And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. (Jn. 1:14, KJV)
The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. What does this mean? At a very literal level, it means that Jesus came down from Heaven to live with us. But it means more, for Jesus did not just come for that – nor did He just come to impute righteousness to us and give us faith. He came to make a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17, 2 Pet. 3:13, Rev. 21:1-5), “to restore everything, as he promised long ago” (Acts 3:21, cf. Matt. 17:11). He came to draw us to the Father, that we might be one with each other (Jn. 17:21), as He and the Father are one (Jn. 14:9-10, 17:21). And yet more, He came to make us like Him (Rom. 8:29), and one with Him:
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature. (2 Pet. 1:3-4)
We may participate in the divine nature! [1] Scriptural prophesies like this inspired that great early Christian writer Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 120-202 A.D.) to write, famously:
Our Lord Jesus Christ... did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself. [2]
We were made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26) – but, whilst we retain His image, we have, by our rebellion, lost His likeness. God was made flesh in order that we may be “transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory” (2 Cor. 3:18) – “to put on the new self, created to be like God” (Eph. 4:24). [3] Origen of Alexandria (c. 184-254 A.D.) explains this brilliantly, quoting the apostle John:
Moses… describes the first creation of man in these words: “And God said, Let Us make man in Our own image, and after Our likeness” [Gen. 1:26]; and then he adds the words: “So God created man in His own image: in the image of God created He him” [Gen. 1:27]… Man received the dignity of God’s image at his first creation; but… the perfection of his likeness has been reserved for the consummation… That such is the case, the Apostle John points out more clearly and unmistakeably, when he makes this declaration: “Little children, we do not yet know what we shall be; but if a revelation be made to us from the Saviour, ye will say, without any doubt, we shall be like Him” [1 Jn. 3:2]. [4]
“The Incarnation, then,” writes Kallistos Ware, “is not simply a way of undoing the effects of original sin, but it is an essential stage upon man’s journey from the divine image to the divine likeness.” [5]
As we saw in Chapter Two, Jesus was recognised by the early Christians to be both Wisdom (Hokhmah) and Word (Logos). Thus in Himself He unifies the Old and the New Covenants, the Jew and the Greek, those who seek “miraculous signs” (1 Cor. 1:22) and those who seek wisdom. And so another reason He became incarnate was to re-join the realm of wisdom with the realm of material signs – in other words, to heal the rift between Heaven and Earth (Col. 1:20, Matt. 6:10), and to restore us to the state where man and God walked together “in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8).
In Chapter Three, we saw how earthly realities are linked to
heavenly ones. Every word in the pages of Scripture speaks to us on different
levels. At the very least, the Bible tells us something about our realm, the
realm of material realities, of “miraculous signs”, the realm of the flesh which
Jesus came to redeem. But also it tells us, through symbol and
But Scripture is not the only place we find Jesus. For, being Jewish, in preference to writing about Himself, instead He told stories, and did things. The Jewish God is one who does things: He makes Himself known by His actions, as much as His words. And even His words are not steeped in the intellectual abstractions of the Greeks, but are about real things of this world: garden, tree, serpent; desert, water, rock; bread, wine; body, household. These material realities point to God’s world. The Word becomes flesh, and thereby the flesh (the stuff of this world) becomes our wisdom.
If God, in this way, makes Himself known to His people through actions, and through things, then it is only right that His people should approach Him this way, through actions, and through things – collectively, “signs”. Therefore, Jewish worship, from the beginning, is full of signs: both actions, i.e. things that are done, physically; and also things, i.e. materials, equipment, stuff. And God’s Word, in Scripture, is full of detailed instructions about “signs”: things to be done, and things to be used, and things to be made, for the correct worship of God.
Shekhinah
How does this work? There are two good places to start: first, Exodus 25-30 (or 35-40), which contain a detailed catalogue of many of the signs associated with the Tabernacle (or Tent of Meeting), made by Israel in the desert according to God’s instructions; second, 1 Kings 6-8 (or 2 Chronicles 3-7), which do likewise for the first Temple in Jerusalem. There is too much here for us to go into everything in detail, so I suggest you read these chapters in your own Bible now, and then let us look at some aspects of these signs which are particularly relevant to us as Christians.
First, we can see in these passages how
As the navel is set in the center of the human body, so is the land of Israel the navel of the world… situated in the centre of the world, and Jerusalem in the center of the land of Israel, and the sanctuary in the center of Jerusalem, and the holy place in the center of the sanctuary, and the ark in the center of the holy place. [6]
I had the immense privilege, in 2015, of visiting Jerusalem. The Ark is long gone, and the mount on which the Temple once stood no longer belongs to the Jews – but that does not undermine their reverence for the small part of this place which they can still access, particularly the so-called Western Wall. As one enters the Western Wall area, a sign reminds visitors that God’s Shekhinah will never depart from this place. As I stood at the Wall praying, I could certainly believe that. The sun beat down mercilessly, but time stood still: I was aware of the massive weight of salvation history associated with that place. This is still the place where Abraham took Isaac to sacrifice (Gen. 22, 2 Chr. 3:1), where David sacrificed to the LORD (2 Sam. 24:25, 1 Chr. 21:26), where Solomon built his Temple (1 Kgs. 6-8, 2 Chr. 3-8), and where Jesus prayed, offered sacrifice and taught.
It is important to realise that this does not detract from the fact that God is everywhere and unbounded. King Solomon recognised this, even as he dedicated the Temple:
“But will God re
The specialness of the Tabernacle, in the Temple, in the
city of David, in the land of Israel does not, therefore, lie in any exclusion of
the rest of the world from God’s grace. Rather, Jerusalem becomes the centre of
God’s presence, the place from which His grace can radiate out to the rest of
the world – just as the waters of Eden once radiated throughout the world (Gen.
