Circumcision and Passover

Perhaps no feast in ancient Israel was more important than the Passover and its associated festival, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. One reason we draw this conclusion is that no other festival’s regulations are described in as much detail as the Passover. Exodus 12–13 gives instructions for the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but there are also extensive directions in texts such as Numbers 9 and Deuteronomy 16.

In today’s passage, we find instructions for the Passover that address who may partake of it. What stands out is the requirement that only those who were fully part of the covenant community of Israel could partake of the Passover. Foreigners could not participate (Ex. 12:45). This makes sense in light of the fact that Passover commemorated the deliverance of the covenant community from Egypt. If one was not a part of that covenant community, then he in no way could say that he was a participant in God’s work of salvation. He was outside the group whom the Lord had committed to save.

Yet the rule that someone who did not have Israelite blood but was from a different nation could not partake of the Passover was not absolute. As Exodus 12:48 points out, any stranger to the old covenant church—the nation of Israel—could partake of the feast if he desired as long as he was circumcised. In other words, those non-Israelites who were converted to faith in the one true God, Yahweh the covenant Lord of Israel, and agreed to keep the covenant that God made with Israel would become Israelites. God’s intent even in the exodus generation was not to close off the possibility of salvation to the gentiles. He has always welcomed into His covenant those who submit to Him in faith and repentance.

Exodus 12:46 says that the meat from the Passover lamb could not be carried from home to home but had to stay in the household that sacrificed it. This was probably to prevent its defilement. But the same verse also says that the body of the lamb was not to be broken. It is more difficult to discern all the reasons for this rule, but we know from later revelation that the Messiah’s body would not be broken (John 19:31–37), so the unbroken Passover lamb also foreshadowed the work of Christ. As Augustine of Hippo comments, “The true point and purpose of the Jewish Passover, which contained this instruction, not to break the lamb’s bones, was to be a prophetic preenactment of his death.”