This week we come to the final plague God brings to display his power and release His people from Pharaoh’s grip. Bible commentator D. A. Carson writes, “The importance of this event cannot be overestimated. It signalled not only the release of the Israelites from slavery, but the dawning of a new covenant with their Redeemer.” It’s the Passover.
The tenth and final plague is the greatest and worst of all the plagues where God warns Pharaoh that he will send the judgement of death upon the first born male of every household, upon both man and beast. But upon the households of the Israelites, who God commanded be marked with the blood of a sacrificed lamb, God’s sentence of death would pass over: “The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you (12:13). Only those households marked by the blood would be spared of God’s “judgement on all the gods of Egypt” (12:12).
From that moment forward, God instituted the Passover meal to commemorate his salvation and mark the beginning of a new year. It was this commemorative meal of Passover that Jesus used at the Last Supper to point to him being God’s Passover Lamb for our sin.