2:10-14). The Temple is therefore also the place to which
Therefore,
This is not idolatry. The Jews are aware, better than anyone in the world, of the importance of the second Commandment:
You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or on the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them. (Ex. 20:4-5)
But they also know that they are not disembodied spirits, but people of flesh and blood, and that therefore they meet God not just through their thoughts and their words, and not just through God’s word in Scripture, but through the material things which God, in His love, has given to them in this world.
Let us now look at some of these things which have an extra special role in God’s relationship with His people.
Blood and flesh
Perhaps the most important material substance which regulates God’s relationship with His people in the Old Testament is – blood. “The blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat” (Deut. 12:23, cf. Gen. 9:4). Therefore blood cannot be spilt without reference to the God who gives life. When blood is spilt illicitly it “cries out” to God (Gen. 4:10) for justice. For the same reason, blood must not be consumed. When an animal is killed, the blood is poured out or sprinkled on the altar, in order that the life which God has given and man has taken should be offered back to God (Lev. 17:10-13).
Thus we receive that which God gives us, and we offer back to God that which He has provided: receiving and offering are mutually complementary. This reciprocity is an essential part of the Jewish faith: we can offer nothing to God except what He has given us in the first place; and from what He gives us we must offer back to Him. This mutuality is brought home most explicitly in the story about Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah (Gen. 22). Abraham, the man of faith (Heb. 11:17-19), declares: “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering” (Gen. 22:8), and indeed it is so (Gen. 22:13). Abraham’s faith enables him to recognise that God is the giver of all things, and that God’s generous provision allows us to sacrifice to Him in return: without God’s magnanimity we can offer nothing. Centuries later, King David expresses this fact with particular eloquence:
“Who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand... and all of it belongs to you.” (1 Chr. 29:14,16)
The partner of blood is flesh – the flesh of the sacrificed animal. And so every blood sacrifice also becomes a ceremonial meal, and every ceremonial meal is a sacrifice: the blood is poured out, and the flesh is eaten. The Jewish word for sacrifice, korban, can also be translated as “offering” or “oblation”: these three words mean the same thing. Every offering is a sacrifice, every sacrifice is an offering – and every sacrifice-offering is a meal. The word korban comes from a root which means “to be close” or “to draw close”; thus it is through the meal-sacrifice that man and God draw near to each other in a special way.
The greatest of these meal-sacrifices is of course Passover, which ushers in Israel’s freedom from Egypt: the flesh of the lamb is eaten at table, and its blood, taken from the altar, daubed on their door-frames, protects the people of Israel from death:
On the tenth day of this month
each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household… The animals you choose must be year-old males
without any defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Take care
of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community
of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood
and put it on the sides and tops of the door-frames of the houses where they
eat their lambs. That night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire,
along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast… Eat it in haste; it is
the LORD’s Passover.
On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn… 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. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. (Ex. 12:3,5-8,11-13)
This meal-sacrifice, and many others, punctuate the Old Testament calendar, either in a yearly cycle or as offerings for particular occasions or in expiation of particular sins (see Lev. 1-7). The LORD makes peace with the people of Israel through blood – “the blood of the Covenant that the LORD has made with you.” (Ex. 24:8)
Bread and wine
In these meal-sacrifices, flesh is often partnered by bread – also a sign, and a means, of blessing. The partnership between bread offered and flesh sacrificed becomes a recurrent theme in the history of the chosen people: together they become the standard ingredients of many of the offerings made to the LORD. God declares, for example, that an essential part of the Passover meal is unleavened bread (Ex. 12:8, Lev. 23:6, Deut.16:3 etc.), eaten with the sacrificed Passover lamb. Also, whenever God feeds His people, He gives them flesh and bread – an echo of the flesh and bread of Passover. So, throughout their wanderings in the desert the people of Israel are fed with flesh and with bread from Heaven (Ex. 16, Num. 11). And Elijah is fed flesh and bread by the ravens in the Kerith Ravine (1 Kgs. 17:6).
In this respect, the Passover sacrifice is an example of what the Hebrew Bible calls “thank-offerings” (zevakh todah, or korban todah). These appear at various points throughout the Old Testament, and also demand flesh and bread:
If he offers it as an expression of thankfulness [todah], then along with this thank-offering [zevakh todah] he is to offer cakes of bread made without yeast and mixed with oil, wafers made without yeast and spread with oil, and cakes of fine flour well-kneaded and mixed with oil. Along with his fellowship offering of thanksgiving [zevakh todah] he is to present an offering [korban] with cakes of bread made with yeast. (Lev. 7:12-13)
As bread resembles flesh, so does wine resemble blood. And so wine plays a major part in the Tabernacle and Temple sacrifices. “Drink offerings” are made on the Temple altar daily (Ex. 29:40-41) – necessitating a whole variety of bowls and pitchers (Ex. 37:16) to be made for the altar. By the time of Christ, wine is an essential part of the Passover meal-sacrifice, offered by Jesus at His last supper (Matt. 26:27; Mk. 14:23; Lk. 22:17,20).
Sometimes sacrifices are completely unbloody, being made entirely with bread and/or wine instead of flesh and blood. Melchizedek, King of Salem and priest of God Most High, is the first and greatest example of this practice, when he blesses Abram with bread and wine (Gen. 14:18-20). And so some of the sacrifices listed in Leviticus, such as the “grain offering” (Lev. 2, 6:14-23), are also fully unbloody – an “antitype” of the offering of Melchizedek.
Whereas the flesh of sacrificed animals cannot be kept, unleavened bread can for a while, and is, as a sign of God’s continuing blessing. Manna was God’s creation, literally the bread of Heaven, created, according to the Mishnah, at the creation of the world, “at twilight of Shabbat [Sabbath] eve” [9]
He gave a
command to the skies above
and opened the doors of the
heavens;
he rained down manna for the people
to eat,
he gave them the grain of heaven.
