Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. "Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. "This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread."
Exodus 12:3-20
This is a long reading but it is wise to take the instructions given by God to Moses in one, so as to see the more clearly their significance. This is the final judgment on Egypt and Pharaoh, a doom which secured Israel's destiny as God's chosen people. A lamb without blemish was to be taken and killed, its blood sprinkled on the lintels and doorposts of Israel's houses. The lamb was to be roasted with fire, and eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and the people were to eat with haste, with loins girt and staffs in hand. The blood thus sprinkled was to be a protection to Israel's firstborn against the angel of death - not indeed in any superstitious or magical way, but in the significance it had in being the sign of death. The death of the lamb was in fact in place of the death of the firstborn, and was appointed as such by God Himself, so that in availing themselves of the divine provision and protection Israel was utterly safe. Their safety, then, lay in something outside themselves and their own resources, in something God had done for them rather than in anything they themselves could have done. We should also realise that in inviting Israel to participate in this solemn ordinance, and particularly to eat of the lamb roasted with fire, the Lord was initiating a covenant with His people, and binding Himself to them unconditionally as their covenant God. The whole story is clearly so rich in illustration of spiritual categories that we shall require to spend some time relating it to that of which it is a type in the New Testament, and to this we shall return in the next Note.