Exodus 12:1-13
The Passover teaches Israel that deliverance from judgment comes under the Lord's command, through the blood of an unblemished substitute, and with a readiness to leave bondage behind.
1 Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
2 “This month shall be to you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you.
3 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household;
4 and if the household is too little for a lamb, then he and his neighbor next to his house shall take one according to the number of the souls. You shall make your count for the lamb according to what everyone can eat.
5 Your lamb shall be without defect, a male a year old. You shall take it from the sheep, or from the goats.
6 You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at evening.
7 They shall take some of the blood, and put it on the two door posts and on the lintel, on the houses in which they shall eat it.
8 They shall eat the meat in that night, roasted with fire, and unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs.
9 Don’t eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire; with its head, its legs and its inner parts.
10 You shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; but that which remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire.
11 This is how you shall eat it: with your belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste: it is Yahweh’s Passover.
12 For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and animal. I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. I am Yahweh.
13 The blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
The Passover teaches Israel that deliverance from judgment comes under the LORD's command, through the blood of an unblemished substitute, and with a readiness to leave bondage behind.
Exodus 12:1-13 gives Israel the LORD's instructions for the Passover lamb so that the coming judgment on Egypt will be answered by a God-appointed substitute, a marked household, and a meal of obedient readiness. The passage establishes Israel's redemption calendar, defines the lamb's selection and slaughter, commands the application of blood, and declares that the LORD himself will pass through Egypt in judgment while passing over the blood-marked houses of his people.
Exodus 12:1-13 follows the confrontation cycle of Exodus 7-11 and gives Israel instructions before the tenth plague falls. The narrative has moved from Pharaoh's hard resistance to the LORD's decisive act of judgment and rescue. This unit explains how Israel is to receive deliverance: not by military resistance, social leverage, or ethnic identity alone, but by believing and obeying the LORD's word concerning the lamb, the blood, the meal, and readiness to depart.
The instructions are given in Egypt on the eve of the final plague, after escalating judgments have exposed Pharaoh's resistance and the LORD's supremacy. Israel is still in bondage, but the LORD now reorders their calendar around redemption, marking this month as the beginning of months for them.
Passover, Judgment, and the Exodus from Egypt
The LORD redeems His people from Egypt through judgment and blood, establishing Passover as the lasting memorial of His saving distinction and covenant deliverance.