a mixed multitude. Then in verse 49 of Exodus 12, we're told that there is one Torah for the native-born Israelite and the sojourner, those who are grafted in, those who are of the mixed multitude. There is to be one Torah for all of them, not just the Israelites, for all of them. And we read in Numbers chapter 9, verses 6 through 12. And Yahweh spoke to Moshe, saying, So Pesach is not only an everlasting ordinance, it's supposed to go on forever, right? Not only is it a very important time that we should be observing and celebrating, it is actually so important that if for some reason someone misses it, like being near or handling a dead body, or if they're on a faraway trip for whatever reason, and they miss Pesach in the first month. There is a second opportunity for Pesach in the second month. That's how important it is. And it's so important that the people didn't wait until they got into the Promised Land to celebrate Pesach. They actually celebrated it in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. Numbers chapter 9, verses 1 through 4. And Yahweh spoke to Moshe in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first new moon of the second year after they had come out of the land of Mithraim, saying, Now let the children of Israel perform the Pesach at its appointed time. On the fourteenth day of this new moon, between the evenings, perform it at its appointed time. According to all its laws and right rulings, you perform it. And Moshe spoke to the children of Israel to perform the Pesach. So, they weren't told to wait until they get into the Promised Land. They weren't told to wait until Jerusalem is taken over and built. No. This is how important it was to celebrate it every year, no matter where they were. And we do see that when they got into the Promised Land, they did celebrate Pesach, obviously. Joshua chapter 5, verse 10. And the children of Israel camped in Gilgal, and performed the Pesach on the fourteenth day of the new moon, at evening, on the desert plains of Jericho. Again, 2 Kings chapter 23, verse 21. And the Sovereign commanded all the people, saying, Prepare the Pesach to Yahweh your Elohim, as it is written in this book of the covenant. Again, Ezekiel chapter 45, verse 21. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the new moon, you have the Pesach, a festival of seven days, unleavened bread is eaten. And then we even see that during the exile, they still celebrated Pesach. Ezra chapter 6, verse 19. And the sons of the exile performed the Pesach on the fourteenth day of the first new moon. So, important point here. We learned about what Pesach is. We observed the first Pesach in the Torah. But we also see an important point here, that it's celebrated no matter where they are. The first one was done in Egypt, then they commemorated the Passover in the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land. When they were in the Promised Land, they still celebrated Pesach. When they were in exile, they still celebrated Pesach. So, even when they were not in the land, even when they did not have the temple, even when they did not have Jerusalem, they still celebrated Pesach. So, that's from the perspective and the teachings of the Tanakh. But what about the Brit Hadashah, or the renewed covenant with Yeshua and the apostles and things like that? We're told, especially in mainstream Christianity, that all that Old Testament stuff, all that's been done away with. We don't have to worry about that, including those Jewish feasts. We'll get into that point a little bit later on. But did Yeshua celebrate Pesach? Did the apostles celebrate Pesach? Let's look for ourselves and see if we can find out. Luke chapter 2, verses 40-41. And the child, Yeshua, grew and became strong in spirit, being filled with wisdom, and the favor of Elohim was upon him. And his parents went to Yerushalayim every year at the festival of the Pesach. So, Joseph and Mary, that while they were raising Yeshua, as he was a child, they raised him correctly in the aspect of going and celebrating Pesach. So, he grew up celebrating Pesach. Then we look in Luke chapter 22, verse 1. And the festival of Matzot drew near, which is called Pesach. The festival of unleavened bread, also called Pesach. So, time and time again, we see Yeshua and his disciples celebrating Pesach. John chapter 2, verse 13. And the Pesach of the Yehudim was near, and Yeshua went up to Yerushalayim. Now we've said this before, but you see a lot of times during the life and ministry of Yeshua, that he's often out in the countryside, away from the cities, and teaching people where they are. Whether he goes to the sea and teaches the fishermen, or he goes up on a mountain and does a teaching. Usually he's out and about doing the teachings and the miracles and things like that. However, he does come into the temple, and he does come into Jerusalem. And a lot of times it would be for these special occasions, like Shabbat or the feast days. And here we see that Yeshua went up to Yerushalayim for Pesach. Acts chapter 12, verses 1 through 4. And about that time, Herodias the sovereign put forth his hands to do evil to some from the assembly. And he killed Jacob, the brother of Yohanan, with the sword. And