“In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, is Adonai’s Pesach. On the fifteenth day of the month is to be a feast. Matzah is to be eaten for seven days.”-Numbers 28:16-17
From Numbers 28:16, we are introduced to Passover and the Feast of Matza (Unleavened Bread) and their sacrificial offerings.
I need to clear up a point about these two feasts that most gentile believers are super confused about.
What point is that?
The point is that these two feasts are actually TWO FEASTS AND NOT ONE!
The Feast of Unleavened of Bread follows immediately after Passover and because of this over time they have become fused and inseparable.
But the truth is they are really two separate feasts!
Passover starts off as a ONE-day event on the 14th of the month of NISAN…
….and then the Feast of MATZAH begins the day after on the 15th of NISAN and continues for seven days until the 21st of NISAN.
So we’ve got one 1-day feast (Passover) and one 7-day feast (Matzah) running one after the other.
Got it?
The confusion that has arisen over this matter is understandable.
Since these two feasts run one after the other, by the time of the Book of Deuteronomy, they were fused together and even spoken of as the “8-day Festival of Passover” or the “8-day Festival of Matzah“.
As result of this, “Passover” and the “Feast of Unleavened Bread” became interchangeable terms.
But from a true Torah perspective, this is technically NOT correct.
Another thing we have to remember is that the first Passover was originally a private family observance.
The Passover lamb was killed and eaten by individual families in their own homes.
There wasn’t any priest officiating over the ritual.
Another interesting point is that one of the requirements of the first Passover was that the ram had be roasted over a fire.
Why do you think this was a requirement?
I think it might have been a foreshadowing of the fact that all animal sacrifices would eventually be burnt over a fire on the Altar at the Tabernacle and then later the Temple.
Understand however that most of the Tabernacle and Temple altar offerings were completely burned up with nothing left to be eaten as food.
The first ever Passover ram sacrifice was cooked as a burnt offering and was also eaten as food by the Israelite families on that dreadful night in Egypt (dreadful for the Egyptians that is).
Now are you seeing another MAJOR DIFFERENCE in the instructions between the first Passover held in Egypt on the night when the Lord killed all the firstborns and the instructions we’re given here in Numbers 28?
Notice that the first Passover held in Egypt was a PRIVATE OBSERVANCE held in the individual homes of the Israelite families.
However, what we’re dealing with here in Numbers 28 and 29 is a full-blown PUBLIC CEREMONIAL SACRIFICE with the Levitical Priesthood officiating over everything.
This meant that the people could no longer stay at home for the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
In order to remain compliant to Torah, they had to make a trip or a pilgrimage if you will all the way up to Jerusalem.
We’ll continue with this discussion in the next post.
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