Verse 1

Hezekiah Observes the Passover Hezekiah sent messages throughout Israel and Judah; he even wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, summoning them to come to the LORD’s temple in Jerusalem and observe a Passover celebration for the LORD God of Israel.

Referenced Verses

  • Exod 12:3-9 : 3 Tell the whole community of Israel,‘In the tenth day of this month they each must take a lamb for themselves according to their families– a lamb for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a lamb, the man and his next-door neighbor are to take a lamb according to the number of people– you will make your count for the lamb according to how much each one can eat. 5 Your lamb must be perfect, a male, one year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6 You must care for it until the fourteenth day of this month, and then the whole community of Israel will kill it around sundown. 7 They will take some of the blood and put it on the two side posts and top of the doorframe of the houses where they will eat it. 8 They will eat the meat the same night; they will eat it roasted over the fire with bread made without yeast and with bitter herbs. 9 Do not eat it raw or boiled in water, but roast it over the fire with its head, its legs, and its entrails. 10 You must leave nothing until morning, but you must burn with fire whatever remains of it until morning. 11 This is how you are to eat it– dressed to travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s Passover. 12 I will pass through the land of Egypt in the same night, and I will attack all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both of humans and of animals, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the LORD. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, so that when I see the blood I will pass over you, and this plague will not fall on you to destroy you when I attack the land of Egypt. 14 This day will become a memorial for you, and you will celebrate it as a festival to the LORD– you will celebrate it perpetually as a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. Surely on the first day you must put away yeast from your houses because anyone who eats bread made with yeast from the first day to the seventh day will be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day there will be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there will be a holy convocation for you. You must do no work of any kind on them, only what every person will eat– that alone may be prepared for you. 17 So you will keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because on this very day I brought your regiments out from the land of Egypt, and so you must keep this day perpetually as a lasting ordinance. 18 In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, you will eat bread made without yeast until the twenty-first day of the month in the evening. 19 For seven days yeast must not be found in your houses, for whoever eats what is made with yeast– that person will be cut off from the community of Israel, whether a resident foreigner or one born in the land. 20 You will not eat anything made with yeast; in all the places where you live you must eat bread made without yeast.’”
  • Deut 16:2-6 : 2 You must sacrifice the Passover animal(from the flock or the herd) to the LORD your God in the place where he chooses to locate his name. 3 You must not eat any yeast with it; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast, as symbolic of affliction, for you came out of Egypt hurriedly. You must do this so you will remember for the rest of your life the day you came out of the land of Egypt. 4 There must not be a scrap of yeast within your land for seven days, nor can any of the meat you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain until the next morning. 5 You may not sacrifice the Passover in just any of your villages that the LORD your God is giving you, 6 but you must sacrifice it in the evening in the place where he chooses to locate his name, at sunset, the time of day you came out of Egypt.
  • 2 Chr 11:13 : 13 The priests and Levites who lived throughout Israel supported him, no matter where they resided.
  • 2 Chr 11:16 : 16 Those among all the Israelite tribes who were determined to worship the LORD God of Israel followed them to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the LORD God of their ancestors.
  • 2 Chr 25:7 : 7 But a prophet visited him and said:“O king, the Israelite troops must not go with you, for the LORD is not with Israel or any of the Ephraimites.
  • 2 Chr 30:10-11 : 10 The messengers journeyed from city to city through the land of Ephraim and Manasseh as far as Zebulun, but people mocked and ridiculed them. 11 But some men from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem.
  • 2 Chr 35:6 : 6 Slaughter the Passover lambs, consecrate yourselves, and make preparations for your countrymen to celebrate according to the LORD’s message which came through Moses.”
  • Hos 5:4 : 4 Their wicked deeds do not allow them to return to their God; for a spirit of idolatry is in them, and they do not acknowledge the LORD.
  • Hos 7:8-9 : 8 Israel Lacks Discernment and Refuses to Repent Ephraim has mixed itself like flour among the nations; Ephraim is like a ruined cake of bread that is scorched on one side. 9 Foreigners are consuming what his strenuous labor produced, but he does not recognize it! His head is filled with gray hair, but he does not realize it!
  • Hos 11:8 : 8 The Divine Dilemma: Judgment or Mercy? How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? I have had a change of heart! All my tender compassions are aroused!
  • 1 Cor 5:7-8 : 7 Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough– you are, in fact, without yeast. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 So then, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of vice and evil, but with the bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.