There is a lot of confusion over how Passover was celebrated because people often assume that the celebration of the event means a re-enactment. That is hardly ever true in history and it is not the case with Passover. Passover is part of the plan of God symbolised in ritual so that we could comprehend the pattern for our salvation.

Celebration not Re-enactment

Remember that Deuteronomy was written when the Israelites were about to enter the Promised Land and Moses wanted to clarify matters for Joshua in particular, but also for all of Israel. The things that are recorded are things that were expected to have been done in the wilderness for some time but were hazy or confusing. The focus of this article is on showing how the Passovers were all kept in a consistent fashion. I propose that the way Passover was celebrated on the day of the Exodus was unique. It was one of a kind. The standard practice for the celebration was very different. What is the point? God decides how He wants us to worship Him in celebration of these events and you or I cannot insist that by slavishly re-enacting the events of the Exodus we are right. We have to look at what He says. A celebration is not a re-enactment. Among other things God took into account the events of the Golden Calf in establishing the practice through Moses.

Earlier I said expected to have been done because some people claim that nobody in Israel celebrated the feasts or Sabbaths during the sojourn in the wilderness. While there is some support for that possibility I cannot see people like Moses and Joshua blatantly ignoring God's instructions. The wilderness (a kind of limbo) is a no-man's land, they were neither in Egypt nor in the Promised Land. As a matter of fact the way that God gave His instructions to Israel indicates that God always intended that nothing significant would happen in the wilderness. The transition from Egypt to the Promised Land should have been quick and painless. When considering the actual distance to Canaan it was easy to enter Canaan by the fall festivals which pictured the Kingdom of God.

From what God says here, He never intended that Israel devote much attention to the wilderness. His comments only referred to the Promised Land.

God had lots of problems with Israel in the wilderness. He seems to have tolerated a lot of every man doing what was right in his own eyes. When He was ready to let Israel enter the Promised Land, He made it clear what was the right way to worship Him (the book of Deuteronomy) so that they would know that what they should have been doing in the wilderness was to be permanent, and would continue under Joshua.

During the wilderness journey people had started to do as they pleased (v8) but now God corrects it as He did several times under the judges. Did God neglect the restoration of Passover?

Verses 5-6 say they were no longer to kill the Passover at their home. It was now killed at the Tabernacle. Furthermore it was to be killed when the sun was going down. That is important to Jews. Even is otherwise referred to as between the evenings. It is that time before sunset and after sunset that is neither dark or bright. The part before sunset is connected to the day that is ending. Moses does not even mention here that it is to be on the Fourteenth because everybody knew (Exodus 12:6,18; Leviticus 23:5; Numbers 9:3,5,11; Numbers 28:16) so it is clearly done at the end of the Fourteenth. Then also notice verse 7 which shows that they could not go home until morning which is the reverse of the original instruction; at that time they could not leave home until morning. Now let us look again at verse 4 in detail. The context of the verse is the days of Unleavened Bread because it specifically says seven days in verse 3. If it had included Passover as a separate day as it was originally, there would be eight days. Look carefully at verse 4, And there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coast seven days; neither shall there any thing of the flesh, which thou sacrificedst the first day at even, remain all night until the morning[KJV]. This verse could be interpreted to say that the sacrifice (the Passover) was made on the First Day of Unleavened Bread at evening. In a way it was for Jews, since between the evenings includes the beginning of the next day, however God makes it clear that it was at the end of the Fourteenth and hence connected with the Fifteenth. This means that for the Jews Passover was shifted from the beginning of the Fourteenth to the end of the Fourteenth beginning the Fifteenth and so the question of infringing on a leavened day was raised. This new arrangement gave them time during the Fourteenth to do all that was needed to prepare the Passover now that they could not kill it themselves. We know from studying the timing of the first Passover that Passover for Christians is the beginning of the Fourteenth which is roughly the day before.

Bear in mind that Deuteronomy was written at the end of the sojourn in the wilderness and it was recorded to clarify and document things for Joshua. Between the initial Exodus and the point where they entered the Promised Land changes would have occurred. We are not told exactly when the changes would have been implemented but by now they would have been practising these things for around forty years. What we are seeing here is that for the actual Exodus (recorded in the book of Exodus) there was a particular practice which was not repeated as the ritual. Levites would have been installed at some point and subsequently it would have become their task to kill these animals but Levites were not a requirement from the beginning. The instruction was now to kill the animal at the tabernacle in the evening not at night. How was this possible between sunset and dark? Now according to the structure of Israel there would have been one Levite to twelve or so Israelites, so each Levite had to kill only twelve animals for others, but what about the role of the priests? Another problem comes about if they had to use the same altar or the same pot or the same spot. It seems to me that they would have been faced with a decision to adjust the ceremony to allow a more practical time. One thing is for sure: you cannot rigidly follow the instructions for the Exodus to keep the ritual of the Passover after. It is not a re-enactment but a celebration.