seeing that it was pleasing to the Yehudim, he proceeded further to arrest Kepha as well. And they were the days of unleavened bread. So when he had seized him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to watch over him, intending to bring him before the people after Pesach. So the people, as we can see, were still celebrating Pesach even after the death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua. Now this is a section that we covered in our Easter teaching, but this is the point where the King James does not translate it correctly. Here it says in the King James that they're intending to bring him before the people after Easter. But we know, after learning from our Easter teaching, that Easter was not something that was brought in until many hundreds of years after the times of the apostles. The apostles, Yeshua, and even the first century, or the very first believers, continued celebrating Pesach. Hebrews chapter 11, verses 27-28. By belief he, meaning Moshe, left Mitzrayim, not fearing the wrath of the sovereign, for he was steadfast at seeing him who was invisible. By belief he performed the Pesach and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. Now here in Hebrews chapter 11, this is commonly referred to as the Hall of Faith. You have a lot of great men of the faith listed out here, but we see here in this passage in verses 27 and 28 that not only is Moshe, a great man of the faith, listed here, but also Pesach, they make sure to mention Pesach. So how important is Pesach even after the death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua? Very important. Still, just like the Tanakh told us, it would be an everlasting covenant, forever ordinance. Then moving on into 1 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 6-8. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the entire lump? Therefore cleanse out the old leaven so that you are a new lump, as you are unleavened. For also Messiah, our Pesach, was slaughtered for us. So then let us celebrate the festival, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of evil and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. He says, let us celebrate the festival. In other words, do it. So what festival is he referring to here in 1 Corinthians? Well the context tells us this. You see, right before he tells us to do it, he says, for also Messiah, our Pesach, was slaughtered for us. That gives us a clue that the festival he's referring to is Pesach, Passover. After that, he still uses that same Passover terminology, such as leavened and unleavened bread. So we know, from the context, that the festival that Paul is telling us to celebrate is Pesach. So that's the Passover in the Brit Hadashah, or aka New Testament. We can see that Yeshua celebrated Pesach. We see that the disciples and those of the apostles still celebrated Pesach. We know, when we looked at the historical information in our Easter teaching, that the early believers still celebrated Pesach. It's an everlasting ordinance that comes down to us even today that we should celebrate the festival of Passover. We also saw from the scriptures to celebrate it regardless of where we are at, whether we are in the land or out of the land, we should still be celebrating Passover. Now we are told in scripture to sacrifice the lamb where Yahweh places his name. That would be the temple in Jerusalem. Currently there is no temple in Jerusalem, so we cannot do that part of it. We should still commemorate and celebrate the Passover, not only for what Yahweh did way back then in Egypt, bringing the Hebrews out of bondage in Egypt, but for those of us who are in the true faith, we also have an additional meaning behind Passover as well, and that would be the sacrifice of Yeshua. So for us, Passover is a celebration of the power and majesty of Yahweh to bring the people out, and the sacrifice of Yeshua for cleansing us of our sins. So we saw it from the Tanakh, we looked at it in the Brit Hadashah. Now let's look at some Passover misnomers or things that aren't exactly correct when it comes to Passover. And the first idea is going to be that Passover is a Jewish holiday. Well is that scriptural or is that just a tradition that we have come to know? Let's look at scripture. Exodus chapter 12 verse 11. And this is how you eat it. Your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Pesach of Yahweh, Exodus chapter 12 verse 26 and 27. And it shall be when your children say to you, What does this service mean to you? Then you shall say, It is the Pesach slaughtering of Yahweh, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Mitzrayim, when he smote the Mitzrites and delivered our households. Numbers chapter 9 verse 10. Speak to the children of Israel, saying, When any male of you or your generations is unclean for a being, or is far away on a journey, he shall still perform the Pesach of Yahweh. Numbers chapter 9 verse 14. And when a stranger sojourns among you, then he shall perform the Pesach of Yahweh. Numbers chapter 28 verse 16. And in the first new moon on the fourteenth day is the Pesach of Yahweh, again and again, over and over and over again. We see scripture describe Pesach as the Pesach of Yahweh. So it's a feast