Men ate the bread of angels… (Ps.
78:23-25)
And so in the desert manna is reserved and placed “before
the LORD for the generations to come” (Ex. 16:33). In the Tabernacle, and later
in the Temple, unleavened bread is kept on the altar before the LORD – the Bread
of the Presence (2 Chr. 4:19: literally, the “Bread of the Face” of God – in
Hebrew, lehem ha panim) [10] “to be before
me at
The Passover bread is unleavened because it is made in haste,
as the Israelites prepare for their escape from Egypt. Furthermore, leaven, to
the Jews – including the apostle Paul (1 Cor. 5:7-8) – symbolises fermentation,
rottenness and pride. Thus unleavened bread represents both Israel’s deliverance
from slavery and her purification from sin. The manna from Heaven is, by
Water, fire and cloud
The next great sign, water, is, like God, a bringer of both death and life. The people of Israel are saved by the sea, but Pharaoh’s charioteers perish by it (Ex. 14). God brings forth water from the rock to slake the thirst of the Israelites (Ex. 17:1-7, Num. 20:2-13). The Jews pass through the waters of the Jordan in order to reach the Promised Land (Josh. 3-4). Water blesses and purifies (Ezek. 16:4,9; Is. 1:16); therefore, a basin of water is kept in the Tabernacle (Ex. 30:17-21), and in the Temple a great “Sea” (1 Kgs. 7:23-26, 2 Chr. 4:2-6). Water is also used to anoint priests (Ex. 29:4). Thus water has a transformative nature: it frees the Israelites from slavery; it gives them their Promised Land; and it elevates a mere man into a priest of the LORD.
Fire is a sign of God’s creative power. The universe is brought into being by God’s creation of light (Gen. 1:3). God first appears to Moses “in flames of fire from within a bush” (Ex. 3:2). The people of Israel are led through the desert by a pillar of fire (Ex. 13:21-22), and by night God’s fire shines over the Tabernacle (Ex. 40:38). “To the Israelites the glory of the LORD” looks “like a consuming fire” (Ex. 24:17). Therefore the menorah – the seven-branched lampstand (Ex. 25:31-40, Num. 8:2-3) – is placed in the Tabernacle as a sign of God’s perpetual presence, and the people of Israel are commanded to “keep the lamps burning before the LORD from evening till morning” (Ex. 27:21; cf. Lev. 24:3-4).
Complementary to fire is cloud. The pillar of fire by night is matched by the pillar of cloud by day (Ex. 13:21-22). God comes to Mount Sinai in a great cloud (Ex. 19:9), and whenever God comes to the Tent of Meeting to speak with Moses He does so in a pillar of cloud (Ex. 33:9-10). Once the Tabernacle is completed, the cloud becomes the continuing visible sign of God’s presence:
Then the cloud covered the Tent
of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter
the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the
LORD filled the tabernacle.
In
And when the Ark of the Covenant is eventu
These things – blood, flesh, unleavened bread, wine, water, fire/light, cloud/incense – are a constant presence in the life and history of Israel. No, they are not God, and they are never confused with God, who is everywhere and unseen. But they, like the Ark of the Covenant itself, are places for and vessels of God’s presence. For this is how God speaks to His people: through the things He has made, through His own creation. This is the foreshadowing, in the Old Covenant, of the principle that will burst forth in even greater glory in the New: that the Word is made flesh. If we wish to worship God in truth and in righteousness, we too need to embrace this principle: we can meet God through special things and special places: through signs. Evangelical theologian Robert Webber confirms:
Signs put us in contact with the archetypical story of the universe. They rehearse the original saving event both of God’s work for us and of our incorporation into that saving work. [11]
Let us examine this principle in a bit more depth, by looking at Passover. Passover is the great moment of salvation for the Jewish people. This, their greatest sacrifice-meal, lies at the heart of their understanding of their oikos, the people of Israel. Therefore it should lie at the heart of our understanding of our oikos, the Church.
Passover
The events and stories celebrated at the Passover are
powerful signs to the Jews of the action of God in their history. But they are
not just symbols of something which happened long ago; rather, they draw the
celebrants into those events, and make the actions of God present. Just as the
omnipresent God can be present in a special way in certain things and certain
places, so too the temporal actions of the eternal God are not limited by time.
They are celebrated again and again, because they are always there: that is why
the Passover is “a lasting ordinance for the generations to come” (Ex. 12:17). God
is beyond time: because He is “all-present” (cf. Ps. 139:7-12, Jer. 23:24), [12] His saving work is
The ancient prayers spoken at the Passover meal – which the Mishnah traces back to none other than Rabbi Gamaliel (d. c. 54 A.D. – Acts 5:34 & 22:3) [13] – proclaim this truth, declaring:
It therefore is incumbent on every Israelite, in every generation,
to look upon himself as if he had actually gone forth from Egypt; as is said: “And
thou shalt declare unto thy son, on that day, saying: This is done because of
that, which the Lord did for me, when I came forth from Egypt” [Ex. 13:8]. It was
not our ancestors only that the Most Holy, blessed be he, redeemed from Egypt, but
us also did he redeem with them, as is said: “And he brought us from thence, that
he might bring us to the land which he swore to give unto our fathers”
[Deut. 6:23]...
