Keep the month of Abib, and celebrate the passover to Jehovah thy God; for in the month of Abib Jehovah thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night.
On the edge of the promised land, Moses tells Israel to build their year around one month and one meal — the month God brought them out of Egypt. Two questions follow: why does the calendar start with a night of judgment, and why does Deuteronomy leave out the blood on the doorposts?
The month named here was not the first month by ordinary reckoning. God moved it to the front, and the reason reaches back to Israel's own guilt.
Israel, no less than the Egyptians, were a sinful race. How could God make light of their sins? So He instituted the Passover. He made it all the more striking, because a new reckoning started from that event as a foundation for Israel. Abib was the seventh month of the civil year; "for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night" (v. 1). It now began the holy year. The LORD was acting as Judge beyond anything that had gone before; and the lamb's blood alone could shelter guilty Israel.
The same new start happens today, one person at a time.
The month in question was Abib, otherwise Nisan (Ex. 13:4), and matched our March–April. Redemption gave the people a new start with God. It is the same now. A man admits he is a sinner in God's sight, exposed to eternal wrath. In simple faith he takes refuge under the blood of the Lamb. That is when he begins life anew.
"Abib" is a farming word, and it is the only month in these books that carries a name at all.
This month received the name Abib — "the month of the ears of grain." It was for Israel the month of life out of death, the fruitful month — a name most fitting for the people at their birth into national life. You can see this important principle about their year throughout the books of Moses, Joshua and Judges. There Abib alone has a name. Every other month is counted from it by number — the "second," the "third," and so on.
The deliverance happened in the dark, and that detail matters. Israel put the blood outside, where they could not gaze at it.
What could show so clearly that it was for the LORD's eye, not for man's senses or mind? It was put on the two side-posts and on the lintel for his faith, and all the more for the deepest feelings of his heart. Had it been inside, it would have suggested that they were to gaze at the lamb's blood, to which they owed their safety. But there was nothing of the kind... What makes this even clearer is that it was "night." There was no natural light to let the blood be seen by men. Only the divine eye could see the blood on the doorposts. He might work through a destroyer, but it was the LORD who struck Egypt, and the LORD who saw the blood and passed over Israel sheltered by it. "When I see the blood, I will pass over you."
Deuteronomy tells them to sacrifice the Passover, but says nothing about marking the doors. Kelly reads this as fitting the settled condition of a people no longer facing that first night.
A man is first awakened. He receives the good news of redemption in Christ Jesus through the shedding of His blood. At that point the nearness of the wrath to come speaks to his soul. But after he has bowed to the truth, he is no longer filled with alarm, at least not in the same degree or way. Is it that Christ's work is valued less? A great deal more.
This chapter ties the feast to the place God will choose. The earlier accounts never do.
Note that it is only in Deuteronomy that the place of celebration is insisted on. We have nothing about it in Exodus, because there it was kept in Egypt. We have nothing about it in Numbers, because there it was kept in the wilderness. But in Deuteronomy it is settled with authority, because there we have the instructions for the land. God would gather His beloved people around Himself, to feast together in His presence, that He might rejoice in them, and they in Him and in one another.
Only three feasts are named in this chapter.
These feasts made an appeal to a male Israelite that no others could make. Others might be optional; these feasts were binding. It is a call to obedience... It is not the tabernacle, nor the priest, nor the wilderness, but obeying God as His people in the land.
- New foundation — Deliverance came at night. Only God could see the blood, so their safety rested on His sight of it, not on theirs.
- New year — That night moved Abib from seventh place to first, so Israel's whole calendar began at redemption.
- New name — Abib, "the month of the ears of corn," is the one named month: life out of death, the nation's birthday.
- New confidence — Deuteronomy keeps the sacrifice but drops the doorposts. The first alarm passes; the value of the blood only deepens.
- New place — In the land the feast is not kept just anywhere, but where God chooses. Keeping it there tests obedience.
