Though the instructions about the passover and the seven days of unleavened bread in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers all state explicitly that the passover is on the fourteenth of the first month and the days of unleavened bread begin on the fifteenth of that month (read The Israelites Left Egypt on the 14th), by the first century AD these instructions were not well understood or followed by most of the Jews in the world.

“Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover (Luke 22:1 KJV).”

Luke knew that the feast of unleavened bread is not the passover. But that is what the Jews of that day called it. Luke explains that he is using the common terms. He says that it is “the feast of unleavened bread,” but that it is called “the passover.” The people called the whole seven-day feast the passover. That seven-day feast begins at the start of the fifteenth day of the month.

It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.” (Mark 14:1-2 ESV)

Mark is using the same common terms. It was two days before the passover, and also two days before the start of the feast of unleavened bread. That puts both on the same day.

And in the fourteenth day of the first month is the passover of the LORD. And in the fifteenth day of this month is the feast: seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten. (Numbers 28:16-17 KJV)

This instruction Numbers is clear enough. The passover and the feast are not the same day. But 1500 years after the instruction had been given, the feast was now called the passover.

The feast would start on the fifteenth. Mark is saying that it was two days before then, on the thirteenth. There is a continuous narrative here, from Mark 13:3 to Mark 14:2. Jesus is on the Mount of Olives that day, after returning from the temple. The disciples asked him what was to come in the future. Everything he tells them in chapter 13 is known as the “Olivet Prophecy.” Another account of that long prophecy is given by Matthew in two chapters, Matthew 24 and 25.

Mark tells us that at that time, the thirteenth day of the month, the chief priests and scribes were seeking to arrest and kill Jesus before the feast began. In Mark 14:3-11 he goes on to explain the earlier event in Bethany that had given Judas an excuse to go to the chief priests. After Matthew gives his longer account of the Olivet Prophecy, we read this, in chapter 26:

“When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, ‘You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified. (Matthew 26:1-2)'”

Even Jesus himself is quoted here as using the word passover to refer to the day that all the people and the priests who are plotting against him are looking to and planning for by that name. Matthew then goes on to explain, just as Mark does, how the chief priests had already made their plans to kill Jesus “before the feast.” And they managed to do that.

So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him. (John 18:12 )

Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover. (John 18:28 KJV)

They had not yet eaten the passover, because the fifteenth, the start of the feast, had not yet come. This was the morning of the fourteenth of the month. He would be crucified that day, and buried before sunset.

The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. (John 19:31 KJV)

This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid. And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on. (Luke 23:52 -54 KJV)

Jesus was betrayed, arrested, condemned, crucified, and buried, all on the fourteenth of the month, before the sabbath began. The phrase in the KJV, “that sabbath day was an high day” (John 19:31) or “great day” in some translations, means it was an annual sabbath. The annual sabbath was the fifteenth of the first month, the first of the seven days of unleavened bread.

The last supper or the passover?

The night before, the night of the fourteenth, Jesus had a meal with his disciples. Some have called it the “last supper.” What kind of supper was it?

And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the passover. Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve. And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. (Matt 26:18 -21 KJV)

The word “even” in verse 20 is opsios (G3798) This word can mean three different times of day, depending on the context. In verse 26:20 above, it means nightfall; when nightfall had come. In Matt 27:57 and Mark 4:35 and John 20:19 it means the late afternoon, before sunset. And in Matt 16:2 and Mark 1:32 the same word means after sunset, when one day has ended and another begun.

Words do tend to change their meaning over time, and mean different things to different people. In English, the word “twilight” has not changed its meaning. We know that it refers to a particular kind of light. But the word “evening” to many English speakers can mean the whole period of time from sunset to midnight. To others it only means the time from sunset to nightfall. To some, evening starts when the sun is low in the sky and shadows begin to lengthen. The same thing happened among speakers of Hebrew and Greek.

The word ereb in Hebrew came to be used in three ways, much as the word evening is used in three ways now. Ereb originally referred to the twilight that begins at sunset. But it expanded its meaning to refer also to that moment in time when the twilight begins. And, of course, since the fundamental meaning of the word was descriptive of the quality of light that we call twilight, it also referred to the twilight that comes before sunrise. It had those meanings when Moses wrote. But in later centuries, it also came to be used to refer to the late afternoon, just as the English word evening has now taken on that meaning among some speakers.

The Greek word opsios may have begun with one specific meaning, but by the first century, in Koine Greek, it clearly had three different uses. Sometimes, in studying the Bible, we need to be aware that a single English word is not always available to properly express the meaning of a Hebrew or Greek word. Comparing multiple translations can help, and sometimes turning to Strong’s or Thayer’s.

