Eating the Passover in Haste

Continuing our study of the first instructions God gave for the celebration of the Passover, let us note that not everything the Israelites did the first time they ate the feast was necessarily to be done in each celebration of Passover thereafter. For instance, placing the blood of the Passover lamb on the doors of the Israelite houses was needed only during the first Passover (Ex. 12:7), for the Lord did not annually send a plague of death where His people were living while they celebrated the meal. Moreover, subsequent celebrations of Passover would not necessarily require people to dress as if they were about to leave their homes at a moment’s notice, for there would be no need for the Israelites to get up in a moment’s notice year after year and flee from physical enslavement in another land (v. 11).

Nevertheless, other aspects of the feast would continue to help the Israelites remember the context in which it was established. The Passover lamb would have to be eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened bread (v. 8). Most likely, the Israelites consumed bitter herbs as a reminder of the bitter conditions from which God rescued them. Unleavened bread could be prepared in haste, thereby reminding them that during the first Passover there was little if any time between the end of the meal and the departure from Egypt. For a similar reason, the meat had to be roasted and all leftovers destroyed (vv. 9–10). To cook the lamb by boiling, as was later possible in some sacrifices, took more time than roasting because one had to gather pots, fill them with water, and wait for them to boil. In roasting, the lamb could be placed immediately on the fire and would cook faster. Regarding the prohibition of leftovers, keeping extra meat might cause people to delay leaving Egypt until the next morning. Meat was also typically preserved via salting, which took several days, so having no meat left over to preserve would indicate that it was unnecessary to take more time to preserve the meat.

In the first Passover, the Israelites had to be ready to obey God at once in order to get out of Egypt, so they had to prepare and eat the meal in such a way that they would have no reason to delay when the Lord called. John Calvin says that this is an example for us to be ready to obey God at any point “lest we should be devoted to the attractions of the world, and lest our course should be delayed by the enticements of pleasure.”