What is the Passover Story?

The Passover story is from the Torah (what Christians call the Old Testament). The Torah has a commandment that Jews tell the story of what the Lord did to get them out of Egypt. The Jews were living in Egypt. At first, they were doing work for the Egyptian King Pharaoh. They were volunteering, or even being paid. However, they eventually became enslaved and were forced into hard labor. They constructed buildings for Pharaoh made of brick and mortar.

Moses, who was born Jewish, but raised in Pharaoh’s castle, went out in his chariot one day to see how the Jews made the bricks. He saw a slave master beating a Jew. Moses struck him once and killed him. He hid the body. Moses ran away once he found out that is was known that he had killed the slave master. He lived as a shepherd.

One day, when he was tending his flock, he saw flames in a bush. However, the bush itself was not burning. He went to investigate. The Lord spoke his name. The Lord told him to go tell Pharaoh to let his people go. Moses said that he was a lowly shepherd. The Lord turned his staff into a snake and then back into a staff.

Moses went to Pharaoh and told him to let the Jews go. Pharaoh refused. The Lord caused ten plagues to fall upon the Egyptians. The first plague was that all the water in the river was turned to blood. The second plague was an infestation of frogs. After each plague, Pharaoh was asked by Moses to let the Jews go, and each time Pharaoh refused. Lice, wild animals (which might have been flies or gnats, depending upon the translation of the biblical Hebrew), a plague that killed on the Egyptian’s livestock, but not the Jew’s livestock. Boils on the Egyptians’ skin, hail, and locusts were inflicted on the Egyptians, and Pharaoh began to say that they could go after each plague, but then changed his mind. There was three days of darkness in Egypt, but light where the Jews lived. Again Pharaoh released the Jews and changed his mind.

Finally, the Lord told the Jews to mark their homes with the blood of an animal. The Angel of Death came and killed all the Egyptian’s first born, including Pharaoh’s. Finally, Pharaoh actually let the Jews go. They did not wait to bake leavened bread for their journey because they were afraid that again Pharaoh would change his mind. Instead, they ate unleavened bread. Pharaoh did in fact change his mind and came after the Jews. The Lord parted the Red Sea and the Jews escaped.