Exodus 12:3-6
Keep it up until the fourteenth day
Four days between choosing and killing. The measure is per household and per appetite, and a family too small shares with the nearest house.
Objects of the Bible
The Passover lamb
Chosen on the tenth, kept until the fourteenth, and the blood went on the outside of the door where nobody inside could see it.
The instructions are domestic and exact. A lamb for a house, and if the household is too little for a lamb then he and his neighbour share one, according to every man’s eating. It is taken on the tenth day and kept up until the fourteenth, which means four days of a lamb living in the house before anything happens to it. Without blemish, a male of the first year, and it may be taken from the sheep or from the goats.
Scroll down to the story
The movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of The Passover lamb
- 01
- 02
Exodus 12:7
Strike it on the two side posts
The mark is on the outside of the door. Everyone protected by it spends the night unable to see the thing protecting them.
- 03
Exodus 12:11
Ye shall eat it in haste
Dressed to leave, shoes on, staff in hand. The meal is eaten in the posture of people who expect the door to open.
- 04
Exodus 12:13
When I see the blood, I will pass over you
The stated condition is the blood and not the household’s conduct. The verb the whole feast is named for is in this sentence.
- 05
Exodus 12:26-27
What mean ye by this service
The rite comes with an instruction about explaining it, so that the meaning survives the people who were there.
Why it matters
Then the detail the whole night turns on: they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses. It goes on the outside. The people sheltering behind it never see it, which makes the safety entirely a matter of something done rather than something felt. They eat standing, loins girded, shoes on, staff in hand, in haste. And the day is made an ordinance forever, with a script for when your children ask what this service means to you.
2 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