For he brought
us forth from bondage to freedom, from sorrow to joy, from mourning into holy
days, from darkness to great light, and from servitude to redemption: and therefore
let us chant unto him a new song, Hallelujah! [14]
And therefore the Passover blessing pronounced annu
Lo! this is the bread of affliction [Deut. 16:3], which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt; let all those who are hungry enter and eat thereof. [15]
What intemperate language! Every Israelite is to look upon himself
as if he had “actu
Ancient Jewish midrash expounds on the biblical Passover account in yet more extraordinary ways, telling us that, because of the greatness of the Passover night, its specialness extends forward and backward through time. For example, this verse:
It was a night of watching [leil shimurim] by the LORD, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; so this same night is a night of watching kept to the LORD by all the people of Israel throughout their generations. (Ex. 12:42, RSV)
when translated into Aramaic in the Targumim, gave rise to the following interpolated midrash, now dubbed the “Poem of the Four Nights”:
Four nights are inscribed in the Book of Memorials before the Master of
the universe.
The first night was when he appeared to create the world.
The second night was when he appeared to Abraham.
The third night was when he appeared in Egypt: his hand slew all the
first-born of Egypt and his right hand saved all the first-born of Israel.
The fourth night will be when he manifests himself to free the people
of the house of Israel from among the nations.
And he called them all nights of vigil [leil shimurim]... That
is the night preserved from the destroying Angel for all the children of Israel
who were in Egypt and [reserved] also for their liberation from their exiles
throughout all generations. [16]
The phrase leil shimurim can be translated as “night of vigil”, “night of watching”, “night of waiting” or even “night of anticipation”. It is not merely that all of these nights individually call for or exemplify wakefulness or watching; it is also that all these nights are anticipated in and by each other, from the creation of the world (the “first night”), through all the various “liberations” of Israel over the centuries, to the re-creation of the world at the end of the age (the “fourth night”). They are all part of one eternal act of God. Passover night is thus a night potent with God’s power to create, to liberate, and to re-create. The glory of that one night spills over into the rest of space and time – both forward and backward. Just as the Tabernacle in the Temple in Jerusalem is God’s special place, whence His grace radiates throughout the rest of the world, so too is Passover night God’s special time, whence His grace suffuses and sanctifies the rest of history. Professor of philosophy Rabbi Mayer Twersky explains it thus:
Judaism recognizes the duality of
time. On one hand, time is quantitative… On the other hand, time is also qualitative,
possessing inherent qualities. Shabbos [Sabbath], for example, possesses kedushas
ha-yom [inherent holiness];
it is inherently holy, because “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it”
[Gen. 2:3]. So too each of the Jewish holidays is distinctively, intrinsic
The holiday of Pesach [Passover] is infused with a kedushas
ha-yom of ge'ulah [redemption], and the seder [Passover meal]
night is singularly suited for experiencing the shechinah [divine
presence]. This intrinsic redemptive quality of the fifteenth of Nissan [the
first night of Passover] is responsible for the timing of
And so the Jews can declare that the night of the Passover is the same night as so many of God’s other saving actions – past, present and future – an interpretation recounted in this poem by the sixth-century poet Elazar Ha-Kalir, which is sung to this day at Passover:
Thou didst appear unto him [Abraham] in the heat of the
day on the Passover.
He entertained the angels with unleavened cakes on the
Passover.
And he ran to the herd, as a memorial of the offerings of the
Passover [Gen. 18:1-8].
And ye sh
The inhabitants of Sodom provoked God to anger, and they
were consumed by fire on the Passover [Gen. 19].
Lot was delivered, who baked unleavened cakes at the end
of Passover [Gen. 19:3].
Thou didst sweep the land of Noph and Moph [Egypt], when
thou didst pass through on the Passover [Ex. 12].
And ye sh
Esther gathered the congregation
to fast three days on Passover [Esth. 4:15-17].
The head of the house of the
wicked [Haman] didst thou crush on a g
And ye sh
Most significant for us as Christians is the idea that the “fourth night”, the “day of the LORD” (Jo. 2:31, Am. 5:18), when the Messiah “manifests himself to free the people of the house of Israel” [20] – that day “that is neither day nor night” (cf. Zech. 14:7) – will also fall at Passover! [21] This hope is conveyed with immense beauty in this poem by Elazar’s teacher Yannai: [22]
Thou wilt tread the wine-press [Is. 63:1-6], when saying to
the watchman: What of the night?
Let the watchman [Israel] say aloud: The morning is come
after night [Is. 21:11-12].
And it came to pass at midnight.
O may the day draw nigh, that is neither day nor night [Zech.
14].
O thou, Most High, make known that unto thee appertaineth
the day, and also the night.
Appoint watchmen to the city [Jerusalem]
O illuminate as the splendor of the day, the darkness of
the night.
And it came to pass at midnight. [23]
If we are not careful, we can miss just how strange and amazing are all these claims. Or, if we are used to modern rationalistic ways of thinking about our spiritual history, then we may be tempted to dismiss this as just so much nonsense. However, we do so at our peril, because Jesus and His disciples were Jews long before they were Greeks, and for the Jews certain places and times and things have a quality, a power imparted to them by God “from the six days of creation”, [24] to host the divine presence (Shekhinah), and to be the hub from which that divine presence is imparted to the rest of the world and to the rest of time. This understanding of Passover may not be sola scriptura, but it is fundamental to the mindset of Jesus and his disciples. It is the recognition of this qualitative nature of time and space that allows Paul to say, as we saw in Chapter Three, that “that rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4, my emphasis), and that “the Jerusalem above… is our mother” (Gal. 4:26, RSV, my emphasis), and which allows the Jews to say to this day that “this is the bread of affliction, which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt” and “this is the sacrifice of the Passover”! [25] All these things, places and times are more than they seem to be literally, because of the inherent holiness (kedushas ha-yom) with which God has infused them.
The Passover of Christ [26]
Let us summarise what we have learnt so far, by trying to put ourselves into the minds of the twelve disciples as they convened to celebrate the Passover with their Master in Jerusalem on the night of His arrest. What might they have been thinking when they arrived, and how might their understanding of Passover have been confirmed, or changed, by the way Jesus led their seder that year?
