CHAPTER 2

THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE PASSOVER

    Problems have arisen about the timing of the final days and hours of Jesus’ life, and in particular about the Passover meal. In this chapter I should like to address this problem by reviewing the Mosaic references to the first Passover, to obtain the "rules" by which the commemoration should have been observed in subsequent years. There are several passages in the Books of Moses that are helpful in this enquiry.

    First of all, the historical facts may be found in Exodus 12. From this chapter we learn that the Passover Lamb had to be chosen on the tenth day of the month Nisan (or Abib, as it was formerly called.) It was then kept until the fourteenth day and killed between the two evenings. (Verse 6) This is an enigmatic expression that doesn’t immediately convey to us, in our own day and age, what was meant. However, in Deuteronomy 16:6 Moses said, "You shall sacrifice the Passover at evening, when the sun goes down." Josephus, commenting on the Jewish practice as it was celebrated in A.D.70, tells us that they killed the lambs between the ninth and the eleventh hours, in other words between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. (Wars. VI.9.3)  So that settles what the expression means. (But see the end of this chapter for a more detailed analysis of the expression "between the two evenings.")

    In Exodus 12:8 we read that the lamb had to be roasted and eaten "in this night". In other words, the lamb was killed at say 4 p.m., skinned and prepared, and then roasted during the dark hours of that evening, and eaten during the night. Nothing was to be left over until the morning. If any of it was unconsumed, it had to be destroyed by fire.

    This is where we need to remember that Hebrew days begin at sundown, around 6 p.m. Therefore the lamb was slain on Nisan 14th, but not eaten until the beginning of Nisan 15th. During the night, all the firstborn of Egypt were smitten. In Verse 29 we are told that it happened at midnight.

    Another feature mentioned in Exodus 12 is that they were to eat their roast lamb with loins girded, sandals on their feet, and staff in hand, all symbols of  readiness to start moving. This tells us in plain language that they were to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice, and not on a future day, even 24 hours later. Indeed, after the slaying of their firstborn, the Egyptians were insistent on the Hebrews leaving straight away. They showered them with gifts and told them to "Get moving".

    In Deuteronomy 16:1 we read the following. "In the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night." Hence their departure was most rapid. They must have been up all night, waiting in readiness for the word to move. They were not allowed to leave their dwellings (Verse 22) until the command came, but it must have been before 6 a.m. that they began their adventure. Furthermore we are told in Verse 34 that the women had started to make their daily loaves, but had not even had time to add the yeast (leaven). This gives us some idea of the activities of that celebrated night. The following diagram will prove helpful.

6 p.m.

 

Start of Day 14

    14 Nisan

Midnight

 

6 a.m.

 

Noon

 

3 – 5 p.m.

Passover lambs slain

6 p.m.

 

End 14/Start 15

6 - 12

Lamb eaten during the night

 

     15 Nisan


End of Day 15

Midnight

Firstborn in Egypt slain

About 5 a.m.

Israel “thrust out” by the Egyptians

6 a.m.

 

Noon

 

6 p.m.

 

    One further item requires mention before we move on. In Exodus 12:15 we read, "You shall eat unleavened bread seven days. Indeed, on the first day you shall cause leaven to cease from your houses - from the first day to the seventh day." And in Verse 18, "On the 14th day of the month at even, you shall eat unleavened bread until the 21st day of the month at even." Hence all chametz (that it, anything containing yeast) had to be purged from their dwellings during the 14th day, so that by 6 p.m. the house was clear of it until 6 p.m. on the 21st day of the month. In the Gospels the references are sometimes not too clear about the 14th Nisan, making it seem as though it was part of the days of Unleavened Bread, but in fact its inclusion was only an indication that on that day housewives would be searching their homes, and putting away the chametz. Another diagram will now be in order.

DAYS IN THE MONTH NISAN (ABIB)

 14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

Passover

Feast of Unleavened Bread

    The month Nisan became the first month of the sacred year for the Children of Israel at the Exodus, by God’s decree. Prior to this it had been the seventh month of the year. Hence the civil year still continued to be observed for chronological purposes, but the sacred year began six months later in Nisan. And Nisan corresponds with March/April in our present calendar, around the time when churches celebrate Easter.

Additional note on “BETWEEN THE EVENINGS”

 

            Earlier in the chapter I referred to the passage in Exodus 12, where the Israelites were instructed to kill the Passover lamb “between the evenings”. The Hebrew text reads, “between the TWO evenings.”

 

            I must point out here, for the help of those who have little or no knowledge of ancient languages, that in Hebrew there are word forms for singular, and plural, just as we have, but also a special ending called dual. These classifications are referred to as the “Number”, and the Dual Number is found in Hebrew and also in ancient Greek, but not in the “Koiné” Greek of the New Testament. In the text quoted above, the words translated “two evenings” are just one Hebrew word, with the Dual ending.

