Exodus 12: 1 30 The Story Of The Passover

Target year level: Year Six, Year Seven, Year Nine

Scripture text

World behind the text and the world of the text

A brief history of the Old Testament illustrates the pattern of Israelite life from being nomadic people to village settlers, from being a tribal federation to a highly developed empire, from a nation at war with itself to one fighting for independence from Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian rule. The history of the Israelites is one of community, covenant, conflict, exile, reflection and redemption. (See pp. 22-23 of Boadt, L. (1984) Reading the Old Testament. New Jersey: Paulist Press.)

The traditions of these people were centred on separate clans and individuals before the escape from Egyptian slavery to deliverance of a promised land. After this critical experience every text identifies these people as a chosen nation unified in their fidelity to one God. This miraculous event was a clear demonstration of divine power so significant to these ancient tribes of refugees that they as a group entered into a binding covenant with God and hence became a nation of monotheistic people.

A possible historical background for the Exodus story is Egypt in the late 13th century BCE. The Pharaoh, Ramesses II (1304-1237 BCE), had a massive building programme in the delta of the Nile, partly as a defence against the ‘Sea Peoples’. He used slave labour. It was at the end of his long reign that the small Canaanite states sustained by Egyptian power collapsed, which entailed the ‘liberation’ of some local populations from the ‘slavery’ of Egyptian rule. mbfallon.com/exodus

This is also the first time we have a record of the presence of ‘Israel’ in Canaan, as recorded on the victory stele of Pharaoh Merneptah, Ramesses II’s son c. 1212 BCE. Inscribed on this stone monument is, “Israel is laid waste”. It is the first mention of Israel in any ancient text. Pharaoh Merneptah claimed to have wiped out “Israel” in his attack on Palestine during that year. There is though, little historical evidence of an exodus of ‘six hundred thousand men ’ (Exodus 12:37). It has been suggested that the word translated ‘thousand’ (’elep) in Exodus 12:37 originally meant a family or clan (see Judges 6:15; 1 Samuel 10:19).

Though stories about the Exodus, the wilderness journey, their entry into the promised land and their special covenant with God would have been told multiple times from generation to generation, it had occurred several centuries ago so it would be far too difficult for the biblical writers of the Pentateuch/Torah, more than 600 years later, to accurately establish the historical facts.

The story of Exodus was not written to provide historically accurate details about the past. The biblical writers sought to tell the story of their distant ancestors in such a way as to present Moses and the Hebrew slaves facing situations then (enslaved under Egyptian rule 1290 – 1235 BCE and then exiled to Canaan) like the circumstances the Israelites were facing at the time of writing (held captive by Babylonian rulers 585 – 539 BCE and then exiled from their land to Babylon). The outcome of the two exiles was very different. The Mosaic exile to Canaan was a march of freedom from Egyptian slavery to their promised land. The exile to Babylon was a march towards enslavement; evicted from their land where their temple and king were overthrown and forced into captivity in Babylon. The triumphant Exodus story of Moses and the Hebrews where God promised to protect and deliver them was to bring hope to a people enduring enslavement and questioning their relationship with God.

In the time of Moses, the Exodus story begins in Egypt where the Hebrews were enslaved and it ends in Canaan, the promised land delivered to them by God. The Babylonian exile (when the Exodus story started to be formally collated) began in the homeland of the Israelites, Canaan, and ends in captivity in Babylon.

Canaan was a flourishing land that carried extensive trade with Egypt in the south and the cities of Lebanon and Syria in the north. Indeed, “Canaanite” means “a trader” in the Semitic language. This “land of milk and honey, good and spacious” (Exodus 3:8) would have been a paradise compared to the region north of the Arabian desert in Babylon where the Israelites were exiled to live. (See p 31 of Boadt, L. (1984) Reading the Old Testament. New Jersey: Paulist Press)

In the period after the Babylonian exile, many changes took place. The Babylonians had destroyed the Temple and removed Israel’s kingship for good, the exiles had to develop new ways of practising their faith. There was greater stress on the study of their tradition and they attempted to write it down officially. This process took decades and the fixing of the Pentateuch as the “Book of the Law” of the Lord probably occurred under Ezra the scribe about 450 BCE (Boadt, 1984, p. 278)

The Pentateuch/Torah, as we have it today, was composed against the background of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, the end of the Israelite monarchy, and the exile in Babylon (585 -539 BCE). These catastrophic events cast a huge shadow over the text, provoking key questions that the authors were desperate to answer. The story of Exodus was pieced together from:

prophetic scrolls
writings of the Deuteronomic School (scribes of the royal court)
fragments of patriarchal stories told from the north and from Judah
individual texts covering aspects of social organisation from Samaria and Jerusalem
writings of priests of some cult regulations in Shiloh and other local sanctuaries, and the Jerusalem temple
individual stories passed on from generation to generation about Moses and about the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, as well as struggles the different tribal groups had in Canaan and in Transjordan
records from Samaria and Jerusalem of battles and treaties. mbfallon.com/exodus

The book has undergone successive restructuring and rearrangement in the course of a long editorial history. This makes it difficult to know with certainty which parts of the text can safely be attributed to the original authors or to which group of later author/editors. The biblical writers reinterpreted the texts in the light of their contemporary experience and presented the text in ways that shed light on what was happening to them mbfallon.com/exodus

The Babylonian Exile (585-539 BCE) demanded an enormous religious adjustment for the Israelites. The exiled people had to ask themselves how the loss of their land, their temple and their monarchy could have happened. It was impossible for them to contemplate the possibility that their God, YHWH, was weaker than the gods of the Babylonians.

