What is the Passover offering and what did the commandment require?

Exodus 12:6 commands the whole congregation of Israel to slaughter a lamb at twilight on the fourteenth of Nissan. The lamb had to be male, one year old, without blemish. Its blood was struck on the doorposts; its flesh eaten that night with matzah and bitter herbs, in haste.

What was Hezekiah's second-month Passover?

2 Chronicles 30 records Hezekiah celebrating Passover in the second month because the priests and people were not ready in time. He prayed for those who were ritually impure. God accepted their Passover based on the disposition of their hearts: "the LORD hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people."

Why was the Passover lamb kept in the household for four days before slaughter?

Exodus 12:3-6 commands selecting the lamb on the tenth of Nissan and slaughtering it on the fourteenth. The four-day household period created intimacy with the sacrifice — the family understood what the offering cost before the blood was shed. The Passover was a family act, not an anonymous institutional one.

What does Ezekiel say about the future Passover?

Ezekiel 45:21-25 describes a future Passover offering in the restored Temple: "In the first month, in the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have the passover." The annual Passover slaughter persists into the messianic age, pointing to a final Passover that will complete what the first one began.

Commandment #51 · Positive · Sabbath & Holy Days

Slaughter the Passover Offering

Q: What made Josiah's Passover the greatest since Samuel's time?

2 Chronicles 35:18 praises Josiah's Passover as the greatest in Israel's history since Samuel. He organized the service by priestly and Levitical divisions, provided 30,000 lambs from his own possessions, and ensured the slaughter followed Moses's exact pattern.

שְׁחִיטַת הַפֶּסַח

Source: Exodus 12:6 · Maimonides, Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive #51

The Passover offering is the oldest commandment in Israel's national history — given while Israel was still in Egypt, before the Exodus had happened. Every subsequent slaughter of the lamb re-entered that original night: the lamb chosen, kept for four days, slaughtered at twilight, its blood marking the threshold between life and death.

וְשָׁחֲטוּ אֹתוֹ כָּל קְהַל עֲדַת יִשְׂרָאֵל

"And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening."

Exodus 12:6 — Open in Torah Reader

The First Passover: Blood on the Doorpost

וְלָקְחוּ מִן הַדָּם וְנָתְנוּ עַל שְׁתֵּי הַמְּזוּזֹת

"And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post."

Exodus 12:7 — Open in Torah Reader

Exodus 12 records the original Passover instruction with precise detail: a lamb without blemish, male, one year old, selected on the tenth of Nissan, kept until the fourteenth, slaughtered at twilight. The blood was struck on the doorposts and lintel. The flesh was eaten that night with matzah and bitter herbs, with shoes on, staff in hand, in haste.

Every element mattered. The lamb selected four days before was not killed immediately — it was kept in the household, visible, intimate. When it was slaughtered, the family understood what the blood cost. The Passover offering was not an anonymous Temple sacrifice but a family act of covenant compliance.

Josiah's Passover: The Greatest in the Monarchy

2 Chronicles 35:1-19 records the most celebrated Passover in the monarchy's history. Josiah organized the service by priestly and Levitical divisions, provided 30,000 lambs and 3,000 bulls from his own possessions, and ensured that the slaughter and the Levitical service followed precisely the Mosaic pattern. 2 Chronicles 35:18: "There was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet."

Josiah's Passover demonstrated that the commandment to slaughter the offering was not merely about killing an animal but about precise, organized, whole-community compliance with the pattern God had given Moses. The quality of the slaughter was inseparable from the quality of the heart that ordered it.

Hezekiah's Emergency Passover: Mercy for the Unprepared

2 Chronicles 30 records Hezekiah's Passover celebrated in the second month — a month late — because neither the priests nor the people were sufficiently purified in time. Numbers 9:11 provides the Pesach Sheni provision that made this possible. Many who came were not ritually clean. Hezekiah prayed for them and 2 Chronicles 30:20: "And the LORD hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people."

The Passover slaughter commandment, rigorously observed by Josiah, was extended by mercy through Hezekiah. The God who commanded the precise ritual also provided for those who could not meet its standard — accepting the disposition of the heart when the preparation was imperfect.

Key Figures

Moses — The First Passover Organizer

Exodus 12 records Moses communicating the precise instructions for the first Passover to the elders of Israel. His insistence on every detail — the lamb's age, the timing, the blood placement — established the pattern that all subsequent Passovers followed.

Josiah — The Great Passover Keeper

2 Chronicles 35's account of his organized, precisely executed Passover is the gold standard for commandment #51. He gave from his own possessions, organized the service by divisions, and ensured the slaughter followed the Mosaic pattern exactly.

Study Questions

For reflection and group study

The Passover lamb was selected four days before slaughter and kept in the household. What does this four-day proximity — seeing the animal you would sacrifice — accomplish that an anonymous Temple offering cannot?

See Ex 12:3,6; John 1:29

Josiah's Passover was praised as the greatest since Samuel. What made it exceptional — organization, generosity, precision? And what does this standard for "the greatest Passover" reveal about what the commandment was designed to produce?

See 2 Chr 35:1–19; 2 Kgs 23:21–23

Hezekiah accepted the unclean people's Passover and God healed them. What does this episode reveal about the relationship between ritual correctness and the disposition of the heart in observing the Passover commandment?

See 2 Chr 30:18–20; 1 Sam 15:22; Hos 6:6

The Passover lamb's blood on the doorpost was the sign that caused the angel to "pass over." What does the blood accomplish — does it protect or identify? And what does this protection mechanism say about how covenant relationship worked in Egypt?

See Ex 12:13; Heb 11:28

Ezekiel 45:21-25 describes a future Passover in the restored Temple. The commandment persists into the eschatological age. What does the survival of the Passover offering into the messianic future say about the relationship between historical redemption and eternal worship?

See Ezek 45:21; Rev 5:9–12

Read this commandment in the original Hebrew.

Open Exodus 12:6 in Torah Reader

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