Transcription
Imagine a bunch of baby chicks under attack. But then a mother bird comes to defend. She hovers over the nest, standing in harm's way to rescue her young.
This image was used by the prophet Isaiah to describe how God defends his people when they are under attack. And he uses a rare Hebrew verb, pasakh, to describe this act of protection. While this verb, pasakh, shows up only a few times in Scripture, its related noun, pesakh, occurs dozens of times to name one of the Bible's most important festival meals, Passover. So why is the word for the Passover festival the same word used for protecting, hovering birds?
The backstory begins in Exodus. The brutal tyrant Pharaoh ordered that newborn Hebrew sons be drowned in the Nile River. God sends Moses to confront Pharaoh, who refuses to let the people go. God strikes Egypt with nine plagues to force Pharaoh's hand, and the tenth is a deadly plague that will attack the firstborn son in every house, turning Pharaoh's own murderous evil back onto himself.
But God provides a way to survive this final plague. Any household can select a blameless lamb and roast it for a meal. Then they are to smear its lifeblood on the door frame of their house, purifying that house from any association with Pharaoh's murderous evil. Moses tells the people that if they do this, God will pasakh that house. Yahweh will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and he will see the blood on the doorframe and the two doorposts, and Yahweh will pasakh over the door. He will not allow the destroyer to enter into your houses to strike.
Now, this word is sometimes translated as "pass over," which might make you think of skipping over or going away from the house. But other translations render the same word as "protect," which is how Isaiah used the word. God will pasakh his people like that mother bird, hovering over the house and not allowing the destroyer, which is the plague, to enter and strike.
So Passover, or "pesakh" in Hebrew, is the night when God's protective love held back death. And after this first pesakh, Moses instructs the Israelites to observe this meal as an annual feast. And so it has been celebrated every year since.