Why the change?

I believe that the change was made quickly, meaning soon after they left, and specifically shortly after the Golden Calf. Now why would I say that? The answer lies in a study of the Tabernacle. A complete discourse on that subject is too long for this account but I will hit the highlights. The Old Testament mentions three tents or tabernacles. First Exodus (Exodus 33:7-11; Exodus 34:34-35) shows before the structure that God gave the plans to Moses for was constructed, Moses used to meet with God at a tent and God spoke with him face to face. Apparently, only Moses actually entered the tent to meet God. Joshua, Moses' servant (Exodus 33:11), protected and cared for the tent and young men of the children of Israel offered sacrifices (Exodus 24:5). Israel decided that He was not their God and it was a Golden Calf instead. After the Golden Calf was made in Exodus 32, God refused any longer to dwell in their midst. Moses pitched this tent outside the camp (Exodus 33:7) and dubbed it the tent of meeting. Prior to this God had said And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God (Exodus 29:45). It did not contain an ark or any sacred items, nor did it possess a priesthood. The whole of Israel were to be a priesthood (Exodus 19:6) therefore when they turned from God and there was no intermediary between them and Him, He had to distance Himself, i.e. move the tent altogether. Later once the priesthood was re-established (reduced to the sons of Aaron) and the Levites acted as a buffer, He could once again be in the centre but always in the centre of the priestly tribe (Numbers 2:1-3:39).

What's the point? In the original Passover all of Israel were priests so all could approach His holy place and all could kill the Passover. Once a separate priesthood was established the people could no longer function as priests, as a matter of fact we are lucky that any of them survived. God had to get rid of that priesthood and fortunately He did it by creating a new one rather than wiping them out. The account is related in Exodus 32. God intended to wipe them all out. The price for survival and the incident which created the distinction of Levi as the priesthood is found in Exodus 32:26-32. This happened the same year that they left Egypt and they spent forty years wandering. This change to the priesthood necessitated a change to the Passover ritual from the first year after they left Egypt. This change was duly recorded in Leviticus but might have been unclear in certain areas. When they were going into the Promised Land God documented a formal arrangement in the book of Deuteronomy for the future, which would account for the logistical problems that the non-priest status of the people demanded.

Numbers 26:51 says there were 601,730 family men ready to enter the Promised Land.

I there were 6 males to a family then there were over 100,000 lambs to be sacrifices and all had to be done on the compound of the Tabernacle. It was a logistical nightmare. The Levites had to follow by killing sacrifices for themselves and the priests. They would have been filthy afterwards and had to clean up before having the Seder with their families. It would take time.

Continued Until the Captivity

Now let us see how long this practice continued. Was this practice continued under any of God's great servants? God has a funny way of hiding information in plain sight.

This appears to be very much like what happened in Deuteronomy. So the practice continued to the end of the time of the kings. Did it go any further? God ensured that there was continuity between the first and second temples. Up to the days of the Exile before the Temple was destroyed. The first month was recognised as a time to cleanse the Sanctuary. This meant that Passover was still observed and hence the need to clean the temple.

Restored by Samuel

What about in between? We know that during the period of the Judges things went haywire; Judges 17:6 (KJV) In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes, but is there conclusive record of the practice being re-instituted from the restoration at the end of the Judges period? Let us look at Josiah's Passover. The reason why we take a special look at it is because it makes a special claim, 2 Chronicles 35:18 (KJV) And there was no Passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did all the kings of Israel keep such a Passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Notice what is said here. It does not say that there was never a feast like this one but that it had not been done like this since the days of Samuel. Just how would a man like Samuel have kept the feast? He is the only person that we know God talked to directly from the time that he was a child (1 Samuel 3:11-18). Samuel is the last recorded prophet of the period of the Judges. He was a Nazarite from birth. He was the one who shepherded Israel under God's direction and brought them out of oppression from the Philistines. It is under Samuel that the people asked for a king and God commented that they were rejecting Him not Samuel. Through Samuel God appointed Saul and after rejecting him God again called Samuel to appoint David. I say all this to say that Samuel of all people would know God's will for celebrating Passover and certainly would do what God wanted. Let us see how Passover was celebrated because this would be the standard.

