Blood on the Door - Passover

Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until the morning.
~ Exodus 12:22

At the first Passover the blood of the lamb on the doorposts set apart the homes of those who believed and obeyed God from the homes of those who did not. The blood was a special mark for those who feared the Lord, which exempted them from the coming destruction. This is not the only time a special mark is used to single out and save those who followed the Lord.

In Ezekiel 9:4-6, Ezekiel has a vision from God regarding Jerusalem in which a man clothed in linen with a writing kit went through the city and marked the foreheads of those who "grieved and lamented the detestable things" done in the city. Other men armed with "deadly weapons" followed and slaughtered "without pity or compassion" those without the mark, whether women, men or children.

In Revelation a special mark on the forehead seals the 144,000 prior to the four angels being given power to harm the land and sea (7:2-3) Later the locusts released from the Abyss are instructed not to harm those marked on the forehead as believers/followers of Christ in Revelation 9:4.

To better understand the sealing of the early Israelites it helps to have knowledge of what the ritual would have entailed. The basin mentioned in Exodus 12:22 was a ditch dug in front of the doorway. This was done in Egypt at that time to avoid flooding and would have held a container to avoid seepage.

The Passover lamb would have been killed by the Israelites right by their doors, therefore the blood would have ran into the ditch and collected in the basin. A hyssop branch would have been dipped into the blood caught in the basin and touched first to the lintel (top horizontal part of the doorframe) and then to each side post. In this way, the door was effectively "sealed" on all four sides (the basin on the bottom, the lintel on the top and the door posts on each side). Those within the home were also considered to be "sealed" by the Lord as followers and therefore exempt from the Angel of Death passing through that night. (Note, none were allowed to go out the door of the home until morning in order to be "sealed".)

Even more thought provoking is the fact that Jesus says in John 10:9, "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture."

The Israelites of that first Passover went in through their blood-sealed doors that night and found safety. They were protected and redeemed by the sacrificial blood. The next morning they went out and began a journey to the Promised Land, their good pasture.

For us, the exemption seal is the blood of Christ (our Passover lamb). When we believe and obey Christ we are entering through Him, our gate. We then go out and begin our journey to the "Promised Land" of a future, eternal haven built by the Lord, where we will spend eternity in His Presence.

(Thanks to be given to Christ in the Passover by Ceil & Moishe Rosen)

Passover_Blood on Door