The Passover: A Torah Study

To understand the Passover, we must first understand why the children of Israel (Yasharal) were in Egypt (Matsarim) in the first place. This is not a story that begins with slavery — it begins with a family, a famine, and the providence of Yah.

The Promise to Abraham

Yah made a covenant with Abraham (Abram) many generations before the events of the Passover. In Barashayath (Genesis) 15:13-14, Yah told Abraham what would happen to his descendants:

"Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions." — Barashayath (Genesis) 15:13-14

Even before Israel existed as a nation, Yah had already declared the ending. He told Abraham: your family will go into a foreign land, they will be oppressed, but I will bring them out. The Passover was not an afterthought — it was the appointed fulfillment of a word spoken to Abraham centuries earlier.

Joseph (Yoseph) and the Journey to Egypt

Joseph, the son of Jacob (Ya'aqob), was sold into slavery by his own brothers. Through a series of events that only Yah could orchestrate, Joseph rose from a prisoner to the second most powerful man in all of Egypt. When a severe famine struck the land, Joseph's family — the entire house of Jacob — came down to Egypt to survive.

"Then Joseph said to his brothers, 'I am Joseph; does my father still live?' ... And Alahim sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but Alahim." — Barashayath (Genesis) 45:3, 7-8

Joseph understood that Yah had placed him in Egypt for a purpose. The family settled in the land of Goshen, a fertile region in Egypt, and they multiplied greatly.

From Guests to Slaves

The book of Shamwath (Exodus) opens with a critical transition. A new Pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph:

"Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, 'Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land.'" — Shamwath (Exodus) 1:8-10

Fear drove this Pharaoh. The Israelites had grown so numerous that he saw them as a threat. So he enslaved them. He set taskmasters over them. He forced them to build storage cities — Pithom and Raamses — with backbreaking labor in brick and mortar.

But the more they were afflicted, the more they multiplied. This drove Pharaoh to even greater cruelty.

The Order to Kill the Sons

Pharaoh commanded the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill every male child born to the Israelites:

"When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live." — Shamwath (Exodus) 1:16

But the midwives feared Yah more than they feared Pharaoh. They did not obey. And Yah blessed them for it — He gave them households of their own.

When this plan failed, Pharaoh issued a decree to all his people: every son born to the Hebrews was to be cast into the river. Every daughter could live.

This is the world into which Moses (Moshe) was born.

Discussion Questions:

1. What does Yah's promise to Abraham in Genesis 15:13-14 tell us about how Yah works? Does He plan ahead?

2. Why do you think Yah allowed Israel to go into slavery before delivering them? What might He have been preparing?

3. The midwives chose to obey Yah rather than Pharaoh. When have you had to choose between obeying Yah and obeying the authorities around you?