The account begins in 2 Chronicles 34:1-2 .

Since Samuel, possibly more accurately since David, Israel had gone into gradual decline. By the time of Josiah the temple was in disrepair and religious observance was forgotten so much so that even the priest had to look for a book of the Law. When the book was brought to Josiah this is what he did:

Now Josiah kept a Passover unto the Lord the details of which are given in 2 Chronicles 35:11-17.

From verse 1, we see that it was kept on the correct day (according to Deuteronomy) so when did they kill all these animals? It all was done on the temple compound and each one had to be sprinkled by a priest. It takes a while to kill an animal and prepare it and they would have had to do evening sacrifices and morning sacrifices too. This is how it was done at the time of Samuel.

Hezekiah's Passover

Hezekiah was Josiah's great-grandfather. He was alive at the time that the northern tribes of Israel went into captivity but because of his righteousness Jews escaped the same fate. Just to show that it was not the only case, God records another exceptional Passover, this time by Hezekiah. The reason why his could not be exactly like the time of Samuel is because it was in the second month and not the first as it should have been. Since it was the second Passover Hezekiah prayed for the unclean people and the Levites acted on their behalf, but the institution was already organised to permit this. With this Passover God shows what is important with Him. This Passover was not held at the right time but it was held in the correct way. We know this because God did not criticise it then or after.

The details go on to show that similar conditions obtained and they also fill in a bit of detail of how things were done. These Passovers were exceptions because they were exceptionally good not exceptionally flawed as some would suggest. Since the days of Jeroboam I Israel had been taught to abandon Jerusalem and keep festivals in Dan and Beersheba, And he set the one in Beth–el, and the other put he in Dan. [30] And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. [31] And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi (I Kings 12:29-31 [KJV]). Hezekiah defied Israel and sent invitations to come to Jerusalem. There was nothing in these Passovers that displeased God or any of His outstanding servants that lived through them.

Josiah's Passover

Now we get back to Josiah's Passover which was the first one quoted to be like Samuel's. Under Manasseh (Josiah's grandfather) Judah fell to the lowest pits of idolatry and abandoned God but Josiah restored worship of the true God. We see a record of the Passover in 2 Chronicles 35. Notice that verse 18 ties it back to the same thing done by Samuel again.

Restored after the Captivity

We saw that the Passover was preserved as a celebration but not a re-enactment following the wilderness as Moses clarified and instructed Joshua. This standard of practice continued until the captivity; but what about after?

The first temple was destroyed in 586 B.C. and the rebuilding of the second Temple started in 516 B.C. marking the end of the 70 years of captivity. In the 71^st year people were able to resume worship at the Temple. For more details on the temple under Zerubbabel one place to look is the article What was Zerubbabel’s temple/the second temple? https://www.gotquestions.org/Zerubbabel-second-temple.html on the gotquestions website. That is out of scope for this presentation. I raise the subject because some were still alive who saw the first temple.

These would have known the times for the feast and would undoubtedly have passed the information to others.

Let us look specifically at the case of Daniel

As a preface to the point that I want to make concerning the restoration: it is obvious to me that Daniel is a turning point for a Christian because you have to chose to believe God or historians. This is not intended to cast any aspersions on Wikipedia itself because as far as I am concerned Wikipedia is a marvelous tool, but I am looking at the attitude of the authoritative elite of today. I want to take two quotations from Wikipedia's article on Darius the Mede (version 00:42, 16 March 2021‎). The introduction says:

Darius the Mede is mentioned in the Book of Daniel as king of Babylon between Belshazzar and Cyrus the Great, but he is not known to history, and no additional king can be placed between the known figures of Belshazzar and Cyrus. Most scholars view him as a literary fiction...

and again under caption Historicity of the Book of Daniel

The Book of Daniel is not regarded by scholars as a reliable guide to history. The broad consensus is that Daniel never existed...

This is what God says in Psalm 14.

Now this is what Christ said when He was on earth regarding the Old Testament.

The Old Testament comprised the Law, the writings and the Prophets. Christ is here referring only to the Law, the five books written by Moses. I suggest that if there was anything wrong with the Prophets He would have said so at this time. In any case both Matthew and Luke corroborate that he existed: (Matthew 24:15 [KJV]) When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand, (Mark 13:14 [KJV]) But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judæa flee to the mountains. You can therefore make your own assessment of what I say next. We know that Daniel was alive in the third year of Cyrus.

