In my last post I established the following important point.
Out of the three springtime feasts of PESACH (Passover), MATZAH (Unleavened Bread) and BIKKURIM (Firstfruits), only MATZAH was a pilgrimage feast.
When I say “pilgrimage feast”, I mean that one was required to journey all the way up to the central sanctuary (either the Tabernacle or the Temple depending upon which period of Israelite history we’re dealing with), in order to observe it.
Now here’s the thing.
Even though the Passover is NOT a Pilgrimage Feast, there are two reasons why it was customary to slaughter the Passover sacrifice at the central sanctuary.
The first reason is since one already had to be at the Tabernacle for the Feast of Matza which occurs one day immediately after Passover on Aviv 15th, simply out of practicality more than anything, the people travelled up to the central sanctuary to observe the 3-bundle of springtime feasts (Passover, Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits).
Now let me add to the confusion even more.
There’s another reason why the Passover Lamb was slaughtered at the central sanctuary even though technically speaking PESACH was not a pilgrimage feast.
In the Book of Leviticus, God declared that the BOTH the first day and the last day of the Feast of Unleavened were to be Sabbath days.
These sabbath days were different than the weekly 7th day Sabbath day that God established at creation.
However, they were still considered days when no regular work was allowed to be done.
This meant no preparation for the feasts…
…AND NO TRAVELLING!
Hence, an Israelite could not travel on Aviv 15th because it was the first day of the feast of MATZA…
…which meant he and his family had no choice but to travel the day before or even earlier.
Therefore, the Israelites automatically were at the Tabernacle or the Temple by Aviv 14th (the day of Passover).
And if they were already there, obviously the most practical thing to do was have the their Passover Lamb slaughtered at the Tabernacle or Temple anyway.
Are you with me here?
Let’s say you had to be somewhere by Friday morning but for whatever reason travel on Thursday morning was prohibited.
In that case, you would have to travel the day before or earlier.
Well, for the Israelites, that day of travel was usually Aviv 14 when the Feast of Passover occurred (and some folks arrived in Jerusalem even earlier).
At this point, some of you are probably thinking what the heck does all this detail have to do with anything?!
Hang in there folks.
Because if you’re ever going to have a hope in heaven of understanding what really went on with Yeshua, the Last Supper and His death and resurrection, you’ve just got to understand these details.
I’m signing off for today.
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