day, it's a festival, it's a Moedim of Yahweh. Not of the Jews. The Jews celebrate this feast day of Yahweh. But it's not a feast day of the Jews, it's a feast day of Yahweh. It's the Pesach of Yahweh. With that being said, in the spirit of full transparency and full disclosure, let's look at some rare exceptions real quick. John chapter 2 verse 13. And the Pesach of the Yehudim was near, and Yeshua went up to Yerushalayim. John chapter 6 verse 4. And the Pesach was near, the festival of the Yehudim. John chapter 11 verse 55. Now the Pesach of the Yehudim was near, and many went from the country up to Yerushalayim before the Pesach, who set themselves apart. Okay brother, we just saw in the Tanakh where it describes it as the Pesach of Yahweh, but here it's calling it the Pesach of the Yehudim. Doesn't that mean that it's actually the Passover of the Jews? No, not entirely true and correct. If you'll notice something that's a common theme behind all these verses we just presented. They are all in the book of John. They're interesting, right? Everywhere else in all the other books where Pesach is described, it's called the Pesach of Yahweh. Only here in the book of John is it called the Pesach of the Judeans or the Pesach of the Jews. You've got to ask yourself, why is that? Why would John take such a different approach to describing Pesach? Don't know for certain, don't know for sure, but one thing that's been put forth is that John was writing to more of a Greek-speaking, Greek-cultured audience. So in order to, I guess, more accurately and descriptively describe Pesach to them, he would refer to it as the Pesach of the Judeans because they might not have known the name Yahweh that well at that point. Again, that's just conjecture and assumption. We don't know exactly for sure, but one thing that we do know for sure is that the only time it's called the Passover of the Jews is in the book of John. Nowhere else. So it's a very important thing to keep in mind. And just wanted to let you know that scripture in the book of John only does describe it as the Passover of the Jews. Every other single place is called the Passover of Yahweh. When we look at the context, where it came from, why it was instituted, and we know that the Judeans or the Jews did not institute Passover. It was Yahweh who gave the instructions on the very first day, I'm sorry, on the very first occurrence and also the statutes and regulations and the instructions for how it was to be commemorated from there on out too. So in reality, it is, as the rest of scripture says, the Passover of Yahweh. Another misnomer about Pesach is that Yeshua died on Good Friday. Is that true? Well, let's look at this real quick. Matthew chapter 12 verse 40. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the stomach of the great fish, so shall the son of Adam be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Matthew chapter 16 verse 21. From that time, Yeshua began to show to his taught ones that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and to suffer much from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and to be raised again the third day. Luke chapter 9 verse 22. Saying, the son of Adam has to suffer much and to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and scribes and to be killed and to be raised the third day. Acts chapter 10 verses 39 through 40. And we are witnesses of all he did, both in the country of the Yehudim and in Jerusalem, whom they even killed by hanging on a timber. Elohim raised up this one on the third day and let him be seen. John chapter 20 verse 1. And on day one of the week, Miriam from Magdala came early to the tomb while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. And this is the point where he is first seen after his resurrection on the first day of the week. Now in the scriptures, in the Bible, they call the first day of the week, second day of the week, stuff like that. What we would call the first day of the week is Sunday. Hence why people come to the conclusion that Yeshua rose on Sunday morning, right? However, does that mean that therefore Yeshua died on Good Friday? Use common sense. Think about it. If he was first seen on Sunday morning, and we count backwards three days and three nights, we're going to be doing Saturday, Friday night, Friday, Thursday night, Thursday, Wednesday night. So no, it's a couple of days before, I'm sorry, Yeshua was crucified a couple of days before Friday. In fact, the math makes it calculate out to Wednesday, Wednesday evening. It's literally impossible to get three days and three nights between Friday evening and Sunday morning. That only gives you at most one day and maybe two nights depending on when you say that he actually arose. So no, Yeshua was not crucified on Good Friday. That's just simply a tradition of man that's been handed down to us. Another misnomer is that the apostles celebrated Easter. Now we got into this in the Easter teaching, but it bears going over again. It's chapter 12, verse 4 in the King James Translation. And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him, intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people. Here we see in the Greek text, the Strong's word G3957, Haske. But