Deuteronomy 16:1-8--Passover

Deuteronomy 16:1-8
English Standard Version

Passover
16 “Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the LORD your God, for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the LORD your God, from the flock or the herd, at the place that the LORD will choose, to make his name dwell there. 3 You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. 4 No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the flesh that you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain all night until morning. 5 You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, 6 but at the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. 7 And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that the LORD your God will choose. And in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. 8 For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the LORD your God. You shall do no work on it.
 “Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the LORD your God, for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the LORD your God, from the flock or the herd, at the place that the LORD will choose, to make his name dwell there. 3 You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. 4 No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the flesh that you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain all night until morning. 5 You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, 6 but at the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. 7 And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that the LORD your God will choose. And in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. 8 For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the LORD your God. You shall do no work on it.

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Passover is the feast by which the LORD said that His people would forever remember that they were once slaves whom He had redeemed by the blood of the Passover Lamb and that the angel of death had passed over them.  They would all gather in their houses and eat a special meal together to commemorated how the LORD their Redeemer took them who were not a people and made them a people and took those who were slaves of another nation and made them a nation and a people holy unto Himself.  This feast was so important to the LORD while the months were marked by the lunar cycle for the Jews, it was this month that contained the Passover Feast, the month of Abib that would be counted as their first month.  During this month they would celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover (which overlap and the ideas of them ran over one another and they were both collectively referred to as Passover or the season or time of Passover).

The Feast of Unleavened Bread that we see Moses command the Israelites to keep was a time in which they were to prepare and get all the leaven out of their houses (leaven represents sin in most of the places it's used in the Bible).  They are not to eat any leavened bread (bread that would need to set and rise) during this time because the LORD told them they would not have time to make bread that would need to rise, they would need to be ready to go at a moment's notice, so they would have to bake bread without yeast/leaven in it so that it would cook faster, and it would make flat cakes.  They cooked a lot of this flat bread and this is what they ate during the time that they had to leave Egypt at first until the LORD would provide mana from heaven when they crossed into the wilderness.

They were to eat the entire lamb that they sacrificed on the first day of the Passover Feast--none of it was to remain on the second day.  If anything remained it was to be burned with fire, as they could not take anything like this with them on their Exodus.  They would have to take their unleavened bread and trust the LORD for the additional provision He was going to provide.

Something new that we see is that this would be one of the pilgrimage feasts where all the people of Israel would be required to gather to the place of the Tabernacle or Temple to offer their Passover sacrifices to the LORD and to eat their Passover meals in one place together as a nation--this included all the Jews that lived all around the world that needed to come back to the Tabernacle or Temple to celebrate this High Holy Day.

All of this points forward to Christ and Christ completely and totally fulfils the Passover (and has fulfilled most every one of the other feasts that we'll talk about here with the exception of the Feast of Trumpets which is still to be fulfilled at His Second Coming).  Notice that this was a holy week, not just a holy day and on the seventh day there was again a holy convocation (the whole nation was to gather together).  They were to do no work during this whole time so that everyone could celebrate this most important feast and look to the LORD their Redeemer and the future redemption from sin that woudl come in the person of Jesus.