And thou shalt sacrifice the passover to Jehovah thy God, of the flock and of the herd, in the place which Jehovah will choose to cause his name to dwell there.
Moses retells the Passover for a generation about to settle in Canaan. Two details carry the verse: what they bring — flock and herd — and where they bring it, at the one place God picks for His name.
The first Passover in Egypt used a lamb. So why does this verse add the herd?
It may be worth noticing that the Passover sacrifice proper was a lamb from the flock only. But Numbers 28 shows that the feast had daily offerings too: bulls as burnt offerings, along with a ram and lambs, a grain offering, a goat for a sin offering, and a drink offering. This explains the "herd" here.
Set this chapter beside the night in Exodus, and one thing is absent:
Only notice that in Deuteronomy 16 it is simply the Passover sacrificed. Nothing is said here about the blood put on the doorposts.
Another writer ties that silence to the change of setting — the people are in the land now, looking back:
Here the Passover is no longer that shelter from threatening judgment; it is the memorial of salvation accomplished... It is the soul's communion; it is the sweet spiritual recollection of a work entirely His own, of His death as a lamb without blemish. We feed on it, as His redeemed people, enjoying this position in the land of promise and of God — a land that belongs to us because of this redemption, and because we have been raised up with Christ.
The second half of the verse fixes a place. One writer weighs how much that mattered:
We have to notice the remarkable emphasis laid on "the place" where the feast was to be kept. The people were not to choose for themselves. To human thinking, it might seem a very small matter how or where they kept the feast, as long as they kept it. But human thinking had nothing to do with it at all. This was God's thinking and God's authority from start to finish. God had the right to decide, once for all, where He would meet His people.
Why does this instruction appear here and not earlier?
And note that only Deuteronomy insists on the place of celebration. We have nothing about it in Exodus, because there it was kept in Egypt. We have nothing about it in Numbers, because there it was kept in the wilderness. But Deuteronomy settles it with full authority, because here we have the instructions for the land.
So why did God insist on one place?
God would gather His beloved people around Himself, so that they might feast together in His presence. He would rejoice in them, and they in Him and in one another. All this could only be in the one special place of divine appointment... Self-will might say, "Can we not keep the feast at home with our families? What need is there of a long journey? Surely if the heart is right, the place cannot matter very much." Our answer is this: the clearest and best proof of a right heart is a simple, earnest desire to do the will of God.
One place instead of many looks like a limit. Another writer reads it as a gift:
There was to be only one place from then on; many were allowed before... He would take His blessing, and Israel's enjoyment of it, completely out of their hands. He tied it to His own presence, and so blessed them all the more. He chose one place and one only for the Passover: it was where He Himself dwelt.
One writer names the place, and the parallel it has today:
God had chosen a place, which was then a geographical location (the temple in Jerusalem) and had forbidden any other. No one among the people had the authority to say, "I would like to celebrate the Passover, but in a different place." God had appointed the place, and He had described it: it was where His name lived. The parallel to the New Testament is obvious. We cannot break bread just where we want to, but where God wants it — in the local assembly, where the Lord is among those gathered to His name.
Another writer names the cost of ignoring this:
This is a very great principle, dear friends, as true now as in Israel's day. The name of the Lord Jesus is the only gathering centre today. The believer who does not gather simply in that name will lack the deep enjoyment of Christ that our God wants our souls to taste.
- Offered. The Passover itself was a lamb from the flock; the "herd" covers the other offerings brought each day of the feast week.
- Remembered. Moses commands no blood on the doorposts here. In the land the feast looks back on a finished rescue, instead of sheltering from a falling judgment.
- Chosen. God, not the worshipper, picks where the feast happens. Human convenience gets no vote.
- Settled. Only Deuteronomy fixes the place, because only Deuteronomy gives the rules for life in the land.
- Gathered. God chose one place so that He could gather His people around Himself. Choose another centre, and you lose the joy He meant you to have.
