What is the origin of the name Passover or Pesach and its association to this festival ?

Passover as a name is traditionally associated with the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, but the story of how the name "Passover" or "Pesach" became associated with the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt is a multifaceted one. Originally, Passover or Pesach was actually two separate festivals celebrated by the Hebrews and other Middle Eastern cultures in Springtime: the first and older of the two festivals was the pastoral festival known in Hebrew as Chag-Ha-Pesach, meaning the "Festival of the Pesach" in English, and the second festival was known in Hebrew as Chag Ha-Matzot, meaning the "Festival of Unleavened Bread" in English. Neither of these festivals had any connection with the event concerning the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt which came centuries later. The Hebrews celebrated the arrival of the Spring season by celebrating a one-day "Festival of the Pesach". This involved sacrificing a "paschal" or "Pesach" lamb to G-d. This sacrifice was meant to give thanks to G-d for the renewal of Springtime. Therefore, the original meaning of the word or name "Passover" or "Pesach" meant "lamb" in reference to this sacrifice, and later came to also mean the event in the 10th plague where the Angel of Death "passed over" or "skipped" over or "jumped" over the Hebrew households upon seeing the blood of the Pesach or lamb upon the two doorposts and lintel (the horizontal beam above the door) of the Hebrew households which distinguished them from the Egyptian households, resulting in the Angel of Death going forth to slay the first-born son (or a male member of the household if there was no son) of the Egyptians in the Egyptian households. On the day following the one-day festival of the Pesach, the Hebrews also celebrated a second festival called the "Festival of Unleavened Bread" which was an agricultural festival that lasted for six days whereby farmers would celebrate the beginning of the grain harvest. Before the farmers cut the grain, they would perform a ritual for this celebration by discarding all sour or fermented dough which was used instead of yeast for leavening bread. As mentioned, both of these festivals were celebrated one after the other in the Springtime during the first Hebrew month in the Hebrew/Jewish calendar known as Nissan or Nisan. After the events of the first Passover recorded in the Book of Shemot or Book of Exodus, these two celebrations or festivals eventually merged with the event of the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt which also occurred in the Springtime during the month of Nissan or Nisan. The result was that all three festivals which commemorated different events were celebrated as one festival commemorating the Exodus from Egypt of the Hebrews beginning on the 15th day of the month of Nissan or Nisan. Until of the end of the Second Temple period in Jerusalem in either 68 C.E. or 70 C.E., the sacrifice of the Pesach took place at dusk on the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan or Nisan, but the eating of unleavened bread for seven days - from the 15th of Nissan at nightfall until the 21st of Nissan at nightfall (for Jews living in Israel, most Reform Jews, and some Conservative Jews; from the 15th of Nissan at nightfall until nightfall on the 22nd day of Nissan or Nisan for Jews living outside Israel, some Reform Jews, and most Conservative Jews) - continues to this day and beyond.

What is the origin of the "Festival of the Pesach" and "Festival of Unleavened Bread" which the Hebrews celebrated as their "Passover" prior to the events of the Hebrews' exodus from Egypt? It is believed that the Hebrews borrowed the rituals associated with both the "Festival of the Pesach" and the "Festival of Unleavened Bread" from the ancient Canaanitic peoples who inhabited the area of Canaan when the Hebrews arrived there from Mesopotamia approximately 4,000 years ago.

How did the rituals from the "Festival of the Pesach Lamb" and the rituals from the "Festival of Unleavened Bread" become connected to the events of the first Passover? In the case of the "Festival of the Pesach", the paschal or Pesach lamb which was central to the "Festival of the Pesach" became associated with the events of the 10th plague which occurred just before the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt in which G-d "passed over" the Hebrew homes and instead slew the first-born sons in the Egyptian households. In the case of the "Festival of Unleavened Bread", its central theme concerning the start of Springtime and the cultivation of grains which were used for making breads among other food items became associated with the hasty departure of the Hebrews from Egypt when the Hebrews "took their dough before it was leavened". Incidentally, the seven types of agricultural produce which were farmed by the Hebrews included wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. Willows and citrons were also farmed, but were connected with the festival of Sukkot which occurs at the end of the agricultural season in Israel.

What are the different names for Passover ?

Due to the historical connections of ancient pre-Passover of Egypt or Pre-Pesach of Egypt festivals or celebrations with the traditional meaning of the Passover of Egypt or Pesach of Egypt as explained above, the name Passover or the name Pesach as used for the story of the Exodus from Egypt of the Hebrews became known by five different names. The following are the five names of Passover: each starts with the transliterated Hebrew name followed by its translation into English. Each Passover name represents an event in the Passover story, and these events occur in their proper historical order:

How did the naming of Passover as the name for the seven-day festival come about?

In the first half of the 16th century C.E., the English scholar and Protestant reformer William Tyndale translated the first five books of the Septuagint, which is the Greek name and version of the Hebrew Bible ("Tanakh" or "Tanach" in Hebrew), into English for the first time. The name used in Greek for the lamb which was sacrificed for the festival of the lamb or festival of the Pesach in Hebrew was the Pascha lamb. But Tyndale didn't want to use a foreign word or name in his English translations. He deduced that since both the Greek Pascha and the Hebrew Pesach were nouns that referred to the same thing - the lamb that was used for a festival - and the Hebrew verb Pasach, meaning either to "pass" over or to "skip" over or to "jump" over in Hebrew, was linguistically associated with both Pesach and Pascha, then the English word Passover, coined by Tyndale, would be the translation he used for all three words or names - Pascha, Pesach, and Pasach - in his English translations of the first five books of the Septuagint (the first five books are known as the Pentateuch in Greek or Torah in Hebrew.). Subsequent English translations by various editors copied Tyndale's use of the name or word Passover and soon the name Passover became commonplace among the general population in English-speaking countries. Since the name Passover was seen as being closely associated with the events of the 10th Plague which led to G-ds' command that the Hebrews observe a seven-day festival where unleavened bread would be eaten while prohibiting any leavening of any kind to be in one's possession or in one's household for that seven-day period, the name Passover in a colloquial sense came to mean the seven-day festival among both Jewish people and Christian people.

What are some translations of the word or name "Passover" in other languages?

The word or name "Passover" is of course the English word for the transliterated Hebrew word "Pesah" or "Pesach" or "Pess'ah". In French, the word for "Passover" is either "Pessah", "Pessa'h", "P�ssa'h", "P�ssac'h", "Pessac'h" or "P�que Juive" (literally, the name means Jewish Easter, but in many languages, the root word for Easter is the Hebrew word Pesach, therefore it also refers to the Jewish Passover or simply, Passover, as Jewish people refer to it), and in Spanish, the word for "Passover" is "P�saj" or P�sah or "Pascua Jud�a" (again, literally, the name means Jewish Easter, but based on the aforementioned explanation, it also refers to the Jewish Passover or simply, Passover, as Jewish people refer to it). In Yiddish, the word for "Passover" is "Peysakh", or any of the following related, transliterated forms: "Peysekh", "Paisekh", "Paysech", "Peisach", "Peisech", "Pejsach", or "Pejsech". In Danish, "Passover" is "J�disk P�ske" (again, literally, the name means Jewish Easter, but based on the aforementioned explanation, it also refers to the Jewish Passover or simply, Passover, as Jewish people refer to it). In German, it is "Passahfest" (Passover Festival) or "J�dische Passah-Fest" (Jewish Passover Festival). In Norwegian, it is "J�disk P�ske" (again, literally, the name means Jewish Easter, but based on the aforementioned explanation, it also refers to the Jewish Passover or simply, Passover, as Jewish people refer to it). In Swedish, it is "Judisk H�gtid (P�sk)" (Jewish Passover Holiday) or "Judisk P�sk" (again, literally, the name means Jewish Easter, but based on the aforementioned explanation, it also refers to the Jewish Passover or simply, Passover, as Jewish people refer to it). In Icelandic, it is "P�skar". In Finnish, it is "Juutalainen P��si�inen" (again, literally, the name means Jewish Easter, but based on the aforementioned explanation, it also refers to the Jewish Passover or simply, Passover, as Jewish people refer to it). In Portuguese, it is "P�scoa Dos Judeus" (again, literally, the name means Jewish Easter, but based on the aforementioned explanation, it also refers to the Jewish Passover or simply, Passover, as Jewish people refer to it). In Italian, it is "Pasqua Ebraica" (Hebrew Passover). In Hungarian, it is "P�szah". In Romanian, it is either "Mielul Pascal" or "Paştele Evreiesc" (again, literally, the name means Jewish Easter, but based on the aforementioned explanation, it also refers to the Jewish Passover or simply, Passover, as Jewish people refer to it). In Greek, it is "Πάσχα των Εβραίων" (Paskha). In Russian, it is "Песах" or "Еврейская Пасха" (Paskha). In Turkish, it is either "Yahudilerin Hamursuz Bayramı" or "Atlayip Ge�me" or "Paskalya". In Polish, it is "Pascha". In Dutch, it is "Joods Paasfeest" (Jewish Passover Festival) or "Pascha". In Arabic, it is "(‏(الاسم) عيد الفصح عند اليهود‏". In Korean, it is, "(유대교) 유월절". In Simplified Chinese, it is "犹太人的逾越节". In Traditional Chinese, it is "猶太人的逾越節". In Japanese, it is either "ペサハ" or "過越しの祝い" or "神の小羊". Finally, in non-transliterated Hebrew (minus the vowels), it is "פסח‬".

Ashkenazi Jews (Jews whose ancestors came from either Central, Northwestern, and/or Eastern Europe) use the name Pesach or Peisach for the festival while Sephardi Jews (Jews whose ancestors came from either Spain and/or Portugal) use the name Pesahh.

So in a nutshell, why is this Hebrew/Jewish festival called Passover?

An excellent question, not just because I thought of it. The 10th and final plague that G-d created in order to finally free the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt involved G-d instructing Moses to tell the Hebrews to spread the blood of a lamb on the two doorposts and lintel of their homes to distinguish their homes from the Egyptian homes so that when the Angel of Death approached a household to slay the first-born son (or other male if there was no son) in a family as G-d had warned, it would "skip" over or "pass" over or "jump" over the Hebrew homes upon seeing the lamb's blood on the two doorposts and lintel and instead slay the first-born son or other male in the household of every Egyptian family. The Hebrews were saved from this tragedy, but nonetheless were later ordered by G-d to remember to say prayers for the slain Egyptian sons/males and later on at the Yam Suf or "Sea of Reeds" or the "Reed Sea", for the drowned Egyptian army, because G-d declared that no one shall celebrate the destruction of any of His human creations. The name Passover or Pesach therefore derives from the action of passing over the Hebrew households by the Angel of Death and this action alone reflected a distinction between the Hebrews and the Egyptians in the view of G-d. As a result, the name Passover or Pesach became a symbolic name that indicated the special status that G-d held for the Hebrews which was to be sealed with the giving of the Torah by G-d to the Hebrews at Mount Sinai 50 days after the Hebrews left Egypt. In addition, as mentioned, the name Passover or Pesach also eventually came to mean the seven-day festival called "The Festival of Unleavened Bread" ("Chag Ha-Matzot" in Hebrew) which was the original name given in the Torah of the Hebrew Bible for this seven-day period that commemorated the events of the 10th Plague which led to the Hebrews' Exodus from Egypt.


Share/Save/Bookmark          Subscribe

                                           eXTReMe Tracker