As we have seen, they will have known, as
this is the night of Israel’s salvation;
this is the night of creation and re-creation;
this is the night when the Messiah may come;
this is the city where God’s presence dwells;
this is the lamb who is slaughtered in expiation of Israel’s sins;
this is the blood which brings about the salvation of Israel;
this is the “bread of affliction” which their ancestors ate in Egypt:
the bread of
salvation, bread from Heaven.
They will have known all these things to be true eternally,
both from the geographic and the historic points of view: past, present and
future, near and far; for God is “
Lamb of God, bread of life
Even if Jesus had never said a word more about this feast, this ancient Jewish understanding of Passover challenges the conventional rationalist way of thinking about time and space which we in our modern era are used to. However, the disciples had heard some other remarkable things about the Passover over the preceding years. First, they had heard John the Baptist say of Jesus:
Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (Jn. 1:29)
There are two parts to this sentence. The first part (“Look, the Lamb of God”) may have sounded bewildering, but for any Jew steeped in the culture of Passover, not ambiguous. For the Lamb of God who takes away sins is the Passover lamb, the lamb slaughtered and eaten in each Israelite house the night before the flight from Egypt, and every Passover night ever since. To identify Jesus with such a lamb would have been to declare that He was destined to be a sacrifice-meal, slaughtered in expiation of sin, to protect the people of Israel from death and free them from slavery. But John the Baptist had gone further: in the second part of his sentence he had said that Jesus takes away the sin of the world: He would be Passover lamb to the whole world: slaughtered, offered on God’s altar, His blood poured out and His flesh eaten, to save us all from slavery and death.
As if that were not radical enough, Jesus had also said, at a previous Passover season (Jn. 6:4), “I am the bread of life” (Jn. 6:35). It is worth examining closely the context in which He said this, for He leaves even less room for doubt than John the Baptist about the significance of this statement:
Jesus said to them, “I tell you
the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is
my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he
who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
“Sir,” they said, “from now on give
us this bread.”
Then Jesus declared, “I am the
bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in
me will never be thirsty. (Jn. 6:32-35)
It is worth noting that “the Jews”, in response to this, did not complain about Jesus’s claim to be bread. They were, after all, well used to such intemperate language being used to discuss matters relating to the Passover. Their only grumble was about how Jesus, who was so well known to them, could claim to have come down from Heaven (Jn. 6:42-43)! But Jesus left little room for doubt, continuing:
“I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (Jn. 6:48-51)
What a stunning thing to say! John the Baptist had already said that Jesus was the lamb of God. Then Jesus said that He was bread from Heaven. Now, amazingly, Jesus joined these two claims up, identifying the bread from Heaven with His own flesh.
Let us stop again to summarise what we have learnt so far:
Jn. 1:29: Jesus = Lamb of God =
Passover = sacrifice and feast = salvation of the world
Jn. 6:32-40: Jesus = bread of life
= bread from Heaven = eternal life
Therefore,
Jn. 6:48-51: bread of life = Jesus’s flesh = eternal life
Jesus’s reference to Moses (Jn. 6:32) was also provocative. Moses was the greatest prophet Israel had ever known, “whom the LORD knew face to face” (Deut. 34:10). But Moses had also predicted the coming of another prophet like him:
“I will raise up for them a
prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth,
and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my
words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will c
It was Jewish tradition that the coming of the Messiah at the end of the age would be heralded by the heavenly manna descending upon earth yet again. For instance, the first-century Jewish Apocalypse of Baruch declares:
And it shall come to pass at that self-same
time that the treasury of manna shall again descend from on high, and they will
eat of it in those years, because these are they who have come to the
consummation of time.
And it shall come to pass after these things,
when the time of the advent of the Messiah is fulfilled, that He shall return
in glory. [27]
And so that is precisely what “the Jews” challenged Jesus with:
“What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” (Jn. 6:30-31)
If Jesus was to be truly credible as the new prophet like Moses, then, the Jews would expect nothing less of Him than that He would provide a new miraculous bread from Heaven. But by claiming that He could provide bread which would not only sustain a man in this life as the manna had done, but would endure to eternal life, Jesus was making Himself out to be greater than Moses (Heb. 3:3): the Messiah himself, who would lead a new Exodus to an eternal Promised Land, as foretold by the prophets (e.g. Is. 65:17, 66:22). Such a claim, if false, deserved death.
When “the Jews” continued to demur, Jesus could have decided to withdraw, or to water down His message. But instead He upped the ante:
“I tell you the truth, unless you can eat [fagete] the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats [trogon] my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats [trogon] my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.” (Jn. 6:53-56)
Two things are shocking about these verses. First, Jesus made His “eating” vocabulary even more graphic, changing the Greek verb He has been using hitherto, fagein (meaning “eat”), to trogein (literally, “gnaw” or “chew”). Second, He told the disciples, for the first time ever, to drink His blood! This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it? (Jn. 6:60) But even as many of His disciples deserted Him, Jesus did not back down, re-emphasising the importance of what He was offering: “The words I have spoken to you are Spirit, and they are life” (Jn. 6:63). Those that remained must have done so because they knew that this man could work miracles. Indeed they had seen Him work a miracle with bread just the previous day (Jn. 6:5-14) – and that miracle had been enough to convince the people that he was “the Prophet who is to come into the world” (Jn. 6:14), just like Moses who also had provided miraculous bread.
