Section 22:7–13
Jesus sent two disciples to prepare for the Passover celebration
This section begins on “the Day of Unleavened Bread.” On that day the Jewish people had to remove from their houses all “leaven” (yeast) and any bread or other food that was made with yeast. Also on that day, each family had to sacrifice a lamb for the Passover meal. In the context of sacrifice, people could refer to any of these lambs as “the Passover” without adding the word “lamb.” For example, see Exodus 12:21 and Deuteronomy 16:2. This is similar to its use in 1 Corinthians 5:7: “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”
Luke, Paul, and other New Testament writers implied that the lamb that was sacrificed on Passover symbolized the fact that Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice to save people from slavery to sin. Jesus knew that during the time of the festival, he himself would become a sacrifice. He would become the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
In this section, Jesus sent two disciples to make preparations for the Passover celebration.
There are parallel passages for this section in Matthew 26:17–25, Mark 14:12–21, and John 13:21–30. Examples of other headings for this section are:
The Preparation of the Passover (New Revised Standard Version)
-or-
Jesus makes arrangements for his last Passover with his disciples (Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English)
Paragraph 22:7–8
22:7a–b
Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb was to be sacrificed: This sentence identifies the day on which the events in this section occurred. The day of Unleavened Bread refers to the day when people removed all yeast from their houses. They also sacrificed a lamb in preparation for the Passover meal in the evening. Luke spoke of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread as one eight-day feast.
Some other ways to translate this verse are:
The day had come for the Festival of Thin Bread, and it was time to kill the Passover lambs. (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
On the day ⌊when people began to celebrate⌋ ⌊the Feast of⌋ Unleavened Bread, ⌊the lamb for⌋ the Passover ⌊meal⌋ had to be sacrificed.
-or-
Then came the first day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. (New American Standard Bible)
Unleavened Bread: The term Unleavened Bread refers to bread that is flat or thin because people have prepared it without yeast. See the note on 22:1a–b for translation advice and examples.
the Passover lamb was to be sacrificed: The Greek clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as the Passover lamb was to be sacrificed is more literally “it was necessary for the Passover to be sacrificed.” This verb to be sacrificed is passive. It does not specify who must sacrifice the lamb. However, the instructions in Exodus indicate that each family must sacrifice a lamb. It was necessary to sacrifice the lambs because God commanded them to do it.
Some other ways to translate this clause are:
when ⌊each family⌋ had to sacrifice a lamb for the Passover ⌊festival⌋
-or-
when ⌊people⌋ must sacrifice ⌊sheep/lambs⌋ for Passover, ⌊as God commanded⌋
the Passover lamb: The word Passover refers here to the lamb that must be sacrificed, so the Berean Standard Bible supplies the word lamb. The Passover lamb is more specifically described in Exodus 12:5, which says, “The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.”
Use an appropriate word in your language to refer to a sheep or goat that is a year old. The text does not refer to a baby animal. A year-old animal would be large enough to feed a whole family for the feast.
to be sacrificed: The Greek verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as to be sacrificed may refer either to offering an animal as a sacrifice or more generally to killing it. People took their Passover lamb to the temple of God to kill it. Then a priest poured the lamb’s blood on the altar and took part of its meat. The family ate the rest of the meat at the Passover meal in the evening.
In some languages a verb like sacrificed implies that the entire lamb is burned or that all the meat is given to the priest. If that is true in your language, you may need to use a more general word. For example:
to be killed (Good News Translation)
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