I often hear confusion expressed around Deuteronomy 16:1-8, and it can be initially hard to understand.

“Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to YHWH your God, for in the month of Abib YHWH your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover to YHWH your God, from the flock and the herd, in the place where YHWH chooses to put His name. 3 You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, that is, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. 4 And no leaven shall be seen among you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the meat which you sacrifice the first day at twilight remain overnight until morning. 

5 “You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates which YHWH your God gives you; 6 but at the place where YHWH your God chooses to make His name abide, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at twilight, at the going down of the sun, at the time you came out of Egypt. 7 And you shall roast and eat it in the place which YHWH your God chooses, and in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. 8 Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a sacred assembly to YHWH your God. You shall do no work on it (Deu. 16:1-8, NKJV).

Let’s examine this Scripture’s context within the Pentateuch and then inspect these verses more closely. Genesis presents the main conflict of the Biblical narrative, Adam and Eve’s failure to regard divine instruction and their expulsion from God’s presence, no longer walking with Him in Eden’s provision. Enoch walks with God and does not die. Noah walked with God, and his family was reborn through the flood to a new beginning. Abraham walked with God, as did Isaac, and even Jacob learned to trust YHWH to bring about His covenant blessings. The solution to the human problem presents as the restoration of God’s presence, God with us, and our belief in divine instruction and will.

At the end of Exodus, YHWH is present with Israel in the Tabernacle, and He has given them His divine Torah, instructing them how to be a clean and holy people so that He may continue to dwell with them. Leviticus engages the priesthood in a sacrificial worship system to approach YHWH and mediate Israel’s yearly Atonements. Numbers shows Israel, a nation of priests, moving through the wilderness toward the land promised, guarding and walking in the presence of YHWH. And Israel’s failure to believe God brings judgment, purging by the death of the old Israel and the birth of the new Israel. Exodus and Numbers mirror on either side of Leviticus’s center, Atonements. The storyline sets the stage for Deuteronomy, or “These Are the Words.”

Deuteronomy, or “These are the Words,” sets forth an expounding of divine instruction necessary for Israel to enter the Eden land and successfully live in it, walking with God. Central to Moses’s teaching is the necessity of worshiping only YHWH in the place He chooses, ensuring Israel’s identity. Three times a year, all the Israel was to appear before YHWH for the spring, summer, and fall holy feast seasons, named the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles (Exo. 23:14-15, Exo. 34:18-24; Deu. 16:16). 

In the textual examination of Deuteronomy 16:1-8, the following points are apparent.

1. Deuteronomy 16 gives no dates, either Abib 14 or 15, for the actions taking place. 
2. It connects “Passover” with leaving Egypt, when, in truth, Israel stayed in their houses until morning and did not leave until the following evening after the sun set (Exo. 12:22). Numbers 33:3-4 tells us that Israel left Egypt on the morrow after the Passover.
3. Deuteronomy 16 gives the time for sacrificing the “passover-offering” as ba erev, sunset. Exodus and Numbers state that the Passover lamb was sacrificed at ben ha arbayim, between the two evenings (between dusk and dark), after “the going down of the sun.”
4. Deuteronomy 16 says to sacrifice the Passover from the flock and herd. Only sheep and goats were sacrificed for Passover, not cattle (Exo. 12:5). There is never a Passover bull or calf. Ezra distinguishes between Passover lambs and the other holy offerings of the flocks and herds for the Days of Unleavened Bread (2Ch. 35:1-13, Num. 28:19).
5. Passover was always done within the Israelite’s houses, but YHWH commanded Israel to perform all other holyday offerings at the place He chose. Verse 5-6 cannot be the Passover sacrifice, but the first of Unleavened Bread, Abib 15, celebrated all night at the temple (Deu. 16:7).
6. Deuteronomy 16:3 says to eat unleavened bread for seven days with the Passover sacrifice. It must refer to the seven days of Unleavened Bread since Passover is only one night.
7. Israel was to roast, tsaliy, the lamb (Exo. 12:8-9), never boil, bashal, it. Deuteronomy 16:7 uses bashal, which is correct for the holydays of Unleavened Bread offerings. The Hebrew u-bis-sal-ta, וּבִשַּׁלְתָּ֫ of Exodus 29:31 is in the Piel perfect third masculine singular identical to Deuteronomy 16:7 but is translated correctly as “boil.”
8. No flesh sacrificed at ba erev was to be left until morning (Deu. 16:4), which defined holyday peace offerings at the temple (Lev. 7:15, 22:29-31). But the remains of the Passover sacrifice were to be burned with fire by morning within Israel’s dwellings (Exo. 12:10). 
9. “Which you sacrifice the first day at ba erev” (Deu. 16:4) can only refer to the first day of Unleavened Bread. A first day implies more than one.
10.  Deuteronomy 16:2, 5, 6 are the only verses in Pentateuch where the peace offerings for Unleavened Bread (2Ch. 30:21-22) are called “the Passover.”

The text style and terms of Deuteronomy 16:1-8 closely identify with that of 2 Chronicles 35, describing post-exilic Israel with Ezra and Nehemiah’s response to Israel’s failures. Like Hezekiah and Josiah (Blog 25), Ezra took drastic measures to stop the synchronization of Israel’s given worship system with what was happening in Samaria. The high priest’s grandson refused to give up his foreign wife, the daughter of Sanballat (Neh. 13:28). With Sanballat’s help, a sizable contingency of Israel’s priests built a temple and set up worship using the same Torah on Samaria’s Mount Gerizim (Antiquities xi. 7, § 2). It explains why Ezra, who compiled and edited the sacred scrolls, drilled six times in Deuteronomy 16:1-17 that during the three commanded yearly festival seasons, faithful Israelites must worship YHWH only at “the place YHWH chooses,” which was solely Jerusalem. He ferociously turned Israel away from a repeat of their expulsion from God’s presence by restricting temple and domestic Passover to Jerusalem’s locality. In the next Blog, we will see the carry-over in the Gospel accounts.

Takeaway:
Deuteronomy 16:1-8 in context cannot be talking about the Passover on Abib 14, but the opening night of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Instead of using the listed three times a year, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles (Deu. 16:16), the text names the Feast of Unleavened Bread “Passover.” In Ezra’s forceful attempt to keep the people from rebellion and idolatry post-exile, we find “Passover” naming the temple-controlled slaughter of Passover lambs and the celebration of the first night of Unleavened Bread. Examining the Hebrew, every sentence of Deuteronomy 16:1-8 pertains to YHWH’s instructions for the Feast of Unleavened Bread and its sacrifices, not the Passover. In the Biblical narrative setting, these verses explain the first of the three seasons Israel must follow divine instruction to worship before YHWH each year, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, in order to stay in the land in God’s presence.