 

            It has often puzzled readers of the Old Testament when confronted by this phrase. Which two evenings are meant? Did it mean from the evening of one day until the evening of the next? If so, then there was a whole period of 24 hours in which the lamb could have been killed. But clearly this was not the case, because other Scriptural references precluded it. The urgency of the time, the “girding up of one’s loins” ready for imminent departure, all suggested that the expression meant some specific, and brief period of time.

 

            Later on in the Pentateuch, in Deuteronomy 16:6 we read, “You shall sacrifice the Passover at evening, when the sun goes down.” Or perhaps better translated, “when the sun is declining.” This tells us more accurately the time of the sacrifice. Josephus (Wars VI.9.3) is even more specific. He said that the lambs were slain between the ninth and the eleventh hours. And so, as I said earlier, there is little more needing to be said to establish the meaning of the expression “between the evenings”.

 

            However, it may be useful to record here what I found in Cruden’s Concordance under the heading of “Hours”. Before he gave the list of occurrences of the word, the author had this to say, “The ancient Hebrews did not divide the day by hours. The day was divided into four parts. Morning, noon, [or high day], first evening, and last evening. And the night was divided into three parts, namely night, midnight, and morning watch. But afterwards, when the Jews came to be under the Romans, they followed them in dividing the night into four parts, which they called watches because they relieved their sentinels every three hours. Thus in Matthew 14:25, it is said that in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to His disciples.”

 

            I am thankful to Alexander Cruden for this information about the two evenings, because I have not seen it elsewhere in the voluminous Bible Dictionaries I possess. (I do not agree with him about the absence of hours, seeing that we have plentiful evidence in the Gospels of the use of this word, but the fourfold division of the day is of great importance.)  If therefore the early Israelites divided the day thus, each of the four parts being approximately three hours in length, we can assign the departments of the day as follows –

 

6 a.m. – 9 a.m.

9 a.m. – 12 noon

12 noon – 3 p.m.

3 p.m. – 6 p.m.

Morning

High Day/Noon

1st Evening

2nd Evening

 

 

            If this was indeed the case, and there seems little reason to doubt the information, then “between the evenings” would be around 4 pm, which agrees quite well with the other reference, “when the sun is declining”, for the time when the Passover lamb was slain.

 

            It should be added here that during our Lord’s day, the daytime was divided into twelve hours, and this can be established with certainty by Jesus’ own words recorded in John 11:9, “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” Furthermore, at the crucifixion, the third, the sixth, and the ninth hours are mentioned. And in Jesus’ parable of the vineyard, He mentions these, together with the eleventh hour.

 

            There has been some argument as to whether these hours were variable, due to the varying length of daylight. And so, for example, on examining modern Jewish Calendars, the Rabbis have given very specific instructions about when the Sabbath begins, even down to the minute, for various towns either north, central, or south in Britain. The time stated corresponds to sunset. Scholars often aver that the same was true 2,000 years ago, and that people waited for the trumpet to blow to tell them when the Sabbath had started.

 

            But Israel is in a more southerly latitude than Britain, and the variation of day length not nearly so marked as for us. On consulting the Astronomical Ephemeris, I found the following information.

 

                   COMPARISON OF SUNLIGHT HOURS

 

 

Jerusalem

London

Midsummer

June 24th

Sunrise

5.00 a.m.

3.51 a.m.

Sunset

7.05 p.m.

8.13 p.m.

 

 

 

 

Midwinter

December 21st

Sunrise

6.52 a.m.

7.56 a.m.

Sunset

5.05 p.m.

4.00 p.m.

 

 

 

 

            In other words, Jerusalem never has sunrise or sunset outside the range of 5 am to 7 pm, whereas in England we have 4 am to 8 pm. For this reason, I would suggest that the water clocks that were used in those days, known as KLEPSYDRÆ, [Greek for “water-thief”] were the equivalent of our clocks. Sundials were also used, and as in Britain, these gave “sun-time”, which deviates slightly from “clock-time”, but only by a quarter of an hour at the most during the year.

 

            Ahaz (2 Kings 20:9-11, and Isaiah 38:8) had a “sundial”, which with better translation from the Hebrew, tells us that he had a pillar that cast shadows on an array of steps, which is just another design of the traditional sundial. Herodotus tells us in his Histories that the Greeks obtained their knowledge of the sundial from the ancient Babylonians. Hence, the measurement of time was not something that was left to more recent days, but had been effectively used from antiquity. It is a common fault of modern man to assume that his early ancestors were crude, unintelligent, illiterate, and innumerate. This probably stems from the Evolutionary Theory, which to many thoughtful people, still remains a theory, without very much to be said in its favour. One only needs to examine the great pyramids of Egypt, the great wall of the Incas, the Chronology of the Mayas, and other amazing developments of ancient races, to see that in some respects there has been a great decline in wisdom and knowledge, until the start of this modern era. It is good for the soul to have one’s pride knocked occasionally!