'Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.'? Corinthians 5:7

The Passover
The cycle of Temple-festivals appropriately opens with 'the Passover' and 'Feast of Unleavened Bread.' For, properly speaking, these two are quite distinct (Lev 23:5,6; Num 28:16,17; 2 Chron 30:15,21; Ezra 6:19,22; Mark 14:1), the 'Passover' taking place on the 14th of Nisan, and the 'Feast of Unleavened Bread' commencing on the 15th, and lasting for seven days, to the 21st of the month (Exo 12:15). But from their close connection they are generally treated as one, both in the Old and in the New Testament (Matt 26:17; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:1); and Josephus, on one occasion, even describes it as 'a feast for eight days' (Antiq. ii. 15, 1; but comp. iii. 10, 5; ix. 13, 3).

Its Peculiarities
There are peculiarities about the Passover which mark it as the most important, and, indeed, take it out of the rank of the other festivals. It was the first of the three feasts on which all males in Israel were bound to appear before the Lord in the place which He would choose (the two others being the Feast of Weeks and that of Tabernacles [Exo 23:14; 34:18-23; Lev 23:4-22; Deut 16:16]). All the three great festivals bore a threefold reference. They pointed, first, to the season of the year, or rather to the enjoyment of the fruits of the good land which the Lord had given to His people in possession, but of which He claimed for Himself the real ownership (Lev 25:23; Psa 85:1; Isa 8:8; 14:2; Hosea 9:3). This reference to nature is expressly stated in regard to the Feast of Weeks and that of Tabernacles (Exo 23:14-16; 34:22), but, though not less distinct, it is omitted in connection with the feast of unleavened bread. On the other hand, great prominence is given to the historical bearing of the Passover, while it is not mentioned in the other two festivals, although it could not have been wholly wanting. But the feast of unleavened bread celebrated the one grand event which underlay the whole history of Israel, and marked alike their miraculous deliverance from destruction and from bondage, and the commencement of their existence as a nation. For in the night of the Passover the children of Israel, miraculously preserved and set free, for the first time became a people, and that by the direct interposition of God. The third bearing of all the festivals, but especially of the Passover, is typical. Every reader of the New Testament knows how frequent are such allusions to the Exodus, the Paschal Lamb, the Paschal Supper, and the feast of unleavened bread. And that this meaning was intended from the first, not only in reference to the Passover, but to all the feasts, appears from the whole design of the Old Testament, and from the exact correspondence between the types and the antitypes. Indeed, it is, so to speak, impressed upon the Old Testament by a law of internal necessity. For when God bound up the future of all nations in the history of Abraham and his seed (Gen 12:3), He made that history prophetic; and each event and every rite became, as it were, a bud, destined to open in blossom and ripen into fruit on that tree under the shadow of which all nations were to be gathered.

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