Portal:Bible/Featured article/March, 2010

Passover, also called Pesach (/ˈpɛsɑːx, ˈpeɪ-/; Biblical Hebrew: חַג הַפֶּסַח‎, romanized: Ḥag hapPesaḥ, lit. 'Pilgrimage of the Passing Over'), is a major Jewish holiday for Rabbinical Judaism, Karaite Judaism, and Samaritanism, one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals, that celebrates the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Biblical Egypt.

According to the Book of Exodus, God commanded Moses to tell the Israelites to mark a lamb's blood above their doors so that the Angel of Death would pass over them: they would not be touched by the tenth Plague of Egypt, the death of the firstborn. After this Plague, Pharaoh ordered the Israelites to leave, taking whatever they wanted, and asked Moses to bless him in the name of God. The passage goes on to state that the Passover sacrifice recalls the time when God "passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt". (Full article...)

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