Day 7, Preparing for the Passover...

Thursday 13th of Nisan [Tuesday the 11th April 2006].

Arthur Action Reporting. [Day 7]
The religious leaders called a meeting today, for they were determined to eliminate the Christ once and for all.

Mt26.3-5. Then the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people assembled at the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and plotted to take Jesus by trickery and kill Him. But they said, "Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people."

It came out later that Satan motivated Judas Iscariot to betray his own master. It was a lucky break for the religious leaders...

Mt26.14-16.Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, "What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you?" And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver. So from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him.

Meanwhile, after his teaching in the temple, the Christ was with another friend in Bethany named Simon. A woman poured a very costly oil of spikenard over the head of the Christ. As you may remember on Sunday the 9th of Nisan Mary the sister of Lazarus poured a perfume on the feet of Christ and then wiped his feet with her hair.

Mk14.3.And being in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, as He sat at the table, a woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard. Then she broke the flask and poured it on His head. But there were some who were indignant among themselves, and said, "Why was this fragrant oil wasted? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor." And they criticized her sharply. But Jesus said, "Let her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a good work for Me. For you have the poor with you always, and whenever you wish you may do them good; but Me you do not have always. She has done what she could. She has come beforehand to anoint My body for burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her."

And later on Jesus had Peter and John prepare for the Passover Feast.

Lk22.7.Then came the Day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover must be killed. And He sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat." So they said to Him, "Where do You want us to prepare?" And He said to them, "Behold, when you have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house which he enters. Then you shall say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says to you, "Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?"'
Then he will show you a large, furnished upper room; there make ready." So they went and found it just as He had said to them, and they prepared the Passover.

It was a slow day today, the Christ was teaching in the temple, the religious leaders having learned their lesson earlier, did not confront him at all today. I found out that they had gathered together to plot against him, to get rid of him and all the trouble he is causing them with his teachings.
So I had time to go to the Jerusalem library and do some research into this discrepancy of Christ planning to keep the Passover day, one day earlier than most of the other Jews.

In fact what happens is that the majority of the Jews have a tradition of keeping the Passover the 14th Friday] on the same day as the 1st day of unleavened bread which is the 15th, [Saturday] which is a Holy Day or it can also be called a annual Sabbath, or a feast day, these words are interchangeable. This is the 1st Holy day of the year.

One of the difficulties that arise is that the day of the Passover can also be called the 1st day of unleavened bread, as on this day unleavened bread has to be eaten with this Passover meal, that calls for a lamb or a goat, which is as it was at the 1st Passover when Israel came out of Egypt.
Maybe one of the best ways to understand this controversy is to go over the instructions in the Torah for the Passover and the days of unleavened bread. This will give us a base from which to work from.
TORAH [toe RAH] — guidance or direction from God to His people. In earlier times, the term Torah referred directly to the five books of Moses, or the PENTATEUCH. Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary,

In the 3rd book of Moses called Leviticus, the 23rd chapter, starting in verse 4 to 8, it reads as follows.

4 'These are the feasts of the LORD, holy convocations [con·vo·ca·tion n 1. a large formal assembly], which you shall proclaim at their appointed times.
5 On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the LORD's Passover.
6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; seven days you must eat unleavened bread.

As you can see the 14th is the Passover [Friday] and the 1st day of the feast of unleavened bread, which is an annual Sabbath, is clearly a separate day, the 15th of Nisan [Saturday].

7 On the first day [15th Saturday] you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.
8 But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD for seven days. The seventh day [21st of Nisan] shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.'"

The eating of unleavened bread was for 7 days and on the last day the 7th day was another annual Sabbath. These Sabbaths had to be treated as a weekly Sabbath where no work was done, and the Temple or the synagogue had to be attended.

Now let us examine more information from the Torah. 2nd book of Moses, Exodus, 12th chapter, 18th verse to the 20th.

18 In the first month, on the fourteenth day [Friday] of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. [which is 8 days. Day 1 being the 14th]
19 For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land.
20 You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.'"

Now the above is interesting in as much as the information tells us that unleavened bread was to be eaten on the 14th until the 21st which is 8 days. Then we are told that for 7 days no leaven bread was to be found in their houses. What this tells us is that the Passover had to be eaten with unleavened bread but the Passover was not counted as part of the feast of unleavened bread, which is a 7 day period, starting and ending with annual Sabbaths days.

Using the information from the books of Leviticus & Exodus above, we get an overall picture of the instructions for the time of the year that the Passover lamb had to be eaten.

According to “The Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar”. Which is a fairly modern Hebrew book [1981], states that sunset is when the “1st 3 medium size stars appear”.
Over the centuries there has been a mis-understanding and confusion concerning sunset, evening, twilight, dusk, and the Hebrew expression “between the evenings”.
Because a Jewish day starts as far as computation of the times of the new Moons and the beginning of the seasons, the day begins and ends at 6:00pm in the evening, and with the confusion over the expressions just mentioned above, the rabbinical scholars made their “between the evenings” as from 3 to 5 o'clock, in the afternoon, this was the first evening, and sunset the second evening; so that "between the two evenings" was from 3 to 6 o'clock which was late evening until the next day started.
The rabbinical scholars then figured between the evenings of the 14th would be in the late afternoon of the 14th, which was almost the same time as the start of the 15th.

If they had applied the “between the evenings” to the Thursday it would not have complied because it would not be in the 14th.

The account of the 1st Passover in Egypt Ex12.1-17 and the 1st days of unleavened bread, says in v8 Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.

In verse 6 it says, Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.

Putting the 2 verses together, it is clearly talking about eating the flesh on the 14th, and in the night of the 14th this then is when the lamb–goat had to be eaten.
Each day only gets one night, and each Hebrew-Jewish day starts with the beginning of a night, or late evening-twilight.

The rabbinical scholars had their Passover during the evening, at the end of the 14thand going into the 15th.

It would seem to me that Christ settled the argument when he clearly ate the Passover at the beginning of the 14th in the early night time, and John clearly shows that the Jews did not want to go into Fort Antonia at the time they took Christ to Pilot, which was in the early morning of the 14th. Incase they got ceremonially contaminated, and then could not keep the Passover. The Jews then were clearly keeping their Passover a day later than Christ.

The flesh of the lamb or goat symbol of the bread – body of Christ was eaten on the night of the 14th as the disciples ate it with Christ at the last supper.
Symbolically the ancient Israelites ate the body of Christ when they ate the lamb-goat.

Although some writers prefer the rabbinical tradition because it puts the killing of the animal in the afternoon of the 14th which aligns with the time if Christ’s death on the cross. This may be mans inclination, but clearly God puts the inference on the symbolism of eating the bread-body of Christ as in the last supper, which took place in the night of the 14th of Nisan.