How Yeshua Perfectly Fulfilled the Passover

Hey folks, Passover is less than two weeks ago. It’s time to start thinking about it! Let’s jump in…

How did Yeshua the Messiah perfectly fulfill the Exodus Passover?

According to the laws of statistical probability, what are the chances of an event happening and then fifteen hundred years later another event occurring bearing an uncanny resemblance to the first one? Now suppose that not only did fifteen hundred years separate the two events, but that they occurred in two different countries several hundred miles apart. Further suppose that the second event involved the death of a person, and that the events leading up to their death including the manner and timing of that death was beyond the control of the individual dying so that in no way could the person dying stage his death to mirror the first event. In fact, those killing the individual possessed no foreknowledge of the event that had occurred fifteen hundred years earlier. What are the chances of this occurring?

This is not a fictional story! Truth is stranger than fiction. The details of these two events are chronicled in the pages of the Bible. The first event occurred in ancient Egypt and is recorded in the Book of Exodus chapters eleven and twelve. There we find recorded the details of the Children of Israel’s first Passover while they were yet slaves in the land of Egypt. A whole series of events led up to this first Passover, which culminated with each family’s ritual killing of a lamb, smearing its blood on the frame of their doors, roasting the lamb, and then eating it. Doing this insured that YHVH would pass over their homes leaving those inside alive. The firstborn of those whose homes did not have the blood painted on the door frames were killed.

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The Passover of the Jews???

John 2:13, Passover of the Jews. (See also John 5:5; 6:4; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1.) Have you ever wondered why John often uses this phrase? What other Passovers were there that necessitated specifying which Passover he was referring to?

This “Passover of the Jews” is in opposition to the Passover feasts held by competing religious sects of the time (e.g., the Essenes at Qumran and the Samaritans). The modern Samaritans following ancient calendric traditions, for example, will hold their Passover on May 4 in 2012 as opposed to April 6, which is this year’s likely date on the biblical calendar.

The ancient Qumran community embraced an “unorthodox liturgical calendar that [set] them apart from the rest of Jewry” (The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, by Geza Vermes, p. 41). For example, on the Qumran community’s solar-based calendar that is based on a 364-day year, the Passover always fell on a Wednesday (Ibid. p. 79).

As you can see, determining on what days the biblical feasts fall was as controversial then as it is now!

(For additional enlightening studies on the biblical calendar, check out my articles at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/cal_demyst.pdf and http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/new_moons.pdf and http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/vis_moon.pdf.)