PASSOVER, a festival instituted to commemorate Jehovah's "passing over" the Israelite houses while "passing through" those of the Egyptians, to de stroy in the latter all the first-born (Exod. xii : 11, 12, 23, 27). The first passover (that in Egypt), those subse quently occurring in Old Testament times, and those of the New Testament and later Judaism, were all somewhat different. In the first of these a lamb without blemish was taken on the 10th, and killed on the 14th, of the month Abib, thenceforward in consequence to be reckoned the first month of the ecclesi astical year. The blood of the lamb was to be sprinkled on the two side posts and the single upper door post, and the flesh eaten "with unleavened bread and bitter herbs" before the morning (Ex odus xii: 1-13). That night Jehovah, passing over the bloodstained doors, slew the first born in the Egyptian houses not similarly protected; and, as the emanci pated Jews that night departed from Egypt, that first passover could have con tinued only one day. But the festival
was to be an annual one. Connected with it was to be a feast of unleavened bread (Exod. xii: 14-20; Num. xxviii: 16).
Sometimes the term passover is limited to the festival of the 14th of Abib; some times it includes that and the feast of unleavened bread also, the two being viewed as parts of one whole (Ezek. xlv: 21). When the Jews reached Canaan, avery male was required to present him self before God thrice a year, viz., at the passover, or feast of unleavened bread, at that of "harvest," and that of "in gathering" (Exod. xxiii: 16). In the Old Testament six passovers are men tioned as having been actually kept. In modern Judaism no lamb is sacrificed, but the shank bone of a shoulder of that animal is eaten, leaven put away, and other ceremonies observed.