And probably lived much longer.

Daniel had been taken to Babylon as a teenager and had risen to the top as a civil servant. He was there to reprimand Belshazzar at the end of the Babylonian captivity in Daniel 5:22-23. Darius was the king under emperor Cyrus that was in charge of that campaign.

In Ezra 1 we find that Jeremiah (who was apparently dead by now) knew of the return of the Jews but since it was in the first year of Darius, Daniel saw it.

This is corroborated in Ezra 5 and other places but we know from Ezra 6 that the temple was completed in the sixth year of Darius.

So Daniel was probably present at the dedication of the new temple. History has a problem with resolving Cyrus and Darius however there are several perfectly logical answers which you can pursue but for me that would be going off topic. Cyrus was undoubtedly the emperor at the time of the decree to release the Jews. You can read Isaiah 44:28, 2 Chronicles 36:22, Isaiah 45:1-3, 2 Chronicles 36:23, Ezra 1:1, Ezra 1:2. Darius was the King who actually took Jerusalem from the Neo-Babylonians.

This is similar to how Herod was a king under the Roman emperor.

After Daniel

In any case God had prepared the prophets Ezra and Haggai to support Zerubbabel. He spoke directly to these prophets and would have corrected them if something as serious as observing the wrong day for Pentecost or Passover came about. The question then becomes was it allowed to change during the next 500 years until the time of Christ. The first mention of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes is dated by Josephus to be around the time of Jonathan (160-143 B.C.) which is around 350 years after the temple was rebuilt. The strong attachment to tradition demonstrated by the Pharisees suggests that they would hardly have broken with the established practice and there is no record of an official break. To insist that there was one would mean that one has adopted a belief system that says that things exist until one can prove that they don't. This is one case where the Pharisees' weakness becomes the strength of the argument. They were fanatical about the traditional law (tradition). They would add more but never take away.

In reading the New Testament we need to bear in mind that the word tradition refers to the Traditional Law.

Of course the Pharisees' traditions (or Traditional Law) were not perfect but the Bible reveals another incident where the practices of the two (Pharisees and Sadducees) can be judged. You can obtain further details in the article Passover - pharisees and sadducees.

So let us take a quick look at the book of Ezra and see if it supports the continuity of the Pharisees. First look at this.

Here we see that prophets now were the dominant force in the leadership of the Jews. They had motivated the whole country including the prince. In other words arrangements for how things were established and set up at the Temple and everywhere else did not depend on the priest but on prophets. They were in Moses' seat. Now let's get back to the main subject.

What is this really saying? Let us continue to read verse 20

The priests and Levites killed all of the Passover lambs here. The people were required to kill them at the Exodus. Does this not look like the instruction in Deuteronomy once again?

God would have corrected His prophets if they were wrong. Could they have done it all between sunset and nightfall? This is highly unlikely. This would be further compounded if the priest was not assisted by the Levite and actually had to be involved with the slaying of each lamb. Then they had to wash up and go home and have the Passover with their families.

Notice the point that is being made here. The prophets thought it perfectly natural to embark on this. It raised no alarms in their head and brought no recrimination from God. They knew that they were well within the accepted practice.

It appears that they must have started earlier than dusk and that the Pharisees' practice would have continued from here. Remember that the Pharisees killed the lamb between noon and sunset while the Sadducees killed it between sunset and nightfall of the same Jewish day, which began the evening before. Jewish days begin in the evening. In other words the Pharisees did it at the end of the fourteenth and the Sadducees did it at the beginning of the Fourteenth. The original instruction said:

Actually the historians are more explicit. The Temple was governed by the rules of the Pharisees and even though the Sadducees disagreed it is unlikely that two Passovers were tolerated. This was an excerpt from one article but they are two more detailed articles clearly outlining the facts of the timing of the Passover at:

http://www.herealittletherealittle.net/index.cfm?page_name=Between-the-Evenings

and

http://www.herealittletherealittle.net/index.cfm?page_name=First-Passover

This is compelling evidence that the Pharisees faithfully kept God's institution of the Passover as reinstituted from the time of Ezra. We can therefore account for a continuous practice from the time of the entry to the Promised Land until Christ. God switched Passover for Jews in the book of Deuteronomy. It is not the same as the Christian Passover but that subject can be explored in articles like Passover and the Night to be Much Observed. Passover celebration is not a re-enactment.