We just read in Matthew 26:18-21 that Jesus said “I will keep the passover.” And the disciples “made ready the passover.” As we continue reading in that chapter:

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matt 26:26-28 KJV)

Paul says this was the night he was betrayed, so there can be no doubt this also is happening on the fourteenth of the month, since days begin at sunset. The daylight part of the fourteenth follows the night of the fourteenth.

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered unto you: that the Lord Jesus, during the night in which He was betrayed, took bread; and having given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which has been broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” (1Corinthians 11:23-25 EMTV)

This is what is commonly known as “the Lord’s Supper.” But was the meal they ate that night actually a passover meal? Most people would be eating the passover a day later.

“Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed. (Luke 22:7 KJV) ” “So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.” (Luke 22:8 ESV)

Jesus told them to take “the passover” into the city, and how to find a particular man who would show them to a place that had already been arranged for. In Matthew 26:18, he tells the disciples to quote him as saying, “My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples,” Jesus does not mean it was his time to die. He means that his time to keep the passover was at hand. Even his own disciples did not understand that his time to die had come, no matter how often they had been told. So certainly the owner of the house would not have understood that to be the meaning of “my time is at hand.” The owner of the house already knew that Jesus would be keeping the passover at a different time than most people would. As told in Luke chapter 22:

“. . . and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.” And they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. (Luke 22:11-15 ESV)

As Luke says, this was the day “the passover must be killed.” The passover means the passover lamb. So they ate the passover lamb. But why would it be a day of unleavened bread? Even “the” day of unleavened bread.

The passover was always killed on the fourteenth. The seven days of unleavened bread start on the fifteenth. This cannot be the fifteenth because he would die on the afternoon of the fourteenth.

It is the passover that must be killed on the fourteenth. So how did the fourteenth become “the day” (meaning the first day) of unleavened bread?

Because that had been the day on which all leavened bread was removed from the homes, even sweeping all crumbs that might have fallen to the floor. So it was called the first day of unleavened bread, thereby becoming the first of eight days.

In “Antiquities of the Jews” by Flavius Josephus, Chapter 15, “How The Hebrews Under The Conduct Of Moses Left Egypt,” is this statement: “Whence it is that, in memory of the want we were then in, we keep a feast for eight days, which is called the feast of unleavened bread.” The whole book is available free online at Project Gutenberg. It was written in the first century, so it does indicate that the fourteenth was considered a day of unleavened bread by then.

Where did the lamb come from?

How is it that Jesus and the disciples came to have a passover lamb to eat at the start of the fourteenth? Where did they get the lamb?

“Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead (John 12:1).”

Six days before “the Passover,” was six days before the fifteenth. John also uses the common terms of that day, as John 13:1 shows. So Jesus came to Bethany on the ninth.

When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus. The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!” (John 12:9-11-15 ESV)

“The next day” after the ninth would be the tenth of the month. Jesus and the disciples were in Bethany that morning, where Lazarus and his sisters lived. Bethany is on the mount of olives, about two miles from the city of Jerusalem. Later that day, he came into Jerusalem, where the large crowd declared him “the King of Israel.” The quotation in verse 15 is from Zech 9:9. The tenth of the month was the day that the passover lamb was chosen.

Mark 14:12 And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” (ESV underline added)

It is the start of the day called “the first day of unleavened bread,” the fourteenth. “When they sacrificed the Passover lamb.” In this verse, who is the pronoun “they” referring to? The word “lamb” is not in the Greek in this verse. It isn’t needed. In this verse, the Greek word used twice, “pascha,” means the passover lamb both times.

So Mark 14:12 just says, When they sacrificed the passover, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the passover?”

The verb “sacrifice” is in the imperfect tense. It actually says, when they were sacrificing the passover, or when they were killing the passover. There were not many people killing the passover at that time of day on the fourteenth. Most people would not be killing the passover until almost a full day later. Yet in the parallel account, Luke tells us when that day came the passover must be killed.

“Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed (Luke 22:7 KJV).”

Remember, as previously shown, the Jews were calling the whole eight days unleavened bread, and thereby the fourteenth became “the day” (meaning the first day) of unleavened bread.

All the foregoing shows that “they” refers to the disciples. It is the disciples who were sacrificing the passover when the passover must be killed, just after sunset when the fourteenth began, in Bethany, where they had chosen the passover lamb on the tenth.

Peter and John then carried the slain passover the two miles from Bethany to Jerusalem, and prepared the passover that evening, by roasting it, so that when Jesus and the other disciples arrived after dark, Jesus could eat the passover, as he said he would.

Was this a passover meal? Most definitely! Jesus and his disciples kept the passover by killing the passover and eating the passover when it should have been—according to the law—after sunset at the beginning of the fourteenth day of the month.

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