They must still have been wondering, however: “How can this
man give us his flesh to eat?” (Jn. 6:52) They were to learn the answer, of course,
but not until Jesus’s last Passover with them, in the Upper Room in Jerusalem
on the night before His crucifixion. They doubtless suspected that this feast
would be different from
Seder and anamnesis
What then were they expecting? The normal Jewish Passover celebration in Jesus’s time comprised two main parts: a sacrifice in the Temple (built on the self-same spot where Abraham had gone to sacrifice Isaac centuries before – 2 Chr. 3:1), and a meal at home at which the sacrificed lamb was eaten. Normally, the Jews took their lamb to the Temple on the afternoon of Preparation Day, where it was slaughtered and its blood poured or sprinkled upon the altar of the LORD. The flesh was then taken home to be prepared for the evening meal. The whole of this procedure, i.e. both sacrifice and meal, made up the Passover: there was no Passover without a sacrifice, and no Passover without a meal. Sacrifice and meal are one action, and together they make Passover.
The Passover meal (seder) is a complex affair, involving many prayers and blessings, much recitation of Psalms, and various ritual acts, all designed to commemorate the great saving actions of God at the Exodus. There is too much for us to go into it all in detail here, but the following is a list of some of the main parts of the seder which concern us here:
The First
Cup of wine (Kiddush: “sanctification”)
Breaking
the bread (Yachatz)
The Second
Cup (Makkot: “plagues”)
Eating the
bread, and the lamb
The Third
Cup (Berakhah: “blessing”)
Hymn of
Praise (Hallel)
The Fourth
Cup (H
This is probably roughly what the Twelve were expecting that night. And in a sense this is what they got – but transformed by Jesus into something quite startling, and pregnant with new meaning.
First of all, instead of (or perhaps in addition to) breaking the bread with the traditional words “This is the bread of affliction, which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt”, [28] Jesus
took bread, and when he had given thanks [eucharistesas], he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you…” (1 Cor. 11:23-24)
What a thunderbolt this must have been for the disciples! They must have remembered Him saying something very similar at a previous Passover. Compare:
This bread is my flesh, which I will give for
the life of the world. (Jn. 6:51)
This is my body, which is for you. (1 Cor. 11:24)
When the Bible says the same thing more than once, though in different contexts and in different words, it can be a sign to us that we are dealing with a coherent theology, not just a teaching “out of the blue”. The parallel above is unmistakeable, and its implication must have been clear to those who heard it first. At last, this was how Jesus was going to “give us his flesh to eat”. This bread was His body, the new bread from Heaven which He had promised, the new manna which would sustain His people in their journey to the new Promised Land.
Jesus used another very powerful phrase to describe what He was doing:
Do this in remembrance [anamnesin] of me. (Lk. 22:19, 1 Cor. 11:24)
The English word “remembrance” scarcely does justice to the significance of this word. In Greek it is anamnesis; in Hebrew azkarah, meaning a memorial sacrifice. The only times this word is ever used in the Bible are in association with the ancient priestly sacrificial rites. For example:
“Take fine flour and bake twelve loaves of bread... Set them in two rows, six in each row, on the table of pure gold before the LORD. Along each row put some pure incense as a memorial portion [azkarah/anamnesin] to represent the bread and to be an offering made to the LORD by fire.” (Lev. 24:5-7)
So, by using the term anamnesis, [29] Jesus was comparing His Passover bread to the Bread of the Presence offered on the altar of the LORD, a sign of the Covenant and a holy sacrifice. In Moses’s Covenant, only priests (“Aaron and his sons” – Ex. 28-29) could eat of the Bread of the Presence. By opening this privilege up to His disciples, Jesus was declaring them to be priests (Rev. 5:10, 20:6) of a New Covenant (Jer. 31:31). [30] And therefore He was declaring this bread to be a priestly sacrificial offering under that New Covenant.
We know from Luke that at least two Passover Cups were drunk at the Last Supper (Lk.22:17, 20). The second one Luke mentions is described as being “after supper”, and so it is not unreasonable to suppose that this was the Third Cup of the meal – especially as Paul refers to it as the “cup of blessing” (1 Cor. 10:16). Of this Cup Jesus now said:
“Drink from it,
Another thunderbolt! This was how they were to drink His blood! And, as “the blood is the life” (Deut. 12:23), it was clear that in giving them His blood to drink, Jesus was giving them His very life: eternal life.
A New Covenant
The last time a covenant had been made in blood was with Moses in the desert:
Moses took half of the blood and
put it in bowls, and the other half he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the
Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do
everything the LORD has said; we will obey.”
Moses then took the blood,
sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that
the LORD has made with you in accordance with
So what does blood achieve in the Old Covenant? The Torah tells us:
“The life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” (Lev. 17:11)
as does the letter to the Hebrews:
In the case of a covenant, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, because a covenant is in force only when someone has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. When Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” [Ex. 24:8] In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Heb. 9:16-22)
Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. This New Covenant, just like the Old, was also being sealed in blood. So this New Covenant would not only nourish the people of God in their journey to the new Promised Land, consecrate a new priestly people and allow them to share in Jesus’s life, but also act in expiation of sin.
Immediately after the sacrificial sealing by blood of Moses’s Covenant in Exodus,
Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank. (Ex. 24:9-11)
The disciples knew from Scripture (Is. 25:6) that in the world to come the righteous would feast again with God in the heavenly banquet, and Jesus had confirmed this fact in His own teaching (Lk. 14:15-24). And so, if Jesus’s New Covenant was to be greater than Moses’s, it too would be the doorway to a heavenly banquet where one might gaze upon the face of God. [32]
At the end of their meal, we know that Jesus and His disciples
sang a hymn (Matt. 26:30, Mk. 14:26) – probably the H
Jesus knew, of course, that His Passover would not be complete until He, the Lamb of God, was sacrificed. The Fourth Cup would mean the completion of Passover meal-sacrifice, and He prayed in Gethsemane that God should spare Him this Cup (Matt. 26:39, Mk. 14:36, Lk. 22:42). And indeed He refused to drink wine when it was offered to Him when He arrived at Golgotha (Matt. 27:33-34, Mk. 15:23). But as He approached death,
knowing that all was now completed, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (Jn. 19:28-30)
So Jesus drank His Fourth Cup at last, as He ushered in God’s Kingdom. It was indeed “finished”, completed, accomplished. His Passover was accomplished: the Lamb of God was slain; His blood poured out for many, His life imparted to them through that blood; His body, the bread of life, the new manna, eaten, at a banquet at which His disciples gazed truly upon the face of God; the sins of His people expiated; a New Covenant sealed in blood; a new nation founded – a nation of priests (Rev. 1:6, 20:6), who would follow Him, as the old Israel had followed Moses, to the new Promised Land.
