Passover Symbolism in Exodus
As I was paraphrasing Exodus for the Simple Bible, I was amazed at how much symbolism I saw in the passage about Passover.
The lamb
Killing a lamb: This is Passover’s most well-known symbol. When God killed all of Egypt’s firstborns, he instructed each Israelite household to kill a lamb so that the angel of death wouldn’t kill their firstborns. The lambs’ death prevented Israelites from experiencing physical death, which foreshadowed the way that Jesus’s death would prevent believers from experiencing spiritual death.
Marked by lamb’s blood: After killing the lamb, God instructed the Israelites to wipe its blood on their doorframes as a marker. God said that when the angel of death passed through, it would see the blood and know not to kill anyone in that house. Today Jesus’s blood marks us in the same way which prevents our eternal death. When Exodus 12:7 says to “put” the blood on the doorframe, that Hebrew word for “put” is “natan” which can also mean “pay wages.” I found that very fascinating because that language of “paying wages” is very much in line with the way Jesus’s blood is described in the NT.
Eating lamb’s flesh: In Exodus 12:8 God instructed the Israelites to eat the lamb they sacrificed. While at the Lord’s Supper Jesus instructed his followers to eat bread (which represented his flesh) and drink wine (which represented his blood). Ingesting the lamb makes it one with the person eating it. Becoming one with Jesus is what saves us from eternal death, because it makes us one with his eternal life.
No broken bones: In Exodus 12:46 God instructed the Israelites not to break any of the lamb’s bones while they were cooking it. In Psalm 34:20 David prophetically wrote that the Messiah “keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken,” while John 19:36 points out that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy.
Cooking the lamb: In Exodus 12:8 God specifically said that the lamb had to be roasted with fire and that it couldn’t be boiled. Maybe this is symbolic of what 1 Peter 3:18–20 talks about when it says that Jesus’s spirit went and preached to the spirits in prison (hell?) who were around during Noah’s days.
Removing the yeast
Removing the yeast: In Exodus 12:15 God made it forbidden to eat anything cooked with yeast during Passover, and he instructed the Israelites to remove all the yeast from their households. Yeast in the Bible often represents sin, so this yeast removal symbolizes the way that Jesus’s death removes the sin from our lives.
Firstborns
Death of firstborns: In Exodus God killed all of the Egyptian firstborns, but he allowed the rest of the Egyptians (second-borns, third-borns, etc.) to live. In Romans 8:29, Jesus is described as the “firstborn of many brothers and sisters,” because he is God’s firstborn son and God adopts believers as his children through the process of salvation. When the Egyptian firstborns were executed while the others were spared, that foreshadowed the way that God’s firstborn (Jesus) would be executed while the rest of God’s children (all believers) would be spared because of the firstborn’s death.
Three “Pass Overs”
The Hebrew word “abar” means “pass over,” and these are three instances of “passing over” that I noticed in Exodus.
God “passed over” Israel: When God went through Egypt killing all the firstborns, he chose to “pass over” the Israelites who had the lamb’s blood on their doorframes. This “passing over” foreshadowed the way God would pass over believers who depend on Jesus for eternal life.
Israel “passed over” to God: After the Passover in Exodus had taken place, God told Israel that all of their firstborns belonged to him now. Since God had “passed over” Israel’s firstborns and allowed them to live, now Israel had to “pass over” their firstborns back to God. In Exodus 13:12 God tells them to “devote” all of their firstborns to him, but the Hebrew word there is actually “abar.” In the same way that Israel was indebted to God for the way he saved them, the NT says that we are indebted to God for the way Jesus saves us.
Israel will “pass over” their enemies: The next time scripture uses the Hebrew word “abar” is in Exodus 15:16 when Israel is praising God for splitting open the Red Sea and wiping out their enemies. The verse says that Israel’s enemies will be so terrified that they’ll remain motionless until God’s people “pass over” them. I imagined Israel’s enemies holding their breath and crossing their fingers as they wait in anticipation for Israel to walk by, because they don’t want to provoke Israel’s God and get slaughtered like the Egyptians did. Everyone was scared of God after he “passed over” the Egyptians, but now that God was protecting Israel, everyone felt terrified as Israel “passed by.” God’s enemies tremble when God passes over, so because we’re God’s allies, the enemy will tremble as he sees us passing over.