The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt. The nine plagues had fallen, and the heart of Pharaoh was still hard. The locusts had eaten what the hail had left. The darkness had pressed against the skin for three days. And now the final plague was coming, the plague that would break the power of Egypt and set the children of Israel free.
“This month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house.”
The instructions were precise and urgent. The Lord was establishing a new calendar, a new beginning. The month of their deliverance would become the first month of their year. Everything that came before would be measured from this moment. The night of the lamb would mark the birth of the nation.
The lamb was to be without blemish, a male of the first year. It was to be kept from the tenth day of the month until the fourteenth day, watched over and examined to ensure its perfection. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel would kill it in the evening. The blood of the lamb was to be caught in a basin. And that blood was to be painted on the doorposts.
The Hyssop and the Blood
They were to take a bunch of hyssop, a common plant that grew on the walls and in the fields, and dip it in the blood that was in the basin. The hyssop was a humble tool for a holy task, a weed transformed into an instrument of salvation. With the hyssop, they were to strike the lintel and the two side posts of the door with the blood. The top of the door frame and both sides were to be marked with red, a sign that could be seen by the angel who would pass through the land at midnight.
None of them were to go out of the door of his house until the morning. The blood on the doorposts marked the boundary between safety and destruction. Inside the house, the family would eat the roasted lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, their staff in their hand, eating in haste because the hour of deliverance was at hand. Outside the house, the judgment of the Lord would fall on the land of Egypt.
“For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.”
The Obedience of Israel
Moses called for all the elders of Israel and spoke the words that the Lord had commanded. The instructions spread through the houses of Goshen like fire through dry grass. The Hebrews had been slaves for four hundred years, their backs bent under the lash of the taskmasters, their hands calloused from the bricks and the mortar. Now they were being asked to do something that required faith. Kill a lamb. Paint its blood on the doorposts. Stay inside until morning. Trust that the angel of death would pass over their homes.
The children of Israel went and did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. The obedience was complete and immediate. The lambs were killed in the evening, their blood caught in basins. The hyssop branches were dipped and struck against the wooden frames. The red stain spread across the lintels and the side posts, marking the houses of the Hebrews with the sign of the covenant. The blood that had been shed was the blood of a substitute, a life given so that another life might be spared.
Inside the houses, the families gathered around the meal. The roasted lamb filled the rooms with the smell of cooked meat. The unleavened bread, baked without time for the dough to rise, was eaten with bitter herbs that reminded them of the bitterness of their slavery. The people ate with their sandals on their feet and their staffs in their hands, ready to move at a moment’s notice. They did not know the hour of their departure. They only knew that the Lord had promised to deliver them, and they believed.
The Midnight Hour
The sun set over Egypt. The darkness that had once been a plague now fell as ordinary night, but this night was different from every night that had come before. This night would be remembered for generations. This night would become the cornerstone of the Hebrew calendar, the night when the Lord passed over the houses marked with blood and struck the houses that had no covering.
The blood on the doorposts was silent. It did not cry out like the blood of Abel. It did not speak words that human ears could hear. But it spoke to the Lord. The blood was a token, a sign, a declaration that the household within was under the protection of the covenant. The blood said that a substitute had already died for this house. The blood said that the judgment of God had already been satisfied here. The blood said that the angel of death must pass on to another door.
And at midnight, the Lord would see the blood. He would pass over the houses of the Hebrews. He would spare the firstborn of Israel. And the cry that rose from the houses of Egypt would echo through the centuries, a testament to the cost of a hardened heart and the power of a lamb’s blood to save.
The hyssop lay beside the basin. The blood dried on the wooden frames. The families waited in the darkness, their bags packed, their hearts pounding, their ears straining for the first sound of the cry that would signal their deliverance. The Passover night had begun, and nothing in Egypt would ever be the same.