as we went over in the Easter teaching, and as we went over in the beginning of this teaching, Haske does not mean Easter. It means Passover. It's the Greek word for Passover. Yeshua, the apostles, his disciples, early Christians, they all celebrated Pascha or Passover, not Easter. In fact, when you look in the King James Translation, this is the only place in the whole translation where it translates Haske as Easter. Every other instance where the word Pascha comes up, it translates it as Passover. Now modern translations rightfully translate this as Passover because they have a better understanding. I'm not really sure why King James made this one error, but this is not a case where words change and things like that. No, Easter meant Easter back then the same as it does now. Passover meant Passover back then like Passover does now. So this is straightforward a mistranslation of the King James when they translate this as Easter. Anyways, here's your Strong's G3957, Pascha. And once again, here's your Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament for Pascha. And like we said earlier, nowadays Passover for those of us who are in the true faith means more than just the freedom and the removing the Hebrews from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. It also has to do with the sacrifice of Yeshua now for us also. And the correlation between Yeshua's life and what he did in Passover is significant and bears speaking out about or pointing out. We see from the Last Supper that was what Yeshua ate for the last time with his disciples before he was crucified. This was the final meal that Yeshua shared with his disciples and it included unleavened bread and wine, which was by his teaching representative of his body and his blood. Some people who dispute whether the Last Supper was actually a Passover meal or not. We tend to think it was. Make your own conclusions. But we can see that a lot of the elements that were included with the Last Supper were elements from Passover. And even before that, before they actually had the Last Supper, he tells his disciples go and prepare the Passover so that I may eat. Again, more evidence, but other people have their texts they point to as well. Yeshua is the sacrificial lamb for our sins, just as the lamb during Passover was the sacrificial lamb, obviously, which would provide his blood for the people to paint on their doorpost coming out of Egypt. And Yeshua is often referred to as the Lamb of God, whose sacrificial death atones for the sins of humanity. His crucifixion is fulfilling the symbolism of the sacrificial lamb in the Passover narrative. Yeshua's sacrifice and his life also symbolizes freedom. Now the original Passover was a commemoration of the freedom from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. And Yeshua's sacrifice is symbolic of our freedom in him from the bondage of sin. The timing. You cannot deny the timing. Yeshua was the Lamb of God who was crucified at Passover. And we are saved from death because of Yeshua's sacrifice. Yeshua's sacrifice saves us from the second death, much like the Hebrews were saved from the angel of death back during the very first Passover. And fulfillment. Yeshua fulfilled and transcended the symbolism and requirements of the Passover festival. When you learn about Pesach, and then you learn about Yeshua, his life and what he did and what he was here for, it all lines up beautifully. And this is one of the important things about remembering the Tanakh. Not just doing away with it as mainstream churchianity would have us do. When we learn the Tanakh, we learn the feast days, we learn the Moedim, such as Pesach, and then we learn about Yeshua, it's so beautiful and it shows us even greater depth of how Yeshua fulfilled all of these prophecies and the things that were in the Tanakh. We're even told that these feast days, such as Pesach, are shadows of things to come. We can see from Yeshua's life and the things he did that he fulfilled a lot of the spring feast days, such as Pesach, such as Shavuot, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, stuff like that. At his second coming, we believe that he's going to fulfill the fall feast days, things like Yom Teruah, Yom Kippurim, Sukkot, things like that. So it's a beautiful thing, once you get in this messianic mindset and start looking and learning the things from the Tanakh and then comparing it with Yeshua and prophecy, you'll understand things a whole lot clearer and much more in depth that way. So you're thinking to yourself, we've learned about Pesach, we learned about it in the Tanakh, we saw it in the Brit Chadashah, we've even seen some common misconceptions around the subject of Pesach, so now you're ready to celebrate it with your friends and family. How do we do that? What kind of customs should we incorporate? Should we do things like that? Scripturally speaking, just the Bible, the things you would do for Passover would be to eat a lamb or a goat, because goat is one of the provisions that is provided in the institution of Passover. You would also eat unleavened bread, obviously. And you would eat bitter herbs, things like horseradish or whatever might be bitter. But these are the basic