The story of the first passover night – प्रथम फसह की रात की कहानी
The story of the First Passover night is a foundational event in the history of the Israelites and is recounted in the Book of Exodus, chapters 12 and 13. It marks the night when God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt through a series of miraculous events. Here’s a summary of the story:
The Israelites had been enslaved in Egypt for centuries, and God sent Moses and his brother Aaron to demand their release from Pharaoh. However, Pharaoh repeatedly refused to let the Israelites go, despite a series of devastating plagues that God sent upon Egypt. These plagues included turning water into blood, infestations of frogs, lice, and flies, the death of livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and more.
Despite the devastation, Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened. Finally, God announced the tenth and most severe plague: the death of all the firstborn in Egypt, both human and animal.
Before the final plague, God gave Moses specific instructions for the Israelites to protect them during the night of judgment. This night would later be commemorated as the Passover.
Each Israelite family was to select a lamb without blemish, one year old, on the tenth day of the first month (later known as the month of Nisan). The lamb was to be kept until the fourteenth day of the month.
On the evening of the fourteenth day, the lamb was to be sacrificed. The blood of the lamb was to be collected and applied to the doorposts and the lintel (the horizontal beam above the door) of each Israelite home.
The lamb was to be roasted and eaten that night with unleavened bread (bread made without yeast) and bitter herbs. The meal was to be eaten in haste, with the Israelites dressed for travel, ready to leave Egypt. The bitter herbs symbolized the bitterness of their slavery, and the unleavened bread represented the haste with which they would leave Egypt, having no time to let their bread rise.
God promised that on that night, He would pass through the land of Egypt and strike down all the firstborn. However, when He saw the blood on the doorposts and lintel of an Israelite home, He would “pass over” that house, sparing the firstborn within. This act of divine protection gave the Passover its name.
That night, as God had said, the angel of death passed through Egypt. Every Egyptian household, from Pharaoh’s palace to the lowest servant’s home, experienced the death of their firstborn. There was great mourning throughout the land.
In contrast, the Israelites were spared because of the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. This act of faith and obedience protected them from God’s judgment.
The devastation of the final plague broke Pharaoh’s resistance. He summoned Moses and Aaron during the night and told them to take the Israelites and leave Egypt immediately. The Egyptians, fearing further calamity, urged the Israelites to depart quickly and even gave them gold, silver, and other valuables as they left. This fulfilled God’s earlier promise that the Israelites would leave Egypt with great wealth.
That very night, the Israelites, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, began their journey out of Egypt. They left in such haste that they took their dough before it could rise, hence the tradition of eating unleavened bread during Passover.
God instructed Moses that the Israelites were to remember this night forever. They were to celebrate Passover annually as a lasting ordinance, teaching their children about God’s deliverance from slavery.
The Passover became a central festival in Jewish life, symbolizing God’s redemption and the beginning of the Israelites’ journey to the Promised Land. It also foreshadowed future acts of deliverance, with many Christians later seeing a connection between the Passover lamb and Jesus Christ, referred to as the “Lamb of God” in the New Testament.
Thus, the First Passover night was not only a moment of deliverance for the Israelites but also a defining event that shaped their identity as God’s chosen people.
The story of the first passover night – प्रथम फसह की रात की कहानी
