The feasts of Israel have both historical and prophetic fulfillments. Today being Passover we’ll take a look at the world’s oldest continuously celebrated Holy Day from these two perspectives.

First, here’s the background. God had promised the land of Canaan to Abraham. But before Abraham could actually take possession, the Canaanite people still had 400 years to decide if they were going to repent of their pagan ways and return to God. He already knew they weren’t going to decide in His favor but was committed to give them the 400 years anyway. So it would actually be Abraham’s descendants who would take possession of the land. In the interim, God said, they would migrate to Egypt and become enslaved there. When the 400 years were up, God would bring them back to give them the land and would give them the wealth of Egypt as well, to compensate them for their time of slavery. (Genesis 15) To make sure there was no confusion about this, God repeated His promise to both Isaac and Jacob, Abraham’s son and grandson.

When the time came, God called Moses to be the deliverer of the Jewish people and appointed his brother Aaron to help him (Exodus 3). After nine judgments had nearly destroyed Egypt, God gave Moses and Aaron instructions to protect them from the 10th and final judgment, the death of the firstborn.

The Historical Fulfillment
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. (Exod. 12:1-5)

From the dawn of the Age of Man until that time, the month of which the Lord spoke had been the 7th month, called Nisan. In the announcement above He commanded a 6-month shift in their calendar. The 7th month was now the 1st. Because of their dependence on agricultural cycles, the Israelites retained their original calendar, with it’s Fall beginning, and super-imposed this new calendar over it. From then on they had a religious calendar, beginning in the Spring, and an agricultural calendar, beginning in the Fall. (That’s why Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, comes in the Fall.)

Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire-head, legs and inner parts. Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD’s Passover. (Exod. 12:6-11)

Until the 14th means through the end of the 13th, just like a present marked “do not open until Christmas” can be opened as soon as the 24th is over. Jewish days begin at sunset in line with the Biblical account of Creation, “There was evening and there was morning…”

As the sun was setting on the 13th, the Lambs were to be slaughtered and roasted. Some of the lamb’s blood was to be painted on the lintel and post of the door to each family’s house. Then, when the lambs were cooked, they were to be eaten in haste, along with some unleavened bread and bitter herbs (horseradish). Thus, the Passover meal was the first meal of the 14th, eaten after the sunset that marked the beginning of the day. It was a quick meal, more like a sandwich really, bearing no resemblance at all to the leisurely and sumptuous festival meals of today.

“On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn-both men and animals-and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. (Exod. 12:12-13)

After their hasty meal, around midnight, the destroying angel passed throughEgypt and the firstborn of man and animal perished. The angel passed over homes where the doorposts had been painted with lamb’s blood, sparing the people huddled trembling within. They weren’t spared because they were Jewish, nor because they had eaten lamb for dinner. They were spared because they had the faith to paint their doorposts with blood. They were saved by faith through the blood of the lamb.

“This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD -a lasting ordinance. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat-that is all you may do.

“Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native-born. Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.” (Exod. 12:14-20)

The Feast of Unleavened Bread was begun on the 15th and lasted until the 21st. No yeast could be used in any food preparation, nor could any be present in the house during that time. When they settled in Israel, since the 15th was a major feast day and special sabbath, after the ceremonial “lamb sandwich” was consumed, the rest of the 14th was spent in preparation for the coming feast because no work could be done after sundown. Any yeast found in the house was discarded, and the bulk of the food purchasing and preparation was done. Although it was Passover, it became known as Preparation Day.

From that day till this, the Lord’s Passover has been celebrated, one of the most dramatic displays of His power. During the meal they drink four special cups of wine, one each for the four promises God made to Moses from the burning bush.

“Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.(1. Sanctification) I will free you from being slaves to them (2. Deliverance), and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment (3. Redemption). I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God.”(4. Acceptance) (Exod. 6:6-7)

He freed His people from the bonds of slavery, defeating the world’s most powerful country without an army, without a single casualty among His own, by the power of His outstretched arm. Over a million former slaves walked out of Egypt that morning carrying the immense wealth of their former captives, back wages for their hard labor. The sick were healed, the lame walked, and the weak were made strong. In what was perhaps the greatest miracle of all, not a single one was left behind. Even in a normal community of 1 million or more, there’s never a day when all are completely well. But the Israelites were over worked and under cared for slaves. And yet they all left Egypt under their own power that morning.

Prophetic Fulfillment
In the first chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus was introduced as the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world. (John 1:29) Throughout His ministry people proclaimed Him as Israel’s Messiah, but only on one day did He encourage it. On the Jewish calendar, it was the 10th day of the first month. Through out Jerusalem Passover lambs were being selected, and on the Mount of Olives The Passover Lamb was being welcomed into the city with shouts of “Hosannah to the Son of David. Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord.” (Matt. 21:9) He fulfilled the prophecy, being selected on the 10th day of the month. It was Palm Sunday.