scriptural requirements for celebrating Passover. Plus, telling the story, teaching about Passover, how the people came out of Egypt and how Yahweh delivered them, and of course, nowadays, we also teach about the sacrifice of Yeshua, how he was our Passover lamb, took away our sins, things like that. So that's just the basic requirements to meet what scripture demands. So once again, you've got the lamb or the goat, you can find those requirements and those instructions in Torah itself. You can look in Exodus chapter 12, verse 5, and other places. You eat unleavened bread for Passover. If you've never celebrated Passover before, unleavened bread you can buy in stores. It's commonly called matzah or matzos, and it tastes pretty much like a cardboard cracker. A lot of it doesn't have a lot of taste to it, but it's unleavened bread and you can buy it without making it. We prefer to make our own. It can be a lot better tasting when you make it yourself. You can make it the size you want. You can make it as done as you want, so you can add some flavor to it. We like to add things like Italian seasoning. So you can make it your own when you make it yourself, but you can also buy it and that's perfectly all right as long as you're eating unleavened bread. And then of course the bitter herbs like we talked about. That could be things like, we use horseradish, but there's also other bitter herbs that you can use too. And a lot of people use horseradish. And that's meant to symbolize the harshness that the Israelites had during their time in slavery in Egypt. A lot of people nowadays also make and eat something called cheruset. This is usually comprised of things like apples or some other kind of fruit together with nuts and raisins and honey. Maybe you could add in some wine. The recipe I've got, it has just a dash of wine in it, but it's really good. This is not a scriptural requirement, but it is something that has been added to the Passover meal for nowadays. This cheruset is used to symbolize the mortar that was used by the Israelites when they were in slavery in Egypt. There's also things that are used during the Passover meal like parsley stalks. And this is used to symbolize the hyssop branches that were used for applying the lamb's blood on the doorposts when they were back in Egypt. Then there is the use of wine or grape juice. Again, this is not something that is scripturally commanded, but a lot of people do. We also see, like we mentioned in the Last Supper, that Yeshua had wine during the Last Supper, which we believe to be a Passover meal. If you don't do alcohol, then by all means, don't do wine, do grape juice or some other kind of juice, whatever suits your fancy, if you have kids there. A lot of those within Judaism, especially like Orthodox Judaism, include an egg during their Passover Seder. Now this is not commanded in Scripture either, and it kind of begs the question, okay, where did it come from? All of these things that aren't specifically laid out in Scripture, you should always ask, where did these things come from? When were they added? Why were they added? Stuff like that. The egg, as far as we can tell, comes from the same place that Easter eggs come from, and that's from paganism. All throughout Scripture, you do not find the use of egg in any kind of festival, feast day, Muad'Dib, worship of Yahweh, anything like that. But you do find the symbolism of the egg within paganism. So it would be our advice to not use eggs in any of your religious contexts. You can eat it, that's fine. There's no problem with eating eggs, getting the nutrition from them, because it's something that Yahweh did create for us to eat. But when used in a religious context, things like the celebration of the death, burial and resurrection of Yeshua, or something like the celebration of Pesach, you should not be doing that, because that is a religious ceremony, and you do not find that used in any context within Scripture, only within paganism. Also during the Passover meal, you find the use of salt water as well. This is used to symbolize the tears of the Israelites while they were in bondage in slavery in Egypt. Also, if you're concerned about kosher things for Passover, on your screen here you can see where it says kosher l'Pesach, and this means kosher for Passover. There's a few different symbols that indicate that it has been certified kosher. Here on your screen you see the circle and U, you also see a star with a K, things like that. This tells you that it is certified as kosher, but we don't normally go off something that is certified. We check the ingredients, yes, but we do not look for the certification and go off that only. We go by what Scripture says, and if Scripture says it is kosher and good to eat, or okay to eat, then we eat it. But also some other food that you can incorporate into your Passover observance is any kind of bread or dessert that's not leavened, such as matzah, angel food cake, etc. Some people don't want to use angel food cake because they think it's leavened, but angel food cake, when you know how it's made, it does not use leavening. It uses egg whites, and that's whipped at a high speed to incorporate air. It doesn't actually rise due to leavening, so