The aim of the authors was to fix attention on God and on God’s continuing relationship with Israel. The writers looked to the past through the stories handed down over many generations. They shaped and re-told the stories in order to keep Israel’s faith alive so that they would be faithful to their past in the way they live their present. They had to see themselves as a community defined by worship. In the absence of the temple they had to come together to remember and to pray. This was the beginning of the institution of the synagogue, which has remained central to Judaism ever since. mbfallon.com/exodus

The writers of Exodus were interested in connecting their contemporaries with the precious religious insights that have come down to them from their ancestors and they have no trouble in using folklore and legend if they help to achieve this aim. Like all the writings of the Ancient Near Eastern world, they draw on oral tradition, where interest and imagination were more powerful than concern for historical accuracy.

The Older Testament is the fruit of centuries of reflection by people who were convinced that their God, YHWH, the Lord of creation and the Lord of history, had chosen them in love and had a special mission for them in the world. They believed that there was a special providence guiding their history. They kept reflecting on it to remember God’s love and covenant with them, and to discern God’s will, as well as to learn from their mistakes, and so become more sensitive, attentive and faithful. mbfallon.com/exodus

Despite the demonstration of God’s divine power in freeing the Hebrew slaves and the deliverance of a promised land, pagan gods and religious practices still existed in Canaan for hundreds of years after. Israel struggled against the pagan idolatry right up until the Babylonian exile. In Canaan there was a basic set of religious myths that gods controlled the forces of nature, affected the climate and impacted the fertility and growth of crops. There were many rituals and cultic practices used to worship the gods to draw a favourable blessing. The Ugaritic tablets, discovered in 1929, detail the myths and rites used by the tribes in Canaan. There is no doubt the pagan rituals of Canaan influenced the religious practices of the Israelites.

Sacrifices were common throughout the ancient world and they are central in Israelite religious traditions. A sacrifice for Israelites renders their service back to God. Animal sacrifice like the slaughtering of a lamb was a symbolic gesture whereby humans returned the gift of life that God gave as a gift to them. The death of the animal itself was not as important as the sprinkling of its life carrying blood and removing it from its everyday service to give it back to God. (Boadt, 1984, p. 272)

These occasions were usually ones of joy, reverence and thanksgiving to God. These rites could also be offered as petitions or guilt offerings for sin. Even if sacrifice was for relief from suffering, for the Israelites it focused on trust and hope and forgiveness. It was never considered, as the pagans believed, as a magical ritual intended to illicit a particular action from God. The spirit of adoration and silence and obedience of the people before Yahweh always stand out. These elements and practices are seen in the instructions relayed by God to Moses on how to conduct the Passover.

World in front of the text

“Why is this night so different from all others?” This question, asked by the youngest member of the family is still part of the Jewish celebration of the Passover. Jewish people continue to celebrate the Passover today in fulfilment of Moses’ command, “You shall observe this rite as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children” (Ex 12.24)

The Passover is celebrated around a meal including lamb and unleavened bread. The lamb recalls the Passover lamb whose blood was placed on the doorpost to protect the first born from the angel of death. The unleavened bread recalls the haste in which the people prepared to depart. Retelling the ancient story, generations of Jews have remembered that “night of nights” when the angel of death passed over the Israelites’ houses and struck down the first born of the Egyptians. On that night, the people of God were finally released from slavery. Thus, Passover is a celebration of God’s gift of freedom – a religious Independence Day, so to speak.

It was during the Passover celebration that Jesus had his final meal with his disciples (John 13.1), placing himself as the paschal sacrifice. Christians see Jesus as the new Passover; through his death and Resurrection, we are finally liberated from all bondage, including sin and death. (The Catholic Youth Bible – The International Edition NRSV Catholic Edition. 1993, p 73)

Further resources

Passover Rhapsody: A Jewish Rock Opera – Video (3:47) Identify the lines, characters and scenes from the musical which relate to the Exodus story. Discuss: Is this an effective tool for illustrating the Passover?

The Maccabeats: Les Misérables & Passover – Video (5:40) Explore intertextuality – a musical mashup of Les Miserables and the Passover. How is this mashup of Les Miserables and the Passover story a successful one? Can you think of another historical or contemporary event that also highlights the struggles of a people and the ultimate consolidation of their action and faith?

How to be Jewish – website. Which steps can be traced to the ideas and traditions outlined in the Exodus story? How central is the Exodus story to being a practising Jew today?

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