From then until the end of Wednesday the 13th He was minutely scrutinized for some defect in His teaching until finally “no one dared ask Him any more questions.” (Matt 23:46)

After sundown it was Thursday the 14th, Passover, called Preparation Day in His time. He ate the Passover meal with His disciples, stopping at the 3rd cup, the Cup of Redemption, calling it the New Covenant in His blood poured out for us (Luke 22:20). Before the day was over He had been arrested, tried, convicted and put to death by crucifixion. The Passover Lamb had been put to death on Passover. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed, Paul would later say (1 Cor. 5:7).

Just before He died, knowing that all had been completed and so the Scriptures would be fulfilled, He asked for a drink. (John 19:28-29) In taking the wine they offered, He drank the 4th Cup of the Passover, the Cup of Acceptance, as if to say, “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God.” From that day forward, anyone Who accepted His death as payment for their sins would in turn be accepted into the family of God and receive eternal life. They are saved by faith through the Blood of the Lamb.

The next day would be Friday the 15th, the first Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a special Sabbath where no work could be done (John 19:31), so the chief priests asked Pilate to hasten the deaths of the condemned men so they could get them off their crosses before sundown. But Jesus was already dead. He had died at three o’clock and though His body was still on the cross, His spirit was already in Sheol, the abode of the dead. Day one.

At sundown came Friday the 15th, and with it Night One followed in the morning by Day Two. Saturday the 16th was the regular weekly Sabbath and again no work could be done. It brought Night Two and then Day Three. Another sundown and it was Night three, Sunday the 17th. Three days and three nights, just as He had prophesied. (Matt. 12:40)

At sunrise Sunday morning the 17th, the Feast of First Fruits was being observed at the Temple when the women came to the tomb where He’d been laid to rest. It was their first chance to anoint the body for burial since both Friday and Saturday had been Sabbaths. But the tomb was empty. He had risen, the First Fruits of the First Resurrection.

By His death, He freed His people from their slavery to sin, defeating Heaven’s most powerful adversary without an army, without a single casualty among His own, by the power of His sacrificial life. Billions of former slaves will walk out of this world one day soon, receiving wealth beyond measure. The sick will be healed, the lame will walk, and the weak will be made strong. Not a single one will be left behind. The Passover Prophecy fulfilled.

Shabbat Shalom. May the peace of the Sabbath rest upon you, and may the Grace of our Lord Jesus abide within you, both now and forever more.

This popular verse cannot be found in the Bible because it’s neither a Bible verse nor a Biblical principle.  It’s like that other non-Biblical verse, “The Lord helps those who help themselves” in that it’s quoted by people who know little or nothing about the Bible to elevate certain kinds of behavior from mere human tradition to spiritual truth.

So where does it come from? Well it turns out that it’s from a 17th century poem by Samuel Butler called “Hudibras”.  In the poem, a love affair is likened to a child, and spanking is commended as a way to make the love grow stronger. The actual verse reads,

“What medicine else can cure the fits

Of lovers when they lose their wits?

Love is a boy by poets styled

Then spare the rod and spoil the child.”

The idea was that the absence of periodic spankings in the relationship will spoil it.  Further on in the poem, women are said to desire a good spanking more than an assortment of lovely ribbons.  But the practice of spanking is much older the 17th Century poem.  It first came on the scene as a pagan fertility rite in ancient Greece.  Women who were unable to conceive went to the temple of Juno where the priests of the Greek god Pan spanked them with goat hide whips in an effort to increase their fertility.  A search on the Internet will reveal that throughout history spanking has been primarily associated with erotica.

Much later, the Catholic Church used spanking as a means of cleansing women of their sins.  But whether for erotic reasons or as a form of punishment, the person being spanked was always an adult and always a willing participant.  The notion of spanking children who were neither adult nor willing emerged in Victorian times, no doubt as an expansion of the Catholic tradition of punishment for sin.

What Does The Bible Say?

With that introduction, let’s take a look at what the Bible does say about spanking, or more appropriately, the proper disciplining of children.  Probably the closest verse to our title is Proverbs 13:24 “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”  The Hebrew word for rod in this proverb describes a scepter or staff.   A scepter was a large ornately carved staff that was a symbol of authority.  The first time the word appears is in Genesis 49:10.

“The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.”

It was the symbol of tribal authority in the same way that “the White House” stands for the US Government’s authority.  In fact of the 190 times the word is used in the Old Testament it’s translated “tribe” in 140 of them.  Other times it’s translated rod, club, shaft or truncheon.  The point is that it wasn’t just a little switch that a dad could pick off a tree to give his errant son a light whipping.  It was a huge and heavy club.  Are we to believe that God wants a father to club his son into submission?  Of course not.

While we’re at it, let’s take a look at the word translated discipline in Proverbs 13:24. It appears 50 times and 38 of those it’s translated instruction or correction.  It’s never translated punish.

So remembering that we’re talking about a proverb where things are often symbolic, and that the rod symbolizes authority, we should interpret this one as follows:  “Whoever fails to exercise his parental authority hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to instruct and correct him.”   It’s a warning to fathers that as the heads of our households it’s our responsibility to instruct and train our children. Our failure to do so is a sign that we don’t love them.

When the Plain Sense makes Common Sense …

Some advocates of spanking children point to Proverbs 23:13 for justification. It says: Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die.

The problem here is that they switch from a literal to an allegorical interpretation in mid sentence because a strict literal reading doesn’t make sense.  The rule of interpretation is that when the plain sense of a verse makes common sense, seek no other sense.  Does beating someone with a rod prevent them from dying as a literal interpretation of this proverb requires us to believe? The plain sense does not make common sense.  In addition, the word translated child here is more frequently translated youth or servant.  In Israel if you beat your servant with a rod and he did die, you were guilty of murder. (Exodus 21:20) If beating was a guarantee that the recipient would not die, why the law?

While many well intended people take the first half of the verse literally, the concept of dying is almost universally interpreted to be the spiritual death of a sinner even though the Hebrew word describes a physical death in every one of its 835 appearances.  So why not be consistent and use the allegorical interpretation from Proverbs 13:24 to interpret Proverbs 23:13?  If we do the verse would read: Do not withhold instruction from your child: if you discharge your responsibility as a father and correct him, you can save him from spiritual death.

To prove that Proverbs are not always intended to be taken literally, the first two verses of Proverbs 23 say:

“When you sit to dine with a ruler, note well what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony.”

Does this mean that anyone who overeats should slit their own throats?  Of course not.  The plain sense doesn’t make common sense.  This is always the sign that we should seek an allegorical interpretation.

Here are two more examples.  Proverbs 23:5 says:  Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. Obviously allegorical.

And Proverbs 23:17:  Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always be zealous for the fear of the LORD.  Makes sense as it is. Take it literally.

You might ask, “Are we supposed to dart back and forth from a literal interpretation to an allegorical one on a verse by verse basis?  My answer is that especially in the Proverbs we should read each verse to determine if the plain sense makes common sense.  If it does then we seek no other sense.  But if it doesn’t then a word study such as we’ve done above will help us find the true intent of the verse. Thankfully, we don’t have to do this with every book in the Bible, but there’s a reason why the Proverbs are part of the so-called Wisdom Books.  They’re meant for study and meditation to help us acquire not just knowledge but wisdom.

What’s The Point?

But let’s not lose sight of the point here, which is to show that the Bible is not as clearly in favor of corporal punishment as some would like you to believe.

The situation in Biblical Israel can tell us volumes about how God intended for families to work, and it’s hard to describe how different that is from our experience.  There were two strong relationships at play and together they became the foundation of the civilization.  The first was their relationship with God and the second was the family. They were inexorably intertwined.  This promise from Deut. 7:12-15 will show you what I mean.

If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your forefathers.  He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers.  He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land that he swore to your forefathers to give you.   You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor any of your livestock without young.  The LORD will keep you free from every disease.

Because of this promise, when they were faithful to Him there was health, prosperity, and peace.  Peace in their nation, peace in their communities, and peace in their families.  Families functioned because they prayed together and worked together.  Everyone had a job to do and everyone did it.  Children honored their parents, not because it was commanded, but because parents deserved it.  Fathers provided for their families and instructed their sons. Mothers kept their home and instructed their daughters.  Both parents held the Lord in high esteem and taught their children His way.  They all worked together as a team and the Lord blessed their work.  There was a mutual respect between parents and children that made the parents want to instruct and the children obey.  Even as grown men sons did not lightly ignore their fathers’ counsel, nor grown daughters their mothers’.

This mutual respect didn’t require the artificial application of contrived punishment, or even the threat of such.  That’s why the Hebrew word for discipline is translated instruction or correction but never punishment.  After all, the root word for discipline is disciple, which means student.  A course of study is often called a discipline.  When did it begin to mean punishment?

Because they knew that life came from the Lord, there was no thought that children were born with intentions of evil and had to have it beaten out of them. That came with the Catholic Church and the Victorian Era.  Through example and instruction Hebrew men “tamed” their boy children and turned them into men who could also set an example.  Since the Lord held the father responsible for the sins of his children there was ample motivation on their parts to do this. (I’m told that in the Bar Mitzvah ceremony where a boy becomes a man, the father’s prayer is, “Lord thank you for giving me this son, and thank you for relieving me of any further responsibility for him.”)

In his two direct comments about a father’s role in his children’s lives Paul was no doubt drawing from his own Jewish upbringing when he wrote, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephes 6:4) and Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. (Colossians 3:21)

In summary then, the notion of inflicting physical punishment on children can’t be supported Biblically.  Spanking began as a pagan activity steeped in eroticism, and was brought into the church as a punishment for sin during a time when the Church had forgotten that Jesus was punished for our sins.  But even then it was related to sin, not behavior that’s arbitrarily labeled by parents as bad, when it’s  often only a reflection of their incompetence as teachers.  It has done untold emotional and psychological damage and is in direct conflict both Old and New testament doctrine.