There is no better way to end this chapter than with the great Passover hymn Dayenu, itself an echo of Psalm 136:
What abundant favors hath the All-present conferred on us?...
He brought us forth from Egypt;
executed judgment on the Egyptians and on their gods; slew
their first-born; gave us their wealth; divided the sea for us; caused us to
pass through on dry land;
plunged our oppressors in the midst thereof;
supplied us with necessaries in the wilderness forty
years;
gave us manna to eat;
gave us the Sabbath;
brought us near to Mount Sinai; gave us the law;
brought us into the land of Israel;
and built the chosen house for us,
to make atonement for all our sins. [33]
This too can be our hymn, for – what abundant favours has the All-Present conferred on us! He
brings us forth from slavery (Jn. 8:34-36, Gal. 5:1, Rom.
6:17-23);
executes judgment on Satan (Jn. 12:31, Heb. 2:14-15, 1 Jn.
3:8-9; Rev. 12:9, 20:10);
brings us through the waters of salvation (1 Pet. 3:21);
supplies us with our “daily bread” (Matt. 6:11);
gives us bread from Heaven (Jn. 6:32-58);
gives us a new Sabbath [see Chapter Ten];
gives us the Holy Spirit (Jn. 14:15-26, Acts 2);
brings us to the Promised Land (Phil. 3:20, 2 Cor. 5:1);
builds us a new Temple (Matt. 12:6, Rev. 21:22);
to make atonement for all our sins (Rom. 5:11, 2 Cor. 5:21,
1 Jn. 2:2 etc.).
Hallelujah!
SCRIPTURAL SUMMARY of Chapter Nine
The Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us.
Jn. 1:14
He came to make a new
creation...
2 Cor. 5:17, 2 Pet. 3:13, Rev. 21:1-5,
... to restore everything...
Matt. 17:11, Acts 3:21
... that we might be one with each other...
Jn. 14:9-10, 17:21
... by being like Him, and participating in the divine nature...
Gen. 1:26, Rom. 8:29, 2 Cor.
3:18, Eph. 4:24, 2 Pet. 1:3-4, 1 Jn. 3:2
... and so that the realms of signs and wisdom might be re-joined.
Matt. 6:10, 1 Cor. 1:22, Col.
1:20
God has a Dwelling-Place...
Gen. 22; Ex. 25-30, 35-40; 2 Sam. 6:2, 24:18-25; 1 Kgs. 6-8,
1 Chr. 21:18-28, 2 Chr. 3-8;
Is. 2:2-3, 56:4-8; Heb. 9:1-5
blood, flesh and sacrifice
Gen. 4:10-11, 9:4-6, 22:1-18; Ex.
12, 24:5-8; Lev. 1-7, 17:10-13, Deut. 12:23-24,
1 Chr. 29:14-16
bread and wine
Gen. 14:18-20, 18:1-8, 19:1-3; Ex.
12:8, 16, 23:18, 25:30, 29, 37:16;
Lev. 2, 6:14-23, 7:12-13, 23:6; Num. 11,
Deut.16:3, Josh. 5:10-12, Judg. 6:19-22, 1 Kgs. 17:6,
2 Chr. 4:19, Ps.
78:23-25, Matt. 26:26-29; Mk. 14:22-25; Lk. 22:17-20; 1 Cor. 5:7-8, 11:23-26
water
Ex. 14, 17:1-7, 29:4, 30:17-21;
Num. 20:2-13, Josh. 3-4, 1 Kgs. 7:23-26, 2 Chr. 4:2-6, Is. 1:16,
Ezek. 16:4-9
fire and cloud
Gen. 1:3; Ex. 3:2-6, 13:21-22,
19:9, 24:17-18, 25:31-40, 27:20-21, 30:7-8, 30:34-37, 33:9-10,
40:34-38; Lev.
24:3-4, Num. 8:1-4, 1 Kgs. 8:10-12, 2 Chr. 5:13-6:1
… and yet God is
all-present.
1 Kgs. 8:27-29, 2 Chr. 6:18-20, Ps. 139:7-12, Jer. 23:23-24
The Passover of
Israel
Gen. 18:1-8, 19:3; Ex. 12, 13:3-10; Deut. 16:1-8, Esth. 4-7,
Is. 21:11-12, Jo. 2:31, Am. 5:18, Zech. 14
Lamb of God, bread of
life
Deut. 18:18-20, 34:10-12; Is. 65:17, 66:22-23; Matt. 26:2; Jn.
1:29, 6:25-69; Acts 3:22-23, Heb. 3:3
Jesus’s Passover...
Ex. 24:5-11; Lev. 17:10-13, 24:5-9; Deut. 12:23-24; Ps.
113-118, 136; Is. 25:6, Jer. 31:31-34;
Matt. 26:17-39, 27:33-34; Mk. 14:12-36,
15:23; Lk. 14:15-24, 22:7-42; Jn. 19:28-30;
1 Cor. 10:16-17, 11:23-25; Heb.
9:16-22
... frees us from
slavery to Satan...