you whip the air into it, and then you quickly bake it to set it, and that's how you get things like sponge cake or angel food cake. It has no leavening in it whatsoever, but to each their own. If you don't want to do it, hey, don't do it. There's plenty of other stuff. Matzah balls. Yeah. Love us some matzah balls. Dairy. You can incorporate things like yogurt, cream cheese, stuff like that. You can incorporate various types of meat, such as salmon, gefilte fish, if you're into that kind of thing, beef, poultry, quinoa. Certain kinds of nuts, such as almonds, peanuts, cashews, etc., etc. Fruits. Yay. Definitely do fruits. Who doesn't like fruit, right? And things like rice and beans. That's perfectly all right as well. Some people will take rice flour or ground up almonds or ground up beans, stuff like that, and incorporate that with a leavening agent and think they're okay because they're not using a grain product, but that's not the commandment. It says do not use leavening. No leavening is to be found anywhere in your property. So even using other things besides wheat and grain, like rice and nuts and beans, would still be prohibited by the commandment, in our humble opinion. So don't do that, but just eat beans like you would normally eat beans. Eat rice like you would normally eat rice. That would be perfectly all right. So basically for Passover, you can eat anything that is both kosher and unleavened. And that would be meeting with the scriptural commands and instructions for the celebration of Pesach. Another thing that might help you in your celebration during your Passover Seder would be a Seder plate. Again, this is something that is traditional. It's not required by scripture, but if you'd like to use it, sometimes things like this can be helpful. They generally have various places to put the different elements of the Passover meal as you go through your Passover Haggadah. Now if anyone is doing this by themselves and you would like a free Passover Haggadah, you can find that through our website or through our archive.org account. Just search for God Honest Truth or Messianic Haggadah and you can download it for yourself. We have the full Haggadah and we also have a more streamlined Haggadah if you don't want to spend a long time. If you go to a traditional Passover Seder at like a Jewish Seder or a Messianic congregation, it can be a rather long service. It's very fulfilling, it's very enjoyable, and it's a lot of fun, but it can be long. If you're doing it with just a small group of people, maybe in your home, maybe that's too long. We've shortened it down. We have a smaller Haggadah that takes less time. So you can go and download the full Haggadah or you can get that shortened version as well. All free through our website or through our archive.org account. So in summary, Passover commemorates the powerful hand of Yahweh redeeming the Israelites out of slavery. It also commemorates the sacrifice of our Master and Messiah, Yeshua, who is the Lamb of God, the Passover Lamb. The Hebrews kept Passover throughout the Tanakh, both outside the land and inside the land. It didn't matter where they were, they still celebrated Pesach. Yeshua kept Pesach and was the Paschal Lamb. The apostles and the faithful and the disciples and the early Christians kept Pesach. Passover, as we see from Scripture, is an everlasting ordinance to go on forever and ever. We see that we, even nowadays, should be keeping Pesach, even now, after the death, burial and resurrection of Yeshua. Even now, even though there's not a temple in Jerusalem, even now, when we're not in the land of Israel, we should still be celebrating Pesach and celebrating it for what it commemorates, the power of Yahweh and the sacrifice of Yeshua. And that's just the God honest truth. So thank you for joining us for this teaching. We really appreciate you sticking with us throughout all of this. Once again, if you happen to miss anything, you can click on the link down below and that'll take you directly to the article on our website, Godhonesttruth.com. There you can find the on-demand video, the slides you see right here that you can go through at your own pace. You'll also find the notes we took for this subject and the transcript once everything gets processed. If you haven't done so already, go down below and let us know what it is that you learned from this teaching. Or if you happen to disagree with anything, let us know that in the comments down below as well. Make sure to hit that subscribe button, hit the like button, and also hit the share button and share this around with someone that you may know who you think would like to also learn more about Passover or even how to start celebrating Passover themselves. As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, please write us at team at Godhonesttruth.com and we will do our best to answer you and help you out with whatever it is that you write in to us about. Thank you for joining us for another production from God Honest Truth Ministries. We hope that we have been of service to you. If you have any feedback, then please reach out to us by email. Make sure to visit our website at Godhonesttruth.com for more information, resources, and contact.