Thou shalt eat no leavened bread along with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread with it, bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste, -- that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt, all the days of thy life.
God told Israel to eat their Passover with bread that had no yeast in it, and He gave that bread a name: the bread of affliction. The reason He gave — a nation pushed out of Egypt too fast to let dough rise — turned a meal into a lifelong memory.
Yeast is a small thing that changes a whole batch of dough. That is the point of keeping it out of the feast.
Leaven is a picture of evil. Evil spreads, and it makes whatever it spreads through take on its own character. "A little leaven leavens the whole lump." So eating unleavened bread means separation from evil — practical holiness. Notice too that the feast was to last seven days, that is, a complete period of time. The lesson, then, is this. God requires holiness from everyone sheltered by the blood of the Passover Lamb, and He requires it for the whole of their life on earth. Our poor hearts might reason like this: if we are saved by the grace of God through the sprinkled blood of Christ, we may as well indulge in sin so that grace increases. "No!" says the Spirit of God. "As soon as you are under the value of the death of Christ, you are responsible to be separate from evil."
How soon after the lamb's death did those seven days start?
The lamb was killed on the fourteenth day at sunset. The feast of unleavened bread began right after the fifteenth day began, which was just after sunset. So no gap remained between the feast of the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread. There was no interval of time between the death of the lamb, the sprinkling of the blood, and the keeping of the feast.
You might expect a feast about rescue to taste of triumph. Instead God names this bread after sorrow.
Now, why is this? What great moral lesson does the bread of affliction convey to our hearts? We believe it sets before us those deep exercises of heart which the Holy Spirit produces. He brings home to us what it cost our adorable Lord and Saviour to deliver us from our sins, and from the judgment those sins deserved. Those exercises are also pictured by the "bitter herbs" of Exodus 12.
This sorrow is not doubt about salvation.
When an Israelite ate the bread of affliction with the roasted flesh of the Passover, did it express a doubt or a fear about his full deliverance? Impossible! How could it? He was in the land; he was gathered to God's own centre, His own very presence.
The verse gives its own reason for the plain bread: there was no time.
"You came out of the land of Egypt in haste." Pharaoh — that is, the devil — was behind them. They were only just escaping from the judgment. It is simply deliverance. You get out of Egypt in haste. You have to put the dough on your shoulder as fast as you can, so that the judgment does not catch you. And so you have the seven days of unleavened bread. It is deliverance. But it keeps you occupied with the state you were in when God delivered you. So it is "the bread of affliction." There must be holiness, or we cannot have anything to say to God. But we do not find fullness of communion and blessing in it.
Because this feast carries no joy in its list of ingredients, writers are careful to say that the Christian table sounds different.
We do not forget what we were; we do not forget that it was our sin that brought the Lord Jesus to the cross. And if we did not have a purged conscience, the Lord's supper would be the right time to afflict our souls. It was in connection with the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread that God told Israel to eat the bread of affliction. There is nothing in the Lord's supper that answers to the bread of affliction… There is no "bread of affliction" for the new creation.
What happens when this ingredient goes missing from a Christian's life?
How is it that we can commit sin so lightly, in thought, word and deed? How is it that there is so much levity, so much that is unsubdued, so much self-indulgence, so much carnal ease, so much that is merely frothy and shallow? Is it not because that ingredient pictured by "the bread of affliction" is missing from our feast? We cannot doubt it.
- Haste — the plain bread records an escape from judgment so urgent there was no time to let dough rise.
- Affliction — God names the bread for sorrow: it carries the cost of the rescue, not doubt about it.
- Leaven — yeast pictures evil that spreads. Keeping it out of the feast means real separation from evil.
- Seven days — nothing stands between the lamb's death and the feast. Holiness starts at once and covers a whole lifetime.
- Remember — recalling each day what redemption cost is God's guard against a shallow, light-hearted faith.