Jn. 8:34-36, 12:31; Rom. 6:17-23, Gal. 5:1, Heb. 2:14-15,
1 Jn. 3:8-9; Rev. 12:9, 20:10
... gives us bread
from Heaven...
Matt. 6:11, Jn. 6:32-58
... the Holy Spirit...
Jn. 14:15-26, Acts 2
... brings us to
the new Temple in the Promised Land...
Matt. 12:6, 2 Cor. 5:1, Phil. 3:20, Rev. 21:22
... creates a new
nation of priests...
Rev. 1:5-6, 5:10, 20:6
... to make
atonement for all our sins.
Rom. 5:11, 2 Cor. 5:21, 1 Jn. 2:2
[1] For a sympathetic Evangelical
assessment of this theology of theosis,
see Daniel B. Clendenin, “Partakers of Divinity: The Orthodox Doctrine of Theosis”,
in JETS 37/3 (Sep. 1994), on www.etsjets.org.
[2] Irenaeus, Against Heresies V Pref., in Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on
www.ccel.org
[3] See also Jn. 17:22-23: “I have
given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in
them and you in me.”
[4] Origen, Origen de Principiis III:VI:1, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark,
Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[5] Bishop K
[6] from Midrash Tanhuma Kedoshim 10, quoted in “Foundation Stone”, in
Geoffrey W. Dennis, The Encyclopedia of
Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism (Llewellyn, Woodbury, 2016), on books.google.co.uk
[7] See also Ps. 139:7-9, Jer. 23:24.
[8] Karen Armstrong, The Case for God (Vintage, London,
2010), pp. 37-38
[9] Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot) V:6, on www.chabad.org
[10] Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist (Doubleday, New York,
2011), pp. 120-125
[11] Robert E. Webber, Worship Old and New (Zondervan, Grand
Rapids, 1982), p.18
[12] Passover Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta
Rabbi Chaim Berlin, New York, 1945)
[13] Mishnah Pesachim 10.5, on sefaria.org
[14] Passover Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta
Rabbi Chaim Berlin, New York, 1945)
[15] Passover Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta
Rabbi Chaim Berlin, New York, 1945)
[16] Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Exodus 12:42, quoted in Roger Le Déaut,
“The Targums: Aramaic Versions of the Bible”, on www.notredamedesion.org. For a
more literal translation, see targum.info.
[17] Talmud - Mas. Rosh HaShana 11b, on www.halakhah.com
[18] Rabbi Mayer Twersky, “And It Happened at Midnight” (The TorahWeb
Foundation, 1999), on www.torahweb.org
[19] from Ometz Gevurotekha, in Passover
Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta Rabbi Chaim Berlin,
New York, 1945)
[20] Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Exodus 12:42, quoted in Roger Le Déaut,
“The Targums: Aramaic Versions of the Bible”, on www.notredamedesion.org. For a
more literal translation, see targum.info.
[21] Here is another fascinating midrash on leil shimurim: “Hence this night is a joyful occasion for all of
Israel, as it is written [Ex. 12:42], ‘It is a night of watchings for the
Lord.’ In this world, he made a miracle for them at night, since it was a temporary
miracle, but in the future to come, this night will become a day, as it is
stated [Is. 30:26], ‘And the
light of the moon will be like the light of the sun and the light of the sun
will be seven times, etc.’ – like the light that the Holy One, blessed be He,
created at first and hid in the Garden of Eden. What did it see to state [that
it is] ‘a night of watchings’? That on it He enacted greatness for the
righteous in the same way that He did so for the Jews in Egypt. And on it He rescued
Hizkiyahu [Hezekiah – 2 Kgs. 18-19, 2 Chr. 30-32, Is. 36-37], and on it He
rescued Chanania [Shadrach] and his fellows [Dan. 3], and on it He rescued
Daniel from the lion's den [Dan. 6], and on it Eliyahu [Elijah] and the Messiah
will become great, as it is stated [Is.
21:12], ‘The watchman said, “the morning has come, and also the
night.”’” [from Exodus Rabba
18:11-12, on www.sefaria.org]
[22] and embedded in the New Testament
as well: see Matt. 24:43, 25:1-13; Mk. 13:35-37; Lk. 12:40, 17:34; 1 Thess. 5:1-10
[23] from Az Rov Nissim, in Passover
Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta Rabbi Chaim Berlin,
New York, 1945)
[24] Talmud - Mas. Rosh HaShana 11b, on www.halakhah.com
[25] Passover Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta
Rabbi Chaim Berlin, New York, 1945)
[26] For much of the rest of this
chapter I am indebted to two main sources: the late Fr. Alan Fudge; and Brant
Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the
Eucharist (Doubleday, New York, 2011)
[27] 2 Bar. 29:8-30:1, from R. H.
Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in
English (OUP, Oxford, 1913), on www.pseudepigrapha.com
[28] Passover Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta
Rabbi Chaim Berlin, New York, 1945)
[29] Other examples include: Num. 10:10,
Heb. 10:3.
[30] priests in the order not of Aaron,
but of Melchizedek (Heb. 5:6-10) – just like King David (Ps. 110:4), who also
ate of the Bread of the Face of God (1 Sam. 21:4-5, Matt. 12:3-4). For more on
the priesthood of Christ, see Fr. Pablo Gadenz, “The Priest as Spiritual
Father”, in Catholic for a Reason: Scripture
and the Mystery of the Family of God, ed. Scott Hahn & Leon J.
Suprenant Jr. (Emmaus Road, Steubenville, 1998)
[31] ekchunomenon – literally, “is being poured out”, i.e. currently, right now.
[32] Jesus had, moreover, claimed (Lk.
14:24) the heavenly banquet to be His own
banquet: see Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus
Through Middle Eastern Eyes (SPCK, London, 2008), p. 318
[33] Passover Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta
Rabbi Chaim Berlin, New York, 1945)
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