ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses one of the Three Joyous Festivals—Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles; the Passover. The word "Passover" really denotes the Paschal Lamb, the sacrifice of which took place on the eve of the Festival, and it is to the eve of the Festival only that in the Bible the name is given. Like Pentecost and Tabernacles, Passover was formerly an agricultural feast. But the chief significance of the Feast of Passover is derived from the special historical event it commemorates. Passover is, above everything, the commemoration of the great Deliverance—a deliverance which transformed a horde of slaves into a people. In the Pentateuch the command to eat the Unleavened Bread is followed by a prohibition forbidding leaven on the Passover. But the meaning and the power of the Passover are not exhausted with the ceremonial that ushers it in. The Passover affirms the great truth that